‘Maybe.’ Watts sounded unimpressed. ‘All the same, sir, I’ll back you to bring home the bacon.’
The Velmonds’ first dinner party was a modest affair with only ten people present, including the hosts. Nevertheless, Lucilla made it the occasion of anxious consultations with her cook and housekeeper, somewhat to the amusement of those worthies, who were quite competent to produce a creditable repast without milady troubling herself in the matter. She had so endeared herself already to her staff, however, that they took no offence and indulgently allowed her to think her suggestions had been invaluable.
She was acquainted with all her guests, some more than others. The Honourable Giles Aylesford and his pretty, if rather plump, wife had called upon Velmond and herself in the customary manner soon after their marriage. Mr Aylesford, like Mr Bradfield, was one of her husband’s close associates. As for Viscount and Lady Rutherford, Mr Rutherford, kind Lady Quainton and dear Anthea, they produced none of the shrinking feelings which so often assailed her in the company of strangers.
‘Is Mrs Bradfield to come up to Town at some time during the season?’ Lady Quainton asked Bradfield, who was sitting at table between herself and Lucy.
‘She may possibly come for a day or two next week, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘That is, if she can tear herself away from the children — and the country, which she much prefers to Town.’
‘For my part, I cannot abide more than a week or so in the country,’ said Mrs Aylesford with a light laugh. ‘It is vastly more melancholy than London when the weather is bad — all those muddy lanes and dripping hedgerows! Besides, one can be so isolated, dependent on neighbours who often live miles distant.’
‘We’re fortunate in having several families quite close, ma’am, with whom we’re on excellent terms. The Wingraves, whose property adjoins ours, are particular friends and I dare say scarce a day passes when my wife and Lady Wingrave do not meet.’
‘How very pleasant! I don’t recall ever meeting Lady Wingrave, though of course I know that she’s Lady Kinver’s daughter,’ said Mrs Aylesford.
‘She, too, prefers the country,’ put in Lady Quainton, ‘though occasionally she visits her mama here to do some shopping. But it is all a matter of what one becomes accustomed to, for I can recall a time before her marriage when Maria Wingrave was all agog for balls and parties. That was six years ago, of course. Now she’s a matron with three young children, I dare say she sets less store by such frivolities.’
‘The sobering influence of matrimony,’ said Anthea with a twinkle.
‘I doubt matrimony will sober you greatly, puss,’ remarked her father, with mock severity.
Justin shot a quizzical glance at her, and the conversation drifted into other channels.
Later, when the gentlemen were sitting alone over their wine, mention was made of the murder.
‘Curious business,’ remarked Aylesford. ‘I wonder if it will ever be solved? I can’t think that anyone would take Yarnton seriously enough to kill him. He’d been making malicious remarks for long enough, God knows. Some found them devilish amusing too.’
‘Others found them damnably offensive,’ said Velmond shortly.
‘Oh, quite.’ For a moment, Aylesford had forgotten Velmond’s quarrel with the dead man. He had not been present at the soirée himself, so had heard the story at second hand. ‘Bad taste, of course.’
‘I believe you’ve taken some interest in the affair,’ remarked Bradfield to Justin. ‘Have you turned up anything yet to give you a scent?’
Justin shrugged. ‘Afraid not. Yarnton made some cryptic remarks concerning a certain Mr Thompson, which I felt might possibly be relevant, but those who heard appear not to find any significance in them.’
Bradfield laughed. ‘Oh, yes, I recall his saying that — it afforded me some quiet amusement at the time.’
The others stared at him.
‘Amusement?’ Justin asked sharply.
‘Why, yes. You see, I do happen to know someone of that name, quite unconnected with Yarnton’s man, of course, if there ever was such a fellow, and it wasn’t just one of his take-ins.’
‘Who’s the man you know?’ demanded Velmond.
‘My land agent in Sussex; that’s what made it so deuced ludicrous,’ replied Bradfield with a chuckle. ‘A most respectable man, nearing sixty, and a highly unlikely target for Yarnton’s scandalmongering. Now can you see why I found the reference amusing?’
They agreed that this might be so, and the conversation moved on to other topics.
CHAPTER 10
Lady Quainton had been intending for some time to carry out her promise to Justin that she would question Lady Kinver about the name Thompson, but no suitable opportunity had presented itself. At the Velmonds’ dinner party Justin gave her a gentle reminder, so she set off for her friend’s house in Curzon Street on the following afternoon.
She found Lady Kinver sitting alone over the fire in a small parlour at the back of the house. She was evidently in low spirits, for she could barely summon up a smile when her friend was shown into the room.
‘I trust my visit isn’t inconvenient, Jane?’ said Lady Quainton, kissing the other’s cold cheek. ‘I only looked in to see how you did, but I can easily come at another time.’
Jane Kinver made an attempt to rouse herself. ‘No, not at all, Cassie. Pray remove your bonnet and pelisse and make yourself comfortable. Would you care for some tea?’
Reflecting that Jane was evidently a trifle strung up and that a cup of tea was the panacea for all ills, Lady Quainton accepted this offer.
The tea was served, and Lady Kinver stretched out an unsteady hand to the teapot, then drew it back.
‘Would you mind doing the office for me, Cassie? I don’t seem able to manage.’
‘My dear Jane, whatever is wrong?’ asked her friend in some concern. ‘Are you ill? I’ve thought lately that you looked a trifle peaky.’
‘Dr Wetherby has just left me,’ admitted Jane Kinver. ‘He’s been attending me ever since that — that dreadful affair at Maria Windlesham’s! He says it’s simply an affliction of the nerves, but I don’t seem able —’ her voice broke — ‘to pull myself together! I keep going over everything in my mind and wondering where it will all lead — dear God, I don’t know what to do!’
‘First of all, you’re going to drink a good, strong cup of tea,’ said Lady Quainton firmly, pouring out two cups and setting one before her hostess. ‘And then you may tell me all about your trouble. No — not a word until you’ve had this.’
Jane Kinver summoned up a weak smile.
‘You were always the practical one, Cassie,’ she said, but she obediently sipped the tea.
There was silence in the room for several minutes, then Jane set down her cup.
‘If only that odious man hadn’t been murdered!’ she burst out. ‘I’ve never known an easy moment since then, dreading that everything would come out!’
Cassandra Quainton wisely said nothing, waiting for what was to follow.
‘All these years I’ve prayed that I’d be able to suppress it! He’d discovered something, that was plain by what he said, but I dare say he would never have gone beyond hints and sly allusions — you know his way! But, of course, when he was murdered it meant that Bow Street would be investigating and secrets would come to light — and not only Bow Street, for I’ve heard rumours that the youngest Rutherford has been asking questions, particularly it seems, about — about the remarks Yarnton made to some of us concerning Mr Thompson!’ Jane Kinver went on in an explosive fashion. ‘And when they do find out about him —’
‘Jane,’ interrupted Lady Quainton imperatively, ‘are you trying to tell me that you have anything to do with this mysterious Thompson? That in fact you know who he is?’
‘Not who he is, but what! Yes, that I do know!’
There had been no opportunity at the Velmonds’ dinner party for Justin to acquaint his godmother with what he had learned of Thompson’s activit
ies, so she had no inkling of where this conversation was leading. Overcome with curiosity, yet slightly ashamed of this in view of her friend’s distress, she could not wait to hear the rest.
‘What he is?’ she repeated. ‘I don’t at all comprehend your meaning. Pray explain, my dear.’
‘He’s an extortionist — a blackmailer!’
Cassandra Quainton gasped incredulously.
‘I’ve been paying him blackmail for the past five years! The sum amounts to almost twenty thousand pounds by now! And I can see no end to it — I must go on paying!’
‘Good God!’
It was an unusually forceful expletive for the gentle Lady Quainton, but nothing less could do justice to her feelings of outrage and amazement.
For some time both ladies were silent, Jane Kinver cowering in her chair with a hopeless expression. Presently Lady Quainton pulled herself together.
‘But blackmail — you, Jane?’ she asked in an incredulous tone. ‘I cannot credit it! Surely there can be nothing whatever in your life to justify extortion? Unless —’
She paused. How well did one know one’s friends after all, even the most intimate of them? There might have been some episode…
‘My dear,’ she continued gently, ‘perhaps there was something you kept secret even from me? Some love affair that would have created a monstrous scandal if it ever became known?’
Jane Kinver shook her head. ‘No. I did have a secret, Cassie, but it was not mine. There was never any man in my life after I wed Charles. My secret concerned my poor girl, Maria, and somehow this devil Thompson found it out.’
‘Maria,’ repeated the other thoughtfully.
‘Yes, I’ll tell you of it now, dearest Cassie, though all these years I’ve kept it from everyone, even Charles. Most of all Charles, for as you know, he was in failing health for some time before he died in the August of 1811. Indeed, the fear that it might come to his ears by accident was a constant nightmare to me.’
She stopped, the tears standing in her eyes. Lady Quainton placed a hand over hers in sympathy but said nothing. What was there to say in the face of such suffering?
‘You recall how Maria was, at seventeen years of age,’ continued Jane Kinver presently. ‘A trifle giddy perhaps, full of fun and gig, thoughtless of consequences, like most young girls. Charles was ill, and the doctors advised a stay in Bath to take the waters. Maria said Bath was too stuffy and she wouldn’t go with us. I couldn’t possibly leave her here in Town with only the servants to look after her, so I packed her off to my sister Olivia Hardwick in a village in Buckinghamshire. I thought she’d be safe enough there, but I hadn’t reckoned with Maria being able to twist her aunt around her thumb. She was allowed to do anything she wanted, it seemed, and there were several young men in that neighbourhood, some eligible, some not. She flirted outrageously with all of them, as we discovered afterwards, in particular a young army captain named Tilsworth, who was on leave at the time.’
She broke off again in distress, and it was some moments before she could continue.
‘I don’t know how to tell you the rest, Cassie — it’s too shameful! And Maria our only child. She was to have her come-out in the following season, and we had such hopes for her happiness! But there, I mustn’t indulge in self-pity, and in the end, things turned out better than might have been expected. I dare say you can hazard a guess as to what kind of fix she got herself into. She became pregnant.’
Lady Quainton had by now anticipated this outcome but, nevertheless, she drew in a quick breath.
‘I didn’t know — she never told me. She returned home in September at the same time as ourselves, and she knew how matters stood about the middle of October, as I discovered later. But she kept her secret until the end of November, when mercifully she had a miscarriage. Then, of course, I had to know. I won’t dwell on my feelings, Cassie, but you may well understand that my chief anxiety was to keep it from my husband in his precarious state of health. I shall never know how I managed that, but thank God he suspected nothing. No one else was in on the secret but the doctor and Maria’s old nanny, who was still with us at that time.’
‘My poor Jane! But why did not Maria marry the father of her child? She must surely have written to inform him of her condition?’
‘No, for she kept hoping and hoping that matters would right themselves, and by the time she was forced to accept the situation, it was too late. The man was Captain Tilsworth. He’d been recalled to the Peninsula shortly after Maria left my sister’s house, and in a few weeks he was killed in action. My sister sent us the news in October, but even then Maria said nothing. It was some days after her miscarriage before she would tell me who was responsible. At first she refused again and again, ask as I might.’
‘As you say,’ said Lady Quainton thoughtfully, ‘although it was a dreadful business, it might have turned out a deal worse. I recall that Maria did have her come-out in the season preceding your husband’s death, and she married Sir Rupert Wingrave in July of that year. You must have felt profoundly relieved to see her safely settled.’
‘Indeed I was. Naturally I had to keep to my original plan to bring her out that season, for fear her father, or others, might wonder if I did not. When Wingrave offered for her so soon after her come-out, I could only hope and pray that the marriage would prove a success. But so it has, Cassie — you know she has three little ones in the nursery and seems quite content. Thank Heaven for it.’
Lady Quainton nodded. ‘Yes indeed. But tell me, Jane, when did the blackmailing begin?’
‘A few months after Charles died, when Maria had been about three months married. I shall never forget my horror on receiving that first letter! The writer knew all about Maria’s — indiscretion — before marriage, and threatened to go to Wingrave with the story unless I paid the sum of two thousand pounds! I was instructed to direct a packet containing the money to a Mr Thompson and forward it to the receiving office at St Albans. Imagine how I felt, Cassie!’
‘It was indeed a terrible dilemma, my poor Jane! I suppose you felt you dared not risk showing the letter to anyone who might have advised you? Your lawyer, for instance?’
‘Oh, no, how could I? There was not much time, moreover — this fiend gave a date by which the packet must arrive. But in any event, I wouldn’t risk my only child’s happiness for the sake of a paltry two thousand pounds. I am not exactly purse-pinched, my dear, as you well know. Of course,’ she added glumly, ‘I didn’t know then that the demand would be repeated every six months until I should have parted with a considerable sum. Even so, I still think it better to buy this creature’s silence than to risk Maria’s undoing. Would not you in a like predicament?’
‘Very possibly, though as I have no family it’s difficult to say. Tell me, though, did you always have to send the money to the same receiving office — I think you said St Albans?’
‘No. It was to a different one on each occasion. I don’t recollect, precisely — Barnet, I think, Reading, Watford, some in London — oh, I’ve been paying out for so many years now I cannot recall all the places specified! Not that it can possibly signify!’
‘It might,’ demurred her friend thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you have no notion who this blackmailer could be?’
Jane Kinver shook her head.
‘No, for there were so few people in on the secret, and I knew I could rely utterly on their discretion.’
‘In such cases, of course, something often leaks out quite inadvertently. One has only to consider the occasions when we ourselves have perhaps let something drop which we would have cut out our tongues rather than reveal — a hint would have been enough to an unscrupulous villain such as this man must be. He would follow it up relentlessly until he’d uncovered the whole. Does no such possibility occur to you?’
‘Only if Maria had confided her secret to someone other than myself, and that she swore she did not do! Poor child, she told me later that she was scared out of her wits when she discovered
her condition and kept hoping all would come right so that no one need ever know. And later, when it came to the miscarriage, all was managed with the utmost discretion. I was fortunately in the house at the time, and nanny was already with her in her bedchamber.’
‘I suppose it isn’t possible that Captain Tilsworth should have revealed the, er, nature of his relationship with Maria to a third party?’ persisted Lady Quainton.
‘Why on earth should he do such an abominable thing? After all, he was an officer and a gentleman, and it would be in his own interest to keep silent about the affair. But all this is beside the point, Cassie. Knowing the identity of the blackmailer can avail me nothing — any attempt to bring this monster to book can only result in the scandal becoming known! That’s what so terrifies me about the inquiries into Yarnton’s murder. I could not bear it if after all I have suffered these years, Maria’s secret should come to light!’
She broke down on these words, and Lady Quainton comforted her until she had regained some degree of tranquillity.
‘But you know,’ Lady Quainton said gently at last, ‘it will not do, Jane. How long will you go on meeting these demands and robbing your daughter of her inheritance? No, don’t answer me for a moment, but consider another question I am about to put to you. If it were possible to discover this blackmailer without revealing Maria’s secret to any save only one person —’
‘No!’ cried Jane Kinver vehemently. ‘I’ll not believe that possible — I dare not take such a risk!’
‘Yet you have already realized that Bow Street may discover your secret in the course of their inquiries. Before the authorities proceed so far, would it not be preferable to entrust it to a private individual, one of your own social order who would find the means to keep it quiet? I think perhaps you know to whom I refer?’
A Reputation Dies: A thrilling combination of detective fiction and romance (The Rutherford Trilogy Book 1) Page 9
