Murder on the Serpentine

by Anne Perry

  But pity was the last thing on earth she wanted, particularly from her younger sister, who it seemed knew her too well.

  “Oh, my goodness—what?” Charlotte demanded.

  Emily bit her lip. “I was going to say ‘too idealistic,’ ” she replied. “You have forgotten just how ordinary we all are. Under the extravagant clothes and the careful manners, we are as trivial and grubby as anyone else. I know it sounds absurd, but even dukes and duchesses get colds in the head, indigestion, and pimples, and other even more indelicate complaints.”

  Charlotte laughed in spite of herself, then realized how close she had been to tears. Was it that she was frightened and felt useless because Pitt was so much on his own, and she could not help? She could not even be told what it was really about.

  “Nobody can blackmail you over that,” she replied to Emily. “As you say, it is the common lot of human beings. If Thomas is involved, and Sir John really was murdered, then it is something that affects the safety of the state, and not someone merely being made to feel embarrassed, however deeply.”

  “Then we need to find out who felt so terribly vulnerable they lashed out that way,” Emily said reasonably. “And I know a place to begin, right this afternoon. Have you ever been to a ladies’ club?”

  “A ladies’ club?” Charlotte tried not to allow the disappointment to enter her voice, and knew she had failed. She could hear it herself.

  “Not what you were thinking.” Emily shook her head. “Heavens above, can you see me going to such a place, except under duress?”

  “No.”

  “It is really very interesting,” Emily went on. “We care a great deal about recent decisions in Parliament, current events, and plans for the future. I don’t say ‘hopes’; I really do mean plans. Big ideas, Charlotte. You would love it.”

  “Big ideas about what?” Charlotte asked skeptically.

  Emily’s eyes were alight with eagerness. “Improvements in health, changes in the law, in working conditions, prison reform. About a day when women have the vote just like men.”

  “The vote? You mean for Parliament?”

  “Yes, of course for Parliament!” Emily exclaimed. “Why not? We are just as intelligent as men. We may not be as well educated, but do you know any woman who is not at least as good a judge of character as the average man? We have to be! We get by only because we see through most pomposity and understand what people really mean when they give these long, bombastic speeches. Of course there’ll be the ignorant and the dreamers among us, just as there are among men. But most of us are a good deal more practical. We know that what matters is a roof over our heads, preferably one that doesn’t leak, food on the table, and clean water to drink. For that we have to work. We have to make goods that other people will buy, and do it at a price that makes a profit. To survive, you have to make more money than it costs you to live. Idealism can come later, when you’ve got survival.”

  Charlotte stared at her. Everything she was saying made more practical sense than she had thought Emily possessed. Although, thinking back, she realized how pragmatic Emily had always been. Charlotte was the dreamer.

  “You’re right,” she agreed fervently. “We should have a vote on who goes to Parliament. One day perhaps some of us will even represent the people ourselves! Why not?”

  “Then you’ll come to the ladies’ club with me?”

  “Yes. Yes, I will.”

  “Good.” Emily stood up. “We are not really dressed for it. I’ll change and find something for you.”

  “Now?” Charlotte said incredulously. “You truly meant this afternoon?”

  “Certainly.” Emily’s eyebrows rose. “Why not? Have you time to waste?”

  “What help could it be toward finding out who killed John Halberd?”

  “We don’t know until we try. Delia Kendrick will be there, I expect. And Felicia Whyte is a strong supporter. And there are others…”

  “Then we’ll go. But you are right.” Charlotte looked down at her very plain skirt and pleasant but casual blouse. “I need to wear something better than this. I look…provincial!”

  Emily hid her smile. “I’ll find something.” She was walking to the door. She had no need to clear away the tea table. She had servants to do that. “Come upstairs and we’ll look.”

  In Emily’s dressing room she very quickly decided on a late afternoon tea gown for herself. It was fairly formal but not dazzling. She knew the pastel bluish green flattered her fair coloring enormously.

  When they were young, Charlotte had found it fun being the older sister. It was now very much less enjoyable. She looked at the suits and gowns in Emily’s wardrobe. There were several she liked a great deal. She indicated a lilac-colored dress.

  Emily shook her head. “Those colors are too pale for you. You’ll look as if you’re coming down with something nasty.”

  Charlotte winced. “What about the blue-gray one?”

  Emily bit her lip. “It won’t fit you.”

  “How do you know if I don’t try it?”

  “Because you are a couple of inches taller than I am, and you are a bit more…generously built…”

  Charlotte let out a breath. “You mean fatter!”

  Emily shrugged. “I mean…I mean you have more…” She gestured delicately at her own bust and slender hips. “More womanly. And don’t pull faces like that! Most men prefer women with curves to those who don’t have any.”

  “And how would you know?” Charlotte asked.

  “Because I watch them, of course. What did you think? And you may not know how many men look at you admiringly, but I’ve seen it all my life. Now try this on. It’s a suit, so it won’t be too short in the waist for you. And wear this lace blouse with it, because I’ve never worn the two together, so it won’t look like mine.”

  “It’s gray!” Charlotte said doubtfully.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “I can see that. But the blouse is dazzling white, and with all that lace it will look marvelous. Put it on, and stop complaining. We need to be there in good time.”

  Charlotte was amazed. The skirt was perhaps an inch tighter than was ideal, but Emily was right about the blouse: It was really extraordinarily flattering. It needed a plain-colored suit to show it off. She thanked Emily with feeling, and they set out in Emily’s carriage to Albemarle Street and the most excellent club there, open to both men and women.

  Charlotte felt nervous, but if she ventured nothing then she would gain nothing. Pitt believed that John Halberd had been murdered, perhaps because he knew something about someone who could not afford to have it made public. More probably, they didn’t want it told to anyone in authority, especially someone who could prosecute them, dismiss them from office, or both. This was the sort of place where such people met. Vespasia would have been the perfect person to learn about it, thanks to her knowledge of such people, and all their dreams and nightmares. But she was not here. It was up to Charlotte, with Emily’s help.

  The club had the charm of a large, hospitable private house. There were big vases of fresh flowers, casual rather than formal arrangements, as if the hostess had chosen them out of the garden. The room they were shown to had a variety of paintings on the walls.

  Charlotte could tell by Emily’s face that she knew many of the women already there, and was quite at her ease. Charlotte must make the effort to appear just as much at hers. She needed to be, if she was to avail herself of anything that society offered. It was simply a matter of calling back memory, and speaking only occasionally, but as if she did this sort of thing every day.

  At first Charlotte did not see either Felicia Whyte or Delia Kendrick. She watched and listened and was drawn into a circle where they were discussing with great seriousness the possibility of another Boer war by Christmas. It was a grim subject and feelings were powerful. One woman had lost a younger brother in the previous fighting in South Africa, and her emotions were understandably raw. He had walked out of their lives one day, off on an
adventure to a place everyone had heard of, but very few had been. There had been a few letters home, full of vivid descriptions and tales of bravery. They had received the last one when he was already dead, and they never saw him again. The sense of loss was dreamlike; one forgot it and then remembered again, with new pain.

  “It infuriates me that we have absolutely no influence in the government,” one woman said fiercely. “If we were equal, we could put a stop to it.”

  “I don’t think that will ever happen,” another said wearily.

  “Not equal.”

  “A new century, new ideas…” Her companion’s voice lifted in hope.

  “It is still about money,” the second woman told her. “There are diamonds and gold in southern Africa, and who knows what else? We have barely touched the surface.”

  “No wonder the Boers want to keep it.” Emily added her opinion with a look of both understanding and regret.

  Charlotte had determined not to speak, merely to listen, but her emotions overrode the decision.

  “It isn’t only that we will lose the war,” she said clearly. “It is the fact of who will get the resources if we don’t.” She took a breath. “Which will probably be the kaiser.”

  There was a moment’s silence while the other women stared at her. It was Emily who broke it.

  “I have already heard that suggested,” she said gravely.

  “By whom?” the third woman demanded.

  Emily smiled, and remained silent, but there was a chill in the air that no one denied.

  The thought forced itself into Charlotte’s mind—was that really what Pitt was fighting against? Had he not said so, not because it was secret but because it was so very frightening?

  It was then that they were joined first by Lady Felicia, and a moment later by Delia Kendrick. She was a woman of no more than average height and an unremarkable figure, but had thick, black hair that gleamed, and eyes so dark the sweep of her lashes seemed to shadow her cheeks.

  Charlotte was more than happy to change the subject. The truth of what she had said was a bitter intrusion into the idealism of moments before. But the question of the Boers still dominated the conversation, even as Felicia and Delia joined them.

  “I doubt it will come to actual war,” Lady Felicia said comfortingly. “Mr. Kruger will back down.”

  Delia raised her black eyebrows. “Do you think so? He will lose the leadership of the Boers if he does.”

  “Nonsense.” Felicia dismissed the very idea. “We would beat them. That can hardly be what they want.”

  Delia turned to look at her. “Would you wish to be governed by a foreign power thousands of miles away, who knew nothing about your life or your customs? Who had winter when it is your summer, and vice versa?”

  “I would rather be ruled by Britain than be dead, wherever I was,” Felicia replied, staring boldly at Delia.

  Delia gave her the faintest possible smile. “I believe you,” she said very softly.

  It was a moment or two before anyone realized the double meaning of the remark; then suddenly they were all quiet. It was no longer a political argument, but personal, nothing to do with South Africa, war, or independence.

  Felicia’s face burned with color. “And I would rather have that for my family, regardless of my own pride.” She was speaking only to Delia. “But perhaps you differ. You give me the feeling that family is of far less importance to you. I think your husband has some interest in heavy industry, doesn’t he? Armaments, perhaps?” The implication was slight, but no one missed it.

  Delia went rigid, with high spots of color appearing on her pale cheeks.

  “I presume it was your husband who told you that?”

  One of the other women was doing her best to interrupt, and realized there was no purpose. A change of the apparent subject would not bring peace.

  “We will hardly be selling guns to the Boers,” Emily said. “It would be treason, and I’m certain Mr. Kendrick would not do that. Surely the question doesn’t even arise?”

  “Of course it doesn’t,” Delia snapped. “I don’t think that is what we are talking about at all.”

  “Not in the slightest,” Felicia agreed. “This is a very…old…issue, a difference between us, if you like.”

  “Older for some than for others,” Delia added, looking Felicia up and down, from the shining fair hair, the light catching a few touches of silver in it, past the pale skin, very finely lined around the eyes and mouth, and down the slender, highly fashionable figure in its perfectly tailored afternoon dress.

  “About twenty years old,” Felicia answered. “To change the subject completely, how is your daughter these days? Someone told me she’s married and living…I forget where, in some other country? I do hope it is not South Africa? She didn’t run away and marry a Boer, did she?”

  Delia was white-faced. “She did not ‘run away,’ as you so coarsely put it. She married a Scot, which is not someone from another country. It is merely the north of this one.”

  “I wonder if we might return to the subject of what we can do to influence the government,” one of the other women suggested, but no one took any notice of her.

  “I doubt the Scots see it that way,” Felicia responded, as if the other woman had not spoken. The corners of her mouth were turned down a little. “Although it is far enough from London. Does she like Edinburgh? I’ve heard tell it is a fine city. A little cold, perhaps. But of course a woman must live where her husband has his…occupation.” Her choice of word implied it was some trade or other.

  “She hasn’t mentioned Edinburgh. It is not where she lives. And her husband’s estate is farther north than that, nearer to Perth,” Delia corrected her, her voice tight.

  “I don’t think I should care for that.” Felicia shivered.

  “You weren’t offered it,” Delia said acidly.

  Felicia’s eyebrows shot up. “My dear, I’ve been offered all kinds of things!”

  Delia smiled. “I’m sure…” She let it hang delicately in the air, but her meaning was mercilessly clear.

  Someone started to laugh, and choked it back immediately.

  “I do think…” The woman who had spoken earlier made another attempt to regain the subject of action to influence the government.

  Felicia was so furious she could hardly draw her breath, which was just as well.

  Delia turned to leave.

  Felicia found her voice. “You are fortunate to find friends”—she gave the word an odd twist of meaning—“who could help you. Mr. Narraway, was it? Lord Narraway now, I hear. But probably still up to his old habits. I can’t imagine what you paid him, but it must have been handsome.”

  Charlotte heard Emily drawing her breath in sharply, and she felt a chill run through her own body. Could that be true? She had known Narraway for several years now. She thought she knew him well, even some of the sides of his nature that others did not. She had seen his regret in Ireland when he was obliged to tell her of the things he had done, of necessity, to catch the enemies of his country. He was ashamed of the lies he had told, the violent and desperate people he had betrayed, and hated himself for it afterward. But he would do the same again. The soldiers you fight against, military or civilian, are bound to their loyalties just as you are bound to yours. You are easily caught in a position where whatever you do, you turn on someone who trusts you. She knew it hurt him in a way that perhaps not even Pitt understood. A man will hide wounds in front of another man, but on occasion allow a woman he trusts to see them.

  Narraway had trusted her: For a short time loved her, or thought he did. Now he loved Vespasia, truly and completely. And Charlotte loved Vespasia too. But what did Vespasia know of all the years before she and Narraway had met, the things that had taught him his wisdom and compassion? They were not easily learned. Would Vespasia love Narraway if what Felicia Whyte was suggesting turned out to be true? Was she right? Or just lashing out at anyone within reach, in an attempt to alleviate her o
wn pain?

  “What did Lord Narraway get out of it?” Charlotte asked. She would not let it pass. “Money? Did he need money so much?”

  Felicia looked at her as if she’d only just noticed her.

  “Not money, Mrs….Pitt.” Her scorn was razor sharp. “Of course he didn’t need that. Power, and the ability to manipulate other people. That is always what it is about with men like him. Isn’t that right, Delia? Power to use anytime he chooses, for the rest of his life. That’s how such people work: knowledge, fear, the force of the mind. Really, you are too naïve!”

  Emily was stung. She had loved Aunt Vespasia as long as Charlotte had, and Vespasia was actually Emily’s aunt by marriage, not Charlotte’s at all.

  “She’s not naïve,” she said with a slight curl of her lip. “She just knows how to keep a still tongue in her head, and allow other people to say all sorts of things they might later regret…profoundly.”

  Felicia was shaking with a fury she could barely suppress. “You mean she listens and then goes away ready to repeat the gossip to all her little friends! God help us—I thought she was one of us, Mrs. Radley. You gave me to believe she was.”

  It was a devastatingly cutting remark, intended to close all doors to Charlotte from then on.

  Surprisingly it was Delia Kendrick who came to Charlotte’s defense, before Emily could think of anything to say.

  “Good heavens, Felicia, if you thought for an instant that she was that kind of person, and you still said all you just did, what on earth might you have said if you trusted her? I can hardly wait for that display!”

  Felicia clutched her glass of wine as if she might hurl it in Delia’s face.

  “If you do that,” Delia said distinctly, “it will be you who is not invited here again. I will see to it. And believe me, Mr. Narraway is not the only person who knows a few choice things about other people.”

  “Is that a threat, Delia?” Felicia was ashen-faced. “Because if it is, I know a few secrets myself! And Mr. Narraway may accept money to be silent, but I will not!”

  “Has anyone offered you any?” Delia retorted. “I didn’t know you were so…financially embarrassed.”