by Darcie Wilde
“The coroner is waiting to receive Mr. Cavendish. He’ll begin his inquiries and there will be a formal inquest within a day or two.” Harkness paused. “You said Mr. Cavendish had no family?”
“None that I know about. He lived over at the King’s Arms when he was in town. They might know of someone.”
Harkness climbed to his feet and held his hand out. “Thank you, Dr. Arnold. This has all been very helpful.”
Dr. Arnold’s own hand was soft, but surprisingly strong. “Catch the blaggard, Mr. Harkness,” he said flatly. “If there’s a reward to be posted, the theater will subscribe. Cavendish was a braggart and a swaggerer, and I’d lock up my daughter before I let her near him, but there was no real bad in him, and my God, never did I see a man who could seize a house by its heart as he could.”
“We’ll do all we can, Dr. Arnold. You may be sure.”
And the first thing after the body’s safe with the coroner, thought Harkness as he walked out of the office, is to find out exactly where this Captain and Mrs. Seymore have got themselves to.
CHAPTER 13
The Master’s Return
Whatever demands secrecy, you may be sure it is wrong for you to do, or suffer to be done.
—Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant
Mrs. Seymore’s lady’s maid had arrived at last, and had hustled her mistress up to be changed from her ruined dress. This left Rosalind alone in the parlor for several long minutes. Rosalind found she was grateful for the interruption, because it gave her time to think.
What should she say? What should she do? She was certain that was blood on Mrs. Seymore’s skirt. It could have got there quite innocently when Margaretta knelt beside Mr. Cavendish’s body. She need not have struck whatever blow had killed the actor. That could have been done by other, stronger hands.
The hands of a drunken man, for instance, who was schooled in the ways and uses of violence.
Do not think it. Do not tell yourself tales. You have no real information. You know nothing at all.
This was excellent advice, but it changed nothing. Events had shifted so abruptly that Rosalind felt seasick. She looked helplessly around the parlor and, in the end, settled for pouring herself another cup of tea, not because she wanted it, but because the familiar motions might calm her disordered thoughts. Those thoughts, however, were determined to stray back to her dinner with Alice and Mr. Cavendish. Mr. Cavendish, who last night had been a presence to reckon with, and who could move young girls to excesses of love and grand devotion.
Oh, poor Louisa. She’ll be heartbroken when she hears.
Rosalind tapped the strainer twice against the rim of her cup and returned it to its place. She opened the sugar bowl, extracted one lump with the tongs, and dropped it into the amber liquid. She replaced the tongs, and the lid. She lifted her spoon.
A single loud bang exploded from the hallway. Rosalind jumped, dropping the spoon into the tea and spilling the whole across her dress.
“Ah! Careful, you bastard son of a mongrel bitch!” roared a man’s voice.
Blushing furiously, more at her clumsiness than at the oaths, Rosalind nonetheless hurried to open the parlor door. Captain Seymore staggered into the front hall, leaning heavily on a second man, who by his boots and coat Rosalind knew must be the coachman.
That poor man alternately dragged his master and stumbled with him toward the staircase. The captain’s face was mottled gray and green and he cursed the floor underneath him as roundly as he did the man who supported him.
“William!” Mrs. Seymore, now clad in a fresh morning dress of claret and white, came hurrying down the stairs. “Where have you been!”
“Where have I been?” the captain roared. He also lurched toward Margaretta so that the coachman almost lost both hold and balance. “What right have you to question me, madam?”
“Have a care, sir!” cried the beleaguered coachman.
“I’ll have a care with you!” The captain tore his arm free of his servant’s grip and staggered forward under his own power. The drink and his temper had wiped away what little nobility Rosalind had seen in William Seymore’s profile. The captain sagged and slouched, rumpled and thoroughly ruined. Rosalind could not help but notice Mrs. Nott standing in the doorway to the kitchen, but the housekeeper did not move forward to assist. She just watched her master with an expression of ice and stone. Mrs. Kendricks was there, too, hovering beside her sister housekeeper, waiting for some signal from Rosalind as to how to intervene. Rosalind, though, gave none, because truly she did not know what they could, or should, do.
Unfortunately, Rosalind was not allowed to continue in the role of mute witness to this private scene. The captain had caught sight of her.
“You!” he bellowed. “What are you doing here?”
Mrs. Kendricks made as if to move between them, but Rosalind waved her back. “Mrs. Seymore asked me here as her friend,” she told him evenly as she could.
“This is one of your friends?” Captain Seymore staggered backward until he banged against the wall. “God in heaven, Margaretta! You’re laying traps for me now! You knew I’d go looking for you, at Hoffman’s, at the theater, at the goddamned hotel . . .”
“William, what are you talking about?” Mrs. Seymore’s voice rang low and dangerous through the spacious foyer.
“Captain Seymore came to Mr. Cavendish’s rooms when Alice and I were having supper there,” Rosalind told her.
“I meant to catch you, Margaretta.” The captain pushed himself away from the wall, or at least he tried to. “But I only snared your proxy. Been having a good laugh, have you two?” He pressed his hand to his eyes. “All about how you so cleverly deceived the one who should be your lord and master? Made me parade myself about the town, let as many people see the cuckold raging as . . .”
“You had no right to spy on me!” cried Margaretta.
“I have every right!” the captain snapped. “No one has more right than I!”
“Captain Seymore,” began Rosalind. “Allow me to explain . . .”
“I’ll allow you to leave, madam!” He threw his hand out, pointing toward the door, but he misjudged the gesture and slammed it against the wall. “Damnation! Leave! Now! Or, by God, I’ll throw you out into the street with my own hands.”
But at this, Margaretta strode forward and seized both those hardened hands.
“Will you stop being a fool and a brute for one instant and listen!”
“To what?” sneered the captain. “Another recital of lies? Where were you, madam? Not at your sister’s and not at Hoffman’s.” He did not pull away, though, probably because some part of him knew he would fall if he did. “Then where, hmm?” The captain leaned forward, a sly leer spreading across his face.
“Never mind where I was. Where were you?” cried Mrs. Seymore. “Fletcher Cavendish is dead, sir! He is murdered!”
Rosalind expected oaths or, considering how very drunk the man was, for him to be sick or fall down insensible. But the captain only swayed a little on his booted feet.
“How do you know this?” Captain Seymore whispered.
“I saw him,” answered Margaretta. “I went to the theater, and I found him there.”
“You went . . . you saw . . . Dear God.” Seymore pulled free of his wife’s grip and wiped at his face. A sheen of perspiration appeared on his face from the effort of thinking clearly. “What a bloody, damnable mess. You betray me, you shame me, and now you . . . you . . .”
“William, stop.” Mrs. Seymore took the captain’s face between both her palms and turned him toward her. “William, please. I need you.”
The captain clasped his wife’s hands, and Rosalind saw Mrs. Seymore’s face spasm. But the gesture worked. The sagging, shamed anger in the captain’s manner dissolved slowly under his wife’s familiar touch. His face creased in an effort to right t
he thoughts pitching on that internal sea of distress and drunkenness.
“How has this happened to us?” cried Seymore.
“I don’t know,” Margaretta answered. “But I need you, William. I need your help. Please. Speak to me. Have you been with your brother?”
“I was at my club. I was . . . the worse for drink. I . . .” The captain swallowed and it became clear to Rosalind that the enormity of what had happened was beginning to rise up from the stew of drink and jealousy that filled his fevered mind. “Margaretta . . . Margaretta . . . you cannot . . . you did not . . . I would not have hurt you, I swear, I swear.” He clutched at his wife’s sleeve. “I never gave a damn about what Bertram wanted. All I wanted was for you to stop. For you to be all mine again.”
Margaretta did not answer, at least not directly. “The deed has been done,” she said softly, fatally. “All that is left is to face the facts and try to survive it.” She gently disengaged his rough fingers from the fine fabric of her sleeve, and still holding her husband’s hand, Mrs. Seymore turned to her servants. “Let us get you upstairs, William. John, come and help the captain. Mrs. Nott, send for Drummond.”
At last the servants moved, the coachman again took his master’s arms, and the housekeeper took herself and her silent disapproval off below stairs. Only Mrs. Kendricks remained in the doorway, waiting for Rosalind’s instructions.
As soon as her husband and the coachman were out of sight, Mrs. Seymore faced Rosalind. “As little as I like it, Miss Thorne, I think we had best follow your advice and write to Bow Street. But not to this man, Harkness. A note must be sent directly to John Townsend.”
“Mr. Townsend?” Rosalind was not surprised Mrs. Seymore knew the name. Mr. John Townsend was the most senior, and the most celebrated, of the officers at Bow Street.
“While I am sure this man Harkness is reliable, I am personally acquainted with Mr. Townsend. We must use all the influences we have in this matter.”
“Yes, of course,” said Rosalind because this was no time to argue the point, and because she could as easily write a second, private note to Mr. Harkness. In fact, she would be very surprised if he did not already know what had happened. He might even be on his way.
Rosalind’s heart lurched a little at this thought. You have enough troubles, she scolded the unruly organ, and the memories that caused it to falter momentarily.
“Will you do me the very great favor of writing in my name?” Mrs. Seymore asked. “I must go see that the captain is being attended to properly.”
“I’m glad to be of assistance,” said Rosalind.
“Thank you. You can use my desk. It’s in the side parlor, and Mrs. Nott can summon a messenger.”
Mrs. Seymore retreated up the stairs. Slowly, Rosalind walked into the small, secondary parlor. It was as clean and elegant as the front room. The desk beside the window was broad and stacked with books, all of which had little slips of paper sticking out of them marking points or passages to be reviewed.
“What will you do, miss?”
Mrs. Kendricks had followed her and closed the door soundlessly. Rosalind sat down in the straight-backed chair and took a sheet of writing paper and one of the quills from the center drawer. She unstoppered the crystal inkwell and found it filled.
“Please give me a minute, Mrs. Kendricks,” she said. Rosalind dipped her pen, faced the page, and made several different decisions all at once.
She wrote quickly, but it was not the requested letter she set down. Instead, she wrote out all she could remember of the captain’s rambling speech to his wife. She blotted this and folded it up so that it was simply an anonymous piece of paper lying at her left hand.
When she had finished, her mind felt clearer, and she knew what she must do.
“Mrs. Kendricks, I need you to take a message to Miss Littlefield,” said Rosalind. “If she is not at home, she will surely be at her paper’s offices.” She might already be on her way here. Fletcher Cavendish was murdered. A murder was reason enough for the papers to be at their work, but Fletcher Cavendish was hardly some anonymous citizen of the metropolis. The clock on the mantle showed it was past ten already. The whole world would know what had happened before too much longer, and the whole world would run absolutely mad. “You may return home afterwards. I will be there as soon as I can.”
But her housekeeper neither moved, nor assented to these instructions. “Miss Thorne, you cannot stay here,” said Mrs. Kendricks. “You cannot allow yourself to be drawn into this.”
“I’m already in it.” Rosalind looked up at the woman who had stood by her in all her troubles for so many years. “You were right. I should have listened to you, but it is too late now, and we must go from where we are.”
Mrs. Kendricks sighed. “Yes, miss,” she said, all obedience and resignation. Rosalind felt a stab of shame and not a little of loss. She forced herself to concentrate on the page in front of her and wrote quickly:
Alice,
You know by now Fletcher Cavendish is murdered. I’m with the Seymores. Bow Street is being summoned here. Send an answer by Mrs. Kendricks saying where you are and what is happening.
R.
Mrs. Kendricks accepted the note without comment and left Rosalind alone. The parlor was cold, and she shivered as she took out yet another sheet of paper. She stared at it a moment, trying to gather her thoughts and understanding. It was more difficult than it should have been. A face kept intruding on her thoughts. Somewhat to her surprise, it was Devon’s, and she did not understand why. Then she did. Devon represented safety and steadiness, the exact opposite of everything she had seen and was about to do. And she missed him.
Rosalind set her jaw and began writing two more letters. There was something yet to be accomplished here and she could not do it if she was distracted.
When she’d finished sealing the letters, she rang the bell and waited until Mrs. Nott appeared.
“Yes, miss?” The housekeeper folded her hands in front of her. Her face and demeanor were faultlessly correct, but Rosalind remembered the cold way she’d watched her master, and how very different that was from the way she’d helped her mistress.
“I was told there would be a messenger to take these.” Rosalind held out the letters she had just finished. “Both are to go to the Bow Street Police Office. This one”—she held up the one sealed in red—“is from your mistress for Mr. John Townsend. This one”—she handed across the letter sealed in blue—“is to go directly into the hands of Mr. Adam Harkness. No other.”
“Yes, miss.” The housekeeper took both letters.
“It is a dreadful thing, Mrs. Nott,” said Rosalind softly.
The woman lifted her chin. “God shall judge.”
“He shall,” Rosalind agreed soberly. “Your mistress must be suffering most cruelly.”
“My mistress bears her sufferings with patience. She is a true lady.” This last was spoken with absolute certainty and not a little defensive pride. Rosalind nodded in agreement. Then, she looked the woman in the eye, and lied.
“I am also instructed to write to Captain Seymore’s brother, Sir Bertram, but I do not have the direction. I did not wish to disturb your mistress as she is attending her husband . . .” Mrs. Nott’s face puckered more tightly. She did not approve of the captain, or his drunkenness, possibly both. “I thought perhaps if there was a letter or some such on his desk, I might simply copy the direction from that?”
The housekeeper looked dubious, as well she should. It was a terrible excuse, but then it was a terrible morning.
Mrs. Nott looked down at the pair of letters she held. “Miss, is it true? Is Mr. Cavendish dead?”
“Yes, he is.”
“We reap what we sow,” she sighed. “But the mistress will be heartbroken.”
“All her friends can do now is help see her through this tragedy.” Rosalind laid careful
emphasis on those last words. “Both the captain and Mrs. Seymore will be under siege from the papers and the public very soon. All manner of gossip and slanderous speculation will be raised. If we cannot clear this trouble away quickly, everyone in the house will suffer.”
Mrs. Nott said nothing, but understanding flickered across her severe features.
“I need to let the captain’s brother know what’s happened,” said Rosalind. “Will you help me find the direction? All I need is one letter, any that happens to be to hand. I would not ask at all, but I do not wish to trouble your mistress at this time.”
Mrs. Nott nodded once. “Let me see what can be found.”
The housekeeper left, and Rosalind, with one ear open for any sound from the passage, proceeded methodically to search the desk’s drawers. She found more books, more paper, and stacks of neatly ordered correspondence. None of it, though, looked to be set aside especially. None was bound in ribbons of red or pink or tied with flowers or any other such token that a sentimental woman might use for letters from a lover. Rosalind had not expected it. Mrs. Seymore’s poetry might be sentimental, but Rosalind was beginning to understand that the authoress herself was ruthlessly practical. She would not have let Rosalind near her desk if there was a chance Rosalind might easily uncover anything that could be used against her.
Rosalind had just slid the last drawer shut when Mrs. Nott returned with a folded paper in her hand.
“Here you are, miss.”
“Thank you.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Not at this time. I’ll ring when I’m ready for you.”
The housekeeper curtsied and glided away. Rosalind waited until the parlor door was completely closed to unfold the letter.
Brother,
I’ve read your letter, and what you call your “proofs.” I know how badly you wish your wife to be innocent, but you must face facts. If you do not want to petition parliament for divorce, then you must draw up the deed of separation. Once Margaretta proves herself to be thoroughly repentant, and that blaggard has paid for his violations, you may take her back, if you choose. What you will do with her bastard is up to you. But it is for you to examine your conscience and ask whether you can allow her continued humiliation of you and still call yourself a man. She has by her actions with this actor, and the Devil knows how many others, dragged the whole of our family into the mud. She must be made to smart for it.
