Chapter 34
Chapter
Thirty-Four
The Mask of Virtue
After Thorne left the night before, I had written to Anne and asked Bexley to see the letter delivered in the morning. As it turned out, there was no need. Anne wrote to me. Her note arrived at first light.
After a restless night, I was barely awake when a knock sounded at my chamber door. Bexley, with a salver and a single folded note upon it.
“From Lady Westmere, my lady. The boy was bid to wait, in case there is an answer.”
I broke the seal before he finished speaking.
Linnet was still in London, Anne wrote, kept under supervision.
She did not yet know where, but would learn if she could.
The certifications were not complete. The night before, a solicitor by the name of Carmody had been closeted with Edgar above an hour.
Through the door Anne had caught two words: physician and Thursday.
She begged me to do nothing rash, which made me smile despite everything, and signed herself simply A.
I dashed off a reply. A thank-you so she would know her note had reached me and gave it to Bexley. I committed nothing else to paper in case the note fell into the wrong hands.
After dressing for the day, I found Miriam in the morning room, staring into a cup of tea gone cold. She was pale, with shadows beneath her eyes. My looking glass had told me I looked no better. I gave her the substance of Anne’s letter.
“It is the first solid ground beneath my feet since I came home yesterday,” I said.
She set down her cup. “Do not now go leaping off it.”
Which was, of course, precisely what I wished to do. I wished to go to Westmere House and refuse to leave it until Edgar told me where he had put my sister.
“Don’t,” Miriam said.
“I did not speak a word,” I said in my defense.
“You didn’t have to. Your face is already in Edgar’s hall, calling him names.
” She folded her hands. “Tell me—what does a confrontation buy you? You have no standing to compel him, and every angry word you utter, he will write down in his head and produce later as proof that his unmarried sister is unsteady. Not to be heeded.”
I said nothing. Because she was not finished. And because she was right.
“You would teach him one thing only,” she went on. “That you know Linnet is still in town. And the moment Edgar knows you know, what does he do?”
It cost me, but I said it. “He moves her.”
“He moves her. Out of London, somewhere Anne cannot follow, and we cannot guess. And then he completes his papers in peace, while we go chasing shadows.” Her voice gentled. “We have one advantage this morning, Lark. He believes we are doing nothing. Do not spend it to feel better for an hour.”
I hated that she was right. “Then we wait,” I said, sinking into the chair across from her, “and let Thorne’s people do their work, and I am to be nothing but patient.” The word sat ill in my mouth.
“You are to be cunning,” Miriam corrected. “It has always suited you far better than patience.”
Before I could decide whether that was a compliment, Bexley appeared at the door.
“Lord Peregrine, my lady. And a gentleman who declined to give his name.”
Peregrine came in with his usual ease. Behind him came Mr. Quennell, The Quill and Crown editor. His restless gaze went at once to the windows, to the door he had just come through, and back to the windows. Clearly, he was in fear of being followed.
I rose to greet them. “Lord Peregrine, Mr. Quennell. How pleasant to see you. May I offer you coffee—or something stronger, perhaps?”
“Coffee will do for us both,” Peregrine answered, settling into a chair. Quennell dropped on the edge of another as though it might be withdrawn.
After Bexley left to carry out his request, Peregrine wasted no time. “I apologize for descending on you before the sun is properly up. Last night we heard about Linnet.”
“To use a young woman so.” Quennell pressed a handkerchief briefly to his mouth. “To carry her off in such a fashion. I have not slept, Lady Larkspur. I confess it freely. I have not slept.”
I was not certain how to receive this. “You are very kind to be so troubled on her behalf, Mr. Quennell.”
“Troubled. Troubled.” He turned to Peregrine. “Was I not in tears last night? You saw me.”
“He was,” Peregrine confirmed in a wry tone. “I can vouch for the tears.”
Bexley returned with the coffee, and I poured cups for both men. Peregrine took his with the ease of a man never hurried by anything. Quennell accepted his, did not drink, and then seemed to forget he held it at all.
“And so,” Quennell said, mastering himself with a small, brave sniff, “I came to a decision. Lady Larkspur—Miss Gray’s poem must be published.”
I did not move. “‘The Mask of Virtue’?”
“The very same.”
“But the poem was lost in the fire.”
“Ah. Yes. As to that. A small untruth, my lady.” The man had the grace to color.
“Forgivable, I hope, in a man whose premises had just been burned. The original is quite safe. It has never left my keeping.” He leaned toward me.
For the first time, the fluttering went out of him, and something steadier showed beneath.
“I am a coward in most instances, Lady Larkspur. I will admit that without a blush. But I am the editor of a literary journal, and there is one thing even a coward in my trade will not do, and that is let a thing burn that ought to be read.”
Across the room, Miriam set down her cup with the soft, satisfied click of a woman watching a chess piece move into place. “Edgar will not like that, Lark.”
And there it was—the whole shape of Thorne’s strategy, walking in through my own front door before I had so much as drunk my coffee.
We must be clever, and we must be loud. Edgar wanted Linnet’s case conducted in silence, soberly, attracting no notice whatever.
A poem in The Quill and Crown, with all of literary London already whispering about the deaf girl shut away by her own brother, was the precise opposite of silence.
“You were Lydia Gray’s friend,” Quennell said. “And you and Lord Everthorne mean to see justice done for her.” He drew a breath, and something firmed in him. “It goes to press tomorrow.”
Tomorrow.
The word went through me like cold water. Every part of me that had wanted to march on Westmere House an hour ago rose up at once and wanted this—wanted it in every coffee house by noon.
But then I heard Thorne, as plainly as if he stood at my shoulder. You fire it once, Lark. And you fire it when it cannot miss.
“No,” I said. “Not tomorrow.”
Quennell blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“The publication must be delayed.” I chose the words with care, aware of how much sat beneath each one and could not be said aloud.
Not to two men who would carry it out of this room in perfect innocence and let it slip at a club, a supper, a printing house.
“I am going to ask you to trust me a little further than is comfortable, and to forgive me for not laying out every reason.”
Peregrine went still in his chair, watching me the way he watched everyone—idly, and missing nothing.
“My brother means to have Linnet committed,” I said.
“To an asylum. The papers are nearly drawn. A physician is expected to examine her within days. We cannot prevent the thing itself. But once it is done, we mean to challenge it. How we mean to do that, I must ask you not to press me on. There is a strategy to it, which I cannot share. I will say only this.” I laid my hand flat upon the table.
“The poem names what is to be done to her, and why, and by whom—set down in Miss Gray’s own hand, before any of it comes to pass. ”
Understanding moved across Quennell’s narrow face, and behind it, dismay. “Then surely the sooner London reads it—”
“The sooner London reads it, the sooner my brother does.” I held his gaze.
“And he is not a man who suffers being made a spectacle. If this appears tomorrow, he will not stand and take it. He will move Linnet where I cannot follow and finish his business in the country. Lydia’s poem will have an effect, I grant you, if you publish it now—but it will not point to Edgar.
Let him do it. Let there be a committal, papers, names.
Then the poem will point all of London straight at him.
We will make sure of that. If you publish too soon, you’ve spent our one shot without hitting what we need. ”
The man’s mouth opened and closed.
“Hold it,” I said, gentler. “Set your type. Ready your presses. But let it stand until the committal is done and the challenge is laid. Then publish and publish loudly. Put Lydia’s words in every hand in London at the very moment we challenge Linnet’s committal, and they cannot help but see the thing for what it is—women buried alive for the crime of being inconvenient. ”
For a long moment, Quennell said nothing, and I feared I had just asked more of him than a frightened man could give.
Turning to the editor, Peregrine broke the silence.
“Lark is not in the habit of asking people to be patient for the pleasure of it. She has a reason to her request. I would rather not be the man who fired early and lost the girl, only to learn afterward what I might have done by simply trusting her.”
It was deftly done. He had granted them both a way to consent without requiring me to offer a further explanation.
Quennell drew himself up, as the flutter went out of him, and the steadier man beneath showed through.
“I shall hold it then,” he said, “until you send word.” His chin rose.
“The same day that it’s published, ‘The Mask of Virtue’ will be in every coffee house and reading room in London, under Miss Gray’s own pen name, with a black border, and the date of her death beneath the title.
They burned my building to stop these words.
I should very much like to make certain the whole of London reads them.
” A small, fierce breath. “I can wait to do it properly. "
A part of me wanted to stand up and cheer the man. But Quennell had to be warned. “Publishing Lydia’s poem does not bury the danger to you. One of the men who commit these women murdered Miss Gray to suppress it. The publication may put you in danger as well.”
“I know it,” Quennell said quietly. “But I owe it to Miss Gray that her poem sees the light of day.”
It was, I thought, the bravest cowardice I had ever witnessed. I told him so, and he almost smiled.
“We are agreed then,” Peregrine said, rising.
“Horace will see Miss Gray’s poem set to print.
He will stay with me until the thing is done.
” He glanced at his friend. “And perhaps a while longer.” He took Quennell’s arm as the editor came to his feet.
At the door Peregrine paused and looked back at me.
“You will share the news with Everthorne?”
“Of course. I expect him later today.”
And then they were gone, leaving only silence behind.
But Miriam couldn’t help but speak up. “You see, Lark? Patience, along with cunning, suits this house far better than cunning alone.”
It did. I only hoped Mr. Quennell would not pay for his courage with his life.