A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

  “Have you seen these letters Captain Seymore is threatening you with?” Rosalind asked.

  “I have one.” Mrs. Seymore pulled out the folded paper. “Seymore has hidden them, but I was able to snare this one from his desk.” She handed it to Rosalind.

  Rosalind opened the letter and read:

  Sir,

  I strive only to warn you. Last night again, the woman who calls herself your wife was seen at the Theatre Royal, and at the King’s Arms. She entered the establishment brazenly and alone at such times as she could have had no legitimate business being there. She stayed in both places at least an hour and left again, quite smug and satisfied with herself. Mr. Cavendish himself was not so far behind. Indeed, when she left the hotel, he was with her and they strolled openly arm in arm, quite comfortable together.

  I leave it to you to decide what your honor as an officer and a gentleman requires to be done.

  There was, of course, no signature.

  “Could Seymore’s brother—you said his name was Sir Bertram?—could he be the one writing the letters?”

  “It is possible, but I could not say for certain.”

  “And may I keep this?” Rosalind held up the paper.

  “Of course, if it will be of use. If Seymore missed it, he would have said something by now.”

  Rosalind folded the letter and made up her mind. “I will make some preliminary inquiries into the matter, Mrs. Seymore. I will not, however, be able to promise anything until I have explored the situation further.”

  Disappointment flickered behind Mrs. Seymore’s dark, expressive eyes, but she rallied quickly. “Of course,” she said. “We are strangers, you and I. You require assurance that I am speaking the truth. Women do lie at such times, even to their sisters in misfortune.”

  The words stung. Not because of the accusation, but because of the blatant attempt at manipulation. If Alice had not been there, Rosalind might well have shown the woman to the door.

  “I do not make promises I cannot keep, Mrs. Seymore. Such matters can be made simple or complex by the nature of the persons around whom the circumstances gather. I must discover for myself the range of personalities involved here. That is the only way in which a practical and complete resolution may be discovered. If this is not acceptable, you must seek help elsewhere.”

  “I ask your forgiveness for my hasty words,” Mrs. Seymore said. “I have been under a great strain lately, and have become used to being called everything from hysterical to dishonest. You will let me know your decision?” She paused. “I don’t wish to be indelicate, but Alice mentioned that there would be a fee. Perhaps you may write and let me know your requirements.”

  “If I feel I will be able to help, I will do so.” Rosalind took a deep breath. “Now, if I agree to look into this matter, I will be seen with you and out on your business. Therefore, we will need a plausible reason for our acquaintance. I believe Alice said you are a poetess?”

  Mrs. Seymore nodded. “Very good,” said Rosalind. “We may say that you are engaged in compiling a new volume and that I, as a friend, am assisting you with the project. You have, I’m afraid, been suffering somewhat from eye strain of late.”

  “Indeed, I have,” Mrs. Seymore replied promptly. “How good of you to agree to help, Miss Thorne. I cannot thank you enough. And now I must go.” Mrs. Seymore got to her feet. She also held out her hand for Rosalind to take. “I hope and I pray that you will see your way toward helping me.” She squeezed Rosalind’s fingertips for just a moment, before she let go and glided out of the parlor. Alice glanced back at Rosalind hastily and followed her friend to the foyer so Mrs. Kendricks could help them with their bonnets and gloves.

  Rosalind stood staring at the parlor door for a long moment.

  “Well, Alice,” she murmured. “What have you gotten us into?”

  CHAPTER 3

  A Meeting of Like Minds

  It is most unwise on the part of any woman to allow her husband to discover of what shreds and patches women are composed.

  —Catherine Gore, Pin Money

  “I’m not certain your friend likes me,” Mrs. Seymore said as she and Alice Littlefield descended the steps from Miss Thorne’s house into the clamor and bustle of Little Russell Street. It was a straight but cramped thoroughfare. Its buildings crowded shoulder to shoulder, and practically nose to nose. This forced the traffic and the pedestrians to jostle together on the muddy cobbles. Margaretta happened to know this street had once held several houses of a much lower reputation than the cramped but decorous parlor where she’d spent her morning. But fashions in neighborhoods, as in all other things, were subject to change, and this one had begun to attract a more respectable sort of resident. Still, its reputation lingered like a faint malaise. Mrs. Seymore supposed that was among the reasons Miss Thorne had chosen to make her home here after her own disgrace. It was, above all things, cheap.

  Oh, Margaretta, what a snob you’ve become.

  “Don’t worry about Rosalind, Margaretta,” Alice was saying. “She’s simply very guarded.”

  “I suppose she would have to be.” Margaretta let herself muse. “I expect in her life she must come into contact with all manner of persons.”

  Alice smiled at this, as Margaretta hoped she would. “If that’s an invitation to gossip, I’m going to have to disappoint.”

  “Would I ever ask you to do such a thing?” Which of course made Alice look down her snub nose at Margaretta, in an attitude that sent them both into peals of laughter. “All right, all right. But you cannot blame me for trying. Even a writer of sentimental ballads must have some fodder for her work.”

  “I understand. I confess I’ve tried to winkle a story or three out of her myself. But Rosalind is entirely closemouthed about those she assists. A fact that you should be glad of.”

  “Oh, I am.”

  The women both pulled their hems back to avoid being splashed by the ragman’s barrow as he shoved his way past them. A stout and harassed woman signaled him from behind the area railing and he bumped his barrow across the way.

  Alice pulled herself and Margaretta through a gap in the traffic between a pair of serving women and an oyster seller with his basket. When they’d hit on a clear path again, she cocked her head toward her friend. “You are telling me the truth about your situation, aren’t you, Margaretta?” she asked bluntly.

  Margaretta felt her spirits sag. This was what it had all come to. Even her friends and colleagues had begun to distrust her. She should have known, she supposed. She should have taken more care, planned better . . .

  Stop this. Regrets will not serve.

  “I promise, Alice, every word I have said to you is true.”

  “What about the ones you haven’t said?”

  Clever dear. Margaretta felt herself smile. “Those as well.”

  “Margaretta . . .”

  “No, Alice. No more. My nerves are gone. We must talk of something else.” Margaretta slipped her arm through the newspaperwoman’s. “Will you come home with me? We could take a dish of tea, and afterwards I’ll have my man take you wherever you need to go.”

  Alice hesitated. “I’m sorry, Margaretta, but I’ve got A. E. Littlefield’s Society Notes to write out, and if I’m late, the major will have my head.” The major was the publisher of The London Chronicle, chief among the various papers and periodicals that Alice wrote for.

  “I understand,” said Margaretta. “I should be working myself. I’ve promised Mrs. Duncan six new poems for her annual and I’m woefully behind. Well, at least let me pay for your carriage home.”

  “There’s no need. It’s a fine day. I can walk.”

  “I insist,” Margaretta told her. “You’ve done me a good turn this morning, you must allow me to repay the favor.”

  Despite her irrevocable change to a workingwoman of the middling classes, Alice
’s genteel pride was still liable to show itself in the odd corners of her life. That’s the difference when you’ve fallen rather than risen, thought Margaretta. One I will soon become familiar with, if I am not very careful.

  This time, however, Alice’s pride surrendered after only a brief struggle. “In that case I accept. Thank you.”

  There was a cab stand where Little Russell and Great Russell Streets met. Alice climbed into the hackney carriage while Margaretta gave the appropriate fee and a tip to the man who sat on the box and looked only slightly less dispirited than his horse.

  Alice leaned out the window, her little face quite grave. “Margaretta? If you’ve misrepresented any part of this, Rosalind will find you out.”

  “Are you saying her powers are superior to yours, a trained woman of the newspapers?” Margaretta gave the words her finest drawing room lilt, but the effect was quite lost on Alice.

  “She can see through a brick wall,” Alice said grimly. “Don’t try parlor games on her, Margaretta.”

  Or on me. But Alice did not say that. She just nodded and Margaretta stepped back so the hackney driver could touch up his horse. The animal shook itself once in annoyance and walked on.

  So. That is that.

  Satisfied that Alice was not looking back toward her, Margaretta strode swiftly along the length of Great Russell until it crossed Drury Lane, and hurried toward the Theatre Royal.

  By daylight, the great, pale Theatre Royal, commonly called just “Drury Lane,” showed itself as an oddly graceless building, with its arched windows blanked out by dark draperies and its doors securely shut. Men and women in smocks and aprons scrubbed the steps, and polished the glass in the doors. It was all mundane beyond description. Magic was a property of darkness.

  Margaretta smiled at the turn of phrase, and tucked it away in the tidy drawer of her mind. Surely, she would find a use for it somewhere.

  The grand entrances at front of the theater might be shut up tight, but the doors at the back were flung open wide. Carters and porters hauled crates or canvas-wrapped bundles or sacks of coffee, and rolled barrels of beer. Women toted great baskets of fruit or sweetmeats or linens. Margaretta sidestepped them all and took herself up to the principal stage door, where a broad-faced man wearing a striped waistcoat stood, watching all the chaos with a sharp eye.

  “Is Mr. Cavendish in yet, Paulling?” Margaretta asked.

  “He is, Mrs. Seymore,” answered the doorman without taking his eye off the swarm of activity. “An’ he asked me to keep an eye out for you. Get yourself right in. Hi, there!” he shouted to a pair of carters manhandling a wooden crate. “Have a care with that, you . . .”

  Margaretta took herself through the door before she could hear the complete recital of the carters’ ancestries and personal predilections.

  To hear Fletcher tell it, the back of the Drury Lane theater was the height of luxury, modern order, and cleanliness. Margaretta had always taken his word for it. It was more common to hear the theater’s bowels described as a warren. Privately, Margaretta thought this was giving warrens too much credit. Surely no rabbit had ever dug such a bewildering maze. Even the new gas lighting failed to lift the gloom of passageways that reeked of dust, paint, hemp, and tar. No carpeting had been laid here to deaden the echo of tromping boots, shouting voices, or the ring of hammers and saws in the scenery shop.

  Two flights of stairs took Margaretta to the surface of the theater’s churning workaday ocean. The corridor here had the benefit of both matting on the floor and windows to let in light and air. Margaretta nodded to the principal mantua maker as that man bustled past, followed by a tiny boy clutching a bolt of blue cloth to his chest. Once they were gone, she was able to cross the passage and knock on the door of Fletcher’s dressing room.

  “Enter!” came the booming reply.

  Margaretta did, leaving the door open behind her a scant inch for propriety’s sake.

  Fletcher’s position as a principal actor earned him an airy dressing room he had to share only with Edmund Kean. It was furnished with chairs and wardrobes and folding screens, a broad vanity table where he could apply his makeup by the light of good oil and gas lamps, and a broader window to admit the daylight and, Margaretta had reason to know, the occasional cries of silly, lovesick females.

  When she walked in, Fletcher was kneeling by the window with a book held up to the light and his free hand pointing at a hapless coat stand. His shirt hung open, almost to the waist.

  “. . . dare your worst, sir! I will not yield!” he told the hat stand and paused. “Why do you hesitate? My hands are bound, my breast bared for your blow . . . No. Softer, I think.” He dropped his voice to a grim stage whisper. “My hands are bound, my breast bared for your blow.”

  “I like that better,” said Margaretta.

  “Yes, you would. But it might be too subtle for our theatergoing public.” Fletcher laid a red ribbon in place to mark his page before he closed the book. “Hello, Margaretta. How did your appointment go?”

  Margaretta shook her head, moved the dressing gown off the tapestry chair, and sat down. “Alice’s Miss Thorne is not at all what I expected.”

  “Oh?” Fletcher tossed the book aside, got to his feet, and set about closing his shirt. “What was she?”

  “Tired, for one thing. Clearly a lady in reduced circumstances. But clearly very intelligent and Alice respects her abilities, which is an important recommendation.”

  “Will she take up your cause?”

  “I think she will look into me first.”

  He was quiet at this. “You don’t have to go through with this, Margaretta.”

  “Are you going to give me the money, Fletcher?”

  He hesitated and she waved her hand. “No, of course you are not. I have never asked anything of you but this, but you never do like your women when they begin to make demands.”

  “That is unfair.”

  “Is it? I am reduced to begging for money, I am about to have my name dragged out for the amusement of the public, my marriage destroyed, and you will not lift a finger!”

  “Margaretta, I do not have the money! According to my man, your captain wants ten thousand pounds in damages!”

  Margaretta felt the blood drain from her cheeks. “So much? I had no idea.”

  “I simply don’t have that much.” He spread his hands. “Even if I did, he’ll only be back for more and we both know it.” Fletcher paused for a long time. Margaretta watched how his eyes cleared. “Now, there’s a thought.”

  “What?”

  Fletcher tapped his chin. “It is possible that we may yet find a way out of this. I have a . . . potential source of funds yet untapped.”

  “One of your women?”

  Fletcher’s mobile face fell. “I haven’t had to crawl that low in years.” He picked up his play manuscript and leafed through a few pages. “This may work, Margaretta, but it will only be buying time. Whatever I can raise, Seymore will run through it in a very short time.”

  “I know,” she said again. “But even a little silence will give Alice’s Miss Thorne time to work.”

  Fletcher closed the book and turned it over in his hands, running his well-kept fingertips over the leather binding. “Perhaps we should have married when we had the chance.”

  “No. Our friendship would not have survived such a marriage as you and I would have made. If I lost that, I would have far more regrets than any I carry now. No,” she said again. “We must trust that Miss Thorne can find a way to make this suit more trouble and expense to the Seymores than it’s worth.”

  “And after that?”

  “After that is after that. All I care about is that the matter is dropped before Lord Weyland dies.” She laid her hand on her belly. “Because I know what this is. This is Sir Bertram trying to remove the competition for the title.” The Seymores were first co
usins to the Marquis of Weyland. Neither the marquis nor his brother had yet produced legitimate sons. This fact caused the Seymore family to eye the title, and the estate that came with it, rather like wolves eyeing lambs. “If the criminal conversation trial goes forward, I am sure my husband will publicly deny the paternity of my child. Then, if it is a boy, it can never inherit the title, which eliminates a potential bar to Sir Bertram inheriting.” Sir Bertram was the younger of the Seymore brothers. That put him decidedly down the line for the marquisate. If Margaretta had a son, he was pushed back that much farther.

  “You really believe Bertram’s thought this through that coldly?”

  “You’ve met him, and his wife—what do you think?”

  “He may be doomed to disappointment. Lord Weyland has rallied before.”

  “I’ve been listening to the little birds and they are all gathering around Lord Adolphus now, in preparation for Weyland’s death.” Fletcher just shook his head at the name of the younger Weyland. “I’m sure that’s why my brother-in-law is urging this suit on now.”

  “Lord Adolphus is still a young man,” Fletcher reminded her. “He could marry and produce an heir of his own.”

  “A fact which Sir and Lady Bertram will certainly address themselves to next.”

  Fletcher faced the window that looked out across the broad, cobbled street. “Perhaps I should just walk over to the magistrate’s court and tell them all,” he said softly. “It might be simpler.”

  “If you make that threat again, Fletcher, I will go over and tell them myself. I am not the little girl in the boardinghouse anymore. I do not believe your gestures of self-sacrifice. You said nothing then, you will say nothing now.” She laid her hand on his sleeve, so that he turned and met her gaze. “Please, Fletcher. Get me the money. Let me buy the captain off until I have my proof of Sir Bertram’s duplicity to show him.”