Brunswick Gardens (33 page)

“No, of course not!” she said sharply. “That is entirely different.”

“I don’t think it is,” he answered quite seriously. “Pleasure is about coming and going as you like. Love is about doing what is sometimes difficult, or expensive in time and emotion, for someone else’s sake, and finding that if it adds to their happiness, then it does to yours also.”

“You sound very pompous,” she stated. “I suppose you are married.”

“You disapprove of marriage?”

“I think it is unnecessary.”

“How condescending.”

Suddenly she laughed. It lit her face, softening the hard angles and making her beautiful. Then as quickly it vanished, leaving her sad and defensive as before.

“Actually, I think it is necessary for some people,” she conceded unwillingly. “Jenny was one of them. She was not strong enough to let go when the time came.”

“She killed herself …” he guessed.

She looked away again. “Perhaps. No one can be certain.”

“Dominic was certain, and that is why he blamed himself and left in despair.” He was sure that what he said was the truth, or close to it. “He would not marry her?”

“He couldn’t marry both of them!” she said scornfully, anger in her eyes as she faced him. “Jenny couldn’t cope with sharing. She became—” She stopped again, looking away.

“With child,” he finished for her. “Vulnerable. Needing more for herself than someone who came when they felt like it and left equally selfishly.” He thought sharply and with overwhelming sweetness of Charlotte. “She began to understand that love is commitment,” he said quietly. “Making promises and keeping them, being there when people need you, whether it suits you or not. She grew up … and the rest of you didn’t. You were still playing. Poor Jenny.”

“That’s unfair!” Her voice was raised and angry. “You weren’t here! You don’t know anything about it!”

“I know Jenny is dead, because you just told me, and I know Dominic felt the height of his guilt, because I know where he went after here.”

“Where did he go?” she demanded. “Is he all right?”

“You care?” He raised his eyebrows.

She snatched her hand back as if she would like to hit him but did not dare to. He wondered if she had been the other woman. He thought probably not.

“Was Unity Bellwood ever here?” he asked instead.

She looked totally blank. “I’ve never heard of her. Is she the girl who is dead this time?” In spite of herself there was an edge of sorrow in her voice, and perhaps guilt, too.

“Yes. Only she didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. She was with child as well.”

She looked down. “I’m sorry. I would have staked anything I had he would never do anything like that again.”

“Perhaps he hasn’t. I don’t know. Thank you for being honest with me.”

“I had no choice,” she said grudgingly.

He smiled, a wide smile of both humor and victory.

    It was late when he arrived home. Tellman had told him a little more about the establishment in Hall Road, all of which was much as he might have guessed. A group of people had begun pursuing a kind of freedom they believed passionately would bring them happiness. It had instead brought them confusion and tragedy. They had changed at least some of their ways, but were loath to admit error or let go of the dream. Jenny was seldom spoken of. Tellman had learned of her from one of the children, a ten-year-old boy with a less-guarded tongue who found lurid tales of London’s Whitechapel District too fascinating to miss, in exchange for a little factual information about his own, to him very boring, household.

“Immoral,” Tellman had said damningly. “They should know better. They aren’t poor or ignorant.” He had great compassion for the old or the sick, the very poor, although he was reluctant to let anyone see it. But from those he considered his betters, or who thought they were, he expected high standards, and when they fell below them, he had only contempt. “No respect,” he added. “No decency.”

Pitt had sat all the way on the train wondering what he was going to tell Charlotte. She would be bound to ask. Anything to do with Dominic she would naturally care about intensely. His
behavior to Jenny had been close to inexcusable. The fact that she had thought she could live with sharing him with another woman was no answer. He was twice her age. He had been married to Sarah and knew perfectly well that such liberty was almost certain to fail. He had been as shallow thinking and as indulgent as when he had lived in Cater Street, taking pleasure where it was offered and thinking no further than the moment.

Could people really change? Of course it was possible. But was it probable?

There was a cold unhappiness inside Pitt, because part of him wanted to think this case was Dominic all over again, the old Dominic he had known before. And Dominic was surely far more likely to be guilty than Ramsay Parmenter, dry, ascetic, intellectual, tormented Ramsay, filled with doubts and arguments, seeking immortality by writing some abstruse interpretation of theology.

Tellman had said very little throughout the journey. He had seen a glimpse of a world which disturbed him, and he needed to think about it alone.

As soon as Pitt was inside the door Charlotte asked him.

“Yes,” he answered, taking off his coat and following her through to the parlor. She was so concerned she had barely touched him, and left him to hang up his coat and scarf himself.

“Well?” She turned and faced him. “What happened? What did you find out?”

“I’ve had a long journey and I’d like a cup of tea,” he replied, stung by her eagerness. The old care for Dominic was just as sharp.

She looked surprised. “Gracie is getting you one. It will be here in a moment. Would you like something to eat as well? I’ve got fresh bread and cold mutton.”

“No. Thank you.” He was being ungracious, and he knew it. What should he tell her about Dominic? If he lied, and Dominic were guilty, she would blame him for not having been honest.
“I found the house where Dominic lived before he went to Icehouse Wood.”

“Icehouse Wood?” she questioned. “You didn’t tell me about Icehouse Wood. Where is it? It sounds horrible.”

“Chislehurst. It isn’t nice. It could be, if it weren’t neglected.” He sat down by the fire, stretching his feet out and leaving her standing.

She stared down at him. “Thomas! What is wrong? What is it you won’t tell me?”

He was too locked up in anger and indecision to smile at her illogic.

“What did you find out about Dominic?” Her voice was sharper and he could hear the fear behind it. He turned to look up at her. It was the end of the day and she was tired, too. There was very little color in her cheeks and her hair was coming out of its pins. She had been too preoccupied to tidy herself up for his return. The anxiety was written plainly on her face, the fine lines around her eyes, the shadows in them, the tightness of her mouth.

He loved her too much to be invulnerable. He despised part of himself even as he answered.

“He lived in a large house in Maida Vale with several other people. They believed in love without commitment, more or less do-as-you-please. He had two mistresses. One was a girl called Jenny, who was twenty …” He saw her wince, but ignored it. “He got her with child. She felt frightened and alone. She was no longer able to share him. He wouldn’t choose between the two. She took an overdose of laudanum and killed herself. He knew he was to blame, and he ran away in despair … to Icehouse Wood … which is where Ramsay Parmenter found him, close to suicide.”

“Poor Dominic,” she said softly. “He must have felt as if there was nothing left in life.”

“Well, for Jenny and her child … there wasn’t!” he lashed back instantly. Suddenly his anger was overwhelming. The
sheer useless, horrible tragedy of it was more than he could bear. And now Dominic was wearing a clerical collar and convincing little old ladies like Alice Cadwaller that he was a shepherd for the weak and the innocent. Not to mention Vita Parmenter, who seemed to think him the strength and the conscience of the house, and heaven only knew what Unity Bellwood had felt for him. And now here was Charlotte, of all people, who had known what he was like, had seen him hurting her own sister, instead of despising him and pitying Jenny, saying “Poor Dominic.”

Charlotte was white-faced. “That was a terrible thing to say, Thomas!” She was trembling.

Gracie opened the door with a tray of tea and neither of them noticed her.

“It was a terrible thing to do.” He could not draw back now. “I did not want to tell you, but you asked me.”

“Yes, you did!” she accused, not loudly now but very quietly, her voice low and angry and hurt. “You wanted me to know that Dominic had done something so wretched I could never forget it.”

That was true. He had wanted her to know. He had wanted to break the false, idealized notion she had of him and make her see him as he had had to: real, shallow, selfish, tortured with guilt … but for how long? Long enough to change … or not?

Gracie put the tray on the table. She looked like a frightened child. This was the only home she knew, and she could not bear quarrels in it.

Charlotte turned around to her. “Thank you. You’d better pour it out. I’m afraid we have had some rather unpleasant news about Mr. Corde, my brother-in-law. Things I would rather were not true, but it seems they are.”

“Oh,” Gracie said with a gulp. “I’m sorry.”

Charlotte tried to smile at her but did not succeed. “I shouldn’t really be so upset. I’ve known him long enough it should not
surprise me.” She watched Gracie pour out the tea and, after a moment’s hesitation, take a cup over to Pitt.

“Thank you,” he accepted.

Gracie put Charlotte’s cup near her and went out.

“I suppose you think he was the father of Unity’s child and that she was blackmailing him, so he killed her,” she said flatly.

“Well, you have no right to say that,” he retorted, stung by the unfairness of it. “I have not concluded anything of the sort. I have no proof which of them killed Unity, nor any hope of getting any practical evidence of the act itself. All I can do is find out more about each of them and hope it shows something or absolves one of them. What would you have me do … assume Dominic’s innocence?”

She turned away. “No, of course not. I’m not angry that you found this out, just that it pleases you. I want you to be as hurt and as miserable about it as I am.” She stood stiff-backed, staring away from him out of the darkened window.

He felt excluded, because he understood what she meant, and yet the dark, cold little voice inside him still almost wished Dominic to be guilty.

He slept very badly and woke late in the morning. He went downstairs and found Tellman drinking tea in the kitchen, talking to Gracie. He stood up the moment Pitt came in, his face coloring slightly.

“You might as well finish it,” Pitt said curtly. “I have no intention of going out without breakfast. Where is Mrs. Pitt?”

“Upstairs, sir,” Gracie replied, watching him carefully. “Sorting the linen.”

“I see. Thank you.” He sat down at the kitchen table.

Gracie put a bowl of porridge in front of him and started to warm the frying pan for kippers. He wanted to say something to comfort her, to tell her that this unease in the house was only a passing thing. But he could think of nothing. And half an hour later, when he left, he still had not mentioned it, nor had he been upstairs to speak to Charlotte.

He sent Tellman off to learn what he could of Mallory Parmenter’s past, his conversion to the Church of Rome, and his personal habits and relationships.

He began to seek more of Unity Bellwood’s past, and spent a miserable Saturday interrupting the brief leisure time of people who had known her in a more personal way. He found out her previous address from Ramsay Parmenter, and now he called upon the house in Bloomsbury, less than fifteen minutes from his own home. He walked rapidly, striding out and passing neighbors without recognizing them, still consumed in his own anger and unhappiness.

There was an air to the house not unlike the one he had been to in Maida Vale. There were similar works of art on the walls, piles of books in and out of cases, a sense of being intentionally different. He was received ungraciously by a bearded man of about fifty who agreed that, yes, Unity Bellwood had lived there some three or four months ago and had left to go to a position which he knew nothing about.

“How long did she live here?” Pitt asked. He was not going to be put off because he was a nuisance and was disturbing a quiet Saturday morning when people wished to relax and not be bothered with strangers.

“Two years,” the man replied. “She had rooms upstairs. They are relet now to a nice young couple from Leicestershire. She can’t have them back, and I’ve nothing else.” He looked at Pitt belligerently. His regard towards Unity was plain.

Pitt pressed him until he lost his temper, and then went on to speak to all the other residents of the house who were at home, forming a picture of Unity which added little to what he already knew. She was academically outstanding, but her arrogance and her passion had both caused fierce reactions in people. Those who admired her had done so intensely, and felt her death to be both a public and a personal loss. She had represented great courage in the fight against oppression of all kinds, of bigotry, of narrow and unjust laws, and against those limitations
of the mind which seek to regiment the emotions and restrict the true liberty of thought and ideas. He heard in her echoes of Morgan’s cry for the nobility of free love.

From those who hated her he heard the notes of envy and fear. They were frightened of her. She disrupted what they knew and understood. She threatened their peace of mind and unsettled thought.

He also detected through their stories, of both those who admired her and those who scorned her, a consistent thread of manipulation, a love of power and the will to use it, even for its own sake.

He pursued it until after dark. His back ached, he was exhausted and hungry, and had found he still knew little he could not have guessed. He could no longer put off going home. He walked along the footpath in Gower Street, crossed the intersection at Francis Street and Torrington Place, and went on. His feet hurt. Perhaps that was why he was walking more and more slowly.