Dear Laura (24 page)

They eyed each other with pleasure: friendly adversaries.

‘And I’ve looked out for your mistress as well as you could have done yourself,’ Lintott mourned, leaning against the
banisters
. ‘Taken a load off her mind, shielded her reputation, and just given her some very good advice too. Has she had any callers recently, Kate?’

‘Mr Titus hasn’t been, if that’s what you’re after, sir.’

‘No, I warned him off,’ said Lintott, ‘Who
has
been, then?’

‘No one in particular. Just friends of Mrs Crozier’s to wish her well and offer condolences, sir.’

‘I love you, Kate,’ said Lintott. ‘You make me work for my living, don’t you, my dear?’

She did not answer, smiling.

‘No business acquaintances, then? No old friend who might think of helping the lady out with Crozier’s? Because you may not have liked your late master, Kate, but he was the one who made the money. That affects every person in this household. No money, no household. Mr Titus don’t know what to do with money, apart from spending it, and your mistress has been at the dress-makers since she was widowed. That’s a fetching gown she has on so early in the day, ain’t it? You did her hair up nicely, too. I’m not such a stick that I don’t notice refinements of that sort, Kate.’

She still regarded him, and smiled, hands clasped on the pretty apron. Lintott rubbed his head, and grinned, delighted and exasperated.

‘Come, girl, somebody’s got his eye on the firm and the lady too, now hasn’t he? Else she wouldn’t have told me, and
confided
in me, and asked my opinion. She don’t want it to go amiss, does she, Kate?’

‘I don’t know what you mean, sir. Mrs Crozier is in mourning for a full year. It wouldn’t be proper for any gentleman to
approach
her so early.’

‘That butler’s a brave man,’ Lintott observed. ‘I hope he’s as brave as he needs be, that’s all! Kate, if you won’t tell me I’ll tell you. I think it’s the best way, all round, if there’s a firm hand on the reins. Or you’ll all be in Queer Street, between her
extravagance
and his.’

‘Well, if you know all that,’ said Kate saucily, ‘you don’t need me to say anything, and I must get back to my work, sir.’

‘Wait a bit! Is he an elderly gendeman?’

‘If you’re talking about Mr Edgeley, sir, he’ll be about – your age, I should judge.’

‘My age?’ Lintott said. ‘How do you know my age, miss?’

‘I don’t, sir. But then, I don’t know his either!’

‘This is very agreeable, Kate,’ said Lintott, grinning. ‘I wish all my inquiries was as agreeable, I can tell you. Mr Edgeley, eh?’

‘Yes, sir. He has known my late master and my mistress for a number of years. He and his wife came here very often at one time.’

Lintott’s face clouded.

‘Until she died, just a year ago,’ Kate continued demurely, fingering the frill on her apron. ‘He took that very badly. His family is grown up, you see. His daughter, Miss Florence, is married and lives in Bath. His son, Mr Hubert, is in the army.’

‘I could shake you, Kate. You had me thinking I was wrong, for a minute. What sort of a gentleman is he? Because a lady of her sort can make mistakes, can’t she? She’s made a couple of bad ones already!’

‘I could leave her with Mr Edgeley, sir, and feel easy in my mind.’

Lintott took the liberty of pinching her cheek.

‘And when are you leaving, Kate, eh?’

‘Not until my mistress is settled. We’ve been together for seven years, sir, and that’s a long time.’

‘You’re going to keep him waiting for you, are you, Kate?’

‘He’ll wait, sir. He’s that sort.’

‘Ah!’ said Lintott, in genuine admiration. ‘If your mistress was as cool a customer as you, Kate, she’d have saved herself a deal of trouble. Goodbye to you, my dear. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.’

‘Let me show you out, sir, if you please.’

She preceded him gracefully, but turned at the foot of the staircase, for the first time asking help.

‘It will be all right, sir, about the inquiry and Mr Titus?’

‘You needn’t worry, Kate.’

Still she wanted everything to be smoothed.

‘And it’ll be all right about Mr Edgeley, sir, if everything is as we think?’

‘So long as Mr Titus don’t smell a rat. But if she’s clever enough he won’t. And I needn’t ask how close and clever
you
’
re
going to be, need I?’

She shook her head. A little satisfied smile touched her mouth.

‘Mr Titus is a vain man, sir, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it so open. A vain man doesn’t notice quite so much, do you think?’

Lintott laughed aloud and shook his head, clapped the
Bollinger
hard down, and walked off still laughing.

*

The front door closed quietly behind him, and shielded the family again. Inside all was as it should be. The servants went briskly about the task of lunch. In the nursery Nanny Nagle allowed Blanche to thread herself a string of beads, taken from a boxful of Crozier’s Finest Assorted, Genuine Glass, Imported at Great Expense from Her Majesty’s Colonies. In the parlour Laura sat in her superb mourning, that was so much a
compliment
to a fair woman, and practised her Chopin, since Mr Edgeley was particularly fond of music.

O
N
a fine afternoon in late March, Laura hastily concealed a copy of the
Pall
Mall
Gazette
behind a cushion, hearing Kate’s knock on the door. So stupid, she thought, to be forever pretending, and yet the habit of concealment died hard. Theodore forbade a copy in the house, because of Mr Stead’s articles on child prostitution.

‘Come in, Kate.’

And though I can now buy it myself, and read it as openly as I wish, somehow I still hide it.

‘Your afternoon tea, ma’am. Mrs Hill has made an iced sponge as well as a cherry cake.’

‘See that Miss Blanche has a thin slice of each, will you, Kate?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Is everything to your liking?’

The sandwiches rolled up, in thin brown bread and butter. The Earl Grey tea with slices of lemon and lump sugar. The several sorts of baked biscuits Laura never touched, but which were always punctiliously included. The cakes that Blanche would enjoy more, wafered into a silver basket.

‘Thank you, Kate. Tell Mrs Hill it looks delicious.’

‘Mrs Hill says will there be anyone happening to stay for dinner, ma’am?’

‘No, Kate. I am expecting Mr Edgeley to bring his sister for an hour or so this evening. But wine and fruit cake, I feel, will do nicely.’

Their eyes met: calmly, knowledgeably.

‘Very well, ma’am. Will that be all for now?’

‘Yes, thank you, Kate.’

I had to read the articles secretly, by courtesy of Titus, and now Mr Stead has left the
Gazette
and begun a new enterprise called
Review
of
Reviews
.
I must buy myself a copy of that. So many
ideas, such dynamism, so much stuffy nonsense blown to the winds, so much life. I wonder whether I dare – no, I could not ask for it! – that Socialist paper
The
Link.
I wonder whether it would be possible to attend a meeting of the Fabians? Not unless someone I knew very well, someone respectable … Well, there is a time for everything. So very much more time than I have ever enjoyed before.

She lifted the silver teapot and poured. On the Common the sun shone, pale and fine and cold and gold. A spring afternoon, scattered about with children, festooned with shouting.

I need a year, Laura thought, to accustom myself to this
freedom.
Then I can consider freedom of a different sort: freedom from Titus finally, freedom from worrying about his ruining us, freedom from memory. I must somehow reconcile what I have been with what I wish to be. I must accept both the good and bad in myself. I must put the old behind me, in order to begin again.

*

Molly Flynn had been unable to resist wearing scarlet silk stockings studded with swallows. Finer, blacker swallows flew round Laura’s wide black brim, displaying the merest touches of white. Beneath the black veil, sweeping to her feet, she created an atmosphere of withdrawn gentility. The two women divided the attention of the spectators between them: Molly on splendid display and Laura riveting the gaze by shrinking from it.

Lintott gave his evidence drily, precisely, impassively: stating that two letters had come to light, the others must have been burned; that he had traced Mrs Flynn, a married lady who had wished to remain anonymous but now was prepared to give proof of the relationship between Mr Crozier and herself.

The letters created a little stir in the cold room: a warmth that caused the ladies to compress their lips in outrage, and the
gentlemen
to finger beards and moustaches and glance covertly at Molly. By her side sat Flynn in his Sunday suit, conveying both threat and protection.

‘Now, Mrs Flynn,’ said the coroner briskly, crossing from passion to hard fact without difficulty, ‘we accept that a
respectable
gentleman of the late Mr Crozier’s status fell in love with you.’ His tone suggested astonishment and derision. ‘
Nevertheless
,
one feels that some other pressure was brought to bear. Mr Titus Crozier tells us that his late brother informed him that these letters were being used against him, to extort money from him. In short, he was being blackmailed.’

‘Blackmailed?’ cried Molly. ‘Tell me what money ever passed between us? Ask the inspector here. He’s been through
everythink
. The late gentleman’s accounts, my husband’s accounts. He’s found nothink, and there was nothink to be found neither!’

‘Why did you go to the gentleman’s house so openly, Mrs Flynn? Was it not to underline the threat of trouble, of scandal?’

‘What else could I do, your honour, but take the letters
myself
?’ asked Molly, injured. ‘I went veiled. I durstn’t trust them to the post, and I couldn’t hardly send them to his office in case they was opened. I put them in the hands of that there
parlourmaid
and told her no one else was to touch them – and the huzzy went tattling to her mistress …’

‘Yes, yes, Mrs Flynn. Let us keep to the point. Why should Mr Crozier say he was being blackmailed if he was not?’

‘Ah well, he would, wouldn’t he, sir?’ said Molly, confidential. ‘It’s easy enough for a man to set a woman at naught, but he don’t like it the other way round. Flynn had found out, your worship, and was threatening to shoot the pair of us. I run after Mr Crozier’s carriage, a-begging him to leave me alone, but he wouldn’t listen.’

She reached for an exceedingly embroidered handkerchief, wafted a quantity of musky perfume towards the coroner and wept robustly.

‘I
tried and tried to send him about his business,’ she cried, ‘but then,’ with a flash of malice, ‘the poor gentleman wasn’t getting it elsewhere.’

Laura set her lips together in a fine line.

‘I must ask you, Mrs Flynn, to express yourself in a more seemly fashion. I do not wish to cause the late Mr Crozier’s widow more distress than she has already suffered.’

And he inclined his head courteously to Laura’s suffering, which she radiated in the crowded room.

‘So you were not blackmailing Mr Crozier?’

‘Certainly not, sir, just a-giving him his letters back.’

The coroner looked at Lintott, who shrugged.

‘I am forced to accept your word for that, Mrs Flynn. And I hope, that in the light of these tragic events, Those in Authority will keep an eye on this sort of thing in the future.’

Again he looked at Lintott, and Lintott returned a perceptible nod.

‘There is also the question of the anonymous letters,’ said the coroner, aggrieved. ‘So far the writer has not been discovered. They could be the random product of sick fancy, directed at a well-known family regardless of truth or consequence, in which case we may never trace the author. Inspector Lintott is holding this file open for future reference.’

He cleared his throat, and glanced at Laura.

‘But we may be sure that those letters had no bearing on the matter discussed here today. They happened to bring to light an unhappy situation which would otherwise have been shrouded in decent silence. No last message was left by the deceased, who doubtless wished to spare his family further grief. His health, as attested by the family physician, was poor. Dr Padgett cannot be blamed for concluding, under these circumstances, that his patient died of a cerebral haemorrhage.

‘I would say, therefore, that the late Mr Theodore Crozier, under great emotional stress – and possibly under other pressures not proven – took his own life. I extend my condolences to Mrs Crozier in her loss, and regret the undeserved ordeals inflicted upon her during these inquiries.’

Flynn offered his wife the support of a stalwart arm. Dabbing her eyes, Molly swept out. The ladies nearest her switched aside their gowns, lest they be contaminated, and nudged their escorts to pay no attention to her. With Laura they were sympathetic, scandalized. But beneath their pats and whispers lay a faint
contempt
. She had never confided in any of them, never unbent. She had appeared to possess everything, and in reality possessed nothing of value. Her beauty was no challenge now, her
wardrobe
no cause for envy, her dignity no disturbance. They knew, simply, that she was incapable of keeping a husband faithful, was not even guilty of a grand passion with his brother.

Annihilated, she waited alone in her carriage outside the
courtroom
,
while Titus paid homage to Mrs Clayton’s eighteen-
year-old
niece. The final twist of humiliation. Then out of the tide of spectators marched Lintott, Bollinger in hand, unnoticed as became his station in life. He nodded at her, once, twice, and spoke for her ears only.

‘Rough, ma’am. Very rough. But satisfactory. Now, ma’am, keep a hold of yourself and don’t mistake the shadow for the substance. Look neither to right nor left, and stay on course. You follow me?’

She inclined her head and tried to smile.

‘That’s all right, then,’ said Lintott, and nodded again, and strode off to more fearsome jungles.

Arthur Edgeley approached, and raised her gloved hand to his lips.

‘I wish that my distress could ease your own, Laura. That was quite the most shocking spectacle of truth and justice I have ever witnessed.’

‘You are very kind,’ she answered automatically, bereft even of pride. ‘I feel nothing any longer, believe me. You need not mind.’

‘If it is any consolation to you, I should like you to know that I consider their justice was monstrously unjust to you, and their truth a monstrous lie. I thought I knew Theodore well enough. Now I know I did not.’

‘Nor, I fear, did I,’ said Laura, her femininity mortally wounded.

Her eyes were on Molly Flynn’s red silk ankle, stepping into a hansom cab. So were many eyes: all masculine, covert, envious of pleasures unknown. High-coloured, sensible, Arthur Edgeley turned his back on Mrs Flynn.

‘The city is littered with such women,’ he observed, divining Laura’s wound. ‘Theodore would have been better advised to study the subtle instead of seeking the obvious. I am amazed he did not.’

She flowered a little in his defence of her.

‘Ah! Here is Titus at last!’ said Arthur Edgeley. ‘It is of no use Mrs Clayton’s niece making eyes at him. He loves nobody but himself.’

She looked at him uncertainly, and he smiled kindly,
comprehending
her loneliness.

‘This spring will be a happier one for me than the last, Laura, and I did not think it possible at the time. Next spring will find you remembering with calmness what now seems insupportable. Titus! My dear fellow, do not leave Laura at the mercy of so many gaping mouths and busy eyes. She has had enough for one day, I should imagine.’

*

‘Why was Arthur Edgeley hanging round?’ Titus demanded, unable to keep every woman happy at the same time.

‘Protecting me from inquisitiveness, would you not think?’

He was not prepared to argue the point, intent on a new conquest.

‘I shall not be able to call in this evening, after all,’ said Titus. ‘But we can see each other any day, Laura. And we must be careful after this furore!’

‘I think it would be best,’ Laura began cautiously, ‘if we saw very little of each other, and met only in company. A quiet musical evening, for instance, perhaps while Mrs Clayton’s niece is staying here?’

He looked at her sharply, but she was detached and uncritical.

‘I was thinking how lonely you would be, all by yourself, Laura.’

‘I have become used to being by myself. I shall miss you very much, Titus, but it would be sensible to give no further cause for gossip. Do you not agree?’

Why should he not? For this long chase was over, and he had grown tired of drama and scandal.

‘Drive home, Henry!’ Laura ordered, and settled back.

‘I have been puzzling over the question of a manager,’ said Titus gaily. ‘You have a poor opinion of my business head, I know. So I am looking round. Indeed, I must. I cannot do two jobs at once, and I have been there at all hours since Theodore died.’

‘You must do as you think best, of course.’

‘Some hard-working fellow who won’t mind earning his salary. Your own establishment, Laura, costs a pretty penny to
maintain. And Theodore tied up a great deal of money in the boys’ education, and some for Blanche in the event of her
marriage
. Laura, your dressmaker’s bills are past comprehension, my dear!’

‘You sound exactly like Theodore,’ she replied idly. ‘Has your tailor been paid, Titus?’

He shrugged and laughed, outmatched.

‘We are so alike, you and I, Laura. We should have made a fine pair, should we not?’

‘In one respect.’

He glanced at her quickly and with some curiosity.

‘And has that fire died?’

‘I think this trouble has put it out for good.’

‘With me, you mean?’ Vanity aroused.

‘In every way,’ she answered, composedly. ‘One only loves once like that. Thank God, thank God.’

‘So you are not looking out for the chrism of love, Laura? Love’s own crown?’

‘“With sanctifying sweetness”? No. I have my freedom, such as it is. I am not seeking further bondage. There is much else in life, and I begin to discover it. So you are my good friend and good brother once again, and I love you as I did in earlier years.’

He was silent: released, but somehow disappointed. She laid a hand on his immaculate sleeve and smiled out of sheer affection.

‘But I thank you for all the years, Titus.’

He lifted the hand and kissed it, touched and pleased.

‘That fellow Arthur Edgeley is a dull dog!’ he observed,
unconsciously
on her wave-length, and interpreting it wrongly. ‘As a businessman I must pay him tribute, but as a man …’

‘He and his wife were happy together,’ she said gently,
turning
his unspoken disparagement aside.

‘That I find difficult to believe. How can one love the same woman for twenty odd years? It is beyond my comprehension.’