Never Call It Love (8 page)

"Well,
miss! So you have decided to make your appearance, now that they have taken
your poor brother away."

"What
did you tell them?"

"That
he had been here with us since Wednesday, day before yesterday, of course!
Hawkins told them that, too. But it did no good."

"Christopher
and I both told you that if bailiffs came with a warrant—"

"I
know, I know. Well, Elizabeth, what do you plan to do now?"

"Have
breakfast, walk to the village, take the stagecoach to London."

"To
see that Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons?"

"Yes."

"Elizabeth,
I will never understand you. You won't take Christopher's word for where he
spent the night before last, but you seem ready to take the word of that...
strumpet. Why
on earth, if it wasn't true, would the boy have confessed to us that he was at
her house?"

To
keep us from dunking he had been doing something much worse, Elizabeth wanted
to say. But she could see that her mother was in no mood for logic, and so she
kept silent.

"If
you insist upon going into London, will you take some money from the safe for
Christopher, and make sure that he gets it? He'll need a few small comforts in
that place." She meant his room at Newgate Prison. "It may be days
before they admit they have made a mistake and let him go. In the meantime
he'll need writing paper, and candles, and decent food sent in. He'll have to
send his shirts and underlinen to a laundress...."

"Of
course I'll see that he gets some money." She would also see their family
solicitor, Mr. Fairchild, in his rooms at the Inns of Court, to arrange for her
brother's defense. But there was no point now in trying to make her mother
realize that in all probability Christopher would have to stand trial.
Obviously Mrs. Montlow chose to believe that in a few days he would be
released.

"And
you'll wear a veil? Someone who knows you might see you going into that
dreadful creature's house."

"I'll
wear a veil. I had better have breakfast now, Mother, so that I can walk to the
village in plenty of time."

"There
is no need to hurry. Hawkins went to the village early this morning, and told
the stage master there that you would pay extra if the stage called for you at
our house."

She
went on, with dignity, "There are some things, Elizabeth, that I cannot
save you from. I cannot prevent your doubting your own brother's word. I cannot
keep you from going to that notorious woman's house. But at least I can save
you from appearing in London with muddy slippers."

Peggy
Frazier-Fitzsimmons was at the window of her private upstairs sitting-room when
she saw the carriage stop in front of her house. For the last ten minutes she
had been admiring her newly acquired ruby ring, turning it this way and that so
that the sunlight awoke fire in the gem's depths. Now she crossed hastily to
her dressing table, dropped the ring into her jewel box, and returned to the
window. A heavily veiled woman, slender and obviously young, was descending
from the carriage.

Kit
Montlow's sister? She must be.

Again
Peggy flew to her dressing table, and inspected her face in its frame of blond
ringlets. It was quite an attractive face, despite fine lines bracketing her
mouth, and even finer ones radiating from the corners of her brown eyes. From
downstairs came the sound of the front door's knocker.

She
adjusted one of the ringlets on her forehead. A touch of rouge? No, better not.

Her
maid-of-all-work, Lucia, appeared in the doorway. Like her husband, Peggy's
coachman, Lucia was of southern Italian descent. She said, olive-complexioned
face impassive, "A Miss Montlow to see you."

"Tell
her I will be down immediately."

When
Peggy entered the salon only moments later, her visitor, now with veil flung
back, rose from a French-style settee of fruitwood upholstered in pale yellow
satin. Like the whole house, the salon was small, but comfortably, even
luxuriously appointed.

"Miss
Montlow?" Tactfully, Peggy did not offer her hand.

"Yes."

"I
am Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons."

There
had never been a Mr. Frazier-Fitzsimmons. Peggy had assumed the name when, at
the age of eighteen, she had realized that she did not have to continue through
life as Bertha Crouch.

"How
do you do?" Elizabeth said.

What
a beauty, Peggy thought. That lustrous brown hair, those gray eyes, that
figure, with a waist so slender that the high breasts beneath her dark brown
velvet gown looked fuller than they actually were. Of late years, Peggy had
sometimes, at a price, introduced lovers weary of her own charms to certain young
women. Wistfully she thought of the price she could obtain for this one.

"Please
sit down, Miss Montlow." Peggy moved to the bell rope hanging beside the
marble-manteled fireplace. "May I offer you refreshment? Tea,
perhaps?"

"No,
thank you," Elizabeth said swiftly. Then, aware that she might have
sounded ungracious: "I cannot stay long. I have much to do before I leave
London at four o'clock."

"I
understand." Peggy sat down in a yellow satin armchair, facing her
visitor.

"I
have come here about my brother. Did Christopher come here for tea last
Wednesday afternoon? And did he... stay here until the next morning?"

Peggy
cast her eyes modestly downward. "Did he tell you that?"

"Yes."

Peggy
thought of how Christopher Montlow had visited her the previous Wednesday, but
not until many hours after teatime. In fact, Lucia and Giuseppe had already
retired to their quarters above the carriage house, and Peggy herself, in her
upstairs bedroom, had begun to feel sleepy, when she heard a handful of gravel
patter against the windowpane. She had gone to the window and looked down. Kit
Montlow had stood down there in the garden, pale hair shining in the rectangle
of light cast by her window.

She
had felt glad to see him. Since she had first met him in Hyde Park the previous
summer, they had been to bed seven or eight times. She had found his youth a
stimulating
novelty. And he had proved to be a potent lover, although a somewhat selfish
and impatient one. She descended quickly to the lower hall, where a tallow
night lamp burned on a table near the rear door, and let him into the house.

"Kit,
you young scamp! Why didn't you go to the front door?" Then she saw from
the look on his face that this was no ordinary visit. "What is the matter?
Are you in trouble?"

"I
may be."

"With
the law?"

"Perhaps."

"Then
get out of here! Immediately! I cannot afford any trouble with the law."

"You
won't have any. I'm not asking you to say anything whatever to anyone connected
with the law."

"Then
what are you asking?"

"Probably
my sister will be here in a day or two. I want you to tell her that I came here
at teatime this afternoon—
came here for the first time,
do you
understand? And that I spent all of tonight with you, and then left early in
the morning."

She
looked at him shrewdly. "Is that what you are going to tell her?"

"Yes,
and my mother, too."

"Then
you must have been up to something really bad tonight, if you would rather have
them believe you were here! Now, what has happened?"

"My
house on Kingman Street was broken into, that's all."

"By
you?"

"Why
would I break into my own house?"

"I
don't know why. I just know that you might do anything. Now, what
happened?"

"There
was a girl with whoever broke into the house. She's... hurt."

Peggy
took a step backward. "I don't want to hear anything more about it!"

"You
don't have to. All you have to do is tell my sister what I ask you to."

She
studied him. "Are you sure you are not hoping I will furnish an alibi for
you to the bailiffs?"

"Don't
be a fool, Peg. Of what use would be an alibi furnished by you? Who would
believe a woman everyone knows to be a whore?"

She
took the insult with narrowed eyes, but calmly. "You're very foxy for a
lad of eighteen, aren't you?"

"If
you convince my sister I spent all of tonight with you, she and my mother will furnish
me with an alibi, one that
will
be believed."

She
considered, no longer afraid that he planned to involve her with bailiffs or
the law courts. Clever young devil that he was, he had realized, even before
she herself did, that such help from her could only harm him. She said,
"And in return, what will you do for me?"

He
stripped a ring from his finger and handed it to her. Even though she had seen
it before, she held the ring close to the lamp and looked appreciatively at the
glowing ruby. It was worth a hundred pounds, possibly more.

"Just
what do you want me to tell your sister?"

They
talked for several minutes. Then he moved toward the door. She asked,
"What are you going to do now?"

"Walk
fifteen miles to the Hedges. I should get there well before morning. I don't
dare hire a horse. The stable owner would remember me."

"And
when you reach the Hedges?"

"I'll
hide in the carriage house until dark tomorrow night, just in case there might
be someone watching the place, and then slip into the house."

He
had said good night to Peggy then, and gone out the back door.

Now,
eyes still cast down, Peggy said to Elizabeth Montlow, "If he himself told
you that he spent the night with me..."

"He
did."

Before
she turned to more lucrative endeavors, Peggy had appeared on the London stage.
Her theatrical training served her well now. The eyes she lifted to her visitor
were filled with timid shame.

"It's
true, Miss Montlow. He appeared on my doorstep last Wednesday afternoon about
four o'clock, and reminded me of the time last summer when a young friend of
his had introduced us. I gave him tea. And then he began to talk wildly of how
he had been unable to get me out of his mind all these past months..."

Her
low voice faltered for a moment. Then she went on, "I know it must seem
incomprehensible to a young lady like you. But I let him stay the night. In the
morning I left him, still asleep, and went downstairs. Lucia, my maid, had just
returned from the market. She told me there was some rumor about your house on
Kingman Street, and about a girl, and about Bow Street Runners looking for
Christopher.

"When
I went upstairs to my room and told him, he was terribly distressed and
frightened. In an instant, he reverted to a little child. All he could think of
was getting as fast as possible to his mother and to Liza, as he called
you."

Elizabeth,
taking a deep breath, felt as if a terrible weight had been lifted from her.

"I
know it must seem depraved," Peggy went on, "my allowing a young boy
to make love to me. But perhaps his very youth was the reason. I could not help
having this... this motherly feeling for him. You see, Mr. Frazier-Fitzsimmons
and I—we had been married only a year when he died—he and I never had a
child.... But then, you don't want to hear about that."

She
was correct. Elizabeth did not want to hear about the sort of maternal feelings
that could lead a woman to bed down with a boy half her age. All she wanted,
now that she had learned the truth, was to leave this house.

She
got to her feet. "I must go now. Thank you, Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons. I am
very grateful to you."

"Grateful?"
Peggy looked puzzled. "For telling you that your brother and I...?
Oh!" Shock widened her brown eyes. "You can't mean because of that
girl found in front of your house here in town. Surely you never believed that
Christopher had anything to do with that!"

Although
she colored slightly, Elizabeth's voice remained even. "I had to make
certain."

"Is
Christopher all right? Surely your coming here does not mean that he had
been... arrested?" For the past hour, ever since her coachman had brought
back the latest news from a Covent Garden grog shop, Peggy had known that
Christopher was in custody.

"Yes,
he has been arrested. But I know now that everything will be set to rights
eventually. Thank you again, Mrs. Frazier-Fitzsimmons. And good-bye."

She
went down the steps to the hired carriage and asked the driver to take her to
the Bow Street house of Sir John Fielding. A younger half-brother of the
novelist Henry Fielding, Sir John had been knighted for having founded his Bow
Street Runners, London's first organized defense against crime.

As
the horses drew the vehicle swiftly over the cobblestones, Elizabeth felt
almost lighthearted, so much so that she could enjoy the sight of smart private
carriages moving along the street, and well-dressed men and women strolling
along the sidewalks. Now that she knew that her brother had been guilty last
Wednesday night of nothing except consorting with a notorious whore, she felt
not the slightest scruple about lying to save him. True, such a lie, told under
oath on the witness stand, still would constitute
perjury. But she would not be
perjuring herself to obstruct justice. She would be doing so to prevent a
possible miscarriage of justice, one that might leave Christopher hanging dead
from a noose, and her mother dead also, or wishing she were.