A Christmas Hope (13 page)

With a weariness that reached her very bones, Claudine leaned forward and very unwillingly instructed the driver to take her to the Giffords’ house. At this time of the day, it was quite possible no one would be at home. It should not be too difficult to gain a few moments alone in the morning room. The servants would merely think her very eccentric. Perhaps they did anyway. It was not an excuse to avoid doing what she must.

Half an hour later she returned to the exhibition. She walked all the way through it until she came to the tearoom and found Alphonsine sitting at one of the small tables with a friend. She glanced up and saw Claudine. Her hand froze in the air, her cup halfway to her lips.

Claudine stopped, still gazing at Alphonsine.

Alphonsine lowered her cup and rose to her feet. She said something to her friend then walked over toward Claudine.

“Please … not here …,” she pleaded earnestly. Her eyes were wide, filled with fear.

“You were not in the morning room,” Claudine said
very quietly. “If what you said you saw is the truth—and I believe it is—then you must have been much farther around the terrace. You must’ve been in the house next door. That was how you saw what happened, but only partially. And that was why none of them saw you.”

Alphonsine was very pale. She was trembling.

At last the pieces fell into place, and Claudine understood.

“This is why you do not wish to marry Ernest Halversgate, isn’t it?” she asked. “It has to be. There is someone else.”

The tears slid down Alphonsine’s cheeks. “My father won’t ever permit it. He wouldn’t even consider it.”

“I assume he is unsuitable?” Claudine understood perfectly. They belonged to the same world. If it was a young man with no prospects, or perhaps a youngest son, he would be unacceptable, neighbor or not. Claudine had once dreamed a similar dream and then given it up to obey her father’s wishes. She had no idea whether it would ever have worked well, or even at all. At her father’s insistence, the young man had never given her the chance to accept, or himself the chance to be refused.

She had not remembered it so vividly for years. Now she understood far better than Alphonsine could imagine.

“It’s hard, I know,” she said gently. “But what happiness is there for you if you do not tell the truth about this? You can convince your parents, or the police, that you do not know what happened. But can you lie to yourself? You could avoid going to Tregarron’s trial, quite easily. In fact, it would be more difficult for you to go than not to. But is that who you wish to be?”

“I can’t tell them!” Alphonsine said desperately. “It was an—an assignation! If he knew of it, Ernest would never have me! I didn’t …” She blushed scarlet.

“Of course you didn’t,” Claudine agreed. “But you saw this young man alone, romantically, when you were supposed to be in your own house and engaged, at least in understanding, to Ernest. I do appreciate your situation. He is somewhat straitlaced, to put it kindly.”

Alphonsine swallowed hard. “Very kindly. He bores me till I could weep!”

Claudine smiled at her with intense gentleness. “My dear, I do understand. Believe me, I do. But if they arrest Mr. Tregarron and charge him with murder, then you must speak. You have no choice.”

“Please …”

“I will say nothing, unless I have to,” Claudine promised.
“But I will not let them blame an innocent man, or let go one who is guilty.”

“I don’t know which one of them is guilty! I really don’t!”

“I know. But maybe we will be able to find out or prove it some other way.”

“Do you think so?” Hope flared in Alphonsine’s eyes.

“No,” Claudine said honestly, “I don’t.”

Wallace Burroughs was in a good mood that evening over dinner. They had barely begun the soup when he told her the reason.

“The police have caught Tregarron,” he said, smiling at her over the gleaming silver cruet sets and the sparkle of glasses.

Claudine put her soupspoon back down in the plate. Her hand was shaking so much that he would have noticed.

“Really?” Her mouth was dry. The word sounded
forced. “That was very efficient of them.” She swallowed. “Where?”

“In Dover. Trying to escape, I suppose. I’m glad you’re taking it so sensibly,” he observed. “I was afraid you might be upset.”

He seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

“Were you?” she replied. “I think it was inevitable, wasn’t it?”

“Of course, since he left too late. He could have gone earlier. People like him always think they’re invulnerable.”

“People like him?” she questioned then instantly wished she had not. It would only provoke a quarrel. She did not want to hear his opinion of Tregarron, and she had just been stupid enough to invite it.

“Drunkards,” he replied. “Lechers, men who imagine that whatever talent they possess puts them above the laws that apply to ordinary people. Well, he’ll discover he’s wrong. Thank heaven it happened before Christmas, and it won’t cloud the whole season for us. You should be glad it’s over with.”

“It isn’t ‘over with,’ ” she argued instantly. “They’ll have to try him. We can’t execute people just because we
don’t approve of them, or because they drink too much. Fortunately for a great many in our aristocratic class, drinking to excess is not a crime at all, let alone a capital one.”

“Gentlemen know how to hold their drink,” he said tartly.

“Oh, Wallace, don’t be absurd!” she said with something close to a guffaw. “We just pretend we haven’t noticed when they can’t. I’ve picked up my skirts and walked around enough ‘gentlemen’ lying in the gutter not to have many illusions left.”

He glared at her. “They may not stay upright on their feet, but they do not murder harlots on the terrace, Claudine. There is a difference.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“A difference between the terrace and some back alley? A geographical one. It seems to be a distinction rather than a difference. I’m sure the harlot would rather prefer not to be attacked at all. The location of it probably matters very little to her.”

“Claudine, your language has become very coarse lately. I don’t care for the effect on you that working at the clinic seems to be having. Perhaps it would be better if you were to desist for a while. A year or two, maybe.”

She did not retreat as usual, even though she knew she was losing, and would continue to do so. She looked at him inquiringly. “Is ‘harlot’ an unfortunate word? I learned it from you, Wallace. You used it just now, at the dinner table. I assure you I did not hear it at the clinic. It is not a term we use there. It is unnecessarily insulting.”

His face burned hot, but with anger rather than embarrassment. “Well, did you learn your insolence there? I assure you that you did not get that from me,” he snapped back, mimicking her tone.

“Of course not,” she agreed. “You have no one to be insolent toward. Just as your employees dare not be insolent to you, out of fear of losing their positions, you are not insolent to your superiors, or you would lose yours.”

He pushed his soup plate away from him, empty. He had not stopped eating while speaking to her. “They will try Tregarron in the New Year,” he said, ignoring her statement. “I imagine he will be hanged before the end of January. Damn good thing, too. He is a bad influence all round.”

“I agree with you.” She pushed her plate away also, although it was barely touched. “He seems to have had a profound effect on Creighton Foxley and on Cecil
Crostwick. How sad that they will have to find harlots on their own now. Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t like that word. I’m not sure I can think of another that quite fits the circumstances.”

“Was there wine in the soup?” he said patronizingly.

“I have no idea. Do you wish for some?”

“It seems you have had more than enough. Did you already know that Tregarron had been arrested?”

“No. I had no idea. And I have had no wine at all. Would you be kind enough to ring the bell for the butler? I have eaten sufficiently. Perhaps he would bring the next course.”

From there, the evening became worse, as she had known it would.

“They won’t try Tregarron over Christmas, but they’ll likely do it straight afterward. If only to get it out of the way.” Squeaky sat across from her at his desk in the clinic, gritting his teeth. It was now five days before Christmas. The weather was still mild. There was no frost in the air, no ice on the ground. “I wish the stupid
sod had left the country.” He gave a grunt of annoyance. “I should’ve found him. Got him to go. I’m no bloody use at all—I’ve lost my touch. That’s respectability for you!”

His voice was so full of self-disgust that Claudine was momentarily sorry for him. “You learned quite a bit about his life,” she pointed out.

He gave a bitter look. “That he wasn’t seen hitting women. What good is that? You never thought he was guilty anyway.”

“I didn’t think so because I didn’t want to,” she said with rather more honesty than she had intended. She had not meant him to know that. “Now I know because of a pattern of behavior you have traced.”

“Yeah? And what difference does that make? Who’s going to believe the likes of you or me?”

Claudine was taken aback by the idea that her word was of no more credibility than that of an ex–brothel keeper, but Squeaky was probably right.

“Then we have to get Alphonsine to testify,” she said firmly. She did not know what Squeaky would make of what she was about to tell him. “But it will be difficult, because she’ll have to say where she was.”

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

“She saw the whole thing. She knows that it wasn’t
Dai Tregarron who hit Winnie Briggs—but she doesn’t know which of the young men it was.”

He blinked. “How’s that?”

“From where she was standing, she could see Tregarron; he was farther down the terrace, and when Winnie was hit, when he realized it had become ugly, he moved to stop it. But she was already down before he could do anything.”

Squeaky was silent as he weighed her words. “You’re certain?” he said finally.

“Yes, I am,” Claudine assured him.

Squeaky nodded slowly. “That’s a big step forward,” he conceded with respect. “Now can we get her to admit that to the police? To say it in court, if it comes to that?”

“That might be difficult. You see, Alphonsine couldn’t distinguish the other young men clearly, and none of them could see her, because she was across the terrace behind the windows of another house,” she explained. “The lights on the terrace made them visible to her.”

“Was she standing in the dark, then?”

“Yes. It … it was an assignation. She wasn’t alone.”

Squeaky turned that over in his mind for several moments. “Couldn’t she just say that she was alone?”

Claudine looked at him witheringly. “Doing what?”

“What?” he asked.

“Why on earth would she be standing alone in the dark in a neighbor’s house, staring out of the window at the terrace of her own house?” she said with as much patience as she could manage, which was very little indeed. Her voice sounded thin and tense.

He took the point and did not bother to say so. “And what would happen if she just plain told the truth?” he asked.