Bedford Square (40 page)

Charlotte walked over to him and was almost beside him before he noticed her.

“Mrs. Pitt!” He looked at her gravely, searching her eyes. “How are you?” He paid not the slightest regard to her appearance; he was concerned entirely with her feelings.

“I am quite well,” she answered, equally concerned for him. Looking at his face, she could see little of the relief she would have expected, considering that the threat of ruin that had dogged him for weeks was now lifted. “And you?”

He smiled very slightly. “I had expected to feel better,” he admitted. “Perhaps I am still bemused. I liked Cadell.” He offered her his arm. “Isn’t that ridiculous? But I cannot rid myself of the emotion in a single day, in spite of knowing now what he was really planning. I suppose I am not the judge of men’s characters that I thought I was.” He gave a very slight, rueful shrug.

“I’m sorry,” she said simply. “I don’t think Great-Aunt Vespasia has ever been so fearfully mistaken either. Mrs. Cadell is her goddaughter, you know.”

“I didn’t.” He walked in silence a few yards. “Poor woman. I can imagine the devastation she must be feeling now, the confusion and loss.”

Charlotte thought of Christina. Perhaps he was remembering her when he spoke. Time might have blunted the edge of his own pain, but nothing could remove it. Looking sideways at him now, she would not intrude, it would be inexcusable, but she imagined him thinking of Theodosia Cadell with a pity that could only spring from his own knowledge. His mouth was tugged tight at the corners, the muscles in his neck tense.

“We are all relieved of our fears,” he said after a little while, moving between the banks of roses heavy with perfume in the sun. “We need no longer dread the delivery of mail. We can encounter our friends in the street and meet their eyes without wondering what they are thinking, what double meaning may lie behind the simplest remark. I feel guilty for the people I doubted. I hope to heaven they will
never know it. Oddly, in all my suspicions, I never thought of Cadell.”

She wanted to answer with something intelligent, but she
could
think of nothing.

He did not seem to be waiting for her to say anything, merely glad of her companionship and grateful for the presence of someone to whom he could speak his thoughts as they came to him.

“It is terrible that our relief, the end of our ordeal, has to be the beginning of someone else’s,” he went on. “How will Mrs. Cadell endure this? The knowledge will destroy everything of the past as well as the future. Does she have children, do you know?”

“No … I don’t. I think Aunt Vespasia said something about daughters; I’m not sure. I wasn’t really listening. How shatteringly life can change from one day to another.” She looked at the people passing by them, all seeming so carefree, as if there were nothing on their minds more serious than whether their gowns were fashionable or not, whether a young man had smiled at them, or the girl behind them. And yet underneath, their hearts could be breaking too. Every one of them must succeed in some way, or fail, and the price of that was heavy, perhaps poverty, perhaps loneliness. She had been as young, and as desperate in her own way, once.

“What I don’t understand,” Balantyne went on, frowning, “is why Cadell put the body of Slingsby on my doorstep with Albert Cole’s receipt on him and the snuffbox in his pocket. What was he trying to do? Have me arrested for his murder?” He turned and looked at her, his eyes full of confusion. “Did he hate me so much? Why? I liked him ….”

“I don’t know,” she confessed. “What is more difficult to understand for me is how he got the body. Slingsby was killed in Shoreditch.”

He sighed. “I suppose we shall never know. The man must have had a life quite separate from anything we guessed. I have never found myself so mistaken in anyone.” He gave a very slight laugh. “When I was worried about the orphanage in Kew, he was the one I wrote to.”

“What worried you?” she asked, not that it mattered; it was simply something to continue the conversation.

“The money,” he replied, smiling at her ruefully. “It all seems terribly trivial now. It wasn’t even a large amount.”

“Missing?” she asked.

“No … quite the contrary. I thought we were not giving enough … enough to meet the demands, that is. Perhaps I am a trifle naive as to how one may manage if one is skilled in housekeeping. I daresay they have a good kitchen garden. I have forgotten what children eat. I seem to recall rice pudding, plum duff and bread and jam. I suppose there must have been a great deal else.”

They walked a little farther in silence. Five minutes later they had completed the circle and were back at the gates again. He stopped.

“I …” He cleared his throat. “I … I am deeply grateful for your friendship.” He coughed, removing his arm from hers. “I value it a great deal more than you know—or than it is remotely suitable that I should tell you.” He stopped abruptly, knowing he had already said too much.

She saw the passion of gentleness in his eyes, and understood all that he could never say and she should not have allowed to happen.

She closed her eyes, not to meet his.

“I acted on impulse,” she said almost under her breath. “Sometimes … in fact, quite often … I have more feeling than sense. I apologize for it. But I never believed you were guilty and I cared so much to prove it.” She made herself smile, still with her eyes lowered. “I am very glad that that at least has been proved. I wish we could have solved all the other things too, but they will have to remain as they are.” For an instant she looked at him, then after a moment turned and walked away back towards the gates and outside, knowing that he watched her until was she out of sight, but she could not look back. She must not.

11

P
ITT ARRIVED HOME
late after seeing Vespasia on the way back from Kew. He felt deeply sorry for her. Nothing he had been able to tell her was anything but crushing to the last shred of hope.

Now he sat in front of the empty fireplace in his parlor. The doors to the garden were closed after having been open nearly all day. It was still light, but there was a coolness in the air that could be felt if one were sitting still. The sweet smell of the neighbor’s new-cut grass lingered in the room, reminding him it was time he attended to his own lawn, not to mention the weeding.

Charlotte was sitting opposite him, her sewing discarded. He could see from the rough shape of it that it was a dress for Jemima. There seemed so much material he recalled with a jolt how rapidly she had grown. She was not a little girl anymore, and she most decidedly had opinions of her own. That had come forcibly to his attention a few times lately. It made him think with sharp pity of Christina Balantyne, and brought an awareness of how time can change people and one can be too preoccupied to notice it. Girls grow up and become women.

“Was there nothing at the orphanage?” Charlotte asked, interrupting his thoughts.

He was pleased to be able to share his findings with her. It did not make it any better; it simply hurt less.

“No. Everything was in exceptionally good order. I went
through the books in detail. Every penny was accounted for. Not only that, but it was all clean and obviously well cared for, and the half dozen or so children I actually saw seemed happy and in good health, well clothed and clean also.”

“But General Balantyne was worried about it.” She frowned slightly. “He told me that himself.” She looked at him very steadily, and he knew she was waiting to be asked when she had seen him again.

He found himself smiling in spite of the gloom that he felt. She was very transparent.

“Well, it looks as if he need not have been,” he answered. “I wish all institutions were as well run.”

“He didn’t think they were misappropriating funds,” she explained. “He thought they weren’t using enough.” She took a deep breath. “But he did admit that perhaps he didn’t know very much about budgeting. I daresay he hasn’t much idea what you can do with things like potatoes and oatmeal and rice pudding, and of course bread.”

“I assume he doesn’t know much about army catering, then?” he observed.

“I didn’t ask,” she admitted. “I think honestly he was more troubled by his misjudgment of Leo Cadell. He truly liked him … and trusted him.”

“I know,” Pitt said quietly. “It has wounded Aunt Vespasia profoundly as well. I think …”

“Yes?” She was quick to respond, her face earnest.

“You might visit her a little more often … for a while. At least offer to … somehow make it tactful.”

She smiled a little ruefully. “It is not easy to be tactful with Aunt Vespasia. She can read my thoughts almost before I have them.”

“Then perhaps you had better not try. Simply offer.”

“Thomas …” she said tentatively.

“Yes?”

“What did he want? I mean, what was Cadell going to ask them all for? Was it just money, or something to do with Africa, as you thought?”

“I don’t know. His note said very little. What puzzles me
far more is how he knew about Slingsby at all, that he resembled Cole, let alone that he was dead.”

“You don’t know?” She was startled.

“No. I can see why he wanted Slingsby’s body to be taken for Albert Cole’s … to increase the pressure on Balantyne … but why not use the real Albert Cole? He would be far more likely to have met him. He worked in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Cadell could easily have been. Any of the victims could have, and Dunraithe White assuredly has.”

“Well, what happened to Albert Cole?” she asked, her face puckered. “Where is he?”

“I have no idea.”

“Why didn’t he come forward when his death was reported in the newspapers?” she pressed.

“I don’t suppose he reads the newspapers,” he answered with a smile. “He may not read at all.”

“Oh. I never thought of that.” She showed a moment’s consternation at her own blindness, then hurried on. “Even so, other people do. And he isn’t anywhere in his usual places, is he? He’s gone from his lodgings and from the corner where he sold bootlaces, and from the public house where he drank. You told me that.”

His brief moment of humor vanished. “I am afraid he may also be dead. Perhaps he died of some cause that didn’t suit their purpose.”

“Such as what?” she demanded.

“Illness of some sort or, for example, drowning. We could hardly blame General Balantyne for a drowned body that turned up on his doorstep.”

In spite of herself she laughed. It was absurd, grotesque. But the moment was soon gone.

“Poor man,” she said, more to herself than to him. “But that doesn’t answer how Cadell knew about Slingsby and just happened to be in Shoreditch at the time. What on earth would he be doing in Shoreditch at all?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not sure whether I need to know. I want to, but does it matter now?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation in her at all. “This doesn’t
make any sense. You need to know at the very least what happened to Albert Cole. Just because nobody misses him doesn’t mean he doesn’t matter.”

He did not argue. Perhaps it was the excuse he had been wanting.

Pitt went to see Cornwallis in the morning. He looked a different man. The shadows of tiredness were still in his face, but the haunted air had gone from his eyes and he stood upright, his shoulders square again, and he met Pitt’s gaze almost eagerly.

In the first moment after coming into the room, Pitt realized just how heavy had been the weight upon Cornwallis, how very sharp the fear. Now that it was gone, every aspect of his life had changed again. Courage and belief in himself had returned.

Pitt almost let it rest. Whatever had happened to Albert Cole, it could not be undone. Did they really need to know? Cadell was guilty, by his own admission. It filled all the facts. He was in a position to have gained all the information about the other victims. He knew them all from the Jessop Club.

“Good morning, Pitt,” Cornwallis said cheerfully. “Excellent job. I’m most extremely grateful.” His expression darkened. “Although I’m damned sorry it turned out to be Cadell. I liked him. At least … I liked what I believed him to be. It is hard to discover that someone is not remotely what you supposed. It shakes your confidence in your own judgment. I used to think I knew a man’s character.” He frowned. “It was part of my job.”