Paragon Walk (12 page)

“Please!” Phoebe tugged at his sleeve, her face painfully red. “I do not think so at all.”

“Did I misunderstand you?” he inquired, not lowering his voice, but staring at George. “I thought from the way you disported yourself that you suspected his presence on the upstairs landing last night. You had your gown so wrapped around you I feared you might strangle yourself if you were to turn carelessly. What on earth did you call the footman for, my dear? Or should I not ask you such a thing in front of others?”

“I didn’t call the footman. I—I merely—well, the curtain blew in the wind. I was startled, and I suppose—,” her face was scarlet now, and Charlotte could imagine the foolishness she was feeling, almost as if the whole company could see her frightened and disheveled in her nightclothes. She burned to think of something crushing to say for her, to cut at Afton with equally lacerating words, but nothing came.

It was Fulbert who spoke, lazily, a slow smile on his face. He put his arm around Phoebe, but his eyes were on Afton.

“There’s no need for you to be afraid, my dear. What you were doing is quite your own affair.” His face softened into amusement, some secret laughter inside him. “I really doubt it is one of your footmen, but, if it were, he would hardly be reckless enough to attack you in your own house. And you are more fortunate than any other woman in the Walk—at least you know perfectly well it wasn’t Afton. We all do!” He smiled across at George. “Would God the rest of us could be as far beyond suspicion?”

George blinked, unsure of his meaning, but knowing it held cruelty somewhere.

Charlotte instinctively turned to Afton. She had no idea what occasioned it, but cold, irrevocable hatred flared up in his eyes, and the shock of it rippled through her, leaving her feeling sick. She wanted to grip hold of Emily’s arm, touch something warm, human, and then run out of the glittering black-crepe room into the air, into the green summer, and keep on running until she was home in her own narrow, dusty little street with its whited steps, shoulder-to-shoulder houses, and women who worked all day.

C
HARLOTTE COULD HARDLY
wait until Pitt came home. She rehearsed a dozen times in her mind what she meant to tell him, and each time it came out differently. She completely missed the bookshelves in her dusting and forgot to salt the vegetables. She gave Jemima two lots of pudding, much to the child’s delight, but at least she did have her changed and sound asleep when Pitt finally came.

He looked tired, and the first thing he did was to take his boots off and empty his pockets of the enormous number of things he had shoved into them throughout the day. She brought him a cold drink, determined not to make the same mistake as last time.

“How was Emily?” he asked after a few minutes.

“Well enough,” she answered, almost holding her breath to avoid plunging into the story. “The whole affair was rather horrible. I suppose they felt the same as we would underneath, but nothing showed. It was all—empty.”

“Did they talk about her—Fanny?”

“No!” She shook her head. “No, they didn’t. You’d hardly have known whose funeral it was. I hope when I die  whoever’s there talks about me all the time!”

He smiled suddenly, a broad grin like a child.

“Even if they do absolutely all the time, my darling,” he replied, “it will still seem quiet without you!”

She looked around for something harmless to throw at him, but the only thing to hand was the lemonade jug, which would hurt, not to mention break the jug, which they could ill afford. She had to settle for making a face.

“Didn’t you learn anything?” he pressed.

“I don’t think so. Only what Emily had already told me. I got lots of odd impressions, but I don’t know what they mean, or even if they mean anything at all. I had umpteen things to tell you before you came, but now they seem to have frittered away. All the Nashes are unpleasant, except perhaps Diggory. I didn’t really get to meet him, but he has a bad reputation. Selena and Jessamyn loathe each other, but that can’t be relevant; it’s all to do with the most gorgeous Frenchman. The only people who seemed to be really upset were Phoebe—she really was terribly white and shaky—and a man called Hallam Cayley. And I don’t know whether he was upset for Fanny, or because his own wife died only a little while ago.” It had seemed so much when it was all a tumult of feelings in her mind, but now that she wanted to put words to it, there was nothing. It sounded so silly, so ephemeral that she was a little ashamed. She was a policeman’s wife, she should have had something concrete to tell him. How did he ever solve a case if all witnesses were as woolly as she was?

He sighed and stood up, walking in his socks over to the kitchen sink. He ran the cold water and put his hands under it, then splashed it up over his face. He held out his hands for the towel, and she brought it.

“Don’t worry.” He took it from her. “I didn’t expect to learn anything there.”

“You didn’t expect to?” She was confused. “You mean you were there?”

He dried his face and looked up at her over the towel.

“Not to learn anything—just—because I wanted to.” She felt the tears prickle hot behind her eyes and her throat ache. She had not even seen him. She had been busy watching everyone else, and thinking how she looked in Aunt Vespasia’s dress.

At least Fanny had had one real mourner, someone who was simply sorry she was dead.

Emily had no one with whom she could discuss her feelings. Aunt Vespasia did not consider it good for her to dwell on such things. It would produce a melancholic baby, she said. And George was unwilling to speak of it at all. In fact, he went noticeably out of his way to avoid it.

Everyone else in the Walk seemed determined to forget the entire subject, as if Fanny had merely gone away for a holiday and might be expected to return at any time. They resumed their lives, as much as propriety would permit, still wearing sober dress, of course, as to do anything else would be tasteless. But there appeared to be an unspoken consensus that the very indecency of the manner of death made the usual observances of mourning a reminder of it, and therefore a little vulgar, possibly even offensive to others.

The only exception was Fulbert Nash, who had never minded giving offense. In fact, he appeared at times positively to relish it. He made sly, delicate suggestions about almost everyone. There was nothing decisive, nothing that one could question him with, but the swift color in people’s faces betrayed when he had hit a mark. Perhaps they were old secrets he was referring to; everyone had something of which they were ashamed, or at least would very much prefer to keep from their neighbors. Perhaps the secrets were not witty so much as merely foolish? But then no one wished to be laughed at either, and some would go to great lengths to prevent it. Ridicule could be as deadly to one’s social aspirations as a report of any of the ordinary sins.

It was a week after the funeral, and still hot, when Emily finally decided to go and ask Charlotte directly what the police were doing. There had been a lot more questions put, mostly to servants, but if anyone were either suspected or totally cleared, she had not heard of it.

Having sent a letter the day before to warn Charlotte she was coming, she put on a muslin from last year and sent for the carriage to take her. When she arrived, she told the coachman to drive around the corner and wait precisely two hours before returning to pick her up.

She found Charlotte expecting her, and busy preparing tea. The house was smaller than she had remembered, the carpets older, but it had an air of being lived in that made it pleasant, along with the smell of wax polish and roses. It did not occur to her to wonder whether the roses had been bought specially for her.

Jemima was sitting on the floor, crooning to herself, as she built a precarious tower out of colored blocks. Thank heaven it seemed as if she were going to look like Charlotte rather than Pitt!

After the usual greetings, which she meant most sincerely—in fact she was coming to value Charlotte’s friendship more and more lately—she launched straight into news of the Walk.

“No one else even talks of it!” she said heatedly. “At least not to me! It’s as if it had never happened! It’s like a dinner table where someone has made a personal noise—a moment’s embarrassed silence, then everyone begins to talk again a little bit more loudly, to show that they haven’t noticed.”

“Don’t the servants talk?” Charlotte was busy with the kettle. “Servants usually do, among themselves. The butler wouldn’t know. Maddock never did.” She recalled Cater Street vividly for a moment. “But ask one of the maids, and they’ll tell you everything.”

“I never thought of asking the maids,” Emily admitted. It was a stupid oversight. At Cater Street she would have done so without the need for Charlotte to tell her. “Perhaps I’m getting too old now. Mama never knew half as much as we did. They were all afraid of her. I think perhaps my maids are afraid of me. And they’re terrified of Aunt Vespasia!”

That Charlotte could well believe. Quite apart from Aunt Vespasia’s personality, no social climber was more impressed by a title than the average housemaid. There were the exceptions, of course, those who saw the trivialities and the flaws behind the polished front. But these servants were usually not only perceptive but also awake enough to their own advantage not to allow their perception to be known. And there was always loyalty. A good servant regarded his master or mistress almost as an extension of himself, his property, the mark of his own status in the hierarchy.

“Yes,” she agreed aloud. “Try your lady’s maid. She’s seen you without your stays or your hair curled. She’s the least likely to be in awe of you.”

“Charlotte!” Emily banged the milk jug on the bench. “You say the most appalling things!” It was an undignified and uncomfortable reminder, especially of her increasing weight. “In your own way you are as bad as Fulbert!” She drew breath quickly. Then as Jemima began to whimper at the sharp noise, she swung around and picked her up, jiggling her gently till she began to gurgle again. “Charlotte, he’s been going around in the most awful way, letting out little jibes at people, nothing you could exactly say was accusing, but you know from their faces that the people he’s talking about know what he means. And inside himself he’s laughing all the time. I know he is.”

Charlotte poured the water onto the tea and put on the lid. The food was already on the table.

“You can put her down now.” She pointed at Jemima. “She’ll be all right. You mustn’t spoil her, or she’ll want holding all the time. Who is he talking about?”

“Everyone!” Emily obeyed and put Jemima back with her bricks. Charlotte gave her daughter a finger of bread and butter, which she took happily.

“All of the same things?” Charlotte said in surprise. “That seems a little pointless.”

They both sat down and waited for tea to brew before eating.

“No, all different things,” Emily answered. “Even Phoebe! Can you imagine? He implied that Phoebe had something she was ashamed of and one day all the Walk would know. Who could be more innocent than Phoebe? She’s positively silly at times. I’ve often wondered why she doesn’t hit back at Afton. There must be something she could do! On occasions he is quite beastly. I don’t mean he strikes her or anything.” Her faced paled. “At least, good heavens, I hope not!”

Charlotte chilled as she remembered him, his cold, probing eyes, the impression he gave of a bitter humor, and a contempt.

“If it’s anybody in the Walk,” she said with feeling. “I sincerely hope it’s him—and that he is caught!”

“So do I,” Emily agreed. “But somehow I don’t think it is. Fulbert is perfectly sure it isn’t. He keeps saying so, and with great pleasure, as if he knew something horrid that amused him.”

“Perhaps he does.” Charlotte frowned, trying to hide the thought, and failing. It would come out in words. “Perhaps he knows who it is—and it is not Afton.”

“It’s too disgusting to think of,” Emily shook her head. “It will be some servant or other, almost certainly someone hired for the Dilbridges’ party. All those strange coachmen milling about, with nothing to do but wait. No doubt one of them refreshed himself too much, and, when he was in liquor, he lost control. Perhaps in the dark he thought Fanny was a maid, or something. And then, when he discovered she wasn’t, he had to stab her to keep her from giving him away. Coachmen do carry knives quite often, you know, to cut harness if it gets caught, or get stones out of horses’ hooves if they pick them up, and all sorts of things.” She warmed to her own excellent reasoning. “And after all, none of the men who live in the Walk, I mean none of us, would be carrying a knife anyway, would we?”

Charlotte stared at her, one of her carefully cut sandwiches in her hand.

“Not unless they meant to kill Fanny anyway.”

Emily felt a sickness that had nothing to do with her condition.

“Why on earth would anyone want to do that? If it had been Jessamyn, I could understand. Everyone is jealous of her because she is always so beautiful. You never see her put out, or flustered. Or even Selena, but no one could have hated Fanny—I mean—there wasn’t enough of her to hate!”

Charlotte stared at her plate.

“I don’t know.”

Emily leaned forward.

“What about Thomas? What does he know? He must have told you, since it concerns us.”

“I don’t think he knows anything,” Charlotte said unhappily. “Except that it doesn’t seem to have been any of the regular servants. They can all pretty well account for themselves. And none of them have a past trouble he can find. They wouldn’t, would they? Or they wouldn’t be employed in Paragon Walk!”

When Emily returned home, she wanted to talk to George, but she did not know how to begin. Aunt Vespasia was out, and George was sitting in the library with his feet up, the doors open to the garden, and a book upside down on his stomach.

He looked up as soon as she came in and put the book aside.

“How was Charlotte?” he asked immediately.

“Well.” She was a little surprised. He had always liked Charlotte, but in a rather distant, absent way. After all, he very seldom saw her. Why the keenness today?