Southampton Row

by Anne Perry

  “Is this the home of Mr. Francis Wray?” Pitt enquired.

  “Yes sir.” She was obviously concerned because he was someone she did not know. Perhaps Wray was usually visited only by fellow clergymen or members of the local community. “Sir . . . if you’d wait there, I’ll go an’ see if ’e’s at ’ome.” She stepped back, then did not know whether to ask him in, leave him on the step, or even close the door in case he might have designs on the gleaming horse brasses hanging behind her in the hall.

  “May I wait in the garden?” he asked, glancing back at the flowers.

  Her face flooded with relief. “Yes sir. ’Course yer can. ’E keeps it a real treat, don’t ’e?” She blinked suddenly as tears came to her eyes. Pitt gathered that Wray had thrown himself into its care since his bereavement. Perhaps it was a physical labor that eased some of the emotion inside. Flowers were a kind of company that absorbed all your ministrations, yet gave back only beauty, asking no questions and intruding nowhere.

  He had not long to stand in the sun watching the tortoiseshell cat before Wray himself came out of the front door and along the short path. He was of average height, at least four inches shorter than Pitt, although in his youth he might have been less so. Now his shoulders sank, his back was a little bent, but it was his face that carried the indelible marks of inner pain. There were shadows around his eyes, deep lines from nose to mouth and more than one razor nick on his papery skin.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” he said quietly in a voice of remarkable beauty. “Mary Ann tells me you wish to see me. I am Francis Wray. What may I do for you?”

  For a moment Pitt even thought of lying. What he was about to do could only be painful and grossly intrusive. The thought vanished again. This man could be “Cartouche,” and if nothing more, he could supply another recollection not only of the evening, but of the other occasions on which he had been at Maude Lamont’s with Rose Serracold and General Kingsley. With a lifetime spent in the church, surely he was a profound observer of human nature?

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Wray,” he replied. “My name is Thomas Pitt.” He hated approaching the subject of Maude Lamont’s death, but he had no other reason for taking Wray’s time or intruding into his home. But not all the truth was necessary yet. “I am endeavoring to be of some assistance in a recent tragedy which has occurred in the city, a death in most unpleasant circumstances.”

  Wray’s face tightened momentarily, but the sympathy in his eyes was unfeigned. “Then you had better come in, Mr. Pitt. If you have come from London, perhaps you have not had luncheon yet? I’m sure Mary Ann could find enough for both of us, if simple fare would suffice for you?”

  Pitt had no choice but to accept. He needed to speak with Wray. To have gone in but refused the hospitality would have been churlish and hurt the man’s feelings for no reason but to ease his own conscience, and quite artificially. Putting distance between them would not make his act any less intrusive or his suspicions less ugly. “Thank you,” he accepted, following Wray back up the path and in through the front door, hoping he would not be placing more pressure on young Mary Ann.

  He glanced at the hall as he passed through it towards the study, waiting a moment while Wray spoke to Mary Ann. Other than the horse brasses there was an elaborate brass stick and umbrella stand, a carved wooden settle that looked at a glance to be Tudor, and several very lovely drawings of bare trees.

  Mary Ann scurried off to the kitchen and Wray returned, seeing the direction Pitt was looking.

  “You like them?” he said gently, his voice charged with emotion.

  “Yes, very much,” Pitt answered. “The beauty of a bare trunk is quite as great as that of a tree in full leaf.”

  “You can see that?” For an instant Wray’s face lit with a smile, like a shaft of sunlight on a spring day. Then it vanished again. “My late wife did them. She had a gift for seeing a thing as it really is.”

  “And a gift to translate that beauty for others,” Pitt responded, then wished he had not. He was here to find out if this man had gone to a spirit medium in a bid to recapture something of those he had loved, but in contradiction of all that his life and faith had taught him. Pitt might even have to entertain the idea that Wray had murdered the confidence artist who had betrayed that trust.

  “Thank you,” Wray murmured, turning quickly aside to give himself a moment’s privacy as he led the way to his study, a small room with too many books, a plaster bust of Dante on a plinth, a watercolor painting of a young woman with brown hair smiling out shyly at the viewer. There was a silver vase of roses of all colors mingled together balanced on the desk, rather too near the edge. Pitt would have liked to read the titles of a score or so of the books to see what they were, but he had time to notice only three: Flavius Josephus’s Histories, Thomas à Kempis, and a commentary on Saint Augustine.

  “Please sit down and tell me how I can help,” Wray offered. “I have plenty of time, and nothing in the world more useful to do with it.” He attempted a smile, but it was more of warmth than any happiness within him.

  It was no longer possible to evade the issue entirely. “Are you by any chance acquainted with Major General Roland Kingsley?” Pitt began.

  Wray thought for a moment. “I seem to recall the name.”

  “A tall gentleman, returned from military service largely in Africa,” Pitt elaborated.

  Wray relaxed. “Ah yes, of course. Zulu Wars, wasn’t it? Served with great distinction, as I recall. No, I’ve never met him, but I have heard him referred to. I am very sorry to hear he has had another tragedy. He lost his only son, I do know that.” His eyes were bright and seemed almost blind for a moment, but he controlled his voice, and his attention was set entirely upon what he could do to assist Pitt.

  “This is not about his bereavement,” Pitt said quickly, before thinking as to whether he was contradicting himself or not. “He was present shortly before someone died . . . someone to whom he had been going in an effort to find solace for his son’s death . . . or the manner of it.” He swallowed, watching Wray’s face. “A spirit medium.” Had he read of it in the newspapers? They were mostly overrun by coverage of the election.

  Wray frowned, his expression darkening. “You mean one of those people who claim to be in touch with the spirits of the dead, and take money from the vulnerable in order to produce voices and signs?”

  He could hardly have more clearly worded his contempt for them. Did it spring from his religious views or his own betrayal? There was real anger in his eyes; the gentle, courteous man of a few moments ago was temporarily gone. Perhaps noticing Pitt’s attention, he went on. “It is a very dangerous thing to do, Mr. Pitt. I would wish no one harm, but it is better that such activities cease, although I would not have had it by violent means.”

  Pitt was puzzled. “Dangerous, Mr. Wray? Perhaps I misled you. She was killed by entirely human means, there was nothing occult about it. It was your possible knowledge of the other people who were present that I wanted, not of the divine.”

  Wray sighed. “You are a man of your time, Mr. Pitt. Science is the idol we worship now, and Mr. Darwin, not God, the begetter of our race. But the power of good and evil is still there, whatever the mask of the day we set over them. You assume that this medium had no powers to touch beyond the grave, and you are probably right, but that does not mean to say that they do not exist.”

  Pitt felt a chill in the warmth of the room and knew it was inside himself. He had been too quick to like Wray. He was old, charming, gentle and generous in manner, and he was lonely and he had invited Pitt in to luncheon. He loved his garden and his cats. He also believed in the possibilities of calling up the spirits of the dead, and was deeply and profoundly angry with those who attempted to do so. Pitt must at the very least find out why.

  “It was the sin of Saul,” Wray continued earnestly, as if Pitt had spoken his thoughts aloud.

  Pitt was completely blank. Nothing returned from schoolroom memories.

 
“King Saul of the Bible,” Wray said with sudden gentleness, almost apology. “He sought the ghost of the Prophet Samuel through the witch of Endor.”

  “Oh.” It was the intensity in Wray’s face, the fixity of his eyes, that held Pitt. There was an almost uncontrollable emotion in the man. Pitt was compelled to ask him the next question. “And did he find him?”

  “Oh yes, of course,” Wray replied. “But it was the beginning of that seed of defiance in his nature, the pride against God which in the end was rage and envy, and sin unto death.” His face was intensely earnest, a tiny muscle in his temple flickering uncontrollably. “Never underestimate the danger of seeking to know what should not be known, Mr. Pitt. It carries with it a monstrous evil. Shun it as you would a plague pit!”

  “I have no desire whatever to enquire into such things,” Pitt said honestly, and then realized with a rush of gratitude and guilt how easy it was to say that when he had no insupportable grief, no loneliness that wrapped around him as this man had, no real temptation. He could not bear even to think of it, to believe that the threat in Voisey’s eyes was anything but emotion, the rage at his defeat in Whitechapel, blind, incapable of action.

  “I hope that if I lost someone profoundly dear to me I would seek my comfort in the faith of a resurrection according to the promises of God,” he said to Wray, embarrassed to find his voice trembling. A sudden shivering cold seized hold of him as thoughts of Charlotte and his children forced themselves into his mind, without him, and in a place he had never even seen. Were they safe? He had not heard from them yet! Was he protecting them the best way, and was it good enough? What if it wasn’t? What if Voisey did take that way to exact his vengeance? It might be crass, obvious, unrefined and too quick in its execution, dangerous for him—but it would also be the most exquisitely painful for Pitt . . . and final. If they were dead, what would there be left of value in life?

  He looked at the elderly, broken man in front of him, so filled with his loss it seemed to bleed out of him into the air of the room, and Pitt could feel the ache of it himself. In such a situation would he be different? Was it not foolish and unbelievably arrogant, the sign of complacent stupidity, to be so sure that he would never turn to mediums, tarot cards, tea leaves, anything at all that would fill the void in which he dwelt alone in a universe crowded with strangers he could touch in no way of the heart?

  “At least I hope so,” he said again. “But of course I don’t know.”

  Wray’s eyes filled with tears which spilled down his cheeks without his blinking. “Do you have family, Mr. Pitt?”

  “Yes. I have a wife and two children.” Was it compounding the pain to tell him that?

  “You are fortunate. Say to them all that you mean, while there is time for you. Never let a day go by without thanking God for what He has given you.”

  Pitt struggled to bring his mind back to his reason for being here. He should satisfy himself once and for all that Wray could not have been the man represented by the cartouche in Maude Lamont’s diary.

  “I will try,” he promised. “Unfortunately, I still need to do what I can to understand the death of Maude Lamont and prevent the wrong person from being blamed for having killed her.”

  Wray looked at him with incomprehension. “If it was unlawful, surely that is a matter for the police, distressing as that is. I understand perfectly that you may not wish to have them involved, but I am afraid you have no moral choice.”

  Pitt felt a stab of shame at willfully misleading this man. “They are already involved, Mr. Wray. But one of the people present on that last evening is the wife of a man standing for a seat in Parliament, and a third is someone who wishes to keep his identity a secret, and so far has succeeded.”

  “And you wish to know who he is?” Wray said in a moment of startling clarity. “Even if I knew, Mr. Pitt, if it were told me as a matter of confidence, I could not pass on that secret to you. The best I could do would be to counsel him with all my strength to be honest with you. But then I would already have counseled him with every argument and plea within my power to have nothing to do with such an evil and dangerous practice as meddling with knowledge of the dead. The only righteous knowledge of such things is gained through prayer.” He shook his head a little. “Why is it you were led to believe that I might be of service to you? I do not understand that.”

  Pitt improvised with a flash of invention. “You have a name for knowledge on the subject, and for your powerful feelings against it. I thought you might have some information on the nature of mediums, particularly Miss Lamont, which would help. She has a very wide reputation.”

  Wray sighed. “I am afraid my knowledge, such as it is, is general and not particular. And lately my memory is not as keen as it used to be. I forget things, and I regret to say I have a tendency to repeat myself. I tell the jokes that I like rather too many times. People are very kind, and I would almost prefer that they were not. Now I never know if I have already said before what I am saying now, or if I haven’t.”

  Pitt smiled. “You have said nothing twice to me!”

  “I have not told you any jokes,” Wray said sadly. “Nor have we had luncheon yet, and no doubt I will show you every flower at least twice.”

  “A flower is worth looking at at least twice,” Pitt replied.

  A few moments later Mary Ann came in to tell them somewhat nervously that the meal was ready, and they removed to the small dining room, where she had obviously gone to some trouble to make it look even more attractive. There was a china jug of flowers in the center of the table and a carefully ironed cloth set with blue-ringed china and old, well-polished silver. She served a thick vegetable soup with crusty bread, butter and a soft, crumbling white country cheese, and a homemade pickle that Pitt guessed to be rhubarb. It all made him realize how much he missed the domestic touches in his own home with Charlotte and Gracie both away.

  Pudding was plum pie with clotted cream. He refrained only with the greatest difficulty from actually asking for more.

  Wray seemed to be happy to eat in silence. Perhaps simply to have someone opposite him at the table was sufficient.

  Afterwards they rose to go and admire the garden. It was only then that Pitt saw on the side table a folder advertising the powers of Maude Lamont, in which she offered to bring back to the bereaved the spirits of loved ones departed and to give them the opportunity to say all those precious and important things that untimely death had taken from them.

  Wray was ahead of him, walking out into the sun, dazzling as it was reflected off the blaze of flowers and the clean white of the painted fence. Almost stumbling on the sill of the French doors, Pitt went after him.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Bishop Underhill did not spend a great deal of time in speaking with individual parishioners. When he did it was largely on formal occasions, weddings, confirmations, now and then baptisms. However, it was part of his calling to be available to counsel the clergy within the boundaries of his see, and when they had spiritual burdens of any sort it was right that it was to him they came for help and comfort.

  Isadora was used to seeing anxious men of all ages, from curates overwhelmed by their responsibilities or their ambitions to acquire more, to senior clergy who found administration and the care of those in their charge sometimes more than they felt equipped to handle.

  The ones she dreaded most were the bereaved, those who had lost a wife or child and came seeking a greater comfort and strength to their faith than their daily rituals could offer them. They could give so much support to others, and yet their own grief sometimes overwhelmed them.

  Today it was the Reverend Patterson, who had lost his daughter in childbirth. He sat in the Bishop’s study, an elderly man with gaunt body, his head bent, his face half covered by his hands.

  Isadora brought in the tray of tea and set it on the small table. She did not speak to either of them, but silently filled both cups. She knew Patterson well enough not to need to ask hi
m if he wished for milk or sugar.

  “I thought I would understand,” Patterson said desperately. “I’ve been a minister in the church for almost forty years! God knows how many people I’ve comforted in their loss, and now all those words I’ve said so carefully mean nothing to me.” He peered up at the Bishop. “Why? Why don’t I believe them when I say them to myself?”

  Isadora waited for the Bishop to reply that it was shock, anger at pain, and he must give himself time to heal. Even expected death is a huge and strange thing and takes courage to face, no less by a man dedicated to God’s service than by any other. Faith is not certainty, and belief does not take away the hurt.

  The Bishop seemed to be floundering for words. He drew in his breath, and then let it out again in a sigh. “My dear man, we will all experience great trials of faith during our lives. I am sure you will rise to this with all your usual fortitude. You are a good man, rest in the knowledge of that.”

  Patterson stared up at him, the agony in his face as naked as if he were oblivious of Isadora’s presence. “If I am a good man, why has this happened to me?” he begged. “And why do I feel nothing but confusion and pain? Why can I see no hand of God in it, no whisper of the divine anywhere?”

  “The divine is an infinite mystery,” the Bishop answered, staring across Patterson’s head at the far wall, his face intensely troubled, his eyes fixed. He looked as if he saw no more comfort than Patterson did himself. “It is beyond us to comprehend. Perhaps we are not meant to.”

  Anguish contorted Patterson’s features, and it seemed to Isadora, afraid to move in case she drew attention to herself, that he was on the edge of screaming with the sheer frustration that boiled up inside him, unanswered by anything he could ever reach towards.

  “There’s no sense in it all!” he cried out, his voice strangled in his throat. “One day she was alive, so alive, her child within her. She glowed with the joy of her time coming . . . and then nothing but suffering and death. How could it be? How? It’s senseless! It’s cruel and wasteful, and stupid, as if there is no meaning in the universe.” He drew in a great sob. “Why have I spent my life telling people there is a just and loving God, that it all makes a perfect pattern that we will see one day, and then when I need to know that myself . . . there’s nothing but darkness . . . and silence? Why?” His voice grew more demanding, angrier. “Why? Was my whole life a farce? Tell me!”