Hyde Park Headsman

5

EMILY WAS DRESSED magnificently, as befitted the occasion. Her gown was her favorite nile green, elegant as water in the sun, and stitched with silver beading and seed pearls. The waist was tiny and, she admitted, less than comfortable, the bodice crossed over at the front with the bosom low-cut. The bustle almost vanished completely, its fullness replaced by the new fullness at the top of the sleeve, decorated with feathers on the shoulder. The whole effect was quite breathtaking, and she was aware of it in the lingering looks of gentlemen and the sharp glances and fixed smiles of ladies, and then the immediate, muttered conversation.

The dinner had been lavish and served in the grandest manner. Now the guests were all sitting or standing around the reception rooms in small groups talking, laughing and passing on personal and political gossip, although of course the personal was probably the most political of all. The by-election was drawing near and emotions were running high.

Emily was standing, not because she wished to but because her stays, which had contrived her exquisite waist, were far too binding for her to sit down for long with any comfort at all. Dinner itself had been more than enough.

“How delightful to see you, my dear Mrs. Radley, and looking so very—well.” Lady Malmsbury smiled brightly and regarded Emily with no pleasure at all. Lady Malmsbury was in her mid-forties, dark, rather large, and an ardent supporter of the Tory party, and thus of Jack’s rival, Nigel Uttley. Her daughter Selina was of Emily’s generation, and they had been friends in the past.

“I am in excellent health, thank you,” Emily replied with an equally dazzling smile. “I hope I find you the same? You most certainly seem so.”

“Indeed I am,” Lady Malmsbury agreed, discreetly looking Emily up and down, and disliking what she saw. “And how is your dear Mama these days? I have not seen her for such a long time. Is she well? Of course widowhood is so hard on a woman, at whatever age it occurs.”

“She is very well, thank you,” Emily replied a trifle more guardedly. It was not a subject she wished to pursue.

“You know, I had the oddest experience the other evening,” Lady Malmsbury continued, moving a step closer so her skirts rustled against Emily’s. “I was leaving a recital, a most excellent violin recital. Are you fond of the violin?”

“Yes indeed,” Emily said hastily, wondering what Lady Malmsbury was about to say in such eager confidence. The gleam in her eyes boded no good.

“I too. And this was delightful. Such charm and grace. A most elegant instrument,” Lady Malmsbury continued, still smiling. “And as I was walking down the Strand for a breath of air before taking my carriage home, I saw a group of people leaving the Gaiety Theatre, and one of them reminded me so much of your Mama.” She opened her eyes a little wider. “In fact I would have sworn it were she, were it not for her dress and the company in which she was.” She looked at Emily directly.

Emily had no choice but pointedly to evade the subject, or else to ask the inevitable question.

“Indeed? How odd. A trick of the light, I suppose. Streetlights can give the strangest impressions sometimes.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said that streetlights can give the strangest impressions on occasions,” Emily repeated with an artificial smile. She refused to ask who the company had been.

Lady Malmsbury was not to be deflected.

“They could not have created an illusion like this. She was with a group of actors, my dear! And she was so obviously at ease with them, it was not an accident of chance that they left together. Anyway, the Gaiety. Your Mama would never have been in there, would she?” She laughed at the absurdity of it, a hard, tinkling sound, like breaking glass. “And with such people!”

“I don’t think I would know a group of actors if I saw one,” Emily replied with a chill. “You have the advantage of me.”

Lady Malmsbury’s expression tightened and she raised her flat eyebrows very high. “I know you have been out of society in your confinement, my dear, but surely you would recognize Joshua Fielding? He is quite the darling at the moment. Such an interesting face, remarkable features. Not in the least what you could call regular, but quite full of expression.”

“Oh, if it was Joshua Fielding then I assume he was visiting the Gaiety, not playing there,” Emily observed with elaborate casualness. “Isn’t he a more serious actor?”

“Yes, of course he is,” Lady Malmsbury agreed. “But still hardly the company a lady would keep—not socially, I mean.” Again she laughed, still staring at Emily.

“I really don’t know,” Emily said, staring back. “I have never met him.” That was a lie, but the occasion had not been in public, so Lady Malmsbury would not know of it.

“He is an actor,” Lady Malmsbury repeated. “He makes his living on the stage.”

“So does Mrs. Langtry,” Emily remarked. “And she seems to be quite good enough for the Prince of Wales, socially, I mean.”

Lady Malmsbury’s face hardened. “Not the same thing, my dear.”

“No,” Emily agreed. “I am not sure that one could really say Mrs. Langtry earned her chief remuneration on the stage—acting possibly, but in a different position, and a somewhat less public venue—at least most of the time.”

Lady Malmsbury blushed to the roots of her hair. “Well really! I am afraid I must say I consider that remark in the worst possible taste, Emily. Since you have remarried, my dear, you have changed a great deal, and not for the better. I am not surprised your poor Mama does not show herself in society as much as she used to. Even in a silk turban and a dress with no discernible waist.”

Emily contrived to look puzzled, although inside herself she was seething with alarm. “I cannot imagine why anyone should show themselves in society in such a garb.”

“At the Gaiety Theatre,” Lady Malmsbury said. “Really most peculiar.”

“Most indeed,” Emily agreed. She had nothing left to lose now, so she said exactly what came into her mind. “I hope you had a thoroughly enjoyable evening beforehand? A good dinner—an excellent dinner?” She lifted her eyebrows. “And convivial …” She pronounced the word carefully, and looked at Lady Malmsbury with an unwavering gaze.

Another tide of color swept up Lady Malmsbury’s face. The suggestion was delicate, but not so subtle that she had missed it. “Pleasant, but not indulgent,” she said between her teeth.

Emily smiled as if she did not believe a word.

“So nice to have seen you, Lady Malmsbury, and looking so … robust.”

Lady Malmsbury let out her breath sharply, searched for something to say that was equally cutting, failed to find it, and swirled away in a rustle of black-and-green taffeta.

Emily had won the verbal victory, but she was nevertheless seriously worried. She did not doubt for an instant that it had been Caroline whom Lady Malmsbury had seen, dressed bizarrely and in the company of Joshua Fielding and his friends. She was going to have to do something about it, but for the time being it eluded her as to what.

For the moment she must be charming and give everyone the impression she had not a worry in the world, except how best to be a help and support to Jack while he won his parliamentary seat, even though she was not at all sure that he would win. The Tories were strongly supported in the area, Jack was very new to politics, and Nigel Uttley had many friends with power and, no doubt at all, the secret and pervasive help of the Inner Circle.

She assumed an expression of intelligent interest and sailed forth to do battle.

The following day she prepared for conflict of a completely different kind. There was no need to dress especially, this time; the armament was entirely mental and emotional. Accordingly she was in a very casual spotted muslin gown when she alighted from her carriage and presented herself at her mother’s front door in Cater Street.

“Good morning, Maddock,” she said briskly when the butler answered. She had known him since childhood and stood on no formalities with him. “Is Mama in? Good. I wish to see her.”

“I am afraid she is not down yet, Miss Emily.” Maddock did not refuse to let her in, but he effectively blocked her way to the foot of the stairs.

“Then perhaps you would tell her I am here and ask if I may come up?” Then a sudden and totally appalling thought seized her. Caroline must be alone! Surely? She could not have so far lost her wits as to—Oh, dear Heaven. Emily was cold all through, and her legs were weak.

“Are you all right, Miss Emily?” Maddock said with some concern. “May I bring you a little tea? Or a cool lemonade, perhaps?”

“No. No thank you, Maddock.” She took a deep breath. This must be faced, whatever the truth. “Just tell Mama I wish to see her urgently.”

“Is anything wrong, Miss Emily?”

“That remains to be seen. But yes, I fear there is at least one problem.”

“Very well, if you care to be seated, I shall tell Mrs. Ellison you are here.” And without further argument he went up the stairs and disappeared around the corner of the landing.

It seemed like a quite wretched age while Emily paced the hall waiting for him to return. Could Caroline really be having a full-blown affair with Joshua Fielding? It did not bear thinking of. She must have taken total leave of her wits. That was it. Papa’s death had driven her mad. It was the only answer. Dependable, predictable, ordinary Mama had become unhinged.

“Miss Emily.”

“Oh …” She whirled around.

Maddock had come down the stairs and she had not even heard him.

“Mrs. Ellison will see you, if you care to go up to the bedroom,” Maddock said calmly.

“Thank you.” Emily picked up her skirts by the fistful in hasty and unladylike manner and raced up the stairs, clattering her heels on the wood, whirled around the corner at the top of the landing, and with hardly a knock flung open the door to her mother’s bedroom.

Then she stopped abruptly. It was all quite different. The old, sober coffee and cream tones were gone, as was the dark wood furniture. In its place was a riot of pinks and wines and peaches mixed together in florals, a brass bedstead with gleaming knobs and pale furniture made of who knew what. The room looked twice the size, and as if it had been bodily transported out of the house and set up in the middle of a garden. As if the rose floral curtains and bedspread and canopy were not enough, there was a huge crystal bowl full of roses on the dressing table, and since it was still only early May, they must have been grown in someone’s hothouse.

Caroline was sitting up in bed in an apricot silk peignoir, her hair trailing over her shoulders, and looking very happy indeed.

“Do you like it?” she asked, regarding Emily’s startled face.

Emily was horrified at the utter change, the unfamiliarity of it, but honesty compelled her to admit that she did find it pleasing. “It’s—it’s lovely,” she said reluctantly. “But why? And it must have cost—I don’t know—a fortune.”

“Not really,” Caroline said with a smile. “But anyway, I spend a great deal of time in here, probably almost half my life.”

“Asleep,” Emily protested with a sinking horror in her stomach.

“All the same, I like it like this.” Caroline looked around with obvious happiness. “It is my room. I’ve always wanted one full of flowers. And it feels warm, even in the middle of winter.”

“You don’t know that,” Emily argued. “I was here in March, and you hadn’t done this then.”

“Well it will do,” Caroline said with certainty. “Anyway, March can feel like the middle of winter. We frequently get snow in March. And I shall spend my money how I please.”

Emily sat down on the bed. Caroline did look extraordinarily well. Her skin was glowing and her eyes were brilliant with vitality and enthusiasm. It made Emily sick to think how it would all change when Joshua grew tired and went his way. Suddenly she hated him.

“What is it?” Caroline asked, frowning a little. “Maddock said you had something you wished to speak to me about urgently, and you do look a little anxious, my dear. Is it to do with Jack and the by-election?”

“Only in the remotest way—actually, no, not at all.”

“You sound confused,” Caroline pointed out. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what it is, and we can decide what it has to do with afterwards.”

Emily stared sideways at the window with its wonderful festoons of flowers.

“I was at a dinner party yesterday evening,” she began, then stopped. Now that she came to tell it, it sounded so trivial. She searched for the right words.

“Yes?” Caroline prompted, sitting a little more upright against her pillows. “I assume you met someone of importance?”

“Oh several people. But this particular person was of no importance whatsoever.”

Caroline frowned, but she kept her patience.

“It was what she said,” Emily continued. “Actually it was Lady Malmsbury …”

“Selina Court’s mother?” Caroline looked surprised. “By the way, have you seen Sir James lately? He used to be really quite agreeable, now he has become very portly and is losing his hair already. I always thought Selina could have done rather better, but Maria Malmsbury wouldn’t wait.”

“Yes, I never thought much of him,” Emily agreed. “But Lady Malmsbury said to me that she saw you outside the Gaiety Theatre, dressed in a silk turban and a gown with no waist to speak of, with Joshua Fielding and some other actors. Or to be more correct, she said it couldn’t possibly be you. But of course she meant that it was.”

“Oh yes, we had a most excellent time,” Caroline said enthusiastically, her eyes bright with the memory. “It was such fun. I never realized how catchy some of those songs can be. And I haven’t laughed like that for years. It is very good for one to laugh, you know? It makes the face look so agreeable.”

“But in a silk turban,” Emily said in anguish.

“Why not? Silk is a delicious fabric—and turbans are most flattering.”

“A turban, Mama! And a dress with no waist! If you had to go at all, couldn’t you at least have worn something ordinary? Even the aesthetes gave those up years ago.”

“My dear Emily, I have no intention of allowing Maria Malmsbury to dictate what I should wear—or where I should find my entertainment, or in whose company. And I don’t give a fig about the aesthetes. And dearly as I love both you and Charlotte, I shall not allow you to dictate to me either.” She put her hand over Emily’s. “If it embarrasses you, I’m sorry; but there have been in the past a few times when you have sorely embarrassed me. Your involvement with Thomas’s detecting, to begin with.”

“You have involved yourself,” Emily said indignantly. “Less than six months ago. How can you be so …”

“I know,” Caroline said quickly. “And if circumstances should offer me the opportunity, I shall do so again. Experience has taught me I was quite mistaken to be embarrassed. Perhaps in time it will do the same for you.”

Emily let out a wail of frustration.

“Is that the only thing that troubles you?” Caroline inquired pleasantly.

“For Heaven’s sake, Mama, isn’t it enough? My mother is keeping company with an actor half her age, and the fact that it will ruin her in society doesn’t seem to bother her at all. She is seen in the Strand dressed like I don’t know what!”

“Well, my dear, if it frightens your respectable voters, it may endear me to those less respectable,” Caroline said cheerfully. “Let us hope they outnumber the prudes. But if you wish me to stay at home and dress in purple so Jack can be elected, I am afraid I am not going to oblige you, dearly as I hope he wins.”

“I am not thinking of Jack. I am concerned for you,” Emily protested, truthfully, because she did not think Jack would win anyway. “What will happen when all this is over? Have you thought of that?”

The joy went out of Caroline’s face, leaving her so intensely vulnerable Emily wanted to clasp her in her arms and hold her, as she would have a child.

“I shall be older, alone, and have memories of a glorious time when I was happy, and loved, even if it could not be mine forever,” Caroline replied very quietly, looking down at the rose-colored quilt. “I shall have had laughter, imagination and friendship such as few women ever have, and I shall keep my memories without bitterness.” She raised her eyes to Emily’s. “That is what will happen. I shall not go into a decline, or expect you or Charlotte to sit with me while I weep over it. Does that make you feel any better?”

Ridiculously, Emily found there were tears in her eyes.

“No—I shall—I shall hurt for you so terribly!” She sniffed and fished for a handkerchief unsuccessfully.

Caroline passed her one from under her pillow.

“That is the price of loving, my dear,” she said softly. “Usually it is parents who agonize for their children, but sometimes it is the other way too. The only way to avoid that is not to love anyone enough for their pain to hurt you. But that is like having part of you that is dead.”

Emily let out her breath in a long sigh. There was nothing to say to that, no argument.

“Tell me about the campaign,” Caroline suggested, retrieving her handkerchief. “And about the new house of Charlotte’s—have you seen it?”

“Yes. It’s awful, at the moment. But it could be really very nice indeed, with a great deal of work, and at least a hundred pounds spent on it, possibly even two.” And she proceeded to tell Caroline about it.

As she was leaving half an hour later she met her grandmother in the hallway. The old lady was dressed entirely in black, as was her custom; she believed widows should behave like widows. She leaned heavily on her stick and watched Emily come all the way down the stairs to the bottom before she spoke.

“Well,” she said viciously, “so you have been to see your Mama. The place looks like a harlot’s place of work! She’s taken leave of her senses—not that she ever had much. It was my poor Edward who kept her in some sort of dignity while he was alive. He must be turning in his grave to see this.” She banged her cane on the floor. “I don’t think I can remain here any more. It is all beyond tolerating. I shall come and stay with you.” She twitched angrily and turned to stare up the hall. “Staying with Charlotte is out of the question. Always was. She married beneath her. I couldn’t abide that.”

Emily was aghast.

“Because Mama has had her bedroom redecorated?” Her voice rose with incredulity. “If you don’t care for it, don’t go in there.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” the old lady said, swinging back to face her. “Do you suppose she did it like that for herself? She intends having that man in there. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

Emily really did not think she could endure having Grand-mama living with her. Even Ashworth House, enormous as it was, was not big enough to share with the old lady.

“I’m not living in a house of scandal and immorality,” the old lady went on vehemently, her voice rising in both pitch and volume. “That my old age should have come to this!” Her boot-button eyes were brilliant. “I shall go down to my grave in sorrow.”

“Rubbish!” Emily said tartly. “Nothing has happened yet, and it probably never will.” Although she did not entirely believe that, and she avoided the old woman’s stare.

“Don’t you ‘rubbish’ me, my girl!” Grandmama banged the stick again furiously, scarring the wooden floor with its metal ferrule. “I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and I know a loose woman when I have one under my roof.”

“It’s not your roof. It’s Mama’s. Anyway, you’ve never had a loose woman here so you wouldn’t know one if you had.”

“You remember who you are speaking to, my girl,” the old woman snapped. And as Emily moved towards the front door, she added, “And stand still when I’m talking to you. Where are your nerves, I should like to know.”

“There’s nothing else to say, Grandmama. I must return home. I have social duties to perform.”

The old lady let out a long rumble of disgust, banged her stick on the floor one more time, then turned on her heel and stumped off.

Emily escaped while the chance was good.

She did not mention the matter to Jack at all. There was no purpose to be served by it, and the thought of Grandmama coming to live in Ashworth House, no matter how unlikely, would be sufficient to distract his mind totally from the business in hand.

Instead she went straight upstairs and burst into the nursery quarters. She startled the elderly, comfortable nurse sitting in her rocking chair holding the baby, almost asleep. The nursery maid, Susie, dropped the linen she was folding, and Edward abandoned the last of his rice pudding and left the table without permission.

“Mama!” he cried, running to greet her. “Mama! I learned all about King Henry the Sixth today. Do you know he had eight wives and he cut all their heads off. Do you think the Queen will cut Prince Albert’s head off if she gets tired of him?” He stopped in front of her, upright, slender, his face shining with enthusiasm, his fair hair so like hers, falling over his brow. He was dressed in a loose white shirt with a wide collar, and dark striped pants. He jiggled from one foot to the other in excitement. “Wouldn’t that be thrilling?”

“No it wouldn’t,” Emily said in surprise, reaching out her hand to touch him gently. She wanted to take him in her arms and hold him close to her, but she knew he would hate it. He considered it babyish, and submitted to a good-night kiss only under protest. “And it was Henry the Eighth,” she corrected: “He only had six wives, and he only took some of their heads off.”

He looked disappointed. “Oh. What happened to the rest of them?”

“One died, he divorced one, or maybe two, and one outlived him.”

“But—he beheaded the rest?”

“I expect so. What else have you done today?”

“Sums—and geography.”

Miss Roberts, his governess, appeared in the schoolroom doorway. She was a clergyman’s daughter, trim and plain and now nearly thirty years old, too old to hope for marriage. She was obliged to earn her living, and this was an acceptable way to do it. Emily liked her and looked forward to her caring for and teaching Evie in time.

“Good afternoon, Miss Roberts,” she said cheerfully. “Is he learning well?”

“Yes, Mrs. Radley,” Miss Roberts said with a small downward curl of her mouth. “Rather more interested in intrigues and battles than laws and treaties. But I suppose that is natural. I like Queen Elizabeth, myself.”

“So do I,” Emily agreed.

Edward looked from one to the other of them, but he was too well disciplined to interrupt.

“You have not finished your rice pudding,” Miss Roberts told him.

He looked up at her through his eyelashes. “It’ll be cold.”

“And whose fault is that?” she asked.

He considered arguing, regarding her face for a moment, then thought better of it. It was undignified to argue and lose, especially to a woman, and as a young viscount he was very sensitive to his dignity, which was hard enough for a seven-year-old boy surrounded by women to maintain. He walked nonchalantly back to the table, climbed into his chair and picked up the spoon.

Emily met Miss Roberts’s eyes, and they both hid smiles.

Miss Roberts returned to the schoolroom.

The nursery maid departed with the pile of laundry to put it in the night nursery.

Emily turned to the nurse and held out her arms to take the baby.

“She’s just gone to sleep, poor little soul,” the nurse protested. She was a big comfortable woman who had been a wet-nurse in her youth, frequently taking the infants of noble houses into her own home to care for them and breast-feed them for up to the first year of their lives, or even longer, before returning them to their stately nurseries and the care of nannies, nursery maids and eventually governesses and tutors. She liked them best up to the age of about three, although she was prone to getting fond of an individual child and finding it hard to hand over her responsibility. Emily was not going to be refused. She wanted to hold the baby in her arms, feel its weight resting against her, touch its silken skin and look at the tiny face. She remained with her arms held out.

The nurse also knew better than to argue. She rose and passed over her charge.

Evie did not stir as Emily took her and rocked her gently. After several moments during which the nurse turned away and busied herself, although in truth there was nothing to do, Emily began to stroke the baby’s downy head, and finally succeeded in waking her up. She sat down in the rocking chair and started to talk to her, largely nonsense, and after about fifteen minutes—during which the nursery routine was set back, the nursery maid could not clear up, the nurse had nothing useful to do, and Edward finished his tea and became late for his bedtime story—eventually Evie began to cry.

This time the nurse’s patience was at an end. She took Evie without a word, dipped a piece of cotton in sugar water and popped it in her mouth, and quite firmly told Emily that it was time everyone resumed their proper duties.

Obediently Emily bade Edward good-night, without kissing him, which at first pleased him enormously, then on second thought left him feeling a little uncertain. Perhaps so much dignity was not really necessary yet? However, having made the decision he was not going back on it, especially in front of Roberts, whose opinion he valued. Tomorrow he would offer his cheek to be kissed, and thus have taken the initiative himself. That was an excellent solution. He went to bed well satisfied. Besides, the present bedtime story, about King Arthur, was a particularly good one.

Emily watched him go with a touch of emotion inside her, then, with a brief word to the nursing staff, turned and went back downstairs to wait for Jack.

He came in at about seven o’clock, having spent the whole day pursuing political affairs of one sort or another, and was delighted to forget them even for the short while before dinner and the arrival of another group to be pursued or persuaded. The date for the by-election had been set, three weeks from then, and his mind was fully taken up with preparations.

The following morning Emily was in the breakfast room, one of her favorite places in the house, when Jack came in carrying two newspapers. The room was octagonal with three doors, one of them to the small shaded garden to the east of the house, and the morning sun shone through the glass of that door onto the warm parquet floor and cabinets of delicate, floral porcelain against two of the walls.

“It’s all over the place,” he said, putting the newspaper on the corner of the table and regarding her gravely. “It’s still on the front pages of the Times.” She did not need to ask what he was referring to. The last subject they had discussed before going to bed had been the Hyde Park murders, and it required no explanation that he should continue now.

“What do they say?” she asked.

“The Times is largely trying to keep some sort of calm,” he answered. “One of the columnists is talking about madness, and saying it is on the increase. According to one of their correspondents there is some Viennese school of medicine which explains it all in terms of what happened in infancy, and talks of dreams and repression and so on.” He sat down at the table, reached for the bell, but before he could ring it the butler appeared. “Egg and bacon and potatoes, please, Jenkins,” Jack said absently.

“Cook has some very fine deviled kidneys, sir,” Jenkins suggested. “On a little fresh toast?”

“Does that mean you have no eggs?” Jack looked up at him.

“No sir, we have at least three dozen eggs.” Jenkins kept a perfectly sober face. “Shall I bring eggs, sir?”

“No, the kidneys sound excellent,” Jack replied. He looked across at Emily inquiringly.

“Fruit compote and toast,” Emily answered.

“Don’t you get bored with it?” He frowned, but his eyes were gentle.

“Not at all. Apricots, if Cook still has any left, Jenkins.” She could not permit Jack to know, and even less the servants, but she had every intention of getting her figure back to the exquisite shape it had been before Evie’s advent, and keeping it so.

“Yes, ma’am.” Jenkins still had difficulty in not calling her “my lady,” as he had when George had been alive and she was Lady Ashworth. He withdrew obediently about his errand.

“Probably no bacon,” Emily said with a smile. “What else?”

Jack was used to her patterns of thought. He knew she meant the newspapers again. The subject was far from exhausted.

“An eminent doctor gives his opinion as to how the crimes were committed,” he continued. “Not very helpful. One writer is convinced it is a woman—I don’t know why. Someone else has written about the phases of the moon, and predicted when the next one will occur.”

Emily shivered and pulled a face. “Poor Thomas!”

Jack looked at her gravely. “But mostly it is criticism of the police, their methods, their character, even their existence.” He let out his breath with a sigh. “Uttley has written a long article which the Times has printed, and I am afraid he is extremely hard on Thomas, although he doesn’t refer to him by name. Of course his purpose is to make political capital from his own ideas and he doesn’t care whom he hurts on the way.”

Emily reached for the paper, and had it in her hands when Jenkins returned with Jack’s kidneys and her fruit compote. The butler glanced at her and smothered his disapproval with difficulty. In his day ladies did not read anything in the newspapers but that which their husbands gave them, which would be the court circular, the marriages and obituaries, and if they were fortunate, the theater criticisms and reviews. Political opinion and commentary was not suitable for women. It excited the blood and disturbed the imagination. He had once been so bold as to remark so to Lord Ashworth when he had been alive, but unfortunately he had been disregarded.

“Thank you, Jenkins,” Jack said absently, and Emily echoed his words with even less attention. Jenkins withdrew with a sigh.

“I know it,” Emily said, ignoring her breakfast and beginning to read. “ ‘There is no question that when Her Majesty’s Government created a police force to serve the citizens of London, it made a brilliant and decisive step for the good of every person in this teeming heart of the Empire. But is this present-day force what these men had in mind?

“ ‘In the autumn of 1888 there was a series of gruesome and terrifying murders in Whitechapel which has gone down in history as among the most savage in all human experience. They have also gone down in history as unsolved. The very best our police can do, after months of investigation, is say “We do not know.”

“ ‘Is this what we deserve, is this what we are purchasing with our money?

“ ‘I think not.

“ ‘We need a more professional force, men with not only dedication but the skill and education to prevent this sort of crime from recurring.

“ ‘We have an empire which stretches round the world. We have conquered and subdued wild nations of warriors. We have settled lands in the frozen north, in the burning south, the plains of the west and the jungles and deserts of the east. We have planted the flag on every continent on earth, and taken law and government, religion and language, to every people. Can we really not control the unruly elements of our own capital city?

“ ‘Gentlemen, we must do better. We must change this sorry story of incompetence and failure. We must reorganize our forces of law and make sure they are the best in the world before we become a laughingstock, a byword for incompetence, and we will have every criminal in Europe descending upon us to make good his chances.

“ ‘We do not need the soft options of the Liberal party. We need strength and resolve.’ ”

Emily put it down with disgust. She should not have been surprised and indeed she was not, but it still made her angry. She looked up at Jack.

“It’s so stupid,” she said helplessly. “This is all just words. He doesn’t make any actual suggestions. What else could Thomas do?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “If I did I would be the first to go to him and tell him. But it isn’t only finding the solution.” He bit into his deviled kidneys and savored them with pleasure. He waited till he had swallowed the first mouthful before he continued. “It’s finding the solution that society wants,” he finished.

“Which is what? Some lunatic escaped from Bedlam that we can all disown, and say it has nothing to do with us?” she retorted, stirring the compote viciously. “If it isn’t, then we can hardly blame Thomas.”

“Emily, my dearest, people have blamed the messenger for the contents of the message as long as history has been recorded. Of course they can—and they will.”

“That’s childish.” She swallowed a mouthful and it went the wrong way. She nearly choked before recovering enough to glare at him.

“Of course it is,” he agreed, pouring her a cup of tea and passing it. “What has that to do with it? You don’t have to be in politics long to know that an awful lot of people’s reactions can be childish, and we usually cater to the very worst of those once we begin trying to beat each other.”

“What are you going to say against Uttley? You’ve got to say something. You can’t let him get away with this.”

“I don’t think Thomas will thank me for defending him—” he began.

“Not Thomas,” she interrupted. “You! You can’t sit here and let Uttley bring the battle to you. You’ve got to attack.”

He thought for several moments, and she waited with difficulty, eating the rest of her compote without tasting it.

“There is no point whatever in talking figures to people,” he said thoughtfully, setting down his fork as his meal was finished. “It has no emotion.”

“Don’t defend,” she argued. “You can’t defend effectively anyway. All the criminals caught don’t amount to anything compared with the ones that are still at large—not in people’s minds.” She swallowed. “Anyway, it’s bad to look defensive. It isn’t your fault that the police are inefficient. And don’t let him push you into a position where people imagine it is.” She reached for the silver teapot. “Would you care for some more?”

He pushed forward his cup and she poured for him.

“Attack him,” she went on. “What are his weaknesses?”

“Fiscal affairs, the national economy …”

“That won’t do.” She dismissed it out of hand. “It’s boring, and people don’t understand it anyway. You can hardly talk about shillings and pence on the hustings. People won’t listen.”

“I know that,” he agreed with a smile. “But you asked me what his weaknesses were.”

“Why don’t you do what Charlotte did?” she suggested at length. “Pretend to be naive and ask him to explain himself. You know he can’t abide people laughing at him.”

“That’s very dangerous—”

“So is his present attack on the police, and through them on you. What do you have to lose?”

He looked at her thoughtfully for several moments, then slowly his face relaxed and his eyes lit with enthusiasm.

“Don’t blame me if it explodes in my face,” he warned.

“Of course I shan’t. But let’s go down with a real battle.” She leaned forward and caught hold of his hand where it lay on the table. “Let’s go in with all flags flying and all guns firing.”

“I may have to retire to the country afterwards.”

“Afterwards, perhaps,” she conceded. “But not before.”

Jack contrived the opportunity the next day. Uttley was addressing a considerable crowd at Hyde Park Corner and Jack sauntered up, Emily on his arm. People were drawing closer from all directions, many with pies, sandwiches or peppermint drinks in their hands. The Punch and Judy man abandoned his stall, knowing the real drama was more fun any day. A nursemaid with a perambulator slowed her step and a newsboy and an urchin sweeping the crossing both ceased their shouting and listened.

“Ladies and gentlemen!” Uttley began, although the address to ladies was purely a courtesy. No women could vote, so their opinion was superfluous. “Ladies and gentlemen! We are at a crossroads in the life of our great city. It is up to you to decide which way you wish to go. Do you like it as it is, or do you want something better?” He was dressed in a dark coat, double-breasted and with silk lapels, and lighter striped trousers. The sunlight gleamed on his browned face and fair hair.

“Better!” yelled at least a dozen voices.

“Of course you do,” he agreed with enthusiasm. “You want money in your pockets, food on your tables, and you want to be able to walk the streets of your city in safety.” He gave a meaningful gesture towards the green expanse of the park behind him and there was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

“How’s he going to manage the money?” Emily whispered to Jack. “Ask him.”

“No point,” he whispered back. “The poor don’t have votes anyway.”

Emily gave a grunt of irritation.

“Never mind the street!”

“What about the parks?” a fat man in a coster’s apron called out. “Can we walk them in safety too?”

There was a bellow of laughter from the crowd and someone whistled.

“Not now!” Uttley looked at him. “Not now, my friend. But you ought to be able to—if the police were doing their job!”

There were one or two cries of agreement.

“Do you want patrols in the park?” Jack asked loudly.

“Good idea, Mr. Radley,” Uttley answered, pointing his finger at him to draw everyone’s attention. “Why didn’t you say that in your last address? You didn’t, you know—not a word!”

Everyone turned to stare at Jack.

Jack surveyed the faces now looking at him.

“Do you want police patrols through the park?” he asked innocently.

“Yeah!” a couple called out, but most were silent. No one spoke against.

“What should they do?” Jack pursued. “Stop you—ask you what your business is? Who it is you are with?” There was a rumble of denial.

“Search you for weapons?” he went on. “Take your name and address?”

“How about stop you from being attacked, robbed or murdered?” Uttley asked. The crowd gave a shout of approval and then a quick burst of laughter.

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that,” Jack said, still with bland innocence. “Follow you. Of course. And then when someone approaches, they should come close enough to prevent any sudden blow or lunge. And if the person should prove to be merely an acquaintance …” He stopped amid a few murmurs of anger and glowing faces. “Oh no—that wouldn’t do—because we don’t know that it wasn’t an acquaintance that killed Captain Winthrop and Mr. Arledge. Whoever it is, the policemen had better remain close enough to intervene if it should seem necessary.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Uttley began, but he was drowned out by catcalls and laughter.

“Wouldn’t that require an awful lot of policemen?” Jack asked. “In fact, roughly one each for every person who wanted to take a stroll. Perhaps we should call up the police station and wait for an escort. It would be terribly expensive. Taxes would double or triple.”

There were calls of disapproval and derision, and one man laughed uproariously.

“This is ridiculous!” Uttley shouted above the melee. “You have reduced it to an absurdity! There are perfectly sensible ways of doing it.”

“Then tell us,” Jack invited him, holding his hands wide.

“Yeah,” the crowd called, turning their faces from one to the other. “Go on—tell us!”

Uttley struggled to define them, but it became obvious he had thought only in generalities, and when it came to a specific solution he could not name one. The crowd whistled and catcalled, and Jack had no need to aid in his rival’s undoing. Eventually, red-faced and furious, Uttley turned on him.

“What will you do that’s better, Radley? Give us your answer!”

As one the crowd swiveled to look at Jack, their eyes keen, their jeering as ready to strip him.

“I blame the Irish!” one woman called out, her face red with fury. “That’s who it is—you’ll see!”

“Rubbish!” a black-haired man contradicted her with contempt. “It’s them Jews!”

“Hang ’em!” a man in green shouted, raising his arm. “Hang ’em all!”

“Bring back deportation!” someone else called. “Let Orstralia ’ave ’em! Should never ’ave got rid o’ deportation—that’s wot’s wrong.”

“Can’t do anything until you catch them,” Jack pointed out. “I say get more professional police, men who are trained to do the job, not gentlemen who speak nicely and have good clothes but couldn’t catch a thief if they were locked in a room with him.”

“Yeah! Yeah, that’s right!” someone called out. A thin woman in gray waved her hand approvingly. A stout man with waxed mustaches jeered and whistled. “What you got agin’ gentlemen? You an anarchist, eh? You one o’ them wot wants ter get rid o’ the Queen, are yer?”

“Certainly not,” Jack replied, keeping his equanimity with difficulty. “I’m a loyal subject of Her Majesty. And I like gentlemen—some of my best friends are gentlemen. In fact, at times I am one myself.”

There was a roar of laughter.

“But I’m not a policeman,” he went on. “I don’t have that skill—and I know it. Neither do most other gentlemen.”

“Even some o’ our policemen don’t, an’ all!” the pie seller shouted, to more laughter. “ ’Oo’s the ’Yde Park ’Eadsman, then? Why don’t they catch ’im?”

“They will do!” Jack called out impulsively. “There’s a first-class professional policeman on the case—and if the Home Office helps instead of curbing him, he’ll catch the Headsman!” As soon as he had said it, Emily knew he regretted it, but the words were out.

There was a roar of skepticism from the crowd, and one or two turned to look at Uttley.

“Superintendent Pitt,” Uttley said with a jeering smile. “A gamekeeper’s son. I know why Mr. Radley has such confidence in him—they are brothers-in-law! Do you know something the public have not been told, Radley? Something secret, perhaps? What are the police doing? What is Pitt doing?”

Now the crowd was looking at Jack with suspicion, and an ugliness shadowed their faces. The mood had changed again.

“I know he’s a brilliant policeman, working as hard as any man can,” Jack shouted back. “And if he isn’t hobbled by the powers in the Home Office and the government, trying to protect their own, then he’ll catch the Headsman.”

There was a low, angry rumble and again the mood swung right around and directed the anger at Uttley.

“Yeah!” a fat man said loudly. “Give us real police, not some bleedin’ toff in fancy clothes wot won’t get his ’ands dirty.”

“That’s right,” the woman with the peppermint drinks added. “Get rid of them wot’s protecting their own. The ’Eadsman maybe ain’t a poor lunatic at all. Maybe ’e’s one o’ them fancy gents wot’s got something personal agin’ other gents.”

“Maybe they was perverts wot picked up women an’ got done by their pimps for something real nasty?”

Uttley opened his mouth to deny it, then saw their faces and changed his mind.

“They are our police, and it’s our city,” Jack said finally. “Let’s give them our support and they’ll catch this monster—whoever he is: gentleman or lunatic—or both.”

There was a cheer from the crowd, and one by one they began to drift away.

Uttley jumped down from the carriage steps where he had been standing and walked over to Jack and Emily, his eyes hard and narrow, the small muscle in his jaw pinched. “A little cheap laughter,” he said between his teeth. “Half a dozen men who can vote—maybe. The rest is dross.”

“If they were no use, what were you doing here?” Emily said before she thought.

Uttley glared at her. “There are issues here, madam, you know nothing about.” He looked at Jack with a steady, unblinking stare. “But you do, Radley. You know who is on my side … and who on yours.” His lips parted in a very slight smile. “You made a bad mistake last time, and it will tell against you. You’ve made enemies. It will be enough—you’ll see.” And with that he turned on his heel, strode back to his carriage and swung himself up into it in a single movement. He shouted at his coachman and without hesitation the horses threw themselves forward as the whip lashed over their backs.

“He means the Inner Circle, doesn’t he?” Emily said with a shiver as though the sun had gone in, although actually it was as bright as the moment before. “Can it really make so much difference?”

“I don’t know,” Jack answered honestly. “But if it can, it’s a very black day for England.”

Charlotte was in the kitchen after Pitt had left for the day, and the breakfast dishes were cleared away. Daniel and Jemima were preparing to leave for school, and Gracie was at the sink.

Five-year-old Daniel coughed dramatically, then as no one paid him any attention, Charlotte being busy with seven-year-old Jemima’s hair, he did it again.

“Daniel has a cough,” Jemima said helpfully.

“Yes I have,” Daniel agreed immediately, and went into a paroxysm to demonstrate it.

“Don’t do that anymore, or you’ll have a real sore throat,” Charlotte said unsympathetically.

“I have,” he agreed, nodding his head, his eyes on hers, bright and clear.

She smiled at him. “Yes, my dear, and it is my considered deduction that you also have arithmetic today, yes?”

He was too young to have learned successful evasion.

“I don’t think I’m well enough for arithmetic,” he said candidly. The sun through the windows shone on his bright hair, gleaming with the same auburn as hers.

“You’ll get better,” she said cheerfully.

His face fell.

“Or on the other hand,” she went on, finishing Jemima’s hair and tying a ribbon on it. “If you really are ill, then you had better stay at home …”

“Yes!” he said with instant enthusiasm.

“In bed,” she concluded. “We’ll see if you are well enough to get up tomorrow. Gracie can make you some eel broth, and maybe a little light gruel.”

Daniel’s face filled with dismay.

“Then you can catch up with your arithmetic when you are well again,” Charlotte added heartlessly. “Jemima will help you.”

“Yes I will,” Jemima cut in. “I know how to do sums.”

“I think maybe I’ll be all right,” Daniel said slowly, giving Jemima a filthy look. “I’ll try hard.”

Charlotte gave him a radiant smile and touched his head gently, feeling the soft hair under her fingers.

“I thought you would.”

When they were gone and Gracie had finished the dishes Charlotte turned her attention to the duties of the day. There were various garments that needed special cleaning, in particular a shirt of Pitt’s which had a couple of fine bloodstains where he had nicked himself shaving and even afterwards a drop had fallen and made a mark. A little paste of starch, put on and left to dry before being brushed off, would see to that. Strong alcohol saturated in camphor would take out the oil stain on his jacket sleeve. Chloroform was better for grease. She would have to ascertain which it was.

And the black lace from the dress she had worn for the memorial service looked a little mildewed, and she must attend to that before returning it. She would use alcohol and borax. She refused to send to the butcher for bullock’s gall to put in warm water, which she had been advised was actually the best. There were also feathers to be recurled, which was a disaster done with curling tongs. It was far better to do them over an ivory knife handle. It was a tedious job, but necessary if she were to continue to borrow her relatives’ expensive and highly fashionable clothes. And of course she should not forget the black leather gloves which should be rubbed over with orange slice, then salad oil.

“Gracie,” she began, then realized that Gracie was not listening to her. “Gracie?”

“Yes, ma’am?” Gracie turned slowly from where she had been staring at the dresser, her face pink.

“What’s the matter?” Charlotte asked.

“Nothing, ma’am,” Gracie said quickly.

“Good. Then will you heat the irons and I’ll start on the lace. I think you could do the master’s shirts and attend to those little blood spots—you know how.”

“Yes, ma’am.” And Gracie began obediently to pull out the flatirons and set them on the hob.

Charlotte went upstairs to fetch the feathers, and on her return, took out an ivory-handled knife. She only had two, one a butter knife and too small, the other a cake knife and just right

“Ma’am?” Gracie started.

“Yes?”

“Uh—oh—no, it doesn’t matter.” And she splashed out a liberal helping of alcohol to begin her task.

Charlotte started very carefully curling the feathers, then realized that Gracie was putting the alcohol on the bloodstains, not the grease, and had forgotten the camphor altogether.

“Gracie! What is the matter this morning? Something is wrong. Tell me what it is before you cause a disaster!”

Gracie’s cheeks were bright pink and her eyes were full of fear, her whole face pinched with urgency. Still she could not find the words.

Charlotte felt a lurch of fear herself. She was extraordinarily fond of Gracie, perhaps she had not realized how much until this moment.

“What is it?” she said with more sharpness than she intended. “Are you ill?”

“No!” Gracie bit her lip. “I know summat about the gennelman wot goes inter the park arter girls.” She swallowed hard. “I got ter talkin’ ter one o’ them tarts in there one day.” Her eyes were brimming with misery. She was lying, at least in part, and she hated it “An’ she said as there was one gent wot liked ter beat women, beat ’em really ’ard, ’urt ’em bad. I reckon as mebbe that were Captain Winthrop. She said as ’e were big. An’ mebbe it were a pimp as done fer ’im. An’ the other gent knew it. Mebbe ’e saw it, or summat, an’ that’s why ’e got done too.”

For a moment Charlotte could think only of the likelihood of what Gracie said, and her spirits soared upwards.

“It could be,” she agreed quickly. “It could very well be!”

Gracie gave a sickly smile.

Then the further meaning struck Charlotte.

“Gracie! You’ve been out detecting again! Haven’t you?”

Gracie’s eyes lowered and she stared in silent misery at the floor, waiting for the blow to fall.

“You went to the park at night to find one of those women, didn’t you?”

Gracie did not deny it.

“You stupid child!” Charlotte exploded. “Don’t you realize what could have happened to you?”

“They’re goin’ ter throw the book at the master if ’e don’t catch the ’Eadsman.” Gracie still did not look up.

Charlotte felt a stab of alarm, if what Gracie said were true, and then of guilt for her own so frequent absences.

“I could beat you myself for taking such a risk,” she said furiously, swallowing hard. “And I will do, I swear, if you ever do anything like it again! And how on earth am I going to tell the master what you know without telling him how you found out? Can you answer me that?”

Gracie shook her head.

“I shall have to think of something very clever indeed.” Gracie nodded.

“Don’t just stand there waggling your head. You’d better try to think as well. And get those grease stains out of his sleeve while you’re doing it. We’d better at least have his clothes clean for him.”

“Yes ma’am!” Gracie lifted her head and gave her a tiny smile.

Charlotte smiled back. She intended it to be tiny also, but it ended up being a wide, conspiratorial grin.

Charlotte spent the afternoon in the new house. Every day it seemed to be some new disaster had been discovered or some major decision must be made. The builder wore a permanent expression of anxiety and shook his head in doubt, biting his lip, before she had even finished framing her questions to him.

However, with the purchase of an excellent catalog from Young & Marten, Builders Merchants and Suppliers, she was able to counter most of his arguments quite specifically, and very slowly was earning his exceedingly grudging respect.

The principal problem was that she was racing against time. The Bloomsbury house was sold, and they must leave it within four weeks, and the new house was very far from ready to move into. Most of the major work was accomplished. Aunt Vespasia’s instructions had been followed to the letter, and there was now an immaculate plaster cornice where the old one had been. There was even a flawless new ceiling rose as well. But it was all innocent of paint or paper, and the whole question of carpets was not even touched upon. Decisions crowded in from every quarter.

When talking to Emily about it she had thought she knew precisely what color she wished for each room, but when it came to the details of purchasing paper and paint, she was not at all certain. And if she were honest, her attention was not totally upon the matter. She could not help but be aware of the newspaper headlines and the tone of the articles beneath them criticizing the police in general—and the man in charge of the Hyde Park case in particular. It was grossly unfair. Pitt was reaping the whirlwind sown by the Whitechapel murders and the Fenian outrages and a dozen other things. There was also the general unrest in terms of political change, teeming poverty, ideas of anarchy come over from Europe as well as native-bred dissension, the instability of the throne with an old, sour queen shut away in perpetual mourning, and an heir who squandered his time and money on cards, racehorses and women. Headless corpses in Hyde Park were simply the focus for the anger and the fear.

It ought to be some ease of conscience to know that, but it was no use whatsoever as a defense. Thomas was so new in his promotion. Micah Drummond would have understood it; he was a gentleman, a member of the Inner Circle, until he broke from them with all the risk that that entailed, and a personal friend of many of his equals and superiors. Thomas was none of these things, and would never be. He would have to earn every step of his way—and prove himself again and again.

She stared around the room, her mind refusing to concentrate. Would it really be a good idea to have it green? Or would it be too cold after all? Whose opinion could she ask? Caroline was busy with Joshua, and anyway Charlotte did not want to see her and be reminded of that particular problem.

Emily was busy with Jack and the political battle that was now so close.

Pitt was working so hard she hardly ever saw him for more than a few moments when he came home at night, hungry and exhausted. Although tonight she would have to make an exception, no matter what the circumstances, to pass on Gracie’s news, when she had decided how to. But he certainly did not need to be troubled with domestic decisions—even if he had had the faintest idea what color a room was. So far in their married life he had either liked a room or disliked it, beyond that he had never expressed any observation at all.

Then a snatch of conversation came back to her from the memorial service for Oakley Winthrop. She had discussed interiors with the widow, Mina. She had not really intended to, but it had seemed something in which she took pleasure and, to judge from her remarks, had some talent. She would ask Mina’s opinion. It would serve two purposes, the relatively insignificant one of deciding whether to paper the room green or not, and the far larger, and more urgent, one of perhaps helping Thomas. With Gracie’s discovery it had become ever more pressing that they learn a little more about the captain, and if possible his habits.

There was no need to consider the decision. It was made. She was hardly dressed for calling, but it would be a waste of time to go back to Bloomsbury and change, and then have to take the omnibus back to Curzon Street. It would be extravagant to call a hansom. She did at least wash her face and make some rapid repairs to her hair before going outside into the sun and walking briskly to the nearest omnibus stop.

She did not seriously consider the impertinence of what she was doing until she stood on the doorstop of the late Captain Winthrop’s house, saw the drawn blinds and the dark wreath on the door, and wondered what on earth she would say.

“Yes ma’am?” the maid said in little more than a whisper.

“Good afternoon,” Charlotte replied, aware that her face was suddenly very pink. “Mrs. Winthrop was kind enough to give me some most excellent advice a few days ago. I am now sorely in need of some more, and I wondered if she would spare me a few moments of her time. I shall surely understand if it is not convenient. I am abashed at having called without informing her first. Her kindness quite made me forget my manners.”

“I’ll ask ’er, ma’am,” the maid said doubtfully. “But I’m sure as I can’t say if she will, the Ouse bein’ in mournin’ like.”

“Of course,” Charlotte agreed.

“ ’O? shall I say ’as called, ma’am?”

“Oh—Mrs. Pitt. We met at Captain Winthrop’s memorial service. I was with Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould.”

“Yes ma’am. I’ll ask, if you’ll be good enough to wait ’ere.” And she left Charlotte standing in the hall while she scurried away.

It was not the maid who returned, but Mina herself, still dressed in what appeared to be the same black gown with its very high neck and lace-pointed cuffs. She was as tall as Charlotte but much slenderer, almost waiflike with her fair skin and impossibly fragile neck. She looked tired, bruised around the eyes, as if in the privacy of her own room she had wept herself to exhaustion, but her face was full of pleasure at the sight of Charlotte.

“How nice of you to call,” she said immediately. “You have no idea how lonely it is sitting here day after day, no one coming except to pay respects, and it isn’t seemly for me to go out anywhere.” She smiled briefly, half embarrassment, half shame, seeking Charlotte’s understanding. “Perhaps I shouldn’t even think like that, let alone say it, but grief is not helped by being by oneself in a darkened house.”

“I’m sure it isn’t,” Charlotte agreed with a wave of both sympathy and relief. “I wish society would allow people to cope with loss in whatever way is easiest for them, but I doubt it ever will.”

“Oh that would be a miracle,” Mina said hastily. “I wouldn’t look for anything so—so incredibly unlikely. But I’m delighted you have called. Please come into the withdrawing room.” She half turned, ready to lead the way. “The sun shines in there, and I refuse to lower the blinds—unless my mother-in-law should call. But that is not probable.”

“I should be happy to. It sounds a delightful room,” Charlotte accepted, following her across the hall and down a passageway. She noticed Mina walked very uprightly, almost as if she were too stiff to bend. “It is about just such a matter that I would appreciate your advice.”

“Indeed?” Mina indicated a chair as soon as they were in the room, which was indeed most attractive, and at the moment filled with afternoon sunlight. “Please tell me how I am to be of service to you. Would you care for tea while we are talking?”

“Oh that would be most welcome,” Charlotte agreed, both because she would very much like a drink after the omnibus ride and because it insured that she stay longer without having to seek an excuse.

Mina rang the bell with enthusiasm and ordered tea, sandwiches, pastries and cakes, then when the maid was gone, settled herself to give Charlotte her entire attention. She sat on the forward edge of the chair, hands folded in her lap, half concealed by the lace, but her face was full of interest.

Charlotte was acutely aware of the underlying tragedy in the house, the unnatural silence, the strain in Mina so close under the surface of her composure. However, she explained that she was moving house, and all the things that had yet to be done before that could be accomplished satisfactorily. “I simply cannot decide whether the room would be too cold if I had it papered in green,” she finished.

“What does your husband say?” Mina inquired.

“Oh nothing. I have not asked him,” Charlotte replied. “I don’t think he will have an opinion before it is done, only afterwards if it is not agreeable. Although I daresay he will not even know why he does not like it.”

Mina shrugged very slightly. “My husband had most definite opinions. I had to be careful if I chose to change anything.” A look of guilt filled her face, sudden and startlingly painful. “I am afraid my taste was sometimes vulgar.”

“Oh surely not?” Charlotte said quickly. “Perhaps he merely meant that his own taste was exceedingly traditional. Some men hate any change, no matter how much it is actually an improvement.”

“You are very kind, but I am sure I must have been in the wrong. I had the breakfast room repapered while he was at sea. I should not have done it without asking him. He was most vexed when he came home and saw it.”

“Was it very different?” Charlotte inquired, uncertain whether she should pursue a subject which seemed to cause such distress. To look back on a quarrel, perhaps unsolved, when the other person was no longer alive and so beyond reconciliation, must be one of the most terribly painful aspects of bereavement. She longed to be of comfort, and had no idea how.

“Oh yes—I’m afraid so,” Mina went on quietly, memory filling her voice, and there was pleasure in spite of the shivering pain. “I did everything in warm yellow. It looked as if it were entirely filled with sunlight I loved it.”

“It sounds very delightful,” Charlotte said sincerely. “But you speak as though it were no longer so. Did he insist that you change it?”

“Yes.” Mina turned away for a moment, averting her face. “That was what he said was vulgar, everything in tones and shades of the one color, apart from the furniture, of course. That remained mahogany. Actually”—she bit her lip as if even now it still needed some apology or explanation—“it has not yet been done. Oakley locked the door and said we should not use the room until it had been put back as it was before. Would you care to see it?”

“Oh indeed.” Charlotte rose to her feet immediately. “I should like to very much.” She meant it both for the sake of seeing what such a room would be like, and even more to find out what Oakley Winthrop had considered so offensive that he had been willing to initiate such a quarrel over it that it was still apparently unresolved.

Mina led her out of the withdrawing room, back along the passageway and out of the main hall in the opposite direction. The door to the breakfast room was apparently now unlocked, and Mina pushed it open and stood back.

Charlotte looked past her into one of the most charming rooms she had ever seen. As Mina had said, it appeared to be full of sunlight, but it was more than that which pleased, it was a sense of space and graciousness, a simplicity which was restful and yet totally welcoming.

“Oh you are most gifted,” Charlotte said spontaneously. “It’s quite lovely!” She turned to look at Mina, still standing in the doorway, but her face now filled with amazement.

“Is it?” she said with incredulity, and then a dawning pleasure. “Do you really think so?”

“Indeed I do,” Charlotte answered her. “I should love to have such a room. If this is of your creation, then you have a kind of genius. I am so glad I met you while my entire house is still undecorated, because if you will give me your permission, I will most assuredly have a yellow room too. May I? Would you consider it a compliment and not an impertinence?”

Mina was glowing with pleasure like a child given an unexpected gift.

“I should be most flattered, Mrs. Pitt. Please do not think for a moment that I should mind. It is quite the nicest thing you could say.” She backed out of the doorway in a kind of excitement, and swung around without noticing the maid crossing the hall behind her. Charlotte called out, but it was too late. Mina’s hand caught the teapot. The maid shrieked and let go and the tray went clattering to the floor. The maid shrieked again and threw her apron over her face, and Mina let out a cry.

Charlotte could see immediately what had happened from the dark stain of wetness over Mina’s wrist, where the scalding tea had run over her.

“Quickly!” Charlotte grasped her without explanation or apology. “Where is the kitchen?”

“There.” Mina looked to her left, her face tight with pain.

The maid was still shrieking, but no one took any notice of her.

Charlotte half pushed Mina towards the passageway, then thought of a far better idea. There was a large bowl full of lilies on the hall table. She turned and dragged Mina towards it, then as soon as she could reach, seized the flowers and dumped them on the table and pushed Mina’s hand into the bowl full of cold water.

“Ah!” Mina said in amazement, the pain easing out of her face. “Oh—how wonderful.”

Charlotte smiled at her, then looked at the maid.

“Stop it,” she commanded fiercely. “Nobody’s blaming you. It was an accident. Now don’t stand there making that horrible noise, go and do something useful. Go back to the kitchen and send the tweeny to clean up this mess, and you come back with a bag of ice, and a tea cloth wrung out of cold water and a solution of bicarbonate of soda, and another one that’s clean and dry. Get on with you.”

“Yes, miss. Right away, miss,” the girl said, staring at Charlotte with a tear-stained face and not moving from the spot.

“Go on, Gwynneth,” Mina urged her. “Do as you are told.”

Charlotte pulled Mina’s hand out of the flower bowl as the maid disappeared.

“We’d better go to the light and see how bad it is.” She walked with Mina towards the central chandelier, lit in spite of the sun because of the drawn blinds. Without asking permission she undid the buttons on Mina’s long cuffs and pushed back the black fabric.

“Oh!” Mina gasped.

Charlotte also drew in her breath sharply, not because of the red scald she expected to see, but the broad yellow-and-purple stain of bruising with its deeper blotches like finger marks over the flesh. There was also a certain irritated pinkness, from the burn, but nothing like as serious as she had feared, and there was no blistering.

Mina was absolutely motionless, paralyzed with horror.

Charlotte looked up and met her gaze.

Mina’s cheeks burned hot and her eyes filled with a desperate shame, and then overwhelming guilt.

“Do you need any help?” Charlotte said simply. A dozen questions raced through her mind, none of them she could ask: Gracie’s gossip in the park, Bart Mitchell’s protectiveness and his anger, and the fear in Mina’s eyes.

“Help! No … no. I … everything is …” She stopped.

“Are you quite sure?” Charlotte was aching to ask if it had been Captain Winthrop who had done it, and did Bart know—when did he know, before Winthrop’s death, or after?

“Yes.” Mina swallowed and caught her breath, looking away. “Yes, I am perfectly all right, thank you. It really hurts very little now.”

Charlotte did not know if she meant the burn or the bruising. She longed to look at the other wrist to see if it was the same, and even more to see under the black lace fichu at her throat, over her shoulders and back. Was that why she walked so stiffly? But there was no way she could do it without being unforgivably intrusive and breaking every tenuous thread of friendship she had built.

“Do you think you should see a doctor?” she asked with concern.

Mina’s other hand went to her throat and she shook her head as she met Charlotte’s eyes again. The pretense was back, at least on the surface. “Oh no. I think—I think it will heal quite well, thank you.” She smiled wanly. “Your quick thought saved me so much. I really am most grateful to you.”

“Had I not been here viewing your beautiful room it would not have happened,” Charlotte replied, allowing the charade. “Do you think you should sit down for a little, and maybe have a tisane? You have had a most unpleasant experience.”

“Yes—yes that would be an excellent idea,” Mina agreed. “I hope you will stay too? I feel such a poor hostess to have been so clumsy.”

“I should love to,” Charlotte accepted immediately.

They were at the withdrawing room entrance when the front door opened and Bart Mitchell came in. He glanced, first at Mina, seeing her wrist with the black cuff open and trailing, then at Charlotte, his face suddenly tight with anxiety. Curiously, he said nothing.

“Mrs. Pitt came to visit me, Bart,” Mina said in the sudden silence. “Wasn’t that considerate of her?”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Pitt.” Bait’s blue eyes were very wide and direct, searching Charlotte’s face. Then he looked back at Mina.

“I scalded myself,” Mina said very slowly, as if she owed him some explanation. “Mrs. Pitt was very helpful, very quick …”

At that moment, as if in further support, Gwynneth reappeared with the towels. She looked over to Charlotte.

Mina held out her arm, which was beginning to look pink again where the bruise did not mar it.

“Here, allow me to help.” Bart dropped his stick and hat on the settee and came forward, grasping the wet towel and holding it onto the burn while Charlotte wound dry cloth around it. His hands were sunburned brown, slender and strong, but he touched his sister’s arm as if it were fragile enough to break at the merest pressure.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pitt,” he said finally when it had been secured. “I think perhaps in view of the unpleasantness of the incident, Mrs. Winthrop should lie down for a while. She is not strong …”

“This is nothing,” Mina began, then stopped again, her face filled with fear. She glanced at Bart, then at Charlotte. “I have not even given Mrs. Pitt any tea,” she said helplessly, grasping at the trifling problem of etiquette when so obviously something of overwhelming magnitude filled her mind. “It was the tea I spilled.”

“I will give Mrs. Pitt tea, my dear,” Bart answered, staring at her with a penetrating gaze. “You go and lie down for a while. You will be far better able to keep that bandage upon your arm if you rest it on a pillow. If you insist upon sitting up for afternoon tea in the withdrawing room you are bound to loosen it.”

“I—I suppose you are right,” she agreed reluctantly, but still she did not leave. She looked at Bart, and then at Charlotte, anxiety deep in her face.

“Should you call a doctor?” Charlotte asked.

“No—no.” Bart shook his head with complete decision. “I am sure that will not be necessary. You appear to have done extremely well.” He flashed a smile, beautiful and sudden as April sun. “Now if Mina will lie down for a while, I shall be most happy to give you tea, Mrs. Pitt. Please come into the withdrawing room.”

There was no civil alternative but to do as she was invited, while Mina, equally obediently, went upstairs.

Charlotte followed Bart into the withdrawing room and sat down where he indicated. Apparently Gwynneth had already gathered that she was supposed to bring tea, or else possibly she always did so at that time of day, but it was only a few moments before she appeared again, very carefully balancing a tray in front of her, and put it down on the table, bobbed a curtsy and withdrew with more haste than grace.

When the formalities of pouring and passing had been completed, Bart leaned back and regarded Charlotte with careful, intelligent eyes.

“It is an unusual kindness to call upon someone who is in mourning, Mrs. Pitt,” he remarked.

She had been waiting for him to say something of the sort.

“I have been in mourning myself, Mr. Mitchell,” she replied quite lightly. “And found it very hard to bear, even though I had my mother and my sister in the house at the time. I wished profoundly to have a little conversation that was not in hushed tones and had nothing whatever to do with the dead.” She sipped her tea. “Of course I could not know if Mrs. Winthrop would feel the same, but it seemed very natural to give her the opportunity, should she wish to take it”

“You surprise me,” he said candidly. His expression was casual and charming, but his eyes did not leave her face. “Mina was devoted to Oakley. I think some people do not realize quite what courage it requires to maintain such a calm exterior to the world.”

How much was he lying? She had no doubt now that he had seen at least some of those bruises. How many more were there? Did he guess, or know?

“We each of us have our own way of dealing with grief.” She smiled back at him, her easy words belying the tension she felt. “For some of us, to resume normality is helpful. Mrs. Winthrop showed me the beautiful breakfast room, which I found quite delightful. I think it is one of the loveliest I have ever seen.”

His face tightened.

“Oh yes. Mina has a considerable gift with color and grace.” He was watching her very closely, weighing her reaction, judging why she had raised the subject in the first place.

“I am sure Captain Winthrop would have seen how charming it was once he had become accustomed to it,” she continued, watching him as frankly. Between them, unspoken but now almost palpable, lay the awful bruises, and Mina’s humiliation and embarrassment. What had she told him? And immeasurably more important, when? Before Winthrop’s death—or after?

He started to speak, and then changed his mind.

“I am in the process of moving house myself,” Charlotte said to fill the silence. “It is one of the most exhausting things I have ever done. The detail that requires to be attended to seems never ending.”

“Surely your builder is of assistance?” he asked, still watching her. The conversation was meaningless and they both knew it, but they had to speak of something. What thoughts were racing through his head?

She smiled. “Of course. But he leaves the matters of domestic decoration to me. Just at the moment I am torn between choosing one color because I think I care for it, and another because it may prove more practical.”

“A dilemma,” he agreed. “What is your decision?”

There was another silence between them. Ridiculous as it was, it seemed as if his question meant more than a trivial matter of color, as if he were also asking what she intended to do about the bruises—to carry the tale back, or to dismiss it.

She thought for several moments before replying. Then she met his remarkable eyes with total candor.

“I expect I shall consult my husband,” she answered at length.

His face was bare of all expression.

“I suppose I should have expected that,” he said levelly.

She was caught in a confusion of emotions, anger against Oakley Winthrop because it seemed he had been a bully, and if Gracie were correct, even a sadist; pity for Mina because she had first endured it, and now must walk in terror in case Bart had killed him, and were discovered; a fear both for Bart, and as he sat opposite her, even a twinge of fear for herself.

The silence was becoming oppressive.

“Since it is his home also, it would be only civil,” she said hollowly.

A very slight amusement touched his lips.

“Do I gather from your choice of words that you will not necessarily abide by his decision, Mrs. Pitt?”

“Yes—I think that is so.”

“You are a woman of remarkable self-will—and perhaps of courage.”

She rose to her feet, forming a smile.

“Qualities of very dubious attraction,” she said lightly. “But you have been most charming, Mr. Mitchell, and generous with your hospitality, especially in such trying circumstances. Thank you.”

He stood up in a single movement and bowed very slightly.

“Thank you for your friendship to my sister—as thoughtful and considerate as it is at this particular time.”

“I look forward to it,” she replied noncommittedly, and inclined her head in acknowledgment. He saw her to the door, which the maid opened, handing her her cape, and she walked swiftly along Curzon Street towards the omnibus stop, her mind teeming with questions.

Pitt was late home, and Charlotte found it difficult waiting for him. Gracie had gone to bed and Daniel and Jemima were long asleep. Impatience consumed her so she could not sit down and do anything useful. There was mending waiting her attention, and it lay in her sewing box untouched. There were certainly letters to write.

Instead she pottered around the kitchen, picking up this, and poking at that, half cleaning the stove, emptying things from one jar into another, dropping the tea caddy and spilling its contents all over the floor. No one was there to see her sweep it up hastily and replace it all. The floor was perfectly clean, and it would be scalded with water anyway.

When at last she did hear his key in the door she straightened her skirts for the tenth time, pushed her hair out of her eyes, and ran down the hall to meet him.

His first reaction was alarm, in case there were something wrong, then when he saw her face he was delighted and held her tightly until after a few moments she pushed him away.

“Thomas, I have discovered something really important today.”

“About the house?” He tried to sound interested, but she heard the weariness in his voice.

“No—that is not the same sort of important,” she dismissed it totally. “I went to see Mina Winthrop—actually about papering the dining room.”

“What?” He was incredulous. “What on earth do you mean? That’s nonsense!”

“About what color to choose,” she said impatiently, leading him back to the kitchen. “Not about doing it.”

He was totally confused. “How would she know what color you should use?”

“She is very gifted at that sort of thing.”

“How do you know?” He sat down at the kitchen table. “There are tea leaves on the floor here.”

“I must have spilled a little,” she said airily. “I discussed it with her at the memorial service for Oakley Winthrop. I went to see her today—Will you please listen, Thomas. This is important.”

“I am listening. Can you put the kettle on at the same time? It’s hours since I had a cup of tea.”

“It is on. I’m about to make tea. Are you hungry too?”

“No, I think I’m too tired to eat.”

She ran a bowl of water, putting something into it he did not see, and put it down on the floor in front of him. “Feet,” she said absently.

“I’m not walking a beat,” he answered with a smile. “Have you forgotten, I’m a superintendent now?” He bent forward and unlaced his boots, slipping his feet out with intense pleasure.

“Don’t superintendents’ feet get hot in boots?”

He smiled and put his feet gingerly into the cold water. “What’s in it?”

“Epsom salts, same as always. Mrs. Winthrop has been beaten. And Oakley Winthrop may have been a sadist who liked to beat women anyway. I mean prostitutes—that sort of thing.”

“What?” He looked up at her sharply. “How do you know? Did she tell you that?”

“No, of course not. She spilled hot water on her wrist, and I undid her cuffs to see it. She is purple and green with bruises.”

“An accident …”

“No it wasn’t. There were finger marks. And I’m almost sure her neck was bruised as well, and who knows what else on the rest of her body. That’s why she wears long cuffs and high necks: to hide the bruises.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes I do! And what is more, I am almost sure Bart Mitchell knows it too.”

“How?”

“Because I spoke to her, and I watched her. She was bitterly ashamed, and embarrassed, and she didn’t tell me how it happened. She would have, if it had been all right. Her husband did it, Thomas. The good Captain the Honorable Oakley Winthrop beat his wife.”

“What makes you so sure Mitchell knows about it?”

“Because he saw the bruises as well, and said nothing, of course. If he’d not known he’d have been horrified and asked her what had happened!”

“Maybe he beat her?”

“Why would he? And anyway, she’s afraid for him, Thomas, I’m sure of that. She is terrified he was the one who killed Winthrop.”

“You mean you are not sure of it,” he corrected. “People always say they are sure when what they mean is they think so, but they are not sure. Your kettle is boiling.”

“It won’t come to any harm.” She waved a hand at it. “Thomas, Mina is afraid Bart killed Oakley Winthrop because of the way he treated her.”

“I see,” he said thoughtfully. “And how did you come upon the information about the man who beats prostitutes in the park? Mina Winthrop didn’t tell you that, did she?”

“No of course not.”

“I am waiting.”

She took a deep breath. “Thomas, please don’t be angry—she did it because she is afraid for you. If you don’t forgive her, and say nothing whatever, I shall not forgive you.”

“Forgive me for what?” His eyebrows rose.

“For not forgiving her, of course!”

“Who? Is it Emily?”

“Perhaps I had better not say.” She had not even thought of blaming Emily, but it was an excellent idea. Emily was not Thomas’s responsibility.

“However, she knew about it?” he said very carefully. “At least give me the truth of that.”

“She went into the park at night, and one of the prostitutes told her. I mean, she got into a conversation—naturally …”

“Naturally,” he agreed dryly. “Does Jack know about this? I doubt it will improve his parliamentary chances.”

“Oh no. And you mustn’t tell him!”

“I would not think of it.”

“You promise?”

“I do.” He smiled, although the amusement was very double edged.

“Thank you.” She turned around and made the tea, giving it a moment to brew, then poured him a steaming mugful and brought it back to him. She watched him carefully as he took his feet out of the water and she gave him the warm towel.

“Thank you,” he said after several moments.

“For the tea,” she said gravely, “or the towel?”

“For the information. Poor Mina.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Have my tea and go to bed. I can’t think any more tonight.”

“I’m sorry. I should have waited.”

He reached up and kissed her, and for some time Mina Winthrop and her troubles were forgotten.

At dawn the following morning, Billy Sowerbutts was driving his cart slowly along Knightsbridge towards Hyde Park Corner when he was forced to come to a stop because the traffic ahead of him was packed solid. He was put out; in fact come to think of it, he was definitely angry. What was the point in getting up early, when you ached to stay in bed and sink back into sleep, if you were going to spend half the bleeding morning sitting as still as Nelson’s monument because some idiot ahead has stopped and is holding everything up?

For a hundred yards people were beginning to shout and curse. Someone’s horse shied and backed, and two carts collided, locking wheels.

That was really the last straw. Billy Sowerbutts tied the reins of his animal to the rail and jumped down. He strode past everyone else right up to the offending vehicle, a gig, which extraordinarily had no animal between the shafts, as if someone had pushed it there by hand and then abandoned it, leaving it lying askew, its rear end sufficiently far into the line of traffic to have blocked the way.

“Idjut!” he said harshly. “What kind of a fool leaves a gig in a place like this. ’ere! What the ’ell’s the matter wif yer? This in’t no place ter take a kip!” He strode around to the recumbent figure lolling in the back amid piles of old clothes. “Wake up, yer bleedin’ idjut! Get out of ’ere! Yer ’oldin up the ’ole street!” He leaned forward and shook the man’s shoulder, and felt his hand wet. He pulled it back, and in the broadening light saw his fingers dark with something. Then he leaned forward again and peered more closely at the man. He had no head.

“Jesus, Joseph and Mary!” he said, and fell over the shaft.