Chapter 28 #2
I dressed for dinner that night with the deepest apathy.
With Brisbane gone I felt oddly flat and out of sorts.
I did not like to think I cared more for him than he did for me.
I did not like to think I cared for him at all, truth be told.
He was enigmatic and difficult, tricky as a cat and twice as sly.
But care I did, I admitted, slipping his pendant into the décolletage of my gown.
And I did not know when, if ever, I would see him again.
But if I was sulky at dinner, I was in better spirits than half the company.
Father was preoccupied, grieved after his visit with Uncle Fly, who had been badly shaken by Snow’s murder.
Alessandro was quiet for reasons I did not like to think about.
Ly and Violante had quarrelled again and were locked in silence, both of them pushing food around their plates and shooting each other nasty looks.
And Plum looked pensive. He forgot to eat for long stretches, and more than once I glanced up to see him looking at a bit of food on his fork in bewilderment, as if wondering how it came to be there.
Only Hortense and Portia made any pretense at normal conversation, and I was not entirely surprised when the subject turned to Charlotte.
“She was really a jewel thief?” Hortense asked. “I cannot believe it. She seemed so gauche, so unsophisticated, with her chattering and her silly mannerisms.”
Plum flicked an irritated glance at her, but she did not notice.
Portia shrugged. “She was thief enough to take Julia’s pearls.
They still have not been recovered, although how she would have gotten them past Morag, I do not like to imagine.
Brisbane has gone after her, but she may have sold them by the time he reaches her.
And that lot could get her halfway round the world and keep her in style for quite a long time,” Portia finished.
I laid down my fork. The joint of pork that had been so delectable only a moment before sat like ashes in my mouth.
Had Brisbane gone after her for my sake?
He had been engaged to recover the Tear of Jaipur.
He had the jewel; the princess and the prime minister would be happy.
The letters patent would be published and he would have his title and his estate.
Why then pursue Charlotte except for the pearls?
I had seen him at work often enough to know he did not go beyond the terms set upon his employment.
If he was asked to retrieve incriminating letters from a blackmailer, he did so.
He did not destroy them, nor did he turn the evidence over to Scotland Yard.
His clients invariably came from the cream of society, those who were desperate to avoid scandal.
He investigated future husbands, restored runaway children, retrieved stolen property.
But I had never once known him to embark on a chase once his objectives were satisfied.
When his obligation to the client was fulfilled, the case was closed, whether the villain had been locked away or not.
His business was justice, not retribution, and I nearly wept into my napkin to think of him, hounding Charlotte until she turned over my pearls. And I had not even asked him to do it.
Just then, a commotion arose from the hall.
Servants yelling, dogs barking and, above it all, the high, penetrating voice of Aunt Dorcas.
Before we could rise, the door was thrown back and Aunt Dorcas entered, flanked by two men.
All three of them were garbed in Gypsy clothes, from the gold coins glittering at their belts to the scarves tied around their heads.
Aunt Dorcas, who had stated loudly and with vigour her hatred of the race, linked her arms with those of her companions and raised her chin, her Roma finery clinking as she tossed her head and addressed Father.
“March! Bring food for my friends and wine as well. I am come home!”
* * *
In fact, the Gypsies did not sit down to table with us.
In spite of Aunt Dorcas’ insistence and Father’s courteous invitation, they demurred, but agreed to take with them a hamper of hastily packed delicacies.
Portia herded Aunt Dorcas upstairs for a bath and a change of clothes while the rest of us finished our meal in stunned silence.
As soon as dessert was cleared I excused myself and made my way to Aunt Dorcas’ room.
I knocked and waited until she called for me to enter.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “Good. I rather thought it was that fool Portia again. Can you believe she’s put me to bed? I am no invalid, but she was most resolute and unnaturally strong for so slight a woman.”
I smiled and closed the door behind me. The room was a comfortable one, small, so the heat from the fireplace warmed it through.
It was done in pinks and reds, with a cheerful view past the gardens to the village of Blessingstoke in the distance.
The raspberry taffeta draperies were drawn now, but had they been open, she might have been just able to make out the campfires of her new friends.
But she had shed her Gypsy glamoury and was once more the quarrelsome old lady of my youth. Her nightdress, snugly buttoned at the throat, was edged in tasteful ruffles of lace to match the cap set tidily on her head. She looked up to see me eyeing it and snorted.
“I look like a muffin, do not deny it.” I motioned for her to sit forward and I plumped a few of her pillows, smoothing the bedclothes when I was done.
“Do not fuss, Julia. Sit there and talk with me, but do not fuss.”
I sat obediently, taking the chair she had indicated. It was a pretty thing, but the seat was hard and slippery.
“And do not fidget,” she scolded. “I do not trust a fidgeter.”
We sat for some minutes in silence. I looked about the room, memorising the paintings and mentally moving the shepherdess from the landscape into the still life of apples and cheese.
“Julia, do not furrow your brow like that. It will give wrinkles and it makes you look simple.”
I widened my eyes. “I am sorry, Aunt Dorcas. Would you like for me to read to you?”
I reached for a book on the night table, but she flapped an irritable hand at me, shooing me away.
“I am in no mood for reading,” she said.
“Then why don’t you tell me about your adventures?” I coaxed. “I think you enjoyed yourself whilst you were away.”
She fixed me with a cold stare, her bosom quivering with indignation. “I was in fear for my life, and you think I enjoyed myself?”
I blinked at her. “In fear of your life? From whom?”
Aunt Dorcas clamped her lips shut and shook her head. “I must say no more,” she murmured, her lips still tightly closed.
I shrugged. “Very well. I will leave you then. Good night,” I said, rising.
“It was that boy, Ludlow,” she said, and I turned back, assuming my chair once more.
“The murderer? Yes, it was. He confessed, more than once, in fact.”
She took the edge of the sheet in her fingers, worrying the lace like prayer beads. “He did not work alone,” she said, more to herself than to me. “It was her.”
I froze in my chair, uncertain of how to proceed. She was entirely correct, a woman had been involved. But Ludlow had not chosen to expose Lucy, and the girl was on her way to be married to a man who would make her life agony. Most would say justice had already been satisfied.
“You need not confirm it,” she said, nodding. “Your face is an eloquent one, Julia. It was always thus, even as a child.”
“Very well,” I admitted. “He did say he murdered Snow because of a woman. Snow was blackmailing her for some wrongdoing she had committed in her youth.”
Aunt Dorcas gave a little groan and covered her mouth.
I half-rose from my chair. “Aunt Dorcas, are you quite all right? Shall I ring for a maid?”
She shook her head, almost violently. “No, sit. And what we speak of in this room tonight must never be repeated,” she told me, fixing me with those dark toadlike eyes. “Swear it.”
“I swear.”
She relaxed a little then, but resumed her twisting of the lace. I heard a tiny rip and made a note to tell Portia to have it mended. Poor Aunt Hermia. Yet another sheet damaged during this house party. Between the guests and the cats there would be nothing left to put on the beds.
“Did he tell you why she was being blackmailed?”
“No. He simply said it was a youthful peccadillo.”
To my astonishment, she laughed. Not the tiny giggles she often affected, but great, heaving, gulping sobs of laughter that frightened me. After a moment the laughter turned to coughing and I was forced to intervene.
“Thank you,” she said finally, recovering herself. “But it was not necessary to hit me so forcefully. I think you have bruised my back.”
She gave me a reproachful look as I resumed my chair again. I said nothing and she paused, her expression faraway and touched with sorrow.
“This was no youthful peccadillo,” she said finally. “Emma was being blackmailed because she murdered my sister.”
I stared at her, gripping the arms of the chair so tightly I could not feel my hands. “No, it was Lucy he killed for, Lucy who was being blackmailed by Mr. Snow.”
Aunt Dorcas looked at me pityingly. “Are you so certain?”
I rose and paced the room, putting the pieces together again.
I went over every word of the conversation with Ludlow and realised with a cold shudder that he had not spoken Lucy’s name.
I had assumed it, but what if he had meant Emma?
And then she came to me in tears…those had been his words, but he had never said a name.
And when I asked him about the discovery of Lucy with the bloody candelabrum in her hand, he had referred to her quite clearly as Miss Lucy.