by Anne Perry
Reggie drew a deep breath.
“Commiseration’s not much use-”
“None at all,” Campbell agreed.
“Better to prevent it before it happens.”
Campbell’s face betrayed interest for the first time.
“What are you suggesting, Reggie?”
“A discreet word, with the butler or housekeeper, to speak to the rest of the servants. See that one or the other of them is present every time this police fellow interviews any of them. Get them to make sure nothing-foolish-is said. Natural enough, what? Not to let a young servant be bullied. Got to protect them, eh?”
Campbell smiled with harsh amusement.
“Why, Reggie, I never suspected you of such subtlety-or such common sense.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“My dear idiot, my household is already aware that loose talk would cost them their livelihoods: but I admit it would be an added protection to make sure a butler or housekeeper is present if this, what’s-his-name-Pitt-comes back again. Personally I think they’ll probably drop it after a reasonable show of trying. After all, to whom does it really matter if some servant girl has two children stillborn? It’s hardly worth raising hell in an area like this. He’ll know that he’ll find out nothing that matters, and offend a lot of people who could make life damned difficult for him, if he gives them cause. Don’t get yourself upset, Reggie. They’ll run around to give the impression of intent, then quietly let it die. Do you want a glass of port?”
Reggie took a moment for the idea to seep through him with its relief: then he realized Campbell had offered him the port at last.
“Yes,” he accepted graciously. “Thank you, very civil of you.”
“Not at all,” Campbell smiled to himself and walked away to the side table to fetch the decanter.
Augusta had noticed Christina’s indisposition; and at first she had thought nothing of it, beyond a natural sympathy. It was easy enough to eat or drink something which did not agree with one. Then on the appalling discovery of Christina in the arms of the wretched footman, Max, the incident came back to her mind with rather more anxiety. When the indisposition occurred again a week later, and she heard from the lady’s maid that Christina was to remain in her bed for the morning, she felt something considerably more like alarm.
She did not wish General Balantyne to know anything about it-he would be entirely useless if indeed there were such a crisis as her worst fears framed, and if there were not, there was no purpose in alarming him. They were at the breakfast table when she was informed, and after a moment’s silent panic, she thanked the woman civilly and bade her return to Christina and care for her, then she requested the general to pass her the orange conserve to spread upon her toast.
“Pity,” the general said quietly, passing across the jar. “Poor girl. Hope it’s nothing serious. Want to send for the doctor? Always ask Freddie to slip over, if she doesn’t want a fuss.”
“Nothing he can do for a chill on the stomach,” she replied smoothly. Heavens above, the last thing she wanted now was a doctor! “Charming as he is, he can’t change the weather. Lots of pestilence of one sort or another in the autumn. I shall have cook make her an herbal tea. That will do as much good as anything. No doubt it will cure itself in a day or two.”
He looked at her with slight surprise, but rather than argue, continued with his deviled kidneys, bacon, eggs, and toast.
When she had finished her meal, so as not to appear in a hurry and give the matter undue importance, she excused herself and went upstairs. If there were no reason for alarm, so much the better, but if her worst fears were valid-and she remembered with a cold shiver through her flesh the familiarity of that touch in the stillroom pantry, the ease with which the hands had caressed the silk bodice under the breasts-and it was indeed true, then she must think now what to do about it. If there were any hope at all of saving the situation, it lay in immediate action. Every additional day would make it harder.
And if she did not succeed-a lesser woman would have flinched even from the thought, but even her enemies, and she had several, would never have denied that Augusta had courage-there lay ahead for Christina little but endless unhappiness. To have an illegitimate child was a sin never completely forgiven by the society in which Christina moved, in which she had been brought up, and in which were all her friends, indeed the society which would enable her to have the only life for which she was fitted. It might be possible, with care and money dispersed in appropriate places, to create some fiction to take her away from London for the necessary period of time, have the child brought up on the country estate, adopted by some good serving woman. It would take skill, but it was not impossible: it had surely been done by others! Christina was not the first, nor would she be the last in this predicament.
If only that were all!
But there was Max: an ambitious and ruthless man. Of course she had realized from the day she had employed him that he was intent, above all things, on bettering himself. And she had thought that that would make him an excellent footman. Ambitious men were good employees; and so he had proved, in respect of his job; he was always immaculate, always punctual, always more than civil; indeed she had received many compliments as to his quality. But she blamed herself now for not realizing that his ambition would lead him to use any means that offered to advance himself, even to lying with his employer’s daughter. She did not delude herself for a moment that there was any affection involved-on either side. And she should also have known her daughter better, she should have seen the weakness in her, and protected her from it. What else were mothers for?
Max had forged himself a weapon. If he chose to use it, to spread gossip, gently, like slow poison, Christina would be ruined. No man of her own class would marry her, no matter what her dowry. There was always a surfeit of personable young women in the marriage market, and Christina possessed no special advantage; at least none that would outweigh the reputation of a trollop. To be high-spirited was one thing, to be a whore and to have borne a child to a footman was quite another. The only world she knew, or could cope with, would be as closed to her as the Bank of England.
Max must be silenced: not by bribery of any sort. Give in to him even once, and they would be hostage to him for the rest of their lives. It must be a counterthreat of equal magnitude. Not only for Christina’s sake, but for the whole family, for the general, and for young Brandy, as well as herself. If Brandy should fall in love, or even find agreeable some well-connected girl, what parents would allow their daughter to marry into a family whose blood bred such as Christina?
She was on the landing with her hand raised to Christina’s door when the worst thought of all came to her. She nearly fainted from the sheer horror of it. Max had been in their employ for six years. She sincerely believed that if such an appalling thing had happened before she would have known it-but what if she had not? And would the police believe it? Could they even afford to? Unless she was very much mistaken, that young man Pitt was of uncommon intelligence. He would pursue the matter, question Christina, perhaps even discover that it was Max, and draw from him all the sordid truth. What would he believe of the bodies in the square then? What did she herself believe?
She let her hand fall to the wood, and before Christina replied, she pushed the door open.
Christina was lying on the bed, looking pale and peaked, her features unusually sharp, her dark hair spread on the pillow around her.
Augusta felt a moment’s pity for her, then it passed and she forced her attention to preventing the far worse pain that threatened.
“Sick?” she asked simply.
Christina nodded her head.
Augusta came in and shut the door. There was no point in mincing words. She sat on the end of the bed and looked at her daughter.
“Is it an illness you have caught from Max?” she said, looking at Christina’s eyes.
Christina tried to look away, and failed. She was used to getting her
own way, to charming or dominating everyone, but never since childhood had she succeeded with her mother.
“What-what do you mean, Mama?” she said stiltedly.
“There is no point in prevaricating, Christina. If you are with child, there is a great deal we have to do. I have no wish to frighten you unnecessarily, but I don’t think you have realized the seriousness of our predicament, if it is so.”
Christina opened her mouth, and closed it again.
Augusta waited.
“I don’t know,” Christina said very quietly. There was a shiver in her voice and she was having to struggle hard not to cry. It was only pride that prevented her, and the knowledge that her mother would not have cried.
Augusta asked the question she dreaded, but she would shirk nothing. She needed to know.
“Is this the first time?”
Christina stared, eyes enormous with indignant disbelief, and then horror as she realized what Augusta meant, what she was thinking. Her face was as bleached as the sheet.
“Oh, Mother! You can’t think I would-oh no!”
“Good. I did not think you would. But it is not what I think that matters, it is what the police think, or have enough cause to consider that they raise the possibility-”
“Mother-!”
“I shall deal with it. You will not see Max again. Until I have secured his silence, you will remain in bed. You have a chill. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Mama,” she was too shocked and too frightened to argue. “Do you think-the police-I mean-?”
“I intend that they shall not know anything to think one way or the other. And you will do exactly as I tell you, to that end.”
Christina nodded silently, and Augusta looked at her pale face, remembering how she had felt for the first few weeks when she had been with child, with Christina herself. What a lifetime ago that seemed. Brandy had been a small boy, still in skirts: and his father had been younger, his face less lean, his body a few pounds slimmer, but just as straight, shoulders as broad and stiff. How could a man change so little? His voice, his manners, even his thoughts seemed all the same.
“It will pass,” she said gently. “It will not be more than a few weeks, then you will feel better. I shall have cook make you a beef tea.”
“Thank you, Mama,” Christina whispered, and closed her eyes.
Augusta racked her brains and her imagination for a way to make sure of Max’s silence, without at the same time giving him a weapon for future use. But by the following morning she had achieved no more than the elimination of all the impossibilities, and was left with little else. She was in an ill temper to receive him when Pitt arrived at a quarter past ten.
When she first learned that it was Max who had shown him in, a moment of panic seized her, then she realized that Max’s ambition would never allow him to waste his valuable knowledge by giving it to Pitt, who would pay him nothing for it, instead of first offering it to Augusta, who might pay him in all sorts of ways, only beginning with money, and progressing through advancement to heaven knew what avaricious heights.
She found Pitt in the morning room, warming his hands in front of the fire. It was another bitter day, a hard east wind driving needles of sleet in from the North Sea, and she could hardly blame any living creature for availing itself of any warmth at all, yet she resented this policeman in front of her fire. He did not move because he had not heard her enter.
“Good morning, Mr. Pitt,” she said coldly. “What is it this time?”
He was startled, and he took a moment to compose himself before he turned to face her.
“Good morning, ma’am. I’m afraid we have not yet discovered the truth regarding the bodies in the square-”
“Do you seriously imagine, Mr. Pitt, that you ever will?” She raised her eyebrows in disbelief.
“Perhaps not, ma’am; but I must try a great deal harder before I give up.”
“Indeed. It seems like a waste of public money to me.”
“It was perhaps a waste of human life, which is infinitely more precious.”
“We also seem to have infinitely more of it,” she said dryly. “But of I presume you have to do your duty, as you see it. What is it you imagine I can do that will help you?”
“Give me your permission to speak to your staff again, ma’am; and perhaps to Miss Christina Balantyne. She may have observed some behavior, some small sign that you have been too busy to note.”
Augusta felt her stomach tighten. Was it conceivable he had already heard something? Could Max have been so-no, surely not! Max was, above all, ambitious. He wanted his advantage to use, not to squander.
“I’m sorry, you may speak to the servants, of course; although I must insist that you do not distress them unnecessarily, and I shall have some responsible person with you, to that end; but I regret my daughter is unwell and confined to her bed. Naturally she cannot see anyone.”
“Oh dear,” his expressive face composed itself into lines of sympathy. She had no idea whether he meant it or not. “I do hope it is only a passing indisposition.”
“We believe so,” she replied. “The season of the year, no doubt. It is inclined to affect one. Now which of the servants do you wish to see? The female ones, I presume?”
“If you please.”
She reached for the bell.
“I shall have the butler assist you.”
“I should prefer to speak to them alone. His presence might inhibit them, make them feel less free to-”
“No doubt. But for their protection, the butler will remain with you. I will not have young girls who are my responsibility intimidated, even unwittingly, into saying things which they may afterward regret. Perhaps you do not realize how young and how ignorant some of them are; most suggestible, and easily led.”
“Lady Augusta-”
“Those are the conditions on which you may speak with them, Mr. Pitt. Quite reasonable, I believe.”
There was no further argument he could offer without betraying foreknowledge of some particular guilt, and she defied him at this point to do so.
“Ma’am,” he acquiesced with a slight smile in recognition of her superior tactics. Had he been a gentleman, she might even have liked him, for a moment.
She felt no such sentiment toward Charlotte Ellison when she arrived shortly before midday to assist the general with his papers. Miss Ellison was a young woman she could not warm to-there was an element of emotion about her, of unpredictability, which was dangerous. One could not plan for it because it fell within none of the rules. And yet she seemed harmless enough. She came and went silently and was certainly both civil and, at least to all appearances, well-bred enough. But why should any young woman desire to help a middle-aged general sort out papers pertaining to battles and regiments, instead of seeking herself a husband? It was a question to which, at a less preoccupied time, she would have sought an answer.
As it was she contented herself with asking Brandon over luncheon what manner of creature she was, and if she gave satisfaction as to her clerical ability.
“Yes,” he said with slight surprise, “she appears to be of uncommon intelligence, for a woman.”
“You mean of uncommon interest in those things which interest you-for a woman,” Augusta replied with some asperity.
“Is that not more or less what I said?”
“No, it is not. Most women have perfectly good intelligence for the things which matter, such as the conduct of one’s daily life; but do not desire to apply themselves to the dissection of battles that concerned other people in other countries and at other times. I consider such an interest quite eccentric, and most unnatural in a young woman of decent upbringing.”
“Nonsense,” he said briskly. “Anyone of intelligence ought to appreciate the great history of our nation. We are the greatest military nation in the world; we have spread our civilization to every land and clime God made. We have created an empire and a peace that is the envy and the blessing of the world. E
very woman of British blood should be proud of that.”
“Proud of it, of course,” she agreed testily, reaching for the anchovy pate, “but not concerned with the details!”
He took the last piece of toast and did not bother to reply.
It was after that conversation that Augusta turned her thoughts uninterruptedly to the matter of Max’s silence; and at last came up with a satisfactory answer. It was in the quiet hour previous to dinner that she decided to tackle the practical application of it. She went to the small withdrawing room where she would be undisturbed, and sent for Max to attend her.
She felt an overwhelming, almost suffocating dislike of him when he came in. He looked completely bland, as if he expected to discuss some small domestic affair with her. She had never noticed before how insolent his eyes were, how veiled. She must keep the most perfect control of herself.
“Good evening, Max,” she said coolly.
“Good evening, my lady.”
“There is no purpose to be served by our prevaricating. I have sent for you to discuss a matter which I intend shall be dealt with, if not to our mutual advantage, at least not to the disadvantage of either of us. Whether that turns out to be so, depends on you.”
“Yes, my lady?” his face betrayed nothing.
“You have been foolish enough to engage yourself in a liaison with my daughter. You will cease immediately to pay her any attentions whatsoever. You will leave my employ and take up a post in Scotland, which I shall arrange for you and for which I will provide you with references-”
“I have no wish to work in Scotland, my lady.” He stood square in front of her, his eyes burning with slow amusement.
“Probably not. But that is of no concern to me. I have relations in Stirlingshire who will oblige me by finding you a place. The alternative is prison, which I believe is even colder and more barbarous than Scotland.”
“Prison, my lady?” he raised surprised eyebrows. “To lie with a lady of quality, especially if that lady is more than willing, I may add, may be indiscreet, even socially offensive to some, but it is not a crime. And even if it were, I doubt you would wish to charge me with it.” There seemed a distinct sneer on his mouth.
