Chapter 13
Ralph looked out the window into the gray London streets.
He had never before had cause to complain about his tiny London flat, but somehow, it now seemed utterly cramped and lifeless.
It did not help that the hearth had not held a fire for six weeks and the rooms were as cold as a mausoleum.
He’d arrived late last night and gone to bed without dinner in a drafty room.
Today, he would have to see about obtaining fuel and food for the rest of his stay, but before that he had a visit to make.
His first stop must be the King’s Theatre.
He remembered it well. It was the place where Helena had once gone to watch a play with Will.
But she had not known that the reason for Will’s eager attendance was the presence of his inamorata on the stage.
At the rear of the theater was an entrance for the actors and tradespeople.
Ralph saw a sign posted by the door: “Ring bell for any delivery.” He was making no delivery, just an inquiry.
He sucked in a deep breath before entering the door that led to such narrow corridors of vice.
Every Londoner knew that the dressing rooms of a theater were little better than a brothel.
“Who’re you looking for, mister?” asked a beefy man leaning against the wall.
“Miss Elizabeth Clifford.”
The fellow gave him directions, and, opening the door, Ralph made his way up the stairs with barely a look from any of the actors or messenger boys that brushed by him in the narrow hallway.
The serpentine corridor wound about until he came to a door painted with a gaudy pink flower and words in gold: Rosa Mundi.
Rose of the World. Is that what ladies of her ilk were calling themselves nowadays?
A very worldly rose this flower must be.
Ralph knocked on the door and heard a petulant “come in” from the other side.
A blond-haired actress was reclining on a chaise longue, with a wrapper over her chemise.
He could not tell at a glance whether she was in an interesting condition, but he hoped that her letter was all a sham and that she was not breeding as she’d claimed.
“Ah, Mr. Aldine,” she said, as if she’d been expecting him. He’d sent no note round, no reply to her letter at all. But she had known that it would fetch him. “You don’t look much like your brother.”
“No, he certainly had the advantage of me in appearance,” said Ralph dryly. His vanity could not be pricked by such a one as this. It mattered little that a trollop like this would prefer Will—not when he had daily evidence that his own wife did as well.
“Hmm, more’s the pity,” said the thespian-turned-Cyprian. She lifted her chin. “Well, are you come to do right by me?”
“And how would I do that, Miss—” Ralph left off her name deliberately, reminding her that she was nothing more than a stranger to him. She had signed it Elizabeth Clifford on the letter. Who knows if that was her real name?
“Provide for my needs and take care of my baby when the time comes. Mr. Danvers, the manager, he don’t know that I be breeding. But he’ll find out soon enough, and then I’ll be out on my ear in the street.”
“How would I have any certainty that the baby you’re carrying belonged to my brother?”
The blond actress let out a gasp of outrage and used one elbow to prop herself up higher on the chaise. “What’s that supposed to mean? Course the baby is Will’s! He took my virtue, didn’t he? Couldn’t be anyone else’s.”
“Even if the father was Will,” said Ralph, speaking carefully as solicitors do, “his family is in no position to pay your keep.”
“What?” Her voice was shrill. “His paterfamilias was a viscount, wasn’t he? Are you telling me a peer of the realm’s in no position to help an innocent girl, misled and cast adrift?”
“Perhaps you are not aware that when Will died, his father died the same night.” Ralph watched her eyes move shiftily. “But of course you must be aware of that—else why would you have written to me instead of to Will’s parents?”
“Didn’t think Will’s mother needed t’know. But mark my words, Mr. Aldine, I’ll tell her, I will, if you think you can gammon me out of my due. An’ there’s someone else I’ll tell too. His pretty betrothed would pay money, I think, if she knew the truth.”
Ralph froze as if an icicle falling from the eaves had speared the ground in front of him.
“I wouldn’t advise that,” he said. His stepmother had suffered too many blows in the past year: the death of a son, the death of a husband, the imminent departure of a daughter in marriage.
She did not need Will’s reputation tarnished even further in her memory.
And Helena? It would destroy her to learn of Will’s infidelities.
Thankfully, the actress did not appear to know that Helena was married to him.
“Then get me the money,” said the sour, yellow-haired actress.
“I’ll look into the matter,” said Ralph. He made no promises.
Ralph had no sooner exited Elizabeth Clifford’s dressing room than he came across another actress in dishabille in the corridor.
“Pardon me,” he said, as they both moved the same direction to try to go around each other.
“Are you one of Libby’s gents, then?” asked the buxom woman.
“No, certainly not!” said Ralph, appalled by the idea. But then another idea occurred to him, set in motion by this stray actress’ suggestion. “Is there a good deal of competition for Miss Clifford’s favors?”
“She has her admirers,” said the woman coyly. “I had as many when I was her age. The gentlemen like us young, they do, and the theater grows a girl up fast.”
“Are you aware that Miss Clifford is…” Ralph made a motion to indicate pregnancy.
“In the family way? Of course, I am. I’m her best friend in all the world, and even if I weren’t, we girls have to stick together against Danvers.”
“You seem very knowledgeable, Miss—?” Ralph gave a smile and tried to exercise some charm.
“Dolly. Just Dolly,” she simpered. She laid an insinuating hand on Ralph’s sleeve.
Ralph almost pulled away with a grimace, but he realized that his ability to obtain information relied on him remaining calm. “Well, Dolly, do you know what Miss Clifford plans to do with her child when it’s born?”
“Lud, what can she do unless the father pays for the baby’s upkeep? The theater’s hardly a place for an infant. She’ll have to give him up. To a foundling hospital, I imagine.” Her eyes took on a wistful look. “I had my own baby once, but they took him away from me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Dolly.” Ralph patted her shoulder awkwardly as she leaned against him for comfort, her plump bosom pressing against his other arm.
“Perhaps the father will intervene, and Miss Clifford’s case will not come to such a pass.”
“Perhaps he will. Are you his solicitor then? You have the look of one about you.”
“No, no,” said Ralph, with more firmness than veracity. “I am simply a friend of a friend.” He had in some areas acted as solicitor for Will, but his office here was as a brother not an employee. And besides, he was still uncertain that Will was the father.
“Has the father been to visit Miss Clifford recently?” Will had perished several months ago, so if a visit had been recent, it could not have been him.
Dolly took a deep breath as if she were about to deliver a juicy piece of gossip. But then, clearly, she thought better of it. “What’s that to you? I beg your pardon, sir, but I don’t even know your name, Mr.—?”
“Ralph. Just Ralph.” He had no intention of divulging his surname. It was a pity Libby Clifford already knew it.
“Well, Ralph,” said Dolly, leaning in so close that he could see the lines of paint around her fluttering eyelashes, “if you want to come and see me again, you can. But no asking about my friend’s secrets. I’m silent as the grave where those are concerned.”
“Of course,” said Ralph, “very sensible of you.” He worked on disentangling himself without offering any promises. “Good day to you.”
Intent on escape, Ralph increased his stride and exited the warren of rooms behind the theater. Once outside on the street, he paused and placed his beaver on his head. A thoughtful expression came over his face.
Miss Clifford’s threat to tell his stepmother was not an idle one.
Ralph would do much to keep Lady Aldine’s peace from being cut up again.
There was also the fear that his stepmother might, out of her meager jointure, attempt to provide for a grandchild that was probably not even her own.
Ralph could easily imagine the acquisitive Libby making greater and greater demands of Lady Aldine until she bled her dry.
And yet, Ralph himself did not have the means to stop Miss Clifford’s mouth. The idea of using Helena’s money to silence Will’s mistress was unthinkable, and as a junior solicitor on leave from his firm, he had few resources of his own.
He could apply to Lady Helena’s brother, Geoffrey, for funds.
Geoffrey already knew that Will had kept a mistress at the theater, but to reveal Miss Clifford’s story to Geoffrey would be to reveal it to Maud.
Although Maud was made of sturdier stuff than her mother Lady Aldine, Ralph hated to spoil her upcoming nuptials with more tales of Will’s perfidy.
The best way to silence Miss Clifford would be to prove that she had dallied in a different direction and that the child was not Will’s at all.
But investigation was needed to prove that point, and Ralph in his conversation with Dolly had already demonstrated himself to be a very inadequate detective.
Fortunately, however, he knew a detective with powers superior to his own.
During the investigation surrounding Will’s drowning in the Thames, Ralph had made the acquaintance of a Bow Street Runner named Jacob Pevensey whose mind was as bright as his red hair.
While Pevensey had proved extraordinarily inconvenient in ferreting out all the secrets surrounding the Aldine family, he had also found a way to exonerate Geoffrey of Will’s murder.
He was a man Ralph respected and the very person who could be counted on to counter Miss Clifford’s claims—if evidence to the contrary did in fact exist.