by Seven Dials
Charlotte stared at her, uncertain how serious Vespasia was. She had a sharp and highly individual sense of humor which was no respecter of persons.
“Why?” she asked.
The expression on Vespasia’s face was sad, wry, and of slight distaste mixed with memory. “Ferdinand Garrick is what some people refer to as a ’muscular Christian,’ my dear,” she replied, and saw the answering comprehension in Charlotte’s face. “A man of ebullient and officious virtue,” she continued. “He eats healthily, exercises too much, enjoys being too cold, and makes everyone else in his establishment equally uncomfortable. He denies himself and everybody else, imagines himself closer to God for it. Like castor oil, he may on some occasions be right, but he is extremely difficult to like.”
Charlotte hid a smile.
“Actually, it has nothing to do with Mr. Ryerson,” she replied. “Thomas has gone to Alexandria to find out more about Ayesha Zakhari.”
Vespasia sat absolutely motionless. A couple of gentlemen strolled past, and both of them tipped their hats to her. She appeared not even to have seen them.
“Alexandria?” she murmured. “Good heavens! I presume Victor Narraway sent him? He could not possibly have gone otherwise. No, I apologize. That was a ridiculous question.” She breathed out very slowly. “So he is taking it all the way, after all. I am glad to hear it. When did he leave?”
“Four days ago,” Charlotte replied, surprised how much longer it seemed. Even though he was away from the house all day, the nights were horribly empty without him, as if she had forgotten to light the fires. The warmth and the heart of the home were gone. Did he miss her as much on the rare occasions she was away? She hoped fiercely that he did. “He should be there by now,” she added.
“Indeed he should,” Vespasia agreed. “He will find it extraordinarily interesting. I imagine it will not have changed a great deal, not at heart.” Her mouth pulled a little twistedly. “Although I have not been there since Mr. Gladstone saw fit to bombard it. That cannot have increased their affection for us. Not that that usually worries us overmuch. But Alexandria does not bear grudges. It simply absorbs whatever is sent there, like food, and transmutes it into another part of itself. It has done so to the Arabs, the Greeks, the Romans, the Armenians, the Jews, and the French—why not the British as well? We have something to offer, and it accepts everything. Its taste is magnificently eclectic. That is its genius.”
Charlotte would gladly have asked questions and listened to the answers all day, but with difficulty she forced her attention back to the only part of anything going on that she could possibly affect for good.
“I need to know something about Ferdinand Garrick because a friend of Gracie’s has a brother who has gone missing,” she explained.
“Gracie?” Vespasia’s interest was immediate. “That little maid of yours, the one with enough spirit for two girls twice her size? From where has the young man gone missing, and why does it concern Ferdinand Garrick, of all people? If he has dismissed a servant he will believe himself to have had an excellent reason, and there will be no arguing with him. He has irredeemably absolute ideas about virtue—and justice is a great deal higher in his estimation than mercy.”
“He hasn’t dismissed him, as far as we know,” Charlotte replied, although she felt a chill as she saw the anxiety in Vespasia’s eyes. She was still speaking with a lightness in her voice, but her words about mercy were carefully chosen and Charlotte knew it. “Actually, Martin worked for Garrick’s son, Stephen. He was his valet.” She shook her head in impatience with herself. “I don’t know why I say was. As far as we know he still is. It is just that he has not been in touch with Tilda, who is his only relative in the world, for nearly three weeks now, and that is something that has never happened before. And when Gracie went to the Garrick house to make discreet enquiries, the staff did not appear to know where he was. And for that matter, Stephen himself does not appear to be at home. At first they assumed he was confined to his room, which apparently happens every so often. But there has been no food sent up, and no laundry came down.”
“Gracie went to the house?” Vespasia said with a lift of admiration in her voice. “I should very much like to have seen that! What did she learn, other than that neither man is at home and the staff knew nothing as to where they were? Or at least will say nothing,” she amended.
“That Stephen Garrick is an unhappy man with a violent temper, which he indulges freely, that he drinks too much, and that no one can manage his moods, or his times of despair, except Martin,” Charlotte said succinctly. “So it would make little sense to dismiss Martin, because they would have a terrible difficulty replacing him.”
Vespasia sat still for a few moments, apparently watching the occasional parade of ladies in their finest gowns on the arms of gentlemen in dark morning suits or bright military splendor.
“Unless he was unfortunate enough to witness a particularly unpleasant episode,” she said at length, her voice low and sad. “And unwise enough to ask for extra remuneration as a result. Then he might be viewed as more cost than he was worth, and dismissed without a character.”
“Wouldn’t that be very foolish?” Charlotte questioned. “If I had a servant privy to family secrets, I would want him close by me, not looking for work elsewhere, and with a grudge . . . a justifiable one at that.”
Vespasia shook her head very slightly. “My dear, a man of Ferdinand Garrick’s stature does not stoop to explain himself, and prospective employers do not ask a servant they are considering what his reasons were for his actions. They would simply accept that he had threatened Garrick with loose talk of family matters. Indiscretion is the ultimate sin in a personal servant. It would have been less severe if he had taken the family silver rather than the family reputation. One can always buy more silver, or even if the worse comes to the worst, survive without it. No one survives without a reputation.”
Charlotte knew Vespasia was right. “I still need to know what happened to Martin,” she persisted. “If he was simply dismissed, why didn’t he tell Tilda? Especially if it was unfair.”
“I don’t know,” Vespasia admitted, nodding to an acquaintance who had seen her and doffed his hat. She looked quickly at Charlotte, so the man did not take her acknowledgment as an invitation to join them. “I think you are right to be concerned.”
“What is Ferdinand Garrick like, apart from being religiously unsufferable?” Charlotte wriggled her foot, hoping the blister had eased a little. It had not.
“For goodness’ sake, child, take your boot off!” Vespasia told her.
“Here?” Charlotte said in amazement.
Vespasia smiled. “You will make less of a spectacle of yourself removing a boot than you will by hobbling the length of the row back to my carriage. People will think you are intoxicated. I do not know Ferdinand Garrick well, nor do I wish to. He is a type of man I do not care for. He is devoid of humor, and I have come to believe that a sense of humor is almost the same thing as a sense of proportion.” She watched with pleasure as a loose-limbed puppy capered about, throwing up gravel with its feet. “It is the absurdity of disproportion which makes us laugh,” she continued. “There is something innately funny in punctured self-importance, in the positioning side by side of that which is incongruous. If everything in the world were suitable, appropriate, it would be unbearably tedious. Without laughter, something in life is lost.” She smiled, but there was sudden, deep sorrow in her eyes. “Sanity, perhaps,” she said quietly.
Then she lifted her chin. “But I shall find Ferdinand Garrick and see what I can discern. I have nothing more interesting to do, and certainly nothing more important. Perhaps that is the ultimate absurdity?” The puppy had disappeared across the grass, and she was regarding a man and woman who looked to be in their fifties, exquisitely dressed in the height of fashion, walking down the middle of the pathway, nodding graciously to either side of them as they saw people they knew. They acknowledged some and looked through ot
hers, now and again hesitating until they had glanced at each other and made up their minds.
“Filling your time with games,” Vespasia remarked. “And imagining they matter, because you can think of nothing that does. Or you can, but do not do it.”
“Aunt Vespasia,” Charlotte said tentatively.
Vespasia turned to look at her, enquiry in her eyes.
“I know you would not like to think that Mr. Ryerson killed Lovat,” Charlotte said. “Or even that he deliberately helped Miss Zakhari with the intention that she should get away with murdering him, but facing the worst, what do you really believe?” She saw Vespasia smile. “We cannot defend against the worst if we do not acknowledge what it is,” she pointed out, but gently, aware of Vespasia’s affections. “What kind of man is he, not just what the police will find, but what you know?”
Vespasia was silent for so long that Charlotte thought she was not going to answer. She stopped waiting for her to speak and bent over to finish unbuttoning her boot. She eased it off painfully. There was a hole in the heel of her stocking, which was what had caused the problem. The skin was raw, but it was not yet bleeding.
She felt a touch on her arm and looked up. Vespasia was holding out a large silk handkerchief and a tiny pair of nail scissors.
“If you cut the stocking off, and tie the silk around your foot,” she said, “it will enable you to get home with a minimum of additional damage.”
Charlotte thought of the appearance of the colored silk above her boot if her skirt swung wide.
“Smile,” Vespasia advised. “Better to be noted for eccentric footwear than a sour expression. Besides, who are you going to encounter here that you will ever see again, and whose opinion you would care about in the slightest?”
“No one,” Charlotte agreed, smiling far more broadly than the invitation had suggested. “Thank you.”
“You are very delicate in your questions, my dear.” Vespasia looked at the far trees, only the odd leaf here and there touched by the warm colors of autumn. “But you are quite right. Saville Ryerson is a man of deep emotions, impulsive, and . . . and physical.” She bit her lip very slightly. “He lost his wife in a miserable mischance of fortune in ’71, but it was more than that; there was a betrayal involved, although I do not know what, and I certainly do not know by whom.” She dropped her voice even lower. “He was furiously angry, even before her death. Not only did he grieve for her, and that he had not been able to save her, but he felt a guilt that he then could never take back the things he had said, even though he believed they were true.”
Charlotte finished rebuttoning her boot. “That must have been very hard. But Lovat could have had nothing to do with it, surely? It happened over twenty years ago.”
“Nothing whatsoever,” Vespasia agreed. “I tell you only so you may know more closely what kind of man he is. He remained alone from that time onward. He served his party and his constituents. They were hard taskmasters, capricious, demanding much and giving little—at times not even loyalty. But the best of them loved him, and he knew it. But it wearied him to the soul, and he did it alone.” She made a slight, deprecatory gesture with her pale, gloved hand. “I do not mean he abstained from satisfying his desires, of course, simply that he was discreet, and he had little if any involvement of the emotions.”
“Until Ayesha Zakhari . . .”
“Exactly. And a passionate man who neither gives nor receives anything for himself for over two decades, when he does fall in love, is going to do so with great violence, greater than he understands or can master. He becomes uniquely vulnerable.” She said it softly, as if she had seen the reality of it herself.
“Yes . . .” Charlotte said thoughtfully, trying to picture it in her mind, imagine the waiting, the loneliness over years, and then the power of feeling when finally it came.
“What I do not understand,” Vespasia countered, her voice suddenly sharp and very practical again, “is why the woman shot Lovat. Given that he was not a particularly pleasant man and that he may have been annoying her, why on earth did she not simply ignore him? If he really was a nuisance, why didn’t she send for the police?”
A far uglier thought came to Charlotte’s mind. “Perhaps he was blackmailing her, possibly over something that happened in Alexandria and which he threatened to tell Ryerson? Which would account for why she could not trust him with the truth.”
Vespasia looked down at the grass at her feet. “Yes,” she admitted reluctantly. “Yes, that would not be impossible to believe. I hope profoundly that it is not true. One would have thought she would have more sense than to do it on a night when she expected Ryerson to come. But perhaps circumstances did not allow her that choice.”
“That would also explain why she still does not confide in anyone,” Charlotte added, hating her thoughts, but certain it was better to say it all aloud now than let it run in her mind unanswered, but just as insistent. “Although I cannot imagine what it would be, other than some plan to compromise Ryerson . . . to do with his position in the government.”
“A spy?” Vespasia said. “Or I suppose an agent provocateur would be more correct. Poor Saville—set up to be betrayed again.” She drew in a very long, slow breath and let it out in a sigh. “How fragile we are.” She started to rise to her feet. “How infinitely easy to hurt.”
Charlotte stood up quickly and offered her arm.
“Thank you,” Vespasia said dryly. “I weep inside for the pain of a man I have liked, but I am perfectly capable of standing up on my own—and I have no blisters. Perhaps you would care for my arm . . . to assist you as far as my carriage? I should be happy to take you back to Keppel Street . . . if that is where you are going?”
Charlotte bit back her smile, at least half back. “That is very good of you,” she accepted, taking Vespasia’s arm but leaning no weight upon it. “Yes, I am going home. Perhaps you would care for a cup of tea when we get there?”
“Thank you, I should,” Vespasia accepted with barely a flicker of amusement in her gray eyes. “No doubt the excellent Gracie would make it for us, and at the same time tell me more about this missing valet?”
VESPASIA ENJOYED her tea. She insisted upon taking it in the kitchen, a room she never visited in her own house. When her cook had recovered from her astonishment, she would have been affronted. They met daily in Vespasia’s morning room, where the cook came to receive her instructions, and counter with her own suggestions, and in due course a compromise was reached. The cook did not come into the withdrawing room. Vespasia did not invade the kitchen. It was a mutually agreed arrangement.
But Charlotte’s kitchen was the heart of the family, where food was not only prepared but also eaten. Gas lamps reflected on the polished copper of pans, the smell of clean linen drifted from the airing rack winched up to the ceiling, and the wooden table and floor were pale from being scrubbed every day.
At first Gracie was quiet, in spite of all her good intentions to the contrary, overawed by the presence of real aristocracy in her kitchen, sitting at her table, as if she were just anyone. And of course even now, Vespasia was the most beautiful woman Gracie had ever seen, with her silver hair, hooded eyes, high fragile bones and porcelain skin.
But gradually Gracie’s passion in her cause had won, and she had told Vespasia exactly what she believed, and feared, and Vespasia had eventually left with as much information on the problem as Charlotte and Gracie had themselves.
That was why at a little after half past seven that evening Vespasia stood in the foyer of the Royal Opera House, the diamonds in her tiara blazing, the lavender smoke satin of her gown a column of stillness in the rattle and rustle of pinks and golds.
She regarded the crowd as it passed her, looking for the vaguely familiar figure of Ferdinand Garrick. It had taken her most of the afternoon to discern, with the utmost discretion, where he planned to be this evening, and then to cajole a friend who owed her a favor into parting with her own tickets for the event.
&nb
sp; Lastly had come a call to Judge Theloneus Quade, inviting him to accompany her, a request she knew he would not refuse, which caused her a sharp pang of guilt. She knew his feelings for her, and since the return of Mario Corena, honor had compelled that she did not mislead anyone, nor seem to use someone else’s affections of which she was more than aware. Also the depth of that fierce love of her most vital years had come back with a tenderness now, a reality that dimmed all other possibilities, and she was not yet ready even to try to let it go. Mario was dead, but what she felt was woven into her inner self forever.
But it was the peril to Martin Garvie that must occupy her attention now, and she did believe it was real. She had not allowed Gracie, or even Charlotte, to see how much it concerned her. She knew a little of Ferdinand Garrick, and she did not care for him. She could not have explained why, it was instinctive, but because there were no conscious reasons for it, it was also impossible to argue it away.
Of course she had confided in Theloneus, not only because she owed him at the very least an explanation for such unseemly haste in attending an opera she knew he liked no better than she did, but also because she valued both his friendship and his discretion too much not to avail herself of his assistance in a cause which might prove far from easy.
She saw Garrick at the same moment that Theloneus did.
“Forward?” he said gently; it was only half a question.
“I’m afraid so,” she replied, and taking his arm she started to urge her way through the crowd.
However, by the time they reached Garrick he was very obviously engaged in a conversation with an extremely conservative bishop for whom Vespasia could not even pretend to have a warmth of regard. Three times she drew breath to enter the conversation, and then found the comment dead on her tongue. There were degrees of hypocrisy she could not achieve, even in the best of causes. She felt rather than saw Theloneus’s amusement beside her.
