Southampton Row (14 page)

“I met him . . . in the House of Commons, three days ago,” Pitt replied, shivering inside in spite of himself. “I know he hasn’t forgotten. But if I walk in fear, then he’s won already. My family is out of London, but I can’t stop him. I admit, if I thought there were any escape, I might be tempted to take it . . . but there isn’t.”

“You’re more of a realist than I gave you credit for,” Narraway said, and there was a grudging respect in his voice. “I resented Cornwallis for wishing you onto me. Took you as a favor to him, but perhaps it wasn’t after all.”

“Why do you owe Cornwallis any favors?” The words slipped out before he thought about it.

“None of your business, Pitt!” Narraway said tartly. “Go and find out what the devil that woman was doing . . . and prove it!”

“Yes, sir.”

It was only when he was outside again in the street in the late sunlight and the roar and rattle of traffic that Pitt stopped to wonder whether Narraway had meant Rose Serracold—or Maude Lamont!

CHAPTER
SIX

When Emily opened the newspaper the day after the discovery of the murder in Southampton Row, her immediate interest was in the political reports. An excellent picture of Mr. Gladstone caught her eye, but for the time being she was more concerned with the London constituencies. There was less than a week to go before voting would begin. She felt a sharp tingle of excitement, more than for the previous election because now she had tasted the possibilities of office and her ambition for Jack was correspondingly higher. He had proved his ability and, perhaps more importantly, his loyalty. This time he might be rewarded with a position of greater importance, and so more power to do good.

He had made an excellent speech yesterday. The crowd had been appreciative. She scanned the pages looking for a report of it. Instead she saw Aubrey Serracold’s name, and below it an article which began quite well. Until she was halfway through it she did not read between the lines the sarcasm, the veiled suggestion of the foolishness of his ideas, and that though well-intentioned, they were formed in ignorance, a rich man playing at politics, indescribably condescending in his ambition to change others to his own idea of what was good for them.

Emily was furious. She dropped the paper and stared across the breakfast table at Jack. “Have you seen this?” she demanded, jabbing her finger at it.

“No.” He held out his hand and she picked up the fallen sheets and passed them to him. She watched as he read it, the frown deepening between his brows.

“Will it hurt him?” she asked when he looked up. “I am sure it will hurt his feelings, but I mean his chances of being elected,” she added quickly.

A flicker of amusement lit his eyes for a moment, and then gentleness. “You want him to win, don’t you? For Rose’s sake . . .”

She had not realized she was so transparent. It was uncharacteristic of her. She was usually good at revealing only what she wished, totally unlike Charlotte, who could be read by almost anyone. Yet it was not always satisfying to feel so alone. “Yes, I do,” she agreed. “I thought it was more or less a certainty. It’s been a Liberal seat for decades. Why should it be different now?”

“It’s only one article, Emily. If you say anything at all, there’s bound to be someone who disagrees with you.”

“You disagree with him,” she said very seriously. “Jack, can’t you defend him anyway? They’re making him sound far more extreme than he is. They would listen to you.” She saw him hesitate, the shadow in his face. “What is it?” she demanded. “Have you lost confidence in him? Or is it Rose? Of course she’s eccentric, she’s always been that way. What on earth does it matter? Do our politicians have to be gray to be any good?”

There was laughter in his face for a moment, and then it was gone. “Not gray, but toned down a little. Don’t take anything for granted, Emily. Don’t take it as certain that I’ll win. There are too many issues at stake that could change the way people vote. Gladstone’s always on about Home Rule, but I think it’s the working day that’s going to decide it.”

“But the Tories wouldn’t grant that!” she protested. “They’re even less likely to than we are! Tell them so!”

“I have. But what they say about not granting Home Rule makes sense, at least to the workingman here in London, where our docks and warehouses serve the world.” His face tightened. “I’ve heard what Voisey is saying, and people are listening to him. He’s very popular just now. The Queen knighted him for courage and loyalty to the Crown. Nobody knows exactly what he did, but apparently it saved the throne from a very serious threat. He’s half won the audience even before he speaks.”

“I thought the Queen wasn’t very popular,” she said dubiously, remembering some of the ugly remarks she had heard, both in society and among more ordinary people. Victoria had been too long absent from public life, still mourning Albert although he had been thirty years dead. She spent her time in her beloved Osbourne, on the Isle of Wight, or at Balmoral, in the Scottish Highlands. People hardly ever saw her. There were no state occasions, no pomp, no excitement or color, no sense of unity that only she could have provided.

“We still don’t want her taken from us,” Jack pointed out. “We are just as perverse in general as we are individually.” He folded his paper and set it on the table, rising to his feet. “But of course I’ll support Serracold.” He leaned forward and gave her a quick kiss on the brow. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. Probably for dinner.”

She watched him to the door, then poured herself another cup of tea and opened the newspaper again. It was then that she saw the report of Maude Lamont’s death, and the fact that the police had no doubt that it was murder. The Bow Street station was mentioned, and apparently Inspector Tellman was in charge. He had made no statement, but speculation was rife. The journalists had invented what they did not know. Who were her clients? Who had been there that night? Who had she claimed to call up from the past and what had they revealed that had ended in murder? Whose secrets were so hideous they would kill to hide them? The whisper of scandal, violence and assault was irresistible.

She read it a second time, but there was no need. She could remember every word, and all the ugly implications. And she could remember very clearly Rose Serracold’s saying that she had consulted Maude Lamont. Somehow ragged ends were coming loose in what had seemed to be a simple way ahead. Anxiety gnawed at the back of her mind over Rose, a sense of vulnerability in her, a fear that threatened to escalate and endanger her and Aubrey, and possibly even Jack. It was time Emily did something.

She went straight upstairs to the nursery to spend the morning with her small daughter, Evangeline, who as always was full of questions about everything. Her favorite word was
why
.

“Where’s Edward?” Evangeline sat on the floor, her face puckered into a frown. “Why isn’t he here?”

“He’s gone for a holiday with Daniel and Jemima,” Emily answered, offering Evie her favorite doll.

“Why?”

“Because we promised it to him.”

“Why?” There was no challenge in her wide eyes.

“He and Daniel are special friends.” Thinking on it now, Emily was concerned that Thomas had been prevented from going with them and at almost the same time his reinstatement to Bow Street had been unaccountably withdrawn. Charlotte had suddenly and without explanation been reluctant to take Edward, whereas before she had been more than willing. She had said something halfhearted about Thomas not being there, and hinted at there being possible unpleasantness, but she had not been specific.

“I’m special friends,” Evie said, turning the phrase over in her mind.

“Of course you are, darling. You are my special friend,” Emily assured her. “Shall we draw a picture? I’ll do this part and you can do the house, over there.”

Evie began enthusiastically, grasping the crayon in her left hand. Emily thought of changing it to the right, and decided not to.

She was concerned over Charlotte. It was going to be very difficult for her to adapt to having Pitt no longer in a senior police position. It was not exactly a job to be proud of, but it was moderately respectable. Now he did something she could barely mention, and his cases could not be discussed. Of course the money was another matter altogether, and not as good!

The thing that affected Emily the most was the inability to share in any of it herself. She had in the past helped Charlotte when she was involved in Pitt’s cases, the more colorful and dramatic of them, where people of the higher social strata were implicated. She and Charlotte had access to the withdrawing rooms of society that Pitt would never have. They had almost solved some of the more bizarre and dreadful murders themselves. Lately that had happened less and less, and Emily was beginning to realize how she missed not only Charlotte’s company, and the challenge and excitement of it, but the intrusion into her life of the passions of triumph and despair, danger, judgment, guilt and innocence which had forced her to think more deeply than the comfortable issues of politics which seemed always to do with masses and not individuals, theories and laws rather than the lives of men and women of flesh, dreams, real ability for joy or pain.

If she were to help Charlotte and Thomas again it would be a hard reminder of the urgencies of life and the realities. It would force her to test her beliefs in a way merely thinking never could. She was afraid of it, and for that very reason she also was impelled towards it. Charlotte was away somewhere in Dartmoor. Emily did not have the exact address; Thomas had been very vague. But she would go and see Rose Serracold herself and learn a great deal more about the death of this spirit medium she had been involved with—Maude Lamont.

She dressed in an outdoor costume in the latest fashion from Paris. It was shell pink with broad diagonal stripes of lavender across the skirt, and a white ruff high at the throat. The soft colors were unusual, and remarkably flattering to her.

She made all her duty calls to wives of men with whom it was important to maintain a steady, close connection. She talked about the weather, the trivial news, exchanging compliments and meaningless chatter all afternoon, knowing that the message beneath the words was what mattered.

Then she was free to pursue the questions that had been at the back of her mind since breakfast. She finally gave her coachman instructions to go to the Serracolds’ home. Received by the footman, she was shown into the sun-filled conservatory, heavy with the smell of wet earth and leaves and falling water. She found Rose sitting alone staring at the lily pool. She too was dressed as if for calling, in dramatic olive green and white lace, which with her flaxen hair and extraordinarily slender body made her look as if she were some exotic water flower herself.

But as Emily came closer and Rose looked up, Emily saw the tension in Rose stretching the silk of her gown until it hung without her usual extravagant elegance.

“Emily, I’m so pleased to see you!” she said with relief spreading across her face. “I would not have let anyone else in, I swear it!” Her expression crumpled into one of bewilderment. “Maude Lamont has been killed! I suppose you know that; it was in the newspapers. It happened two days ago . . . I was there! At least I was in the house that evening. Emily, I’ve had the police here this afternoon. I don’t know how to tell Aubrey. What am I going to say?”

This was a time for practicality, not gentleness. If she were to learn anything of value, she could not afford to allow Rose to dominate the conversation. She went straight to the first subject which really mattered. “Did Aubrey not know you were seeing a spiritualist?”

Rose shook her head fractionally, the light gleaming on the polished sheen of her hair.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Because he wouldn’t have liked it!” Rose said immediately. “He doesn’t believe.”

Emily thought about it for a moment. There was a lie in it, a concealment. She was not sure what it was, but she was quite certain it had to do with Rose’s reason for going.

“He would find it a little embarrassing,” Rose explained unnecessarily, looking down at the floor, but with a very slight smile on her lips.

“But you went anyway,” Emily pointed out. “Even now, just before the election. Which means you had a reason for going that was so strong it outweighed Aubrey’s wishes, and any damage it might do him, or he would think it might. Are you really so sure of his winning?” She tried to sound sympathetic and to keep out of her voice the impatience she felt at such naive arrogance.

Rose’s eyebrows lifted suddenly. She was about to answer, then the words died on her lips. “I thought I was,” she said instead. Then her voice became urgent. “Do . . . do you think this could make any difference? I didn’t kill her! Please heaven—I needed her alive!”

Emily knew she was intruding, but there was no time for delicacy. “Why did you need her, Rose? What could she possibly give you that matters so much right now?”

“She was my contact with the other side, of course!” Rose said impatiently. “Now I have to find someone else and start all over again! There isn’t time . . .” She bit back the words, knowing she had already said too much.

“Time before what?” Emily pressed. “The election? Is it something to do with the election?” Questions as to why Thomas was still here in London crowded into her mind.

Rose’s expression was closed. “Before Aubrey wins his seat and takes up a place in Parliament,” she answered. “And I have much less privacy.”

She was still lying, or at least telling a half-truth, but Emily could not prove it. Why? Was it a political secret or a personal one? How could she find out? “The man who was here from the police, what did you tell him?” she urged.

“About the other two clients who were there that evening, of course.” Rose stood up and walked over to the bowl of peonies and delphiniums on the wrought-iron table. She poked absentmindedly at the stems, rearranging them to no advantage. “The man from Bow Street seemed to think one of them had done it.” She gave a shiver and tried to disguise it with a shrug. “He was not as I would expect a policeman to be,” she continued. “He was very quiet and polite, but he made me uncomfortable. I would like to think he wouldn’t come again, but I expect he will. Unless, of course, they find very quickly who it was. It must be the man who didn’t believe, I should think. It wouldn’t be the soldier who wished to speak to his son. He cares just as much as I do.”

Emily was confused. She had no idea what Rose was talking about, but this was not the time to admit it. “And if he found something he didn’t like?” she said softly. “What then?”

Rose stopped with a delphinium in her hand, still lifted in the air, her face pinched, eyes miserable. “Then he would be crushed,” she answered, her voice husky. “He would go away in despair . . . and . . . and try to heal himself, I suppose. I don’t know how. What does one do when . . . when you hear the unbearable?”

“Some people would retaliate,” Emily answered, watching Rose’s stiff back, the silk twisted as she stood half turned. “If nothing else, at least to make sure no one else heard the unendurable thing.” Her imagination raced, in spite of the pity she felt for Rose’s very obvious distress. Who were the men? What reason could they have had for killing the medium? What secret had Rose stumbled into?