A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

  You have been laying traps, Captain Seymore had said. “But if that was the plan, she didn’t need me, or Alice. We are both unnecessary complications. Alice is angry at her, and I’m here talking with you. Mrs. Seymore also didn’t need this story about Cavendish committing suicide. If she’d wanted to set a seal on the captain’s fate, she would have simply turned to him in front of you and Mr. Townsend and demanded, ‘What have you done?’”

  “Yes.” Harkness set his cup aside. “That would be the obvious course.”

  “The genius of the suicide story is that it shields Captain Seymore as well as Mrs. Seymore. So if she committed the murder, why tell a story that could help exonerate someone else?”

  Mr. Harkness raised an eyebrow. “I can think of one possible reason.”

  “What is that?”

  “Mrs. Seymore did not commit the murder, but she knows who did, or thinks she does. This is the person she is trying to shield.”

  “She thinks Captain Seymore killed Mr. Cavendish?”

  “I did not say she thought it was Captain Seymore,” said Mr. Harkness. “Think on it, Miss Thorne. Mrs. Seymore swears Fletcher Cavendish was not her lover, but that does not mean she didn’t have one.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The Paying of Necessary Calls

  It is one thing to disdain those whom one does not think worthy of our acquaintance, and another to insult those whom one has thought it proper to invite.

  —Captain Rees Howell Gronow,

  Anecdotes of the Camp, the Court, and the Clubs

  Sir and Lady Bertram Seymore kept their home in Soho Square, a neighborhood of Westminster that had once been fashionable but had more recently fallen out of favor. According to Mrs. Seymore, one Mrs. Cecil Seymore, the wife of the captain’s late brother, and her two daughters lived with them.

  “It’s a fate that Virginia does not deserve,” Mrs. Seymore told Rosalind. “She’s strong-willed, but reasonable, and not malicious. Perhaps that’s because she’s only a Seymore by marriage. It does make deferring to Johanna—Lady Bertram, that is—exceedingly difficult for her.”

  They sat together in the Seymores’ carriage, rattling across the bridge, on the way to Sir Bertram’s. Mrs. Seymore had ordered her man to take the Blackfriars route to avoid the crowds and toll on the more recently opened Waterloo Bridge. Mrs. Seymore’s tone was insouciant, almost bored, but she held herself stiffly. It was no secret what caused her tension. The newspaper hawkers sang and shouted out loud on every street corner they passed:

  “Fletcher Cavendish is dead! Read it here! Fletcher Cavendish found stabbed through the heart in his own dressing room! Pictures of the deadly weapon, right here!”

  “And this is only the beginning,” murmured Mrs. Seymore. “I had imagined there would be at least a day’s grace. Foolish of me, I suppose.”

  “It is difficult to comprehend the speed with which such news can travel,” Rosalind murmured.

  “I should ask Alice to call soon,” Mrs. Seymore went on. “I suppose I must talk to someone from the press. It would be better if it was a friend, don’t you agree?”

  Are you trying to find out if Alice is still a friend? Rosalind wondered. She knew she should be putting more effort into making herself agreeable. If she was going to find out the truth of the events swirling around Mrs. Seymore, she needed to keep the woman’s trust. But somehow those instincts of drawing room and parlor would not rise past the memory of the scene Mrs. Seymore had played yesterday, and the unpleasant possibilities that lay behind it.

  “Fletcher Cavendish is dead! Read of the tragic death of England’s greatest actor! Read it here!”

  Mrs. Seymore drew the curtains more firmly closed, as if shutting out the sights could shut out the voices.

  “Where is the captain this morning?” asked Rosalind.

  “Oh.” Mrs. Seymore sighed. “He left early with Sir Bertram to go see the Seymore family attorney, one Mr. H. Close, Esquire. I expect they will meet us at the square.”

  “Read it here! Read it here! Fletcher Cavendish, first man of the stage, is dead! Read about the bloody and murderous deed, right here!”

  “Mrs. Seymore,” said Rosalind, curiosity rising above both pique and suspicion. “It might be advisable for you to be elsewhere while the newspapers are out on the scent. Is there anywhere you could go? Perhaps to family of your own?”

  Mrs. Seymore turned fully toward her, and for a moment Rosalind thought she was actually going to laugh.

  “No, Miss Thorne. I have no family with whom I can stay. If I am driven out of Captain Seymore’s, I shall have to make shift among my friends.”

  No family with which I can stay. Those words repeated themselves inside Rosalind’s head, and she noted how this was very different from having no family at all. “And I suppose staying with the captain’s family . . .”

  “Oh, I am sure they would love to get me under lock and key,” she replied bitterly. “Controlling me fully would be the next best thing to getting rid of me.”

  “You said you believe it is your brother-in-law who is driving the captain to get a divorce, or at least a deed of separation.”

  “And I still believe it. You’ll understand better why when you meet them.” She paused, her face softening slowly into a genuine sadness. “The most miserable part of all this is that I would have accepted the divorce up until a month ago. In fact, I had planned to. I was making provision for myself. But when I realized I was with child, everything changed.” A tear dropped from her eye and this time there was nothing artificial about it. “I did not expect to conceive again, not at my age.”

  “You have been a mother before?”

  “Oh yes, four times, as it happens. The first two died within three months of each other from some fever the doctors could not even put a name to. The third was stillborn. The fourth simply went to sleep and did not wake up.” She turned her face away, but she could not disguise how her voice shook. “This last one, this final gift of Providence, this one will live, and I will make certain it has everything to live for.”

  Rosalind watched Mrs. Seymore’s profile harden with the strength of maternal determination, and found she had no answer to give.

  • • •

  Rosalind and Mrs. Seymore were admitted to Sir Bertram’s pleasantly situated house by a short, square maid in crisp black and white, and ushered at once into a back parlor.

  Lady Bertram had clearly once been a woman of queenly proportions and she still carried herself with pomp and pride. Time and temper had withered her, though, and her skin hung loose about her hands and long, corded neck. Her slack cheeks pulled down the corners of her eyes, giving her a permanently sorrowful expression. Those same dark eyes, though, gleamed with sharp-edged intelligence.

  Lady Bertram made no move to stand when Margaretta and Rosalind were ushered into her presence, nor did she offer any greeting beyond a blunt declaration.

  “Margaretta! What on earth have you done!”

  “Johanna—” began Mrs. Seymore, but she was not permitted to get any further.

  “I have tried to make allowance, heaven knows I have!” Lady Bertram wrung her hands. “I have tried to put the best examples in front of you, to provide that instruction I know you did not receive in your youth. I know you ignored me. I am resigned to your preferring to find your own particular sort of tutors to guide your conduct. But this . . . this!” She spread her hands to indicate the room, or possibly the whole unsatisfactory world.

  Mrs. Seymore sighed heavily. “Johanna, I promise you, I have done nothing except stand by the captain as best I can.”

  “If you would come to me . . . if you would listen to me . . . but no, no, why should you? Who am I? What is my family, this family you married into? We are to be improved by your example, not you by ours. And who is this?” she snapped abruptly, as if she’d just noticed Rosalind.
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  “Lady Bertram, may I introduce Miss Rosalind Thorne, my friend and, for the time, my confidential assistant. Miss Thorne, my sister-in-law, Lady Bertram Seymore.”

  “What possessed you to bring such a person here? You should . . . Oh, never mind it. You cannot be expected to know or care. You, Miss Thorne.” Lady Bertram raked Rosalind over with her sharp eyes. “You look like you’ve had some teaching. Sit there, if you please, while I attempt to speak sensibly to my sister-in-law.”

  Rosalind sat, straight-spined and still. A number of uncomplimentary thoughts and unsatisfactory emotions ran through her, including a perverse feeling of gratitude at not having been ordered out of the room. Listening at doors in a strange house was a risky way to gather information, not to mention terribly inefficient.

  “Now, please, Margaretta.” Lady Bertram not only clasped her hands toward Mrs. Seymore, but shook them. “I beg you for all our sakes, tell me what happened, and why on earth you are involved at all.”

  Mrs. Seymore glanced sideways at Rosalind, clearly meaning to say, I told you, did I not? She began to speak, calmly and clearly.

  The tale she told was the one she had given to Mr. Townsend, but this time stripped of its tears and protestations. While Mrs. Seymore spun the drama out again, Rosalind had a chance to observe Lady Bertram’s surroundings. The house might have been in a less than fashionable district, but the room was laid in exquisite taste. It was light and airy, arrayed in yellow silks, with a Chinese carpet on the floor. Its bay window looked out over a small but beautiful London garden. Tasteful ornaments stood on the shelves, each given its proper pride of place rather than crammed together like in a shop window. Rosalind recognized porcelain plates from China as well as beautifully painted icons from both Rome and Russia. Lady Bertram’s dress was an entirely new and beautiful creation of forest green muslin and wide ribbons of French silk. That lady’s fretting and fidgeting, though, had the effect of making her seem like an inmate longing for escape from a prison cell. Each word of Margaretta’s story seemed only to increase her alarm, until she fairly leapt to her feet and began to pace back and forth between the hearth, with its pierced brass screen, and the sunny window.

  “I don’t know what we are to do, I really don’t,” whispered Lady Bertram tremulously. “I’ve tried, Margaretta, I have tried, but you will not listen. If you had, if you would remain at home, keep your house as you ought, if you showed any proper feeling for your husband’s family . . .”

  “If I kept at home as you advise, Johanna, there would have been far less money to be gifted to my husband’s family,” replied Mrs. Seymore evenly.

  “Oh, yes, of course, the money!” Lady Bertram drew herself up as straight as she was able. “We must never be permitted to forget the money!”

  Rosalind glanced once more around the bright, new room. Mrs. Seymore had said that Sir and Lady Bertram had taken, or at least borrowed, her money in the past. Mrs. Seymore’s home was likewise elegant, and that neighborhood, while not aristocratic, was certainly within the accepted range of fashionable. And the captain had wanted money from Fletcher Cavendish.

  All of which suggested that one or more of the branches of the Seymore family were in debt. And debt, Rosalind knew, could make any family desperate.

  But Mrs. Seymore had no chance to make a reply to Lady Bertram’s latest outburst, because the door opened again to admit another woman dressed in a subdued morning dress. She was of brisk and determined countenance and wore a widow’s cap over her chestnut curls.

  “Johanna, I heard . . . Oh, hello, Margaretta.” The new arrival took Mrs. Seymore’s hands and kissed her cheek. “How are you bearing up?”

  “Hello, Virginia. I expect I will manage. Miss Thorne, this is my husband’s sister-in-law, Mrs. Cecil Seymore. Virginia, my friend and confidential assistant, Miss Rosalind Thorne.”

  Mrs. Cecil Seymore, née Virginia Edmundson, was a plain, stout, square-built woman. She was only a little older than Rosalind. Where Lady Bertram projected an air of bitter and inexpressible weariness, Mrs. Cecil Seymore moved with decision, like someone who expected there to be an obstacle thrown before her at any moment but was determined not to be caught off guard.

  “I just came in to tell you the luncheon is almost ready,” said the second Mrs. Seymore. “Will you be staying, Margaretta?”

  “I’m sorry, we have some other calls to pay after this one.”

  Lady Bertram shuddered, as if something indelicate had been mentioned. “Of course. Your social calls must take precedence over the return of your husband and his brother, not to mention this dreadful business you have laid at our door. You will not choose to stay and hear what your husband and his brother have to say about it.”

  “Of course I would stay,” replied Mrs. Seymore. “But I had no notion we were invited.”

  Lady Bertram stared at her, her little dark eyes staring out of her nervous face. She looked to her sister-in-law, but Virginia remained as silent as Margaretta.

  “Well, naturally, you and your . . . guest are invited, Margaretta,” said Lady Bertram. “Virginia will simply tell Cook there are two more. I am sure she will be able to make things stretch. Virginia, you won’t mind . . .”

  “Oh, of course not,” said Mrs. Cecil resignedly. Running her sister’s housekeeping errands was evidently something she was used to.

  “And has Lord Adolphus arrived yet?” Lady Bertram inquired, her clasped hands quivering where they rested in her lap. “He said he would come.”

  Virginia’s jaw clenched. “I promise you, Johanna, I will not leave Lord Adolphus waiting in the hall. Now, if you will excuse me? It seems I must go speak to Cook.”

  “I had no idea Lord Adolphus was expected,” remarked Margaretta as the younger Mrs. Seymore took her leave.

  “He insisted,” Lady Bertram said, and there was an odd ring of pride in her voice. “Of course, any such show of family feeling must be a surprise to you, Margaretta, but I do promise you, in a proper family—”

  “May I ask who is Lord Adolphus?” interrupted Rosalind, violating decorum, but hopefully it was in the service of maintaining some semblance of peaceful conversation.

  “Lord Adolphus Greaves is my husband’s cousin, and the younger brother of the current Marquis of Weyland,” Lady Bertram said with a lift of her chin and a lilt in her voice, and possibly with a little emphasis on “current.” “A most kind and excellent man.”

  “You are very fortunate to have such a good cousin,” said Rosalind.

  “Oh, we are, we are. And you should see his devotion to his unfortunate brother, the marquis! And his mother! He has dedicated his life, his life, to them! Another man his age and fortune would be indulging in worldly pleasures. He would have married and produced a hundred children, but not Lord Adolphus! Entirely selfless, he has lived an upright life of service to his family.”

  Rosalind could not help but notice how tightly Lord Adolphus’s exemplary behavior was linked to the fact that he had so far not sired any sons to lay claim to the Weyland marquisate.

  “Tell me, Lady Bertram, have you and Sir Bertram any children of your own?” she asked.

  Lady Bertram drew herself upright, and for the first time since Margaretta and Rosalind entered the room, she did not fuss or fidget. “We have not been blessed yet but naturally we hope that very soon . . .”

  “Naturally,” murmured Mrs. Seymore. “Because we all believe in miracles, do we not?”

  “I would suggest you moderate your humor, Margaretta. Or shall we talk about you and your latest? Have you informed . . . Miss Thorne of your condition? Have you informed her . . .”

  Mrs. Seymore rose, ready for the clash she had begun, but the battle royal was forestalled when the maid stepped timidly through the door.

  “Lord Adolphus Greaves,” she announced.

  “Oh, thank heavens!” cried Lady Bertram, and Rosalind w
as inclined to agree.

  CHAPTER 21

  Of Heirs and Parents

  Every man’s first care is necessarily domestic.

  —Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant

  Lord Adolphus Greaves was a fair, sandy-haired man with a smooth, round face and blue eyes that protruded on either side of a bulbous nose. He was, Rosalind thought, about Mrs. Cecil Seymore’s age, but it was difficult to tell. He was one of those diffident men who seem to be overlooked by everyone and everything, including the passage of time.

  “Lord Adolphus!” Mrs. Bertram held out her hands as if he were her last hope of salvation. “How very good of you to come to us! You must sit down. You must tell us, how is the dowager? Lord Weyland? Do they . . . have they . . .”

  “Johanna, please.” Lord Adolphus bent down to take both her hands in his. “You mustn’t agitate yourself so. It is in no way good for you. My mother sends her regards and regrets that she could not come herself, but my brother is not well, and she felt she should stay home with him. So I am here as their representative.” He smiled across at Mrs. Seymore. “Margaretta. I had hoped to find you here. How are you doing?”

  “How is she doing!” cried Lady Bertram. “She! Lord Adolphus, you cannot know . . .”

  “I know quite a bit, Johanna,” answered his lordship calmly. “And I say again, you must not agitate yourself. You will have to retire to your room and I’m sure you do not want that?”

  The prospect of missing her chance to further sigh, exclaim, and pointedly observe proved to have a remarkably calming effect on Lady Bertram, and Rosalind found herself saluting Lord Adolphus in her thoughts.

  “You will, I hope, introduce me to your new friend?” His lordship blinked at Rosalind.

  “She’s Margaretta’s friend,” snapped Lady Bertram.

  “Miss Rosalind Thorne,” said Margaretta smoothly. “Who has agreed to act as my confidential assistant.”

  “Miss Thorne.” Lord Adolphus bowed politely. “I am glad to see that Margaretta has her friends about her at this difficult time. Now, Johanna.” Lord Adolphus sat himself beside Lady Bertram before she could offer her opinion of Margaretta’s friends. “You must tell me, is there anything you need? Anything at all?”