PITT MADE NO OBJECTION whatever when Charlotte said she would like to attend Emily’s musical evening towards the end of that week. Indeed when she explained, by the way, as though she had assumed he knew it already, that the Carswells would be there, he was quite openly pleased.
They had no time to discuss it because he was leaving early to go to Clerkenwell. He and Innes must work on the very last of the debtors on Weems’s first list. Little by little Innes had whittled it down, but there were still a dozen or so left who were not accounted for beyond doubt. It was still possible one of them might have gone to Cyrus Street late in the evening, been admitted, and seized the blunderbuss, found the powder, and loaded the gun. But neither of them believed it. Weems may have despised his clients, but he surely knew despair when he saw it, and over the years had learned that desperate people can be dangerous.
Today they planned to question Weems’s errand runner, Windy Miller, yet again, although they expected little useful from him, and later perhaps his housekeeper, in case there were any details they had overlooked, any thread of knowledge however frail. But both of them were convinced that Weems’s killer was someone on the second list-or else Byam himself, although Innes had not said so, because of course he still did not know of Byam, a fact which weighed heavily on Pitt’s mind and disturbed his conscience increasingly.
Charlotte kissed him good-bye, and when he was gone immediately set about that housework which could not wait, so that she could leave in the late afternoon with a clear mind and no housewifely guilt.
By six o’clock she was sitting on the Hepplewhite chair in Emily’s withdrawing room, wearing a rose-colored gown spread around her elegantly, and surrounded by about thirty other people also sitting upright, facing the grand piano where a very earnest young man was playing some extraordinarily beautiful, dark and sad music by Franz Liszt. Indeed it was so lovely Charlotte’s attention was entirely taken by it and she forgot even to glance at Addison Carswell, Regina, one of the Misses Carswell, or at Herbert Fitzherbert and Odelia Morden, or Fanny Hilliard, whom she was surprised to see present. Then she realized precisely what political value Fanny had in the possible fall from grace of Herbert Fitzherbert and Emily’s so gentle part in it.
However at the first interval Charlotte remembered her own reason for being here, cast aside self-indulgence and began to observe other people. One of the first she noticed was the Miss Carswell present; she did not know her name as she could not tell one from another. She was no more than seventeen or eighteen, a girl pretty in a usual sort of way, clear complexion, all pink and white, fair hair tending a little towards mouse, and an agreeable, good-tempered face of no particular character. No doubt if one knew her one would find the individuality, the beliefs and emotions which made her unique, the humor, the dreams, the small kindnesses.
She now stood a few yards away from her mother, effectively unchaperoned, and was speaking with some animation to a young man Charlotte could not remember seeing before; but obviously Miss Carswell had. Her face was full of interest, instead of the usual rather simpering response many young women had to a first approach from an eligible and attractive man. And the man was responding with warmth and a total involvement of his attention.
Charlotte smiled. It was a most promising situation, and she imagined it might well progress into a happy relationship, most young girls’ profoundest ambition. So much the better if it could accompany a genuine affection as well, and this looked, from their faces, as if it did. How wise of Regina Carswell not to interrupt with quite unnecessary affectations of propriety.
Since the Carswells were the only ones present who in Charlotte’s mind could possibly be considered suspects, she determined to engage at least one of them in conversation, as the only way in which she might learn something more than sheer observation would teach, which seemed to be precious little. Accordingly she rose to her feet and made her way between the small groups of people exchanging polite enthusiasm for the pianist, until she reached Regina Carswell.
“Good evening, Mrs. Carswell,” she said with a smile. “How pleasant to see you again. I hope you are well?”
“Quite well, thank you,” Regina replied courteously. “And you, Mrs. Pitt?”
“Oh in the best health, thank you. Isn’t it a lovely summer? I cannot recall the weather being quite so agreeable for a long time. But I daresay it is, and the winter simply makes one forget.”
“Indeed,” Regina agreed. She was about to continue with some pleasant triviality when a rather large lady with diamonds strung across an ample bosom engineered her way past them, lifting her skirts slightly to avoid crushing either her own gown or Regina’s. She gave Regina a strange smile, forcedly bright and rather fixed, then turned away quickly and grasped the arm of the woman next to her.
“Poor soul,” she murmured in a stage whisper perfectly audible to at least the half dozen people closest to her.
“Poor soul?” her companion said curiously. “Why? Is she not in good health? I hear she has three daughters, but I know she is doing quite well with them.”
“Oh I know that,” the large lady said, dismissing the subject. “Poor creature,” she added in a hiss. “So difficult. Especially when everyone knows.”
“Knows what?” Her companion, dressed in a fashionable but particularly repulsive shade of green, was getting irritated by the suspense. “I’ve heard nothing.”
“Oh you will do,” the large lady assured her. “No doubt you will do. Far be it from me-of course-”
Regina looked puzzled and embarrassed, a slight tinge of pink in her cheeks.
Charlotte did not know whether to pretend she had not heard the exchange, although it was quite obvious they both had, or to acknowledge it candidly and say something dismissive. She looked at Regina’s face to try to judge which would be the kindest. She saw only confusion. Perhaps it had to do with the ridiculous Osmar case. Charlotte chose to assume it did.
“It seems Mr. Horatio Osmar is bent on causing trouble everywhere,” she said with an attempt at cheerfulness. “I should put it from your mind, if I were you. A lot of people with little knowledge and even less judgment tend to pass comment. It will all die away as soon as some fresh scandal breaks.”
Regina still looked puzzled.
“I fail to see why they should pity me for the matter,” she said, opening her eyes wide and smiling rather tentatively. “I am sure my husband behaved with judicial correctness. The police must have failed to produce a proper case against him, or he would not have dismissed it from court. And it has little reflection on me.”
“They must be very hard put for scandal to gossip over,” Charlotte agreed. “Silly creatures. Don’t you find that an astoundingly unbecoming shade of green? I cannot recall when I have seen anything quite so displeasing!”
Regina relaxed into a smile at Charlotte’s determination to dismiss the whole episode as meaningless and of no importance whatever.
“Quite horrible,” she agreed warmly. “Were her maid of any use at all she would have advised her not to wear it.”
“These yellow-greens are most trying, especially to a sallow complexion,” Charlotte went on. “I cannot imagine who makes such a gown in the first place. I would have suggested a soft blue, I think. She is something of a plain woman to begin with.”
Regina touched her arm gently with her hand. “My dear Mrs. Pitt, it was the large lady who was the real offender. I think it is she we should be picking apart!”
“You are right,” Charlotte agreed with enthusiasm. “Where shall we begin? She should never wear diamonds on so large a bosom. All that glitter only draws attention to what is only too obvious anyway.”
“Crystals,” Regina said with a slight giggle. “They are not diamonds, you know.”
“Of course,” Charlotte amended. “Crystals. Some muted color, a little darker, would have been best-” She was about to continue when out of the corner of her eye she noticed another woman looking at Regina with a softness that verged on pity, and as soon as she met Charlotte’s glance, she looked away quickly, her face pink, as though she had been caught staring at someone improperly dressed, an intrusive and embarrassing thing to do.
Charlotte lost her place in what she had been going to say.
“What is it?” Regina asked, quick to sense her discomfort, however momentary.
“Nothing,” Charlotte lied instantly, then, knowing the lie pointless, said, “I saw someone with whom I had a mildly unpleasant altercation. But I had forgotten.” She dismissed the second lie as of no matter. And then she rushed on with some other topic of total triviality, a piece of gossip she had picked up from Emily.
She returned to her seat again for the second long piece upon the piano, and enjoyed it rather less. It was a composer she was unfamiliar with, and the work seemed to lack emotion, or perhaps she was simply unable to concentrate. In the interval that followed she made her way to Emily, who had been talking to Fitz.
“You look concerned,” Emily said hastily. “Have you found something?”
“I don’t think so. What do you know of Horatio Osmar? Is he politically important?” Charlotte whispered back.
Emily’s face puckered. “I don’t think he matters in the slightest. Why?”
“People seem to be speaking of him.”
“What on earth do you mean, ‘seem to be’? Are they or not?”
“I don’t know. I have seen people giving Mrs. Carswell the oddest looks, and I wondered if it were to do with Horatio Osmar.”
“You are talking nonsense,” Emily said sharply. “What has Regina Carswell to do with Horatio Osmar?”
“It was Addison Carswell who threw out the case,” Charlotte said impatiently. “Thomas seems to think it was quite a corrupt thing to do. It was a perfectly good case.”
Emily frowned. “Who was looking at Regina Carswell oddly?”
“I don’t know-a fat woman with crystals all over her bosom.”
“Lady Arnforth-that’s absurd. She doesn’t know anything about justice, and cares still less. It must be gossip, probably about love or immorality-or both.”
“And Regina Carswell?” Charlotte said dubiously.
“I don’t know. Maybe you misunderstood?”
At that point they were rejoined by Fitz, who had stepped aside for a moment to pursue some courtesy with a man known to have considerable political influence. A few moments before the man had been deep in conversation with Jack. Fitz had been attempting to catch up. Now he looked rueful, as if aware he had not succeeded. Only half his attention was on Emily, the rest still dwelt with far more emotion on Fanny Hilliard a few yards away, her face flushed, her eyes bright, her lovely hair piled high and wound with a spray of silk flowers.
A tall young man with bright blue eyes and a receding chin came by gracefully, bowed to Emily and Charlotte with rather more flair than was called for by the occasion, and put his hand on Fitz’s shoulder.
“How are you, old fellow?” he said cheerfully. “Going to be our next member of Parliament, are you? Have to be civil to you, what?” He followed the line Fitz had been looking at the moment before, and saw Fanny Hilliard. “Pretty, eh?” he said with admiration. “None of that sort of thing for you, my lad. Not if you are to become a member of Her Majesty’s government, in time. Have to be very careful, don’t you know. Above suspicion, and all that, what.”
Fitz stiffened and a flicker of anger crossed his normally good-natured, almost indolent face.
“Be careful of your tongue, Ferdy. Miss Hilliard’s reputation is above question.”
Ferdy’s face reflected comic disbelief.
“Oh come on, old fellow! She looks quite the lady, I’ll grant you. Anyone would be taken in-but she’s old Carswell’s mistress, and no better than she should be. Adventuress, what. Keeps her in some room somewhere to the south of the river. Fool of a man. You’d think he’d be more discreet-magistrate and all that.”
“You’re a liar,” Fitz said from between gritted teeth, his skin suddenly white. “And if this were not too public a place, and someone else’s house, I’d make you eat those words right here!”
“Steady, old man.” Ferdy was taken aback. “Sorry if you fancy the gel, but I’m quite definitely right. Got it from an impeccable source; my uncle, Lord Bergholt, what. Quite definitely Carswell’s mistress. It’s poor Mrs. Carswell I feel sorry for. The old ass should have been more discreet about it. Doesn’t matter what you do if you are discreet, but it’s damn bad form to embarrass the wife, don’t you know. Damn bad.” And without waiting for any further reaction from Fitz he moved away, still shaking his head.
Fitz looked stunned, and indeed Charlotte herself felt as if she had been hit in the face by someone she had entirely trusted.
“I don’t believe it,” Emily gasped. For once she too was at a loss. “What a wicked thing to say.” She swung around, about to speak, then saw Charlotte’s face.
“Charlotte?”
Charlotte’s mind was racing. Pitt had said he had followed Carswell to the south side of the river, and seen him meet with a young woman. He had not said it was Fanny Hilliard. But then why would he? He had not known at that time that she had ever heard of Fanny, let alone knew her.
“Charlotte,” Emily said more sharply. “What is it?”
Charlotte collected herself with difficulty, her mind full of anger for the deception, and fury and pain for Fitz.
“Perhaps it is a matter of mistake,” Charlotte said feebly, fishing for any excuse. “People do sometimes repeat the most witless things and get them wrong.”
But before they could attempt to continue with such hopes, their attention was drawn to the group a few yards away where Fanny herself was standing, almost next to Odelia Morden. Fanny’s cheeks were scarlet, burning with misery and humiliation, but in the terrible silence she made no denial, she said absolutely nothing at all.
“Miss Hilliard?” Odelia said quietly. There was no triumph in her, rather a strange bewilderment, as though already she knew her victory would be bitter.
Fanny’s eyes lifted slowly and she stared at Fitz, as though everyone else’s opinions were trifling things, pinpricks compared with the single great wound of his.
He was stunned, not perhaps by the revelation, the curious and appalled crowd in its glittering dress, but by Fanny’s own silence. Her face was agonized, everyone saw it; but she made no denial, no excuse.
For a moment he stood as if he would go to her. The silence prickled so long it seemed the lights wavered; one could hear the crackle of taffeta as women breathed in and out in tight bodices. Far away a maid’s hard heels tapped on an uncarpeted passageway.
Then Fanny turned and walked away through the other guests and out into the hall.
Emily took a step forward.
“I’ll go,” Charlotte said instantly, and before Emily could protest, she pushed past her, almost bumped into the large woman with the crystals, trod on Ferdy’s foot as he opened his mouth to say something, and made her way into the hall just in time to see the footman hold Fanny’s cloak for her. James Hilliard, white-faced and wretched, stood shifting from one foot to the other a few yards away, obviously shocked and totally at a loss.
Charlotte had no idea what she could possibly say that would redeem any part of the situation, but emotion rather than reason had impelled her out. She went straight to Fanny.
Fanny turned to face her, her cheeks were white and a blinding misery showed in her eyes.
“I apologize,” she said in a husky whisper. “I have abused your hospitality.”
“I didn’t come for an apology,” Charlotte said, brushing it aside. “I don’t understand, but I can see that you are totally wretched, and I wished to find some way to help…”
“You can’t! No one can. Please-just let me go, before anyone else comes out here-especially…” She could not bring herself to say Fitz’s name, but Charlotte knew whom she meant.
“Of course,” she conceded. “But please agree to meet me somewhere else, where we can speak alone.”
“There is nothing you can do.” Fanny’s voice rose in desperation, afraid that any moment Fitz might come, or (what would be every bit as bad) Odelia.
“Tomorrow,” Charlotte insisted. “Meet me-in the park near Rotten Row.”
“I haven’t a horse.”
“Neither have I. Just be there.”
“There is no purpose. There is nothing you can do!”
“Be there. At nine o’clock,” Charlotte insisted. “Or I shall come and find you, and I do know where to find you.” It was not actually true; she would have to ask Pitt where he had followed Carswell over the river.
“There is nothing…” Fanny began again, but James Hilliard was suddenly there, his shock at last melted enough for him to come and defend his sister from what he believed to be harassment.
“Mrs. Pitt-” he began sharply.
“Yes,” Fanny agreed. “Tomorrow.” She swiveled around to her brother. “Thank you, James. Please take me home.”
He glanced quickly at Charlotte with a look of confusion, pain and anger, then put his arm around Fanny’s shoulders and escorted her to the door.
Back in the withdrawing room the music had begun again and everyone was seated. They at least appeared to be listening, although underneath the carefully composed expressions imaginations were seething and words were falling over themselves ready to relay the choice piece of scandal the moment they were able. Pages would be scurrying all through society tomorrow morning, and those with telephone instruments would be feeling a magnificent superiority over their more backward friends.
“What did she say?” Emily demanded as soon as Charlotte sat down beside her.
“Nothing,” Charlotte replied. “I shall see her tomorrow.”
“It’s too bad.” Emily was considerably upset. “I was becoming very fond of her. And I really hoped she would marry Fitz-even if he is Jack’s rival. I know that is not very consistent, but I like him.”
“It is not in the least inconsistent,” Charlotte said with a sudden hard insight. “No matter how much you like Fitz and Fanny, and I accept that you do, it is nothing compared with your love for Jack, and your belief that he will make an excellent member for Parliament. And if Fitz jilts Odelia for Fanny, even if her reputation is immaculate, it will be one of the very few mistakes that could cost him his chance of selection.” She saw Emily’s look of consternation, but continued anyway. “I don’t believe for a moment you would, or could, cause that to happen, but don’t tell me you will grieve if Fitz brings it upon himself.”
Emily looked uncomfortable. “Of course I would not bring it about,” she defended herself, but there was no outrage in her voice. “If I hope for it for Fitz and Fanny, it is because I know that love in a marriage is far more important than this particular opportunity for political candidacy. Really Charlotte, I am not nearly so conniving as you seem to think.”
Charlotte smiled at her without withdrawing a word, then faced forward and gave her attention to the music.
The morning was bright with sunshine and a brisk, clean wind, and Charlotte was glad of a light cloak as she stood at the southern end of Rotten Row, the long earthen track beneath the trees stretching from the Royal Albert Memorial to Hyde Park Corner where ladies of the fashionable world, both of excellent reputation and of the very worst, rode on horseback to parade their skills, their outfits, and their personal charms.
As Charlotte waited a small group passed close to her, all dressed in precisely the clothes required by custom, tight-waisted jackets, some with high necks and beautiful pins of horse heads or stirrups at the collar, one with reveres to her jacket and a silver hunting horn pin in her dazzlingly white cravat.
Of course they all wore long riding gloves and carried crops with ornamented handles; she saw one of carved horn, and the light caught the head of another and shone silver for a bright moment.
Then the riders turned and set off at a canter, passing another group going in the opposite direction. The leader changed hands with her reins and crop in order to touch hands with her acquaintance in greeting, rather a daring maneuver at such a speed. Another leaned forward to pat her horse’s neck, another quite unnecessary gesture performed solely to display the rider’s skill.
Charlotte smiled to herself and walked a few paces to keep warm.
When at last she saw Fanny about twenty yards away, coming from the Kensington Road, she thought for a moment it could not be her. She looked so unlike her previous self; the joy was emptied out of her, the grace gone from her step, all the vividness and life from her face. Whatever she had done, and why she had done it, all Charlotte could feel for her was a wrenching pity.
She went over to her quickly, almost at a run, taking the younger woman’s hand in hers and holding it tightly.
“I don’t know why you’ve come,” Fanny said in a voice so husky Charlotte knew in a moment she had been weeping so long her throat ached. She could remember the same pain long ago, over other loves before Pitt, rejections that hurt abominably at the time, even though their faces were long faded from her memory now.
“I want to know the truth,” she said simply. “Maybe there is something that can be done-and if there isn’t, then I am still your friend.”
The tears spilled down Fanny’s cheeks as though the kindness were more than she could bear. She had steeled herself against condemnation, but this caught her unguarded.
For several seconds she fought to master herself.
Charlotte pulled out a wholly inadequate handkerchief and gave it to her, then hunted for another, and when she found it, passed that over too.
Fanny blew her nose and sniffed fiercely. It was extremely inelegant.
“Do you love Mr. Carswell?” Charlotte asked.
A ghost of a smile crossed Fanny’s face, the tears brimmed over and slid unregarded down her cheeks. Her eyes were red rimmed, her skin blotched and she was barely recognizable as the glowingly pretty girl Charlotte had first seen, but it was of no importance now.
“Yes,” she said hesitantly, then with a choking laugh. “Yes-I do.”
Charlotte was taken aback, but she had committed herself too far to retreat.
“I would have sworn you were in love with Fitz.”
“I am.” Fanny sniffed. “I am-” She swallowed convulsively and reached for the sodden handkerchief again.
Trying to be practical, Charlotte reached into her reticule for yet another handkerchief and failed to find one. Resenting the extravagance, but feeling Fanny’s pain too sharply to deny it, she fished very discreetly under her skirts and tore off a strip of her cotton petticoat.
“Blow your nose,” she ordered. “And then explain yourself.” She felt like Vespasia as she said it. Someone had to take command of the situation.
Fanny was too weary and too wretched to fight anymore.
“I love them both-quite differently,” she said haltingly, in little more than a whisper.
“That’s nonsense,” Charlotte said briskly. “Unless you are just plain silly. You cannot for a moment imagine you can have the position of financial help from a man like Addison Carswell, deceiving his wife, who is a very nice woman and does not deserve it, and at the same time say you love Fitz.”
“I do!” Fanny looked desperate, as if her only friend were threatening to abandon her. She blushed hard and made some last terrible decision. “Not the way you think. Addison Carswell is my father.”
For a moment Charlotte was stunned. Then gradually a whole new picture took shape.
“Oh! You are illegitimate? I’m so sorry! How dreadfully painful for you.”
“No I’m not. That is the whole point.” Now that Fanny had at last committed herself to telling the truth, she was eager to tell it all. “Papa was married to my mother first-that is the whole awful thing of it.” She looked at Charlotte with anguished eyes.
“Then your mother is dead?”
“No.” It was little more than a whisper. “Divorced?” Charlotte was amazed. Divorce was so terribly rare, and a fearful scandal. Divorced women were worse than dead in society. A man put his wife away only for the most heinous of reasons, like flagrant adultery. Mere disagreeability he ignored, and took a more pleasant mistress, spending only what time was absolutely necessary in his home, but continuing to provide for his wife, and whatever children there were, and keeping his social status intact. Such arrangements were kept discreet, and well understood. A woman only put her husband away if he deserted her, or beat her beyond anything even remotely reasonable. A little merited discipline was expected. And of course adultery was no reason for divorce, if committed by the man.
“No.” Fanny’s voice was sunk to a whisper.
“Then-I don’t understand.” Charlotte was totally confused.
“That’s it,” Fanny said desperately. “There was no divorce. My mother and father are still married.”
“But-but what about Mrs. Carswell? I mean-Regina…” Suddenly Charlotte saw the awful truth. “Oh! You mean-you mean she is not married at all? Does she-?”
“No-no, she doesn’t know,” Fanny said quickly. “That is why I would not tell them the truth last night. That is why we neither of us can. Her marriage is bigamous. And her daughters-and her son-are bastards.”
“Oh my heavens!” Charlotte was aghast. “Oh you poor creature.”
“I can’t betray him,” Fanny said in anguish. “It would ruin him, and in so many ways, more terrible than that, it would ruin them too. Did you see Mabel with that young man yesterday evening? What chance would she have of marrying him-or anyone-if people knew?”
“None,” Charlotte admitted. “But what about you?” Then she wished she had not said it. Fanny knew only too well what her future was now. “I’m sorry,” Charlotte said quickly.
“I know.” Fanny’s hands closed around hers even more tightly. “Believe me, I’ve thought of it all since last night. I suppose I should have realized it would come out-I just thought it was all secret. Papa was so careful. He came to see me so very secretly. I don’t know who found out, or how. But perhaps it was bound to have happened one day.”
“Your brother? He seemed last night not to know.”
“He didn’t. He is younger than I and had no memory of Papa. Hilliard is my mother’s maiden name, and she used that after-after they separated. She never told James the truth, and I saw no point to it. I did not tell him that in the last two years I have seen Papa again. When Mama became ill-Very ill, not only in her body but in her mind, we needed help. I went and found Papa and told him of our state. He was full of sympathy, and perhaps a little guilt.” She winced. “And he helped immediately. He provided an allowance for Mama and used his influence to get James a good position in the City. Of course, James does not know that.” She smiled very slightly. “He was so very fond of me, so gentle and so nice to be with, I never once thought it was other than affection. I still don’t.”
“But you did not tell your brother?”
“No-nor will I now. He-he might betray Papa-to defend me-and that is something I am not prepared to do.”
“That is very fine of you,” Charlotte said with instant admiration.
Fanny smiled wanly. “It is also realistic. I love Papa; and I could not live with myself if I ruined his present family and brought such terrible misery upon them. But even if I did, who would admire me for it? People might see some justice in it-but justice is not what I want. I want Fitz-and that I cannot have. He would not love me for that, and I cannot tell him the truth.” Again her eyes filled quite suddenly with tears and she turned away for a moment to regain her self-mastery.
This time Charlotte permitted her the dignity of silence, then gently put her hand on Fanny’s arm.
“I would be very happy if you would permit me to be your friend,” she said sincerely. “For the little that is worth. That is, if when you know me better, the things you do not know at the moment, you wish it.”
Fanny put her other hand up and clasped Charlotte’s fingers tightly.
“Please,” she whispered huskily.
In his Bow Street office Micah Drummond paced the floor from the closed door to the window overlooking the hot, busy street, and back again, door to window, and again, too restless to sit. He was furious over the Osmar case. He poured all his frustration and unhappiness into his rage that this wretched man should call on his past friendships with ministers of state in order to make the courts ridiculous and impugn the honesty of the police. He had no doubt that it was done by the influence of the Inner Circle. Osmar had no importance himself. The fact that it was the brotherhood added to his own sense of guilt that he was part of it, and his growing fear as to its power and its purpose.
He was halfway facing the window when there was a sharp rap on the door. He spun around as if he had been caught in some wrongful act.
“Yes?”
The door opened and Urban came in. He was looking pleased, although there was still a shadow of irritation over his tight, amused smile.
“What is it?” Drummond said less courteously than usual.
Urban disregarded his manner; he was too full of his own news.
“We won,” he said simply.
Drummond had not the slightest idea what he meant. “Won what?” he said irritably.
Urban was crestfallen, much of the triumph drained from his face.
“The case over Osmar.”
“We can’t have.” Drummond was still confused. “It’s already been dismissed!”
“Not the prosecution,” Urban corrected with disappointed patience. “The case against the newspapers for slandering us over Latimer’s interrogation of Beulah Giles.”
“Oh!” Suddenly it came back to Drummond. He should have known straightaway; the issue had certainly been serious enough. He looked at Urban now and tried to make up for his omission. He forced his features into an expression of pleasure. “Thank heaven for that. I didn’t think it was due for trial for months yet, surely?”
“It isn’t,” Urban agreed, mollified. “They settled out of court, paid us damages-and retracted all the charges of brutality.”
“Then what was the reservation I saw in your face when you came in?” Drummond asked. “Were the damages poor?”
“No-they were excellent, and so they should be. It was a damned comprehensive slander, and they misquoted us, and even themselves,” Urban replied heatedly. “It was a hysterical and completely irresponsible piece of journalism, and the other papers that picked it up didn’t even bother to check their facts.”
Drummond waited, his eyes wide.
Urban smiled, at himself. “That swine Osmar is still free to prance around saying he is innocent and without a stain on his character.” He pushed his hands into his pockets. “Which doesn’t matter in that he’s hardly a major criminal, simply an elderly ass who fornicates in the public parks.” His face darkened and his voice took on a graver note. “But he’s also a man who uses personal influence and the obligations of past office to escape the consequences of acts he expects other people to answer to, if they are caught. He uses privilege to set the law aside when it suits him-and that is about as serious a crime against society as there can be. In some ways it’s worse than murder.” And with those passionate words he turned on his heel and went out, closing the door very quietly behind him. Drummond was left shaken so profoundly he stood in the middle of the floor with the sunlight shining around him and felt cold, the sounds of the street below like insects far away, his mind whirling.
By five o’clock he had determined what he must do, and half past nine saw him in a hansom cab on his way to Belgravia. He alighted in Belgrave Square and presented himself at number 21. The footman admitted him without question or comment except to tell him that Lord Byam had not yet returned home, but was expected.
“I’ll wait,” Drummond said without hesitation.
“Shall I inform Lady Byam you are here, sir?” the footman asked as he showed him not into the morning room, but into the library.
“It would be civil, but it is Lord Byam I wish to speak with,” Drummond replied, walking past the man into the calm room lit with the late sun reflected in dappled patterns from the leaves at the window.
“Yes sir,” the footman accepted expressionlessly. “May I bring you some refreshment? A whiskey, perhaps, or a brandy and soda, sir?”
“No thank you.” Drummond felt awkward about accepting the hospitality of a man from whom he had come determined to demand some further explanation of his deepest trouble and the tragedy and fears arising from it.
“Very good, sir.” The footman withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Drummond was too tense to sit. Over and over he had prepared in his mind what he would say, but still it was unsatisfactory. One moment it seemed too deferential, not direct enough, the next too shrill, as if he himself were frightened and unsure.
He was still wrestling with it and growing more and more torn with doubts, when five minutes later the door opened almost silently and Eleanor came in. She was dressed in soft blue-gray, the exact color of her eyes. The neckline plunged deeply and was filled with lace of a softer shade, and she wore two ropes of pearls almost to her waist. For the first instant he could only think how lovely she was. Standing in the doorway, her face a little flushed, one hand still on the knob, she was warm, elegant, graceful, everything that a man loved in a woman, everything that was gentle and strong, vulnerable and tender.
Then he realized it was a very formal gown, and he was terrified she was preparing to dine out, or to receive guests. This would mean when Byam arrived he would be in a hurry, and have no time for an extended interview, however pressing Drummond felt the matter. Eleanor must have come to explain this to him, and suggest he call another day.
“Mr. Drummond,” she said urgently, closing the door behind her. “Sholto will not be here for at least half an hour. May I speak with you?” She was obviously agitated and in some distress. Her color was high and her eyes held his with an intensity that disturbed him profoundly.
“Of course.”
She came towards him until they were both standing in the center of the floor, but she too seemed unable to sit.
“Has something-” she began, then stopped. She looked at him very directly. “Has something new happened in the case? Is that why you have come?”
For a wild moment he thought she was going to ask if he had come to arrest Byam. Had the thought entered her mind that Byam might be guilty? Or was it simply fear, and no confidence in justice?
“Nothing decisive,” he answered. “And-nothing to implicate Lord Byam.”
“Mr. Drummond-” She breathed in deeply. He could see the light on her pearls as her breast rose and fell. “Mr. Drummond, are you telling me the truth, or trying to shield me from a pain which I will eventually have to know?”
“I am telling you the truth,” he said steadily. “I have come because I need to know more, not because I already know it.”
She made as if to press him further, then changed her mind and moved away towards the mantelpiece, her back to him. There was no fire in the grate, the evening was too warm, but she stood next to it as if there were.
“You have come very opportunely,” she said in a small voice, looking down at the brass fire tongs with their finely wrought handles. “There are things I-I need to tell you.”
He waited. He longed to be able to help her, but there was nothing he could have done, even had propriety allowed.
She stayed motionless, still staring at the tongs.
“I have learned what the quarrel was which I overheard,” she went on. Her face was sad and frightened. “I discovered by accident-at the dinner table-from a young man named Valerius. In the office he holds in the Treasury Sholto has to do with foreign loans to certain countries in the empire. He has the authority to permit them or refuse. He has always been very committed to giving whatever assistance is possible. In one instance he has quite suddenly and unaccountably reversed years of policy-” She stopped and at last looked up at him, her eyes darkly troubled.
Emotions raged through him, fury at his impotence to help her. He was bound by inability, convention, his own shyness and uncertainty. He loved her, that should be admitted; it was ridiculous to go on calling it by any other name. But for him to say anything, even to allow her to know it unspoken, would be inexcusable. She was desperately vulnerable. Her husband stood in jeopardy of his life and she had come to the one person who might be able to save him; she had come trusting. To abuse that trust because of his own passion would be despicable, the lowest and most vile of acts. His face scalded hot at even the thought of it.
And he felt an impossible anger with Byam himself, for the pain and the fear he was causing her, for his failure to explain, for having come to Drummond in the first place and involved him in this dilemma with all its confusion and distress.
And as great as any of these burned an overwhelming guilt because he had been asked by a brother, in trust, to help him when he was in desperate need-and he had failed to do so. Instead he had fallen in love with the man’s wife.
He was also afraid, deeply and horribly afraid. What if Byam was guilty? What if Byam brought the pressure of the Inner Circle on Drummond to conceal that guilt? And if they were as ruthless as Pitt seemed to think, that was not an impossibility. How would he face Eleanor? He could not do it-how would he explain that to her? He would sound pompous, selfish, cowardly. She would despise him, and how that would hurt. But what was the alternative? To conceal murder, and perhaps allow an innocent man to be hanged for it, or at best, if it was unprovable, his reputation and career to be ruined.
Pitt would despise him for that. He would know. Pitt would always know in the end. And that too would hurt. In its own way it would hurt as much as any rejection by Eleanor. She might hate him, but she at least would know it was because he obeyed a higher honor. With Pitt it would be because he had betrayed himself and sunk to a level where Pitt could only despise him.
And how would the Inner Circle punish him? They would-of that he now had no doubt.
How could he have been so gullible, so naive and incredibly, blindly stupid? Because he had been flattered, thought about it too little, and seen only what he wanted to see, without thinking deeply or looking below the surface. Self-disgust added to the furor in his mind.
He must concentrate.
Eleanor was looking at him with clear, gray eyes, waiting for him to give some sensible, strong answer. What could he say? He must stop indulging in passions and try to concentrate his brain.
“Are you sure there is no good political reason for such a reversal?” he asked, seeking for time to clear his head and sort emotion from reason.
“Yes I am sure,” she said unhappily. “That is what he quarreled with Sir John about. Had there been a political reason he would have told him of it, and Sir John would still have been disappointed, but he would have understood. They would not have parted with ill feeling. They have been friends and political allies for too long.”
He named the only other cause he dared, and it had to be dismissed.
“And you are certain he has no personal motive, no financial one, for his decision.” Then he feared she might think he believed Byam dishonest, and hurried on. “I say so only to dismiss it. It could not be that Sir John thought such a thing?”
“No.” Her brows furrowed. “I cannot imagine that he did.” There was a brief lift of hope in her voice, just for a moment. Ugly as the thought was, it was still better than the other one which lay like a stone in her mind. Then the lightness faded again. “No, Sholto has never had personal interests that would jeopardize his political impartiality. It would be less than totally honest in the best of circumstances, and in the worst might easily make his situation impossible.” She looked away, out through the window at the leaves against the light. “His personal fortune comes from family estates in Huntingdonshire, and large holdings in Wales and Ireland. He has never taken any part in banking or commerce, and certainly not in importing or exporting.”
“I see.”
She lowered her eyes and her expression tightened again as though she was expecting a blow, perhaps self-inflicted, but only before fate could do it instead.
“No, Mr. Drummond, there is no easy, honorable answer that I can find, and believe me, I have racked my brain looking. And-and apart from all the explanations reason might try, the worst thing is that Sholto is so changed in himself.” Suddenly she looked up and met his eyes so intensely and with such undisguised emotion he felt as if she had touched him physically. “He is afraid, he is every bit as afraid as I am. The only difference is that he knows what it is he fears, and I am only plagued by guesses.”
There was no way to avoid it and retain a shred of honesty, and honesty mattered to him desperately where she was concerned. It was the one closeness permitted.
He forced out the words.
“What are your guesses?”
Her voice was full of pain. “That someone else has the letter and Weems’s notes of Sholto’s payments to him, and he is blackmailing him, just as Weems did. It must be the murderer, mustn’t it?”
He could not deny it. “I can think of no one else.”
She looked away again. “Why won’t he tell me? That is what I cannot understand. I know all about Laura Anstiss, he has nothing to hide. It was foolish perhaps, a misjudgment of youth, but if he told me now that he is still being blackmailed, what is there to lose? I never blamed him for it.” She moved her foot along the smooth brass fender as if fidgeting gave her some ease. “I wondered if in some way he was still defending Frederick Anstiss. Friendship can tie you so hard-and so close-and he still feels guilty…” She looked at him, puckering her brows. “But I don’t see how, do you? If he told you that there was another blackmailer now, it would surely help your investigation, wouldn’t it? It would at least be knowledge-and how would that hurt Frederick? He already knows more than we do about Laura’s death. He saw her and he knew she was obsessed with Sholto-temporarily mad-however you wish to name it.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t understand. But sometimes old guilt, however unreasonable, can make us defend people…” He tailed off. It was not necessary to say all this. She knew it, and it availed little. It did not answer her fear.
“Do you believe he knows who it is?” He asked what they were both dreading.
She winced but did not look away.
“I have thought he might. And there is only one reason he would not tell you.” Her voice sank even lower. “Because he means to confront the man himself. Mr. Drummond, I am so afraid he will. And that one of them will not live.”
He reached for her without thinking of propriety or conscience, only of her anguish. He held her hands in his own.
“My dear. You must not think such a thing. It is ridiculous. If Lord Byam knows who it is, he will tell me and we will arrest the man quietly, discreetly, and he will have no opportunity to speak to anyone before his trial. And by then we will have found a way to make it in his own interests to be silent.”
“Can you?” she whispered.
“Of course.” He held her hands very gently. “That is why he called me in the beginning,” he went on. “He would not be so hysterical now as to turn to violence himself. He never did harm Weems-he paid the miserable devil. Now when we know about Laura Anstiss’s death, and there is Weems’s murder to solve, he has even less reason to face the man personally. If he were violent, believe me, he would have acted long ago, not now.”
There was no answering hope in her eyes. In fact she looked even more wretched with fear.
“Eleanor!” He was unaware of having used her name. “Eleanor-” He was about to ask what troubled her so terribly, when the answer came too glaringly to his mind. She had admitted the possibility that Byam himself had murdered Weems, and the blackmail now was not over anything so simple and relatively innocent as Laura Anstiss’s death and his part in it. This was a blackmail he could not confess to Drummond and ask his help. Someone had seen him, someone knew. Or perhaps Weems had taken even more precautions than he had said, and somehow his protector was now avenging him.
“It is possible-isn’t it?” she whispered, her face white. Then she lowered her eyes, slipping her hands out of his and clasping them together. “God forgive me for even having let such a thought into my mind.”
He struggled through emotion for a thread of reason, something to cling onto to help him, and to help himself from taking her in his arms and holding her, abusing her trust and her distress. He forced the thought from him and let go of her hands, stepping back. Then he saw the sudden bleakness in her face.
“You find me disloyal,” she said with hopelessness. “I cannot blame you.”
“No. My dear-I-” He floundered, not knowing what to say, how to redeem himself without telling her the impossible truth. He stared helplessly.
She looked back at him, her eyes widening, then filling with wonder.
He blushed scarlet, knowing he had betrayed himself. There were no possible words, no excuses. All he could do was assure her he would take no advantage. But how to do that and be believed, and retain some shred of her respect…
He looked at her, his face burning.
She was smiling.
Very gently she took his hand; her fingers were warm. She held it for a moment, then let it go.
He felt wildly close to her, as if she had kissed him, but sweeter than that, less the passion of an instant, longer lasting, and without haste or pity. He searched her eyes, and saw in them no fear, no fear at all, a world of regret, but no blame. Was it possible? He dared not think it. It must be thrust from his mind.
“There-there are other reasons,” he began hesitantly. “Things to think of…” He went on, fumbling for a thread of continued, sensible thought. “If he had killed Weems, why did he not take the letter then-and the papers? If he could not find them, surely he would not have told us but simply taken the chance that we would not either. After all, he knew they were there and would look for them; we did not even know of their existence.”
“Perhaps he did take them.” She was playing devil’s advocate because it must be done. “But he did not know of this other person, if he exists, the one Weems gave a second copy to.”
“That still does not make any sense,” he answered with gathering conviction. “If he thought he had all the evidence pointing to him, he would not have sent for me. We would never have connected him with Weems, why on earth should we? And anyway, what purpose did it serve for Weems’s mysterious other person to have evidence, if no one knew of it? I cannot see Weems as a man who wished his death avenged, but it makes every sense that he would create a safeguard that his life should not be taken. And that served only so long as every person who was a danger to him knew of its existence, and that it would be used if Weems came to any harm.”
“ Perhaps he did not believe Sholto any danger to him.”
“Then why give a set of papers to this friend? And why keep the one set himself, which we know he did because Lord Byam told us of it?”
“Then if you did not find them, where are they?” she asked.
He was confounded. “I don’t know. I can only presume the murderer took them. Although why he did not take the other list as well I don’t understand.”
“What other list?” Her dark brow puckered.
It was an error, but there was no way of retrieving it, and he was not even sure he wanted to. He hated keeping so much from her.
“Oh-of course, you don’t know of that. There was a list of other people of better financial circumstances who were down as having borrowed large amounts-all of whom deny it.”
Her eyes widened. “Were they blackmailed as well?”
“It seems so.”
“And-and are they still being blackmailed?” Now there was a sharper fear in her and he understood it instantly.
He could not answer.
“No-” She breathed out. “You don’t need to say it, it is there in your face. Sholto is the only one.”
The silence lay between them. There was no need for either to spell out the reasoning. The only answer to all the questions pounding in their heads was that Byam had killed Weems, and had been seen by someone else, who was now blackmailing him, not over Laura Anstiss’s death, but over the murder of Weems. And if only Byam knew who it was, then he might very easily murder him too. Why not; he had nothing else to lose, and freedom to win. It explained everything-it was the one possibility which did explain everything.
They were still standing facing each other when they heard the outside door open and the butler’s voice welcoming Lord Byam.
Eleanor closed her eyes for a moment as if she had been struck, then stepped back from Drummond and went to the door. She met his eyes for an instant, then turned the latch and went out into the hall, leaving the door ajar. Drummond heard her voice plainly.
“Good evening, Sholto.”
“Good evening, my dear.” The clarity of his tone, the immediacy of it, brought his presence to Drummond more sharply than he would have thought possible. They had been speaking about him and the reality of his being, his mind, his intelligence, his volition had almost receded into an impersonal problem. Hearing his voice brought him back with a vividness that was like a shock of icy water.
“Mr. Drummond is here to see you,” Eleanor went on. Perhaps they were simply the words anyone would have used, but they also sounded like a kind of warning, before he could say anything else, speak of his day, expose any anxieties or fears.
“Micah Drummond?” He sounded surprised. “Did he say what for?”
“No…”
“You hesitated.”
“Did I? It is because I fear it cannot be good. If he had arrested someone he would have told me.”
“Then I had better see him.” Was his voice as edgy as Drummond thought? Was there fear in it, or simply irritation that a man he knew so slightly should have called at such an inconvenient hour? “Where is he?”
“In the library.”
He made no answer that Drummond could hear. The next moment his footsteps sounded sharply across the flagged floor and the door swung open and he was there.
“I believe you called to see me.” He closed the door behind him. He did not offer any refreshment or exchange the usual trivialities. Either he assumed Eleanor had already done so, or else he considered them irrelevant.
Drummond looked at him. He was pale and there were dark smudges of sleeplessness under his eyes. He was immaculately dressed, as always, but there was an air of distraction about him and it was all too obvious that the tension Eleanor had spoken of was in him. Every movement was tight, awkward, his muscles stiff, his attention strained.
“Yes,” Drummond agreed, anger at the man evaporating, and now strongly mixed with pity. For the moment the fact that he was Eleanor’s husband, and therefore the man who stood irrevocably between him and the woman he now loved, was immaterial, so unimportant as to have vanished from his thoughts.
“Do I take it that there have been new events, or discoveries?” Byam came across the room and stood close to the mantel, where Eleanor had been so shortly before.
“There are new questions,” Drummond equivocated. He must not allow Byam to realize that Eleanor had confided in him. He could only view it as a kind of betrayal, even if he understood it as anxiety for him and a belief that she could help.
“Indeed?” Byam’s black brows rose. “Then you had better ask them, since it is what you have come for. Although I cannot think of anything I have not already told you.”
Drummond began with what he had intended to say before Eleanor had spoken to him.
“It regards that circle of which we are both members.”
Byam’s face tightened. “I hardly think this is the time, or the place, to discuss the business of the Circle-”
“You called me here in the name of the Circle,” Drummond interrupted. “Therefore they are already included in anything we do.”
Byam winced, as though what Drummond had said were in bad taste.
“I call on you as a brother in that circle to which we both belong, to help me in a certain matter.” Drummond’s own voice hardened and he saw Byam’s look of astonishment, then extraordinary relief. It was short-lived. As soon as Drummond continued it disappeared.
“In the matter of Horatio Osmar.”
“Horatio Osmar? I don’t know the man. He is not one of the same ’ring’ as I.”
“Nevertheless you know that he is a brother?” Drummond pressed.
“I do. Surely you don’t wish something from him? The man is disgraced. Not openly, I grant, but we all know perfectly well he was guilty of behaving like a fool, and of being caught at it.”
“And of asking the brotherhood to exercise favor in extricating him, and attempting to impugn the police in the process.”
“That was unnecessary,” Byam said with irritation. “He got out of the charge. He should have left it at that. Accusing the police of perjury was gratuitous. The man is a complete outsider.”
“Indeed,” Drummond agreed with feeling. “Nevertheless, the brotherhood assisted him in bringing the charge. Questions were raised in the House, and the Home Secretary himself set certain wheels in motion.”
“I am aware of that. I was in the House at the time. I thought he was a fool then, but there was nothing I could do about it.”
“Of course not.” Drummond was watching him closely. The subject did not distress him, but the underlying fear was only too apparent. His whole body was so stiff Drummond ached watching him. And he was abominably tired, as if he had not slept with any ease for weeks.
“Well?” Byam said with rising impatience. “What is it you want of me? It is not my concern.”
“If the brotherhood will respond to Osmar’s trivial and tedious case by raising questions in the House,” Drummond answered, “and impugning the honesty of the police as they have done, what latitude do they have in matters of individual honor and integrity where more serious matters are involved?”
“I don’t understand you.” Byam’s voice was getting sharper. “For heaven’s sake, man, be plain!”
Drummond took a breath and met Byam’s hollow eyes.
“If I discover incriminating evidence against you, will the brotherhood defend you against the police, and will it expect me to do the same?”
Byam was white as a ghost. He stared at Drummond as if he could scarcely believe him.
Drummond waited.
Byam spoke with difficulty, his voice catching in his throat.
“I-I have never thought in the matter. It will not arise-dangerous evidence perhaps, but not incriminating. I did not kill Weems.” He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind and stood silently facing Drummond.
“Then why have you changed your decision about African financing?” Drummond asked.
Byam seemed so stunned, so deathly white, Drummond was afraid for a moment he was going to pass out. The dusk was growing in the room. The last of the sun’s rays had faded away from the ceiling and now the faintly luminous air had gone. A bird sang in the branches beyond the window.
“How do you know that?” Byam said at last.
“I heard of it through a young man called Valerius.” It was not a lie exactly, even if it was by intent.
Byam was too shocked for surprise or interest.
“Peter Valerius? He came and told you? Why, for God’s sake? It is of no concern to you.”
“Not directly,” Drummond answered. “He told someone, who told me.”
“Who?”
“I am not at liberty to say.”
Byam turned away, weary, hiding his face and staring at the shelf of books and the corner.
“I suppose it hardly matters. It involves issues you are not aware of-trade, money…”
“Blackmail?”
Byam froze. The relief that had been in his face an instant before fled utterly. His body jerked as if he had been struck.
“Was it?” Drummond said very quietly, almost gently. “Has someone else found the papers Weems left? Byam, do you know who killed Weems?”
“No! No I don’t!” It was a cry full of pain and despair. “Dear God I don’t know. I have no idea at all.”
“But whoever it is has Weems’s notes, and is blackmailing you still?”
Byam’s shoulders relaxed a fraction and he turned around, his eyes black in the last light through the window, a wraith of a smile on his lips, a smile of pain and self-mockery, as if he knew some terrible joke against himself.
“No-no. Weems’s notes seem to have vanished into the air. I am beginning to think he never actually made any, he simply said he had to protect himself. Unnecessarily-I would never have attacked him physically, or any other way. The worst I would have done was tell him to go to hell. Someone else killed him, and I have not even the shred of an idea who.”
“And the change of mind over the African money?”
Byam’s face was still white. “The brotherhood,” he said with stiff lips. “It is a favor for them. I cannot tell you why. It concerns many issues, international finance, risk, political situations I am not at liberty to discuss.” His words were a mockery of Drummond’s earlier ones, but there was no jeering in them, no triumph.
“They would ask that of you, knowing how you feel, your reputation in the matter, your conscience?” Drummond was horrified, although now he had no surprise left. “That is monstrous. What would happen to you if you refused them?”
There was no smile on Byam’s face, only bleak, humorless despair.
“I don’t know, and I am not in a position to put it to the test.”
“But your honor,” Drummond said involuntarily. “The agony of your own conscience. Do they imagine they have purchased your soul with some idiotic ritual oath? For God’s sake, man, tell them to go to the devil! Not a great journey, if they would press you to act against your conscience in such a manner.”
Byam looked away from him. “I cannot,” he said in a level, hopeless voice. “There is much that you do not understand. They explained to me other reasons. It is not as much against my conscience as you believe, simply against my past record of belief, and what people expect of me. There are other factors-things I did not know of before…”
But Drummond did not believe him. He was overwhelmed with pity, and revulsion-and a terrible, dark fear of the circle he had entered so blindly so many years ago. Pitt had thought it evil, and he had barely scraped the surface. Why did a gamekeeper’s son like Pitt have so infinitely more understanding of evil and its smiling, promising faces?
He felt cold throughout his body.
“I’m sorry,” he said futilely, not knowing what he meant, simply that he was filled with a dragging heaviness and a sense of tragedy to come, and guilt.
He walked to the hall door and opened it.
“Thank you for your candor.”
Byam looked up, his eyes black with pain, like a cornered creature. He said nothing.
Drummond went out and closed the door. In the hallway the butler handed him his cloak, hat and stick, then opened the door for him. He went out into the balmy air of the evening, oblivious to its sweetness.