Half Moon Street (10 page)

“I’ll do everything I can, Miss Monderell,” Pitt promised. “If you would give me a list of Mr. Cathcart’s friends, we’ll see if any of them can help us also.”

She stood up in a graceful movement and walked over to the bureau, skirts rustling, a wave of perfume teasing Tellman, warm and sweet, and confusing him all over again.

CHAPTER FOUR

Mariah Ellison was nervous. That made her angry because it was something she had managed to avoid for more years than she could remember, and that was now a great many. She had kept control of events so that she was very seldom placed at a disadvantage. It was one of the privileges of age.

This was entirely Caroline’s fault. A great deal that was presently disagreeable was Caroline’s fault. Imagine marrying an actor! The woman had taken leave of her wits. Not that she had ever had very many. Caroline had seemed sensible enough when she had married Edward, Mariah’s only son. Poor Edward. How he would grieve to see what a state his widow had fallen into—taking up with theatrical people and then marrying one young enough to be her own son! Edward’s death must have unhinged her mind, that was the most charitable explanation one could offer. Not made of stern-enough stuff, that was her trouble. Mariah had not fallen into pieces like that when Edward’s father had died and left her a widow at much the same age. But then she was of a different generation from Caroline, and had a backbone of steel.

Who was this Samuel person Caroline had gone and invited to tea so hastily? Apparently she had written a note this very morning and dispatched an errand boy with it to the hotel where Mr. Ellison was staying during his time in London. The acceptance had come by return. He would be delighted to call upon them at three o’clock.

He could be any sort of a person! Caroline had said he was charming, but then her marriage was witness enough as to her judgment. Heaven only knew what else she might admire these days.

Naturally, Mariah had brought her own maid, Mabel, with her from Ashworth House. That was the least comfort they could afford her. Accordingly it was Mabel who put out her best black afternoon gown—she was a widow and, like the Queen, had refused to wear anything but black for the last twenty-five years.

Mabel helped her dress, to a constant stream of instruction and criticism, of which she took little notice.

“There you are, ma’am,” she said at last. “You look very nice—fit to meet anyone.”

The old lady grunted and surveyed herself in her glass for the final time, straightened her lace collar and went to the bedroom door.

Who was this Samuel Ellison person? Of course she knew her husband had been married before. She had never told Caroline because Caroline had not needed to know, and it was not a matter Mariah desired to discuss with anyone. She had not known there was a son. It was perfectly possible this man was an impostor, but if he really resembled Edward so closely, then presumably he was genuine. She would know as soon as she saw him.

She opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. There was no need to be disquieted, even if the man was who he claimed to be. If he was, she would be pleasant to him, and the afternoon would pass agreeably enough. After all, he was American; she could hardly be held responsible if he was not socially desirable. She could apologize, disclaim all connection, and not invite him again.

And if he was charming, interesting, amusing, so much the better.

If he was an impostor she would ring for the butler and have him shown out abruptly. It was nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone had relatives they did not care to own. It happened even in the best families.

She went down the stairs and into the withdrawing room.

Caroline was standing by the window looking out. As the old lady came in she turned around. Caroline was very handsome for her age, one might almost say beautiful, except that she had a light in her eye and a flush to her cheek which were unbecoming in a mature woman. She should know how to behave with more discretion. And that shade of burgundy was much too rich.

“You are overdressed,” the old lady remarked critically. “He will think he has come to dinner. It is barely three o’clock in the afternoon.”

“Well, if he looks at you, he will expect baked meats,” Caroline retorted. “You seem to be dressed for a funeral.”

The old lady straightened to total rigidity. “I am a widow. As are you, or you were—until you went off and married that actor! I would have thought in deference to the fact that this man is apparently a member of our family, and his brother is dead, you might have worn something more in keeping with the occasion.” She sat down solidly in the best chair.

Caroline looked at her closely. “You never told us that Papa-in-law had been married previously.”

The old lady avoided her eyes. “It was not your concern,” she said coldly. “She was a woman of . . .” For once she was uncertain. Dark memories brushed the edge of her mind, and she refused to allow them closer. “She ran away.” Her voice grew sharper. “She abandoned him. Went off with some worthless adventurer . . .” That was a lie, but it was easier to believe and to understand. “Naturally we did not speak of it. No one would.” That was true.

“Edward might have wished to know he had a half brother,” Caroline said quite gently.

“No one knew,” the old lady replied, her voice steadier. That also was true. She had had no idea whatever that Alys had been with child. Edmund would not have let her go so easily if he had known. To lose a son would be altogether a different matter.

Mariah deliberately unclenched her hands. They were cold and a little clammy with tension. Memories long forgotten were stirring in her mind, shapeless pain, things denied so long they were only darkness now, no sharp edges, just the ache. Why didn’t someone arrive so she did not have to work so hard at not thinking?

There it was. A carriage outside. The footsteps across the hall, the murmur of voices. Thank heaven.

The door opened and the butler announced Mr. Samuel Ellison. He was tall, well built, and dressed in the latest cut of waistcoat and jacket, but all this was nothing to Mariah. Her breath almost stopped in her throat as she saw his face. He was so like her own son a wave of loss overtook her like a physical pain. It was not that she and Edward had been friends, or shared ideas or confidences, it was the bond of years of knowledge, of memories of childhood intimacy, the very fact that he had been part of her. And here was this man of whose existence she had been unaware until this morning, and he had the same eyes, the same shape of head, the same manner of moving.

Caroline was welcoming him in and, before Mariah was ready for it, presenting him to her.

He bowed, smiling at her, his expression full of interest as he looked at her face.

“How do you do, Mrs. Ellison. It is charming of you to receive me with almost no notice at all. But after so long, hoping to meet my English family, I simply could not wait another day.”

“How do you do, Mr. Ellison,” she replied. It was difficult to say the name, her own name, to a stranger. “I hope your stay in England will be a pleasant one.”

“It already is,” he assured her with a smile. “And becoming better all the time.”

She forced herself to make a civil reply, and they all sat down to exchange small talk of the usual innocuous and meaningless kind. However, almost immediately it took another turn. Caroline had made some trivial enquiry about Samuel’s youth, and he replied with a vivid description of New York, where apparently his mother had landed from the ship which had taken her across the Atlantic.

“Alone?” Mariah said in amazement. “However did she manage?” Perhaps it was an intrusive question. The answer may not have been one he was willing to give and it was made in disbelief as much as sympathy.

“Oh, there were many in the same circumstances,” he replied easily. “They helped one another, as I was telling Mrs. Fielding yesterday evening.” He glanced at her with a smile. “And my mother was a woman of remarkable courage, and never afraid to work hard.”

Mariah barely heard the continued conversation. Her mind was filled with thoughts of this woman she had never seen, who had been Edmund’s first wife and fled to America alone, without a friend or ally in the world, according to Samuel, and carrying Edmund’s child. Why had she gone if not with some lover? The answer to that lay like a dark and ugly threat just out of reach, but close . . . far too close.

“And did you remain in New York?” Caroline enquired.

“Oh no,” Samuel replied with a wide smile. “When I was twenty, I decided to journey westward, just to go and see it, you understand?”

“And leave your poor mother?” Mariah said with some sarcasm. It gave her a ghost of pleasure to think of Alys by herself again. It served her right.

“Oh, believe me, ma’am, my mother was well able to care for herself by then,” he assured her, leaning back more comfortably in his chair. “She had a nice little business going in dressmaking, and employed several girls. She had made friends and knew a great many people. She missed me, I hope, but she did not mind when I packed up and went west, first to Pittsburgh, then up to Illinois.”

He continued with marvelous descriptions of the great plains that stretched for a thousand miles westwards to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

Mariah began to relax. He was merely entertaining, after all. Like most men, he loved to be the center of attention. Unlike most, he had a great gift for anecdote and a very ready sense of humor. Caroline’s face was quite flushed, and she had barely taken her eyes off him since he began.

Tea was brought, poured and passed. This was not so bad after all.

“But you returned to New York,” Caroline asked.

“I came back east when my mother was taken ill,” Samuel answered her.

“Of course.” She nodded. “Of course. You would naturally want to take care of her. She never married again?”

A curious expression crossed Samuel’s face, a mixture of pity and something which could have been anger.

Mariah felt the chill of warning shiver through her. It was not over. She wanted to say something to cut off Caroline’s intrusive enquiries, but for once she could think of nothing which would not simply make it worse.

“I hope she recovered,” Caroline said earnestly. “She must still have been quite young.”

“Oh, yes,” Samuel responded with a smile. “It proved to be no more than a passing thing, thank heaven.”

“You must have been close,” Caroline said gently. “Having endured so much together.”

His face softened, and there was a great tenderness in his eyes. “We were. Much as I wished to find my English family as well, I don’t think I would ever have left America while she was alive. I never knew a person, man or woman, with more courage and strength of will to follow her own mind and be her own person, whatever it cost.”

Caroline smiled; there was a sweetness in her, almost a glow, as if the words held great value for her.

“It does cost,” she agreed, looking intently at Samuel. “One can be so uncertain, so filled with doubts and loneliness, and the way cannot always be retraced. Sometimes it is too late before you even realize what you have paid.”

Samuel looked at her with quite open appreciation, as though she had offered him a profound compliment.

“I see you understand very well, Mrs. Fielding. I believe you would have liked her, and she you. You seem to be of one mind.”

Mariah stiffened. What was he talking about? The woman had left her husband and run off to America. He was speaking as if it were some kind of a virtue. How much did he know? Surely she would never have—could never . . . no woman would! The coldness hardened inside her like ice. Old memories of pain returned, things forgotten years ago, pushed into the oblivion at the edges of her mind.

She must do something, now, before it was too late.

“I suppose you were there during that miserable war?” she said abruptly. “It must have been most disagreeable.”

“That hardly begins to describe it, Mrs. Ellison,” Samuel said gravely. “Any war is dreadful, but one among people of one nation who are even known to each other, perhaps brothers, fathers and sons, is the most terrible. The violence and the hatred have a bitterness which does not fade.”

Mariah Ellison did not understand, nor wish to.

He perceived it quickly, and his expression changed. The sense of tragedy was wiped away; compassion and a wry humor replaced it.

He told them of events as he had perceived them.

“Sometimes it’s the silly things that hold you together,” he said, his voice dropping even lower. “If you’d ever been really sick with fear till your stomach knotted up like a fist, you’d understand that.”

A wave like a prickle of heat swept over Mariah’s skin as memory washed around her in a tide, old memory she’d buried years ago, followed by a chill that left her shaking as if she had swallowed ice. How dare he make her feel like this? How dare he arrive out of nowhere and awaken the past?

It was Caroline who cut across the silence and jerked her back to this pleasant, modest room with its well-worn, comfortable furnishings, the afternoon light streaming in through the windows onto the carpet.

“You speak of it with such passion we can feel something of what you know,” she said softly.

Samuel turned to look at her and moved momentarily as if he would have put out his hand to touch her, had he not remembered in time that it would be too familiar.

“What did you do after the war?” she asked. She heard the hard edge in her own voice, but it was beyond her control. “You must have made a living at something!”

Mariah wondered if he had ever married, and if not, then why, but she did not wish to detain him any longer by asking, nor did she have any desire to appear interested.

“What about your mother?” Caroline said gently, and Mariah could have kicked her.

Samuel’s face filled with a softness which changed him profoundly. For the first time the confidence was gone, and in its place one saw for a moment a more vulnerable man, one with more knowledge of his own need and the understanding that much of his strength came from another source. Mariah wanted to like him for it, and could not because she was afraid of what he was going to say.

“My mother cared for herself, ma’am,” he answered, and he could not keep the pride out of it. “And for a good many others also. She had all the courage in the world. She never thought twice about fighting for what she believed to be right—win or lose.” He lifted his chin a little. “She taught me all I know of how to face an enemy, no matter how you feel or what you fear the cost will be. I’ve often thought, in my worst moments, how I’d like to be worthy of her. I daresay there’s many a man the same.”