Half Moon Street (30 page)

Caroline considered it for several minutes. She thought also of Pitt, and the photographs of Cecily Antrim, and young Lewis Marchand’s face. In stilted words she told Vespasia about that also.

When she had finished, Vespasia was smiling.

“That must have been very difficult for you,” she said with approval. “Please do not chastise yourself over what you cannot change. There is a limit to what any of us can do, and sometimes we take the blame for things far beyond our power to affect. We each have our own agency to choose how we will react to our circumstances. We cannot take that from anyone, nor should we wish to, even if we have the arrogance to believe we know better than they do how they should behave or what judgments they should make. We may beg, plead, argue, we may pray—and we should—but in the end the only person anyone can change is themselves. Please be content with that. It is all you will receive, I promise you. And it is all you should. It is sufficient.”

“And what about the pictures?” Caroline asked. “We talk very freely about not censoring art. But the people who say that don’t think of the damage they can do. If they had seen young Lewis Marchand’s face, they wouldn’t have thought their freedom worth so much. They aren’t the people with children . . . they . . .” She stopped, realizing how wrong she was. “Yes, they are . . . at least Cecily Antrim is.” She frowned. “Am I old-fashioned, repressed, backward-thinking? She would say I am boring and getting old!” The words hurt as she said them. Spoken aloud they were even worse than silent in her mind.

“I am not getting old,” Vespasia replied vigorously. “I most assuredly have arrived there. It is not as bad as you may fear . . . in fact it has distinct pleasures. Go and read your Robert Browning, and have a little more faith in life, my dear. And so far as being boring is concerned, kindness and honesty are never tedious. Cruelty, hypocrisy and pretentiousness always are . . . excruciatingly so. A fool may not be interesting, but if he or she is generous and interested in you, you will find you like him, however limited his wit.”

“Why would Cecily Antrim pose for such pictures?” Caroline followed her thoughts. “When Joshua finds out he is going to be so distressed . . . I think . . .”

Then suddenly she was terribly afraid he would not be, it would be she herself he thought out of step, critical, imprisoned in old thought.

Vespasia was looking at her very steadily, her eyes silver-gray in the soft light of this clear, uncluttered room. The sun was bright on the grass beyond the windows, the trees motionless against the blue sky.

Caroline felt transparent, all her thoughts, her fears, naked.

“I think you are being a trifle unfair to him,” Vespasia said frankly. “Of course he will be hurt, and wish to judge her more kindly than may prove possible. Disillusion cuts very deep. He will need you to be sure of yourself. I think you should consider long and carefully what it is you hold most dear, and then do not let go of it.”

Caroline said nothing. She already knew that was true; Samuel Ellison had taught her that.

Vespasia leaned forward a fraction. It was just a slight gesture, but it gave an impression of closeness. “You are older than he is, and it troubles you.” That was a statement, not a question. “My dear, you always were. He chose you for who you are. Don’t destroy it by trying to be someone else. If he loses a friend he has admired in this miserable business, he is going to need you to be strong, to remain honest and fight for the values you have represented to him. Years are accidents of nature; maturity is very precious. He may very much need you to be older than he is . . . for a little while.” The flicker of a smile touched her mouth. “The time will come when you can reverse the roles and allow him to be stronger, or wiser, or even both! Just be subtle about it, that’s all. Sometimes when we most need help, we least like to know we are receiving it. Set your own doubts aside for a little while. Fight as you would for your children, without thought for yourself. Just don’t lose your temper. It is terribly unbecoming.”

In spite of herself, Caroline laughed.

Vespasia laughed also. “May I lend you a pen and paper? Then you may send a note to Thomas to give him the address of this dealer. I shall have my coachman take it to Bow Street. I confess I find it most irritating that Charlotte has gone to Paris. I have no idea what Thomas is doing, and I am bored to doll-rags!” She gave a self-deprecating shrug, pulling the dove-gray silk of her gown. “I have become addicted to police life and I find society infinitely tedious. It is merely a new generation of people doing exactly what we did, and convinced they are the first to think of it. How on earth do they imagine they came into the world?”

Caroline found herself overtaken with laughter; the blessed release of it was marvelous. The tears ran down her cheeks and she did not even try to stop, she had no desire to at all. Suddenly she was warm again, and surprisingly hungry. She would like tea . . . and cakes!

While Caroline was worrying about Mariah Ellison and trying in vain to think of some way to comfort her, Pitt was sitting at the table in his kitchen reading the latest letter from Charlotte. He was so absorbed in it he let his tea go cold.

Dearest Thomas,

I am enjoying my last few days here in a unique kind of way. It has been a marvelous holiday, and no doubt the moment I leave I shall wish I could recapture it better in my memory. Therefore I am looking at everything especially closely, so I can print it in my mind . . . the way the light falls on the river, the sun on the old stones . . . some of the buildings are quite frighteningly beautiful and so steeped in history.

I think of all the things that have happened here, the people who have lived and died, the great battles for liberty, the terror and the glory . . . and of course the squalor as well.

I wonder, do other people come to London and look at it with the same bursting sense of romance? Do foreigners come to our city and see the great ghosts of the past: Charles I going calmly to his death after years of civil war, Queen Elizabeth leaving to rally the troops before the Armada, Anne Boleyn . . . why is it always executions? What’s the matter with us? Riot, bloodshed and glorious deaths . . . I suppose it is the ultimate sacrifice?

By the way, talking about ultimate sacrifice, well, not ultimate I suppose . . . but a young French diplomat, Henri Bonnard by name, has just made a conspicuous sacrifice on behalf of his friend. It is in all the newspapers, so Madame says. Apparently he is posted in London and has come back to Paris to testify in this case I was telling you about—the man who said he could not have killed the girl because he was at a nightclub at the time? Well, so he was—the Moulin Rouge! And the diplomat was with him—all night. It seems they went there quite respectably, like anyone else, then stayed over when the most infamous of the dancers—La Goulue—was doing the cancan—without her underwear, as usual—and then went on to even more disreputable pursuits. But together! He swears to it—very reluctantly, I might add. His ambassador will not be pleased. All Paris is laughing about it today—I imagine London will know of it by the time you read this. At least some of London will, the people the ambassador cares about. Poor Monsieur Bonnard, a high price to pay to rescue a friend. I hope he does not lose his job.

We are going to the opera tonight. It should be great fun. Everyone will be dressed in the latest fashion. It’s just like London, the very best courtesans parade at the back and pick up custom, only of course I’m not supposed to know that!

All this is marvelous to watch, but nothing on earth could persuade me to live this way permanently. It is the best thing of all to know that I shall be home in a few days, and with you all again.

I don’t suppose you have heard from Gracie? I don’t think she is sure enough of her writing yet, and of course Daniel and Jemima wouldn’t think to write. I hope they are building sand castles, finding crabs and little fish in the rock pools, eating sweets, getting wet and dirty and having an unforgettable time.

I imagine you are working hard. The case you describe sounds macabre. There must be a tragedy behind it. I hope you are eating properly, and finding where I put everything you will need. Is the house horribly silent without us all? Or wonderfully peaceful? I trust you are not neglecting Archie and Angus? I don’t imagine they will allow you to.

I miss you, and shall be happy to be home soon,

Yours always,
Charlotte

He read it again carefully, not that he had missed any part of it but that it gave him a sense of her nearness. He could almost hear her quick footsteps down the passage and half expected her to push the door open and come in.

It also finally solved the question of what had happened to Henri Bonnard. He found himself smiling at that. It was a pleasant thought, among the other miseries, that he had gone for the most generous of reasons. He hoped the ambassador in London viewed Bonnard’s loyalty to his friend as a quality far outweighing the indiscretion of having attended a nightclub of exceedingly dubious reputation. Even if it was as sordid as gossip would have, it was still the sort of thing young men did, even if largely out of curiosity and a certain bravado.

Was that what he and Orlando Antrim had quarreled about? Orlando had been trying to persuade him to go? It seemed finally he had acquiesced.

Pitt finished the last of his tea, grimacing at its coldness—he liked his tea as hot as he could bear it—and stood up, forgetting that Archie was on his lap.

“Sorry,” he apologized absently. “Here, Archie, have some more breakfast. I hope you realize you’ll go back to rations when your mistress comes home? There’ll be no extras then. And you’ll have to go back to your own bed as well . . . you and Angus!”

Archie wound around his legs, purring, leaving white and ginger hairs on his trousers.

Pitt had no alternative but to confront Cecily Antrim with the photographs. He would have liked to avoid it so he could keep his illusions about her and imagine in his mind that she could produce an explanation which would make it understandable and somehow not her fault. She had been blackmailed into it to save someone else, anything that would not mean she was a willing participant. That was not a great leap of the imagination. Some of the other photographs had certainly been blackmail material, had any of the people in them gone on to a more respectable position or career. And the money so obtained would explain Cathcart’s style of life, and Lily Monderell’s.

But he could not so easily imagine Cecily Antrim as anyone’s victim. She was too vibrant, too courageous, too willing to follow her own beliefs even to destruction.

He found her in the early afternoon in the theatre rehearsing for
Hamlet.
Tellman was with him, reluctant to the last step.

“Shakespeare!” he said between set teeth. He made no further remark, but the expression on his face was eloquent.

As before they were allowed in grudgingly and had to wait in the wings until a suitable break came when the person they wished to see was not necessary to the performance. Today they were rehearsing Act V, in the churchyard. Two men were digging a grave and speaking of the suicide who was to be buried in it, even though it was hallowed ground. After a little joking, one departed, leaving the other alone, singing to himself.

Hamlet and Horatio entered, this time in costume. It was not long until the first night, and Pitt noticed immediately how much more polished they were. There was an air of certainty about them as if they were absorbed in the passions of the story and no longer aware of direction, let alone of the world beyond.

Pitt glanced at Tellman and saw the light reflected in his face as he listened, the words washing over him, not in familiar cadence as they did for so many, for Pitt himself, but heard for the first time.

“ ‘Alas poor Yorick!—I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy . . .’ ”

Tellman’s eyes were wide. He was unaware of Pitt. He stared at the plaster skull in Orlando Antrim’s hand, and saw the emotions within him.

“ ‘Now get you to my lady’s chamber,’ ” Orlando said with irony hard-edged in his voice, harsh with pain, “ ‘. . . and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor must she come; make her laugh at that,—Pr’ythee, Horatio, tell me one thing.’ ”

“ ‘What’s that, my lord?’ ” the other actor enquired.

Tellman leaned forward a little. His face was like a mask, not a muscle moved, nor did his eyes ever leave the small pool of light on the stage. The words poured around him.

“ ‘To what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?’ ”

Someone moved in the wings. A look of annoyance crossed Tellman’s face but he did not turn to see who it was.

“ ‘Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay.’ ” Orlando spoke the words softly, filled with centuries of wonder and music, as if they wove a magic for him.

“ ‘. . . Might stop a hole to keep the wind away:

O, that that earth which kept the world in awe

should patch a wall to expel the winter’s flaw!

But soft! But soft! aside—Here comes the king.’ ”

And from the wing moved a slow, sad procession in somber, magnificent garments. Priests, the coffin of Ophelia followed by her brother, then the king, and Cecily Antrim, beautiful as Gertrude. It was extraordinary how she could hold one’s attention, even when the scene was not about her at all. There was a light in her face, a force of emotion in her that could not be ignored.

The drama played itself out, and neither Pitt nor Tellman moved until it was over. Then Pitt stepped forward.

Tellman was still transfixed. In a space of less than fifteen minutes he had glimpsed a new world which had thrown aside the old. The still water of his preconceptions had been disturbed by a wave whose ripples were going to reach to the very outer edges, and already he felt it.