Chapter 24 #2
His face did not change, at least not in any way I could define.
It seemed to go flat, though, as if his features were no longer flesh and blood, but paper and ink, technically correct, but utterly devoid of animation.
He sipped at his tea and then looked at me, his eyes strangely hooded.
I had never seen quite that expression in them before, although his face betrayed no emotion whatsoever.
“I thought I heard someone crashing about. What is down there? The laundry?”
I nodded, my hands a little clammy. I patted them surreptitiously on my napkin.
“Mariah Young is my business,” he said evenly. “And she has no bearing on this case.”
“But you were there, talking to Magda—”
He did something then, something I had not seen him do before.
He put down his teacup and brought out a little wooden box.
From it he took a slim, very dark cigar.
He lit it in an unhurried fashion, taking a few deep draws to make certain it was smoldering properly.
He had not asked my permission, but the tobacco had a sweet, musky smell that was actually quite appealing.
“Spanish,” he said with a thin smile. “I find they help me think. Mariah Young,” he said, his tone thoughtful.
He was silent a moment, as if weighing within himself how much he could or should reveal.
I sat very still, trying to look more trustworthy than curious, but I did not deceive him.
He simply shook his head and said, “I can only tell you that the conversation between Magda and myself has no bearing on this case except in one respect.” He blew a soft blue cloud of smoke over his head.
“I think that your laundress might very well be capable of blackmail. And if that is so, it is a short step to murder, don’t you think? ”
“And that is all you are going to say on the matter?” I demanded.
“That is all.” The words were softly spoken, but underpinned with iron, and I did not doubt he meant them. I would learn nothing from approaching him directly. I decided to leave it—for now. But I made up my mind that before I was done with Brisbane, I would know the full story of Mariah Young.
“How does a Gypsy teller of fortunes come to be employed as a common laundress?” he asked, taking back the reins of the conversation.
“Her people were encamped at Bellmont Abbey when she got into some sort of trouble. She became unclean, according to their laws. You see, the Gypsies believe—”
“I am familiar with the mythology,” he said dryly. Of course he was. I had deduced from my conversations with Monk and Fleur that Brisbane was extremely well traveled. Doubtless he had encountered many wanderers in his own journeys. Likely that accounted for his antipathy toward them.
“Yes, well, Magda was deemed unclean for a period of a year or two, I am not certain of the precise rules. It meant that she could not travel with them and would probably have starved. She came to me and I told her she could work for me, here in town. She has only just now been allowed to visit her brothers. They are encamped in London at the moment, and I think she may rejoin them soon.”
Brisbane sat and puffed, staring at a point some inches above my head. I might have been a bowl of fruit for all the attention he paid to me.
“If you did not want a biscuit, you did not have to take one to be polite,” he said finally.
“I beg your pardon?”
He gestured with the glowing tip of the cigar. “You have crumbled that biscuit to bits. You had only to decline.”
I looked at the wrecked remains of the little pastry mounded on the plate. I put it down hastily.
“Did Magda have any reason to bear a grudge against Sir Edward?”
“Absolutely not. If Edward had objected to her employment, she would never have been given a post at Grey House.”
“And yet she brought poison into that house,” he mused.
There was another interval punctuated only by the soft exhalation of his breath.
I sat quietly, mentally redecorating the room.
It was quite nicely proportioned with good moldings, but I thought the chairs were a little dark, a little heavy for my taste.
And the green of the curtains was entirely too grey.
I had just moved on to the artwork, replacing his stark sketch of an Eastern mosque with my own rather good copy of Jupiter and Io when he spoke.
“Why was she found to be unclean?”
I began to toy with my rings. “It is really quite distasteful, Brisbane. It has no bearing on the investigation, I am certain of that.”
“But I am not,” he rejoined with a smile.
I fumed a little, but I told him. “It has something to do with the dead. She touched a dead person. Apparently that violates their greatest taboo.”
He took up a small china dish figured in gold dragons and ground out the remainder of his cigar. “What were the circumstances?”
“Really, Brisbane, must I—”
“Yes, you must,” he said, his tone hard. “I will know everything.”
I drew a deep breath. “Very well. Her daughter, Carolina, had died. My father arranged for her to be buried in the village graveyard at Blessingstoke. Magda was found there the next night. Her daughter’s body had been dug up. She was embracing the corpse.”
“Good God.” He sat back heavily in his chair, and I felt a childish sort of satisfaction at having shocked him. “I am surprised they only banished her.”
“They pitied her. She was ranting, half out of her mind with grief. They put out her things and packed their own. They were gone by daylight. Within the space of a few short days she had lost her only child, her entire family, her whole way of life. Now perhaps you can find some pity for her.”
His eyes lifted to mine, cool and black as a night sea.
“Pity is a luxury I cannot afford, my lady. For anyone.”
“How can you be so unfeeling?” I demanded. “What is your heart made of that it can remain so wholly untouched by the suffering of another human being?”
“Stone. Steel. Flint, if you like. I am sure that is what you think.”
“What I think does not matter at all,” I retorted. “I simply cannot comprehend how any person can live as you do.”
“That is because your ladyship has the advantage of a clean conscience and an untroubled past,” he said, his words tinged with ice. “If you had to live with what I do, you would understand it well enough.”
A sudden image flashed into my mind of Brisbane, drugged and in agony, and I felt ashamed of myself. I inclined my head.
“You are right, of course. I should not have judged you. I apologize.”
He blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“I have just apologized,” I said, smoothing my skirts. “You were right and I was wrong. I spoke thoughtlessly. Shall I make amends, or do you forgive me?”
I waited coolly for his reply, but he simply stared, dumbfounded. He was shaking his head, his expression entirely astonished.
“Now I do not understand you. One minute you are passionately attacking me for my cold heart, the next you are craving my pardon.”
I lifted my shoulder in a genteel shrug I copied from Fleur. “A lady’s prerogative. We are widely believed to be the less logical sex.”
“Not you,” he said. “I am suspicious of you now.”
I smiled guilelessly. “You have no reason to be.”
“That I do not believe.”
I did not reply and he moved on, rather reluctantly, I thought.
“Is there anything else I should know about Magda?”
I thought, then shook my head. “I have told you everything, as far as I remember. If I recall anything else, I shall write to you.”
He rose and walked me to the door. “I will send the ars—powder,” he amended hastily, “to Mordecai in the morning. As soon as he sends word I will let you know.”
He paused, his hand curved around the knob.
“I am very impressed, my lady,” he said quietly. “You turned up a piece of evidence that makes a needle in a haystack seem like a winning proposition. And you did not permit sentiment to dictate your actions. I know how easy it would have been for you to conceal this from me.”
“It would not have been easy at all,” I remarked, pulling on my gloves. “As you observed, I have the advantage of a clean conscience. I should like to keep it that way.”