Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman

by Tessa Arlen

  Turning back to her friends, Clementine listened to the silence deepen into a yawning, wordless protest. You could cut the atmosphere on the lawn with a cake knife, she thought.

  Her husband cleared his throat so that attention might be transferred away from Valentine.

  “Thank you, Valentine, well done indeed, everything superbly taken care of. I’m sure Chief Inspector Ewan only needs to tighten up a few lose ends … not that there could be any!” He nodded his thanks to Valentine before continuing with what she knew troubled him the most.

  “Christina will arrive tomorrow morning, with Verity, who accompanied her from Paris. Christina will decide when the funeral will take place, of course, but more than likely it will be on Friday, as the coroner’s office has given us the go-ahead.”

  Clementine observed her guests fuss with bread and butter, teacups, and newspapers, or turn to one another in scarcely concealed exasperation, obviously concerned with plans that were seriously awry for the rest of the week. Of course they were irritated, she thought, and by the look of it seriously worried, too. She watched Sir Wilfred get to his feet, almost furtively, and walk away from the group to stare intently into the woodland like a retriever waiting for the pheasant to break.

  Lady Harriet and Gilbert Lambert-Lambert excused themselves, as they were expecting a telephone call from Miss Davis of Girton College momentarily. Clementine had noticed with particular interest that there had been no mention from Valentine of Lucinda’s ill-timed disappearance or, come to that, of the missing maid. But then she remembered that Violet’s absence had not been publicly revealed, though she had no doubt everyone had been informed of her disappearance via their servants.

  She heard Agatha, beside her, take in a breath as she turned to Olive Shackleton and Constance Ambrose. “I admire Harriet’s fortitude, I really do. I always say that quiet strength is the hallmark of good breeding. Unfortunately, this is exactly the price one pays for educating young girls as if they were boys. A very bad thing indeed for people of our background. Education has a particularly vulgarizing effect on a gentle mind. What on earth possessed them I simply don’t know … it has quite ruined Lucinda.”

  Olive Shackleton straightened up in her chair and Clementine waited with anxiety for what was to come: “Good heavens, Agatha, what a preposterous thought! We can’t just write off education for women like that—it is precisely the lack of it that causes so many problems for women today.”

  Clementine had never seen Olive so impatient with Agatha’s archaic snobbishness. Captivity certainly speeds up the erosion of restrained, good manners, she thought.

  Lady Booth appeared happy to be appalled. “Olive, how could you say such a thing? Lucinda would never have done something as scandalous as this if she had been kept at home until she was married. She will single-handedly pull down the entire Squareforth family, and it is this obsessive quest for education and independence that is to blame.” Lady Booth’s voice sounded harsh and staccato as she drove home her point.

  “I quite agree with you, Lady Booth,” said Constance Ambrose. Well, of course she did, thought Clementine. For a woman whose entire preoccupation was focused on her wardrobe, and the attentions of very young men, Constance evidently believed that a woman’s place was with her lingère and her dressmaker. Staying another two or three days meant she would probably miss a fitting at Lucile.

  But Constance, she noticed, enthralled, was not finished. “Educating women is on the same par as socialism and both will destroy the country,” she said, quoting her husband, who never picked up a book if he could help it. “Socialists and the women’s movement are treasonous.”

  There, thought Clementine. Now Constance can be quoted all over London as saying that Lucinda should be shot for treason because she went to Girton. Could this afternoon become any more disastrous?

  A row was happening before their very eyes. Clementine felt five parts alarm and five parts fascination as she watched what followed. There was a stunned silence as everyone frantically thought of something to say to change the direction of this dreadful exchange. Lord Booth rose to the occasion, clutching a cup and saucer in both hands as he got to his feet and glared at his wife. Clementine almost expected him to gnash his teeth and she watched with interest, as this was something she had never seen done before.

  “What utter rot.” He towered over Olive and Agatha, his dark eyes narrow as he frowned down at them. “I don’t want to hear another damned word about women’s education, their right to vote, and other rubbish. It is a most vulgar preoccupation. These young women have simply got to pull themselves together and get on with doing what they were bred to do: looking after their husbands and their families.” He turned to address his daughters, who were cowering in their lawn chairs. “And if they don’t have a family then they should concentrate their efforts on getting one, and leave the business of education and government to their fathers and husbands. My dear,” Clementine saw him bend a horrid look of dislike upon his wife, “I am sure you think this absorbing topic has gone far enough.” Looking thunderous, Lord Booth slammed down his cup and saucer and marched off to the house, leaving them sitting on the lawn with their mouths open in mingled amusement and horror.

  Lady Booth, outraged at being publicly corrected, struggled to her feet, hampered by humiliation, rigid whalebone stays, and her fat little dog, who was struggling for air in her tight grip. She looked down at Olive Shackleton and said in a voice shaking with suppressed anger that set her hat feathers quivering, “Olive, perhaps you will forbear to discuss in public what you clearly don’t understand, and by doing so cease to cause trouble. I have some letters to write before dinner.” She stumped off up the lawn toward the retreating back of her husband, her short legs desperately trying to close the distance between them.

  Mrs. Jackson, standing behind an array of tea paraphernalia and cake stands, was a silent spectator to the unraveling of the Talbots’ house party. Trapped at Iyntwood, their guests suspected things were about to get a good deal nastier at the hands of a top man from Scotland Yard. Patience had come to an end and tempers were beginning to fray. She happened to glance over at Lady Waterford, who had been sitting thoughtfully quiet throughout the exchange, and noticed that her hands shook as she lifted her teacup to her lips. Mrs. Jackson’s eyes swept over the rest of the group and assessed reactions.

  Sir Wilfred was staring into the middle distance as if nothing had occurred at all, and Colonel Ambrose was glowering at Mrs. Ambrose. But Sir Hugo, as he lolled back in his lawn chair, was silently watching his wife in a peculiarly detached manner. His speculative stare was fixed on her face with an odd expression of amusement and inquiry, as if he were watching her struggle with the answer to a tricky question she did not have the answer to.

  After a while Lady Waterford rose to her feet with the habitual poise that Mrs. Jackson had long admired in her. “Off for my afternoon stroll,” she said as she adjusted the brim of her hat against the direct sun. Mrs. Jackson felt tremendous admiration for the woman’s self-assurance, as she watched Lady Waterford walk across the lawn to the house, quickly enough to be ahead of the group as they got to their feet, and certainly quickly enough to pass Lady Booth plodding toward the terrace. But at no time, thought Mrs. Jackson, did she look as if she was racing Lord Booth as he gained the terrace door, where it appeared he paused as if waiting for Lady Waterford to catch up with him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the end of the afternoon and just before the dressing gong sounded, Mrs. Jackson came out of her parlor and was about to go belowstairs before dinner preparations reached their greatest pinnacle of activity, when Lady Waterford came though the green baize door from the second-floor servants’ landing. As soon as Lady Waterford saw her, she came to an abrupt halt, and stood silent and motionless like a lovely but rather battered statue. Her arrival in this area of the house was remarkable in itself, but her appearance was so profoundly perplexing that it took Mrs. Jackson a moment or two to
take it all in.

  Having evidently covered the back stairs at quite a clip, Lady Waterford was out of breath, her silver-gold hair hung in tangles around her face, and her ivory shantung silk skirt was twisted at her waist, giving her a rather lopsided, unbalanced look. The skirt’s back, now worn on Lady Waterford’s right hip, had several ruinous grass stains. Her fine silk blouse with its intricate gathers and tucks had been ripped away at the sleeve.

  It struck Mrs. Jackson in that moment that Lady Waterford looked exactly as if she had been pulled through a hedge backward, and she had the sense to avert her eyes. When she was sure that her face would not betray surprise, she risked a glance and was grateful to see that Lady Waterford was looking back at her with an expression of frozen dignity that forbade any comment whatsoever. A moment of silence hung between them. Then Lady Waterford asked her if she would be so kind as to bring her a cup of tea and while she was at it to send up her maid. She then proceeded past the housekeeper toward the guest wing as if nothing had happened at all.

  In four minutes flat Mrs. Jackson accomplished three things: she ran downstairs and asked Agnes to find Lady Waterford’s maid, instructed Iris to prepare a tray of tea to be taken up to Lady Waterford, and doubled back to Lady Montfort’s room.

  Lady Montfort had evidently just emerged from her bath, as she was wrapped in her dressing gown and staring out of her window down at the rose garden, evidently deep in thought, when Mrs. Jackson walked into her sitting room. If she was surprised to see her, thought Mrs. Jackson, she wasted no time in grasping that she had arrived on an errand of great importance.

  Mrs. Jackson came straight to the point: “I have just seen Lady Waterford, m’lady. She has been placed in rather an awkward situation. And if I might be so bold, I think it would be a good idea if you went to her immediately.”

  “Yes, of course, Jackson.” Clementine looked around for her slippers. “When you say awkward, what do you mean exactly?”

  “Well, her appearance is rather disheveled; I would go so far as to say very disheveled,” replied her housekeeper, with the vision of Lady Waterford’s extraordinary appearance etched distinctly in her mind.

  “Do you mean someone attacked her?” Lady Montfort turned, the better to judge her expression.

  “M’lady, I think Lady Waterford needs your help. And I am sure she has something to tell you.” Mrs. Jackson was concerned that, given some moments to collect herself, Lady Waterford would lock down before Lady Montfort got to her.

  To her credit, her ladyship needed no further prompting. Mrs. Jackson watched her fairly fly down the wide corridor from her room and turn left at the top of the stairs to fly another one hundred feet to the guest wing. Mrs. Jackson had just rounded the second corner when she saw Lady Montfort knock on Lady Waterford’s bedroom door, crack it open, and slide into the room, leaving the housekeeper to stand outside to wait for further revelations.

  * * *

  Clementine had always admired Gertrude Waterford’s remote, cool beauty. It was well known that John Singer Sargent had been desperate to paint this lovely, enigmatic woman’s portrait, but Lady Waterford had refused and he had had to make do with Madame Pierre Gautreau instead. Used to seeing her friend draped in a pose of careless but haughty elegance on a drawing room sofa, Gertrude’s extremely raffish appearance brought her up short.

  She looked as if she had returned from the sort of country house party that went in for high jinks and the wilder sort of lawn games in vogue with the younger married set. Clementine was not familiar with this type of house party, but she had certainly heard some outrageous stories: sliding down the stairs on tea trays, and playing games of hide-and- seek where soda siphons were used to hilarious effect, sprang to mind. Gertrude looked as if she had spent the afternoon taking part in a giddy romp of blindman’s buff with her friends, had fallen on her bottom, and had then been dragged, whooping with laughter, across the lawn by one arm. That was of course except for Gertrude’s palpable air of exhausted despair.

  Clementine dismissed Gertrude’s maid, who was standing helplessly by with a hairbrush. It was going to take some time to extricate the bits of twig and leaf from those tangles, thought Clementine.

  “Ah, Clemmy, here you are.” Gertrude’s voice sounded flat and tired as she sat down at her dressing table and stared at herself in the looking glass without expression. “Bloody hell, what a ruffian I look.” Clementine could not help but admire Gertrude’s attempt to pass off her alarming appearance. Gertrude picked up a brush and began to brush her hair, her movements jerky and ineffectual.

  “Gertrude, I am here to help you. But you have to tell me what on earth is going on.” Ignoring the tea tray, Clementine went to the door and asked Mrs. Jackson to fetch brandy and two glasses. This was done with the speed of anticipation and she poured a generous amount into a glass and handed it to Gertrude. “Now, tell me what happened to you,” she said, and to steady her nerves she took a sip of brandy.

  Gertrude shook her head, knocked back her brandy in two quick swallows, and drew a long, deep, sighing breath. Then she turned back to the looking glass and began to pick garden debris from her hair. “I can’t say anything Clementine; I am in no position to.” Clementine saw her friend gathering herself together and before she could shut her out, she crossed the room and taking the brush from Gertrude began to gently untangle her hair. But her tone was uncompromising: “Who did this to you, Gertrude?”

  Lady Waterford shook her head.

  “Gertrude, you have to tell me what happened, so I can help you.” She caught her friend’s eye in the looking glass and held her gaze. “Tell me.”

  “Very well then.” The last of Gertrude’s resolve to soldier on alone evaporated. “I was being blackmailed by Teddy.” Clementine continued to untangle, keeping her face passive. This explained all the tension of the past few days, but not Gertrude’s appalling appearance.

  “But you were not the only one Teddy was blackmailing, were you?” she said, lifting her eyes to look at her in the glass. She stood with the hairbrush in one hand and waited.

  After what seemed an awfully long time, Gertrude finally said, “No, I am not alone, Clemmy, but I am horribly at risk. Teddy had a letter to me from someone I had an association with for several months. A very revealing letter.”

  Clementine decided to come straight to the point: “A letter from Lord Booth.”

  She was completely unprepared for the panic her statement caused. Gertrude almost bolted to her feet and her voice was very loud in the quiet room. “Oh dear God, then everyone knows!”

  Clementine placed a firm hand on her friend’s shoulder and gently pressed her back into her chair. “No, Gertrude. No one here is aware of the trouble you are in but me. And I didn’t know, I guessed. But now you have confirmed it’s Lord Booth.”

  Clementine did not particularly approve of Lord Booth. He was certainly a man who attracted female admiration, she thought. He had all the attributes of masculine magnetism with his thick, wavy, silver and black hair and a luxuriant mustache the kaiser would have envied. But she thought she recognized that under the engaging manners of flattering pursuit there was a quality of self-adoration that bordered on narcissism, which she found particularly unpleasant.

  Gertrude, her secret out, allowed the floodgate to open: “Teddy was blackmailing both of us. He had Lord Booth’s letter to me. Lord Booth was to meet with him on Saturday evening after dinner. Teddy didn’t have the letter with him, but the little bastard actually quoted from it to Lord Booth. He wanted us to buy the letter from him; the sum he named was unbelievable. Then on Sunday we heard that Teddy had been found. Lord Booth managed a search of his room here, but couldn’t find the letter. If it’s discovered … well, there’s our motive for murder.”

  Gertrude would not look at her or catch her eye in the looking-glass and her voice was low with shame as she said, “Lord Booth is not dealing with the situation well, as you saw this afternoon. He’s on edge and he seems to ha
ve lost his nerve now that this policeman from London is coming here. I am terribly worried he’s going to muff it all completely.” Gertrude sank her head in her hands in such a tired and dispirited way that Clementine poured her another dash of brandy.

  “Here, Gertrude, sip this one slowly.” She handed the glass to her friend. “First of all, I think if the letter had been found you would have already heard from Colonel Valentine. So it might be safe to assume that Teddy had the letter hidden somewhere. Chances are it will remain hidden and no one will ever find it.

  “Did you have an opportunity to talk to Teddy, before he…?” Clementine had finished with the tangles and now sat down close to her friend, took a small sip of Gertrude’s brandy, and gave her some time.

  “Yes, I did. I could sense that things had not gone well between them, because Lord Booth was so preoccupied and snappish. I also thought that if I had the opportunity, I might persuade Teddy to come round.” She colored a little; at least her ears were red and hot at the tips. “Later on that night, toward the end of the ball, I cornered Teddy on the terrace and took him off to the south pavilion. I asked him what I could do to get the letter back. I was prepared to do … well, anything at all. I made this clear to Teddy.” She paused, the humiliation of what she was confessing apparent only in her bowed head.

  “And?” prompted Clementine, as if offering yourself to your blackmailer was the usual way of settling things.

  “And Teddy turned me down flat, laughed at me actually. He made it clear there were no alternatives. He told me how much he wanted for the letter. It was an outrageous amount. If we didn’t come up with the money he would sell the letter to the Daily Express. Can you imagine? I knew exactly how poor Daisy Greville felt after she sent that stupid letter to Lady Beresford and Charles Beresford threatened to take Daisy to court. I can’t be the woman who is used as an example of indiscretion to future generations of silly girls.”