by Anne Perry
“You said he was a general.” He watched her with a pucker between his brows. “What was his name?”
“Carlyon,” she replied, tucking in the ends of the blanket firmly. “Thaddeus Carlyon.”
“Indian Army?” he asked, then before she could reply, “Heard of a Carlyon out there, stiff sort of fellow, but very much admired by his men. Fine reputation, never backed down in the face of the enemy. Not all that fond of generals myself, but pity he should die like that.”
“It was quick,” she said with a grimace. Then for several moments she busied herself around the room, doing largely unnecessary things, but the movement was automatic, as if remaining still would have been an imprisonment.
Finally the tea and crumpets came. Biting into the crisp, hot dough and trying to stop the butter from running down her chin, she relaxed and returned to the present.
She smiled at him.
“Would you like a game of chess?” she offered. She was exactly skilled enough to give him a good game without beating him.
“Oh I would,” he said happily. “Indeed I would.”
Hester spent her free time for the next several days in pursuing possible opportunities for Edith Sobell, as she had promised. She did not think nursing offered any openings Edith would find either satisfying or indeed available to her. It was regarded as a trade rather than a profession, and most of the men and women employed in it were of a social class and an education, or lack of it, which resulted in their being regarded with scant respect, and paid accordingly. Those who had been with Miss Nightingale, now a national heroine only a little less admired than the Queen, were viewed differently, but it was too late for Edith to qualify for that distinction. And even though Hester herself most definitely did qualify, she was finding employment hard enough, and her opinions little valued.
But there were other fields, especially for someone like Edith, who was intelligent and well-read, not only in English literature but also in French. There might well be some gentleman who required a librarian or an assistant to research for him whatever subject held his interest. People were always writing treatises or monographs, and many needed an assistant who would perform the labor necessary to translate their ideas into a literary form.
Most women who wished a lady companion were intolerably difficult and really only wanted a dependent whom they could order around—and who could not afford to disagree with them. However, there were exceptions, people who liked to travel but did not find it pleasurable to do so alone. Some of these redoubtable women would be excellent employers, full of interest and character.
There was also the possibility of teaching; if the pupils were eager and intelligent enough it might be highly rewarding.
Hester explored all these areas, at least sufficiently to have something definite to tell Edith when she accepted the invitation to go to Carlyon House for afternoon tea on May the second.
Major Tiplady’s apartments were at the southern end of Great Titchfield Street, and therefore some distance from Clarence Gardens, where Carlyon House was situated. Although she could have walked, it would have taken her the better part of half an hour, and she would have arrived tired and overheated and untidy for such an engagement. And she admitted with a wry humor that the thought of afternoon tea with the elder Mrs. Carlyon made her more than a little nervous. She would have cared less had Edith not been her friend; then she could have been free to succeed or fail without emotional damage. As it was, she would rather have faced a night in military camp above Sebastopol than this engagement.
However there was no help for it now, so she dressed in her best muslin afternoon gown. It was not a very glamorous affair, but well cut with pointed waist and softly pleated bodice, a little out of date, though only a lady of fashion would have known it. The faults lay all in the trimmings. Nursing did not allow for luxuries. When she went to bid Major Tiplady good-bye, he regarded her with approval. He had not the least idea of fashion and very pretty women terrified him. He found Hester’s face with its strong features very agreeable, and her figure, both too tall and a little too thin, to be not at all displeasing. She did not threaten him with aggressive femininity, and her intellect was closer to that of a man, which he rather liked. He had never imagined that a woman could become a friend, but he was being proved wrong, and it was not in any way an experience he disliked.
“You look very … tidy,” he said with slightly pink cheeks.
From anyone else it would have infuriated her. She did not wish to look tidy; tidiness was for housemaids, and junior ones at that. Even parlormaids were allowed to be handsome; indeed, they were required to be. But she knew he meant it well, and it would be gratuitously cruel to take exception, however much distinguished or appealing would have been preferred. Beautiful was too much to hope for. Her sister-in-law, Imogen, was beautiful—and appealing. Hester had discovered that very forcefully when that disastrous policeman Monk had been so haunted by her last year during the affair in Mecklenburg Square. But Monk was an entirely different matter, and nothing to do with this afternoon.
“Thank you, Major Tiplady,” she accepted with as much grace as she could. “And please be careful while I am away. If you wish for anything, I have put the bell well within your reach. Do not try to get up without calling Molly to assist you. If you should”—she looked very severe—“and you fall again, you could find yourself in bed for another six weeks!” That was a far more potent threat than the pain of another injury, and she knew it.
He winced. “Certainly not,” he said with affronted dignity.
“Good!” And with that she turned and left, assured that he would remain where he was.
She hailed a hansom and rode along the length of Great Titchfield Street, turned into Bolsover Street and went along Osnaburgh Street right into Clarence Gardens—a distance of approximately a mile—and alighted a little before four o’clock. She felt ridiculously as if she were about to make the first charge in a battle. It was absurd. She must pull herself together. The very worst that could happen would be embarrassment. She ought to be able to cope with that. After all, what was it—an acute discomfort of the mind, no more. It was immeasurably better than guilt, or grief.
She sniffed hard, straightened her shoulders and marched up the front steps, reaching for the bell pull and yanking it rather too hard. She stepped back so as not to be on the very verge when the door was opened.
It happened almost immediately and a smart maid looked at her enquiringly, her pretty face otherwise suitably expressionless.
“Yes ma’am?”
“Miss Hester Latterly, to see Mrs. Sobell,” Hester replied. “I believe she is expecting me.”
“Yes of course, Miss Latterly. Please come in.” The door opened all the way and the maid stepped aside to allow her past. She took Hester’s bonnet and cloak.
The hallway was as impressive as she had expected it to be, paneled with oak to a height of nearly eight feet, hung with dark portraits framed in gilt with acanthus leaves and curlicues. It was gleaming in the light from the chandelier, lit so early because the oak made it dim in spite of the daylight outside.
“If you please to come this way,” the maid requested, going ahead of her across the parquet. “Miss Edith is in the boudoir. Tea will be served in thirty minutes.” And so saying she led Hester up the broad stairs and across the first landing to the upper sitting room, reserved solely for the use of the ladies of the house, and hence known as the boudoir. She opened the door and announced Hester.
Edith was inside staring out of the window that faced the square. She turned as soon as Hester was announced, her face lighting with pleasure. Today she was wearing a gown of purplish plum color, trimmed with black. The crinoline was very small, almost too insignificant to be termed a crinoline at all, and Hester thought instantly how much more becoming it was—and also how much more practical than having to swing around so much fabric and so many stiff hoops. She had little time to notice much of the room, except that i
t was predominantly pink and gold, and there was a very handsome rosewood escritoire against the far wall.
“I’m so glad you came!” Edith said quickly. “Apart from any news you might have, I desperately need to talk of normal things to someone outside the family.”
“Why? Whatever has happened?” Hester could see without asking that something had occurred. Edith looked even more tense than on their previous meeting. Her body was stiff and her movements jerky, with a greater awkwardness than usual, and she was not a graceful woman at the best of times. But more telling was the weariness in her and the total absence of her usual humor.
Edith closed her eyes and then opened them wide.
“Thaddeus’s death is immeasurably worse than we first supposed,” she said quietly.
“Oh?” Hester was confused. How could it be worse than death?
“You don’t understand.” Edith was very still. “Of course you don’t. I was not explaining myself at all.” She took a sudden sharp breath. “They are saying it was not an accident.”
“They?” Hester was stunned. “Who is saying it?”
“The police, of course.” Edith blinked, her face white. “They say Thaddeus was murdered!”
Hester felt momentarily a little dizzy, as though the room with its gentle comfort had receded very far away and her vision was foggy at the edges, Edith’s face sharp in the center and indelible in her mind.
“Oh my dear—how terrible! Have they any idea who it was?”
“That is the worst part,” Edith confessed, for the first time moving away and sitting down on the fat pink settee.
Hester sat opposite her in the armchair.
“There were only a very few people there, and no one broke in,” Edith explained. “It had to have been one of them. Apart from Mr. and Mrs. Furnival, who gave the party, the only ones there who were not my family were Dr. Hargrave and his wife.” She swallowed hard and attempted to smile. It was ghastly. “Otherwise it was Thaddeus and Alexandra; their daughter Sabella and her husband, Fenton Pole; and my sister, Damaris, and my brother-in-law, Peverell Erskine. There was no one else there.”
“What about the servants?” Hester said desperately. “I suppose there is no chance it could have been one of them.”
“What for? Why on earth would one of the servants kill Thaddeus?”
Hester’s mind raced. “Perhaps he caught them stealing?”
“Stealing what—on the first landing? He fell off the balcony of the first landing. The servants would all be downstairs at that time in the evening, except maybe a ladies’ maid.”
“Jewelry?”
“How would he know they had been stealing? If they were in a bedroom he wouldn’t know it. And if he saw them coming out, he would only presume they were about their duties.”
That was totally logical. Hester had no argument. She searched her mind and could think of nothing comforting to say.
“What about the doctor?” she tried.
Edith flashed a weak smile at her, appreciating what she was attempting.
“Dr. Hargrave? I don’t know if it’s possible. Damans did tell me what happened that evening, but she didn’t seem very clear. In fact she was pretty devastated, and hardly coherent at all.”
“Well, where were they?” Hester had already been involved in two murders, the first because of the deaths of her own parents, the second through her acquaintance with the policeman William Monk, who was now working privately for anyone who required relatives traced, thefts solved discreetly, and other such matters dealt with in a private capacity, where they preferred not to engage the law or where no crime had been committed. Surely if she used her intelligence and a little logic she ought to be of some assistance.
“Since they assumed at first that it was an accident,” she said aloud, “surely he must have been alone. Where was everyone else? At a dinner party people are not wandering around the house individually.”
“That’s just it,” Edith said with increasing unhappiness. “Damaris made hardly any sense. I’ve never seen her so … so completely … out of control. Even Peverell couldn’t calm or comfort her—she would scarcely speak to him.”
“Perhaps they had a …” Hester sought for some polite way of phrasing it. “Some difference of opinion? A misunderstanding?”
Edith’s mouth twitched with amusement. “How euphemistic of you. You mean a quarrel? I doubt it. Peverell really isn’t that kind of person. He is rather sweet, and very fond of her.” She swallowed, and smiled with a sudden edge of sadness, as of other things briefly remembered, perhaps other people. “He isn’t weak at all,” she went on. “I used to think he was. But he just has a way of dealing with her, and she usually comes ’round—in the end. Really much more satisfactory than ordering people. I admit he may not be an instant great passion, but I like him. In fact, the longer I know him the more I like him. And I rather think she feels the same.” She shook her head minutely. “No, I remember the way she was when she came home that evening. I don’t think Peverell had anything to do with it.”
“What did she say about where people were? Thaddeus—I beg your pardon, General Carlyon—fell, or was pushed, over the banister from the first landing. Where was everyone else at the time?”
“Coming and going,” Edith said hopelessly. “I haven’t managed to make any sense of it. Perhaps you can. I asked Damans to come and join us, if she remembers. But she doesn’t seem to know what she’s doing since that evening.”
Hester had not met Edith’s sister, but she had heard frequent reference to her, and it seemed that either she was emotionally volatile and somewhat undisciplined or she had been judged unkindly.
At that moment, as if to prove her a liar, the door opened and one of the most striking women Hester had ever seen stood framed by the lintel. For that first moment she seemed heroically beautiful, tall, even taller than Hester or Edith, and very lean. Her hair was dark and soft with natural curl, unlike the present severe style in which a woman’s hair was worn scraped back from the face with ringlets over the ears, and she seemed to have no regard for fashion. Indeed her skirt was serviceable, designed for work, without the crinoline hoops, and yet her blouse was gorgeously embroidered and woven with white ribbon. She had a boyish air about her, neither coquettish nor demure, simply blazingly candid. Her face was long, her features so mobile and sensitive they reflected her every thought.
She came in and closed the door, leaning against it for a moment with both hands behind her and regarding Hester with a frankly interested stare.
“You are Hester Latterly?” she asked, although the question was obviously rhetorical. “Edith said you were coming this afternoon. I’m so glad. Ever since she told me you went to the Crimea with Miss Nightingale, I have been longing to meet you. You must come again, when we are more ourselves, and tell us about it.” She flashed a sudden illuminating smile. “Or tell me, anyway. I’m not at all sure Papa would approve, and I’m quite certain Mama would not. Far too independent. Rocks the foundations of society when women don’t know their proper place—which, of course, is at home, keeping civilization safe for the rest of us.”
She walked over to a neo-rococo love seat and threw herself on it utterly casually. “Seeing we learn to clean our teeth every day,” she went on. “Eat our rice pudding, speak correctly, never split infinitives, wear our gloves at all the appropriate times, keep a stiff upper lip whatever vicissitudes we may find ourselves placed in, and generally set a good example to the lower classes—who depend upon us for precisely this.” She was sitting sideways over the seat. For anyone else it would have been awkward, but for her it had a kind of grace because it was so wholehearted. She did not care greatly what others thought of her. Yet even in this careless attitude there was an ill-concealed tension in her, and Hester could easily imagine the frenzied distress Edith had spoken of.
Now Damaris’s face darkened again as she looked at Hester.
“I suppose Edith has told you about our tragedy—Tha
ddeus’s death—and that they are now saying it was murder?” Her brow furrowed even more deeply. “Although I can’t imagine why anyone should want to kill Thaddeus.” She turned to Edith. “Can you? I mean, he was a terrible bore at times, but most men are. They think all the wrong things are important. Oh—I’m sorry—I do mean most men, not all!” Suddenly she had realized she might have offended Hester and her contrition was real.
“That is quite all right.” Hester smiled. “I agree with you. And I daresay they feel the same about us.”
Damaris winced. “Touché. Did Edith tell you about it?”
“The dinner party? No—she said it would be better if you did, since you were there.” She hoped she sounded concerned and not unbecomingly inquisitive.
Damaris closed her eyes and slid a little farther down on her unorthodox seat.
“It was ghastly. A fiasco almost from the beginning.” She opened her eyes again and stared at Hester. “Do you really want to know about it?”
“Unless you find it too painful.” That was not the truth. She wanted to know about it regardless, but decency, and compassion, prevented her from pressing too hard.
Damaris shrugged, but she did not meet Hester’s eyes. “I don’t mind talking about it—it is all going on inside my head anyway, repeating over and over again. Some parts of it don’t even seem real anymore.”
“Begin at the beginning,” Edith prompted, curling her feet up under her. “That is the only way we have a hope of making any sense of it. Apparently someone did kill Thaddeus, and it is going to be extremely unpleasant until we find out who.”
Damaris shivered and shot her a sour glance, then addressed Hester.
“Peverell and I were the first to arrive. You haven’t met him, but you will like him when you do.” She said it unselfconsciously and without desire for effect, simply as a comment of fact. “At that time we were both in good spirits and looking forward to the evening.” She lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “Can you imagine that? Do you know Maxim and Louisa Furnival? No, I don’t suppose you do. Edith says you don’t waste time in Society.”
