Half Moon Street (20 page)

“You agree, sir?” he asked warmly. He looked Pitt up and down, his eyes resting a moment on Pitt’s untidy hair and on his crooked shirt collar, less well cared for than usual in Charlotte’s absence. “Let me assay a guess. You are a poet whom some narrow and grubby-minded critic has censored? Or are you an artist who has painted his view of the reality of the soul of man, and no one will hang it in public because it challenges the comfortable assumptions of society?”

Pitt grinned. “Not quite right, sir. I am Thomas Pitt, a policeman who has misplaced a French diplomat and wondered if you might know where he is.”

Wilde looked thunderstruck, then he burst into a roar of laughter, thumping his fist on the table. It was several moments before he controlled himself.

“Good heavens, sir, you have a dry sense of the absurd. I like you. Please, sit down and join us. Have a glass of wine. It’s dreadful, like vinegar and sugar, but it cannot dampen our spirits, and if you take enough of it, it will no longer matter. Bring your lugubrious friend as well.” He waved his arm towards an empty chair a few feet away, and Pitt drew it up and sat with them. Tellman obeyed also.

A pale young Irishman, addressed by his fellows as Yeats, stared moodily into the distance. The newcomers’ inclusion seemed to displease him.

“Take no notice at all.” Wilde gave them his full attention. “Personally or professionally, may one ask?”

Pitt felt vaguely uncomfortable. He knew Wilde’s reputation, and he did not wish to be misunderstood.

Tellman was quite obviously confused, and it showed in the pink-ness of his cheeks and the stubborn set of his mouth.

“Professionally,” Pitt replied, keeping his eyes steadily on Wilde’s.

“Will any French diplomat do?” the young man with the quiff asked, then giggled cheerfully. “Or do you want a particular one?”

Tellman sneezed.

“I would like a particular one,” Pitt replied. “Henri Bonnard, to be exact. One of his friends has reported him missing, and it seems that if he does not reappear soon he may be in jeopardy of losing his position, which makes me fear he has met with harm.”

“Harm?” Wilde looked from one to the other of them around the table. He turned back to Pitt. “I know Bonnard, slightly. I had no idea he was missing. I confess, I haven’t seen him in . . .” He thought for a moment. “Oh . . . a couple of weeks, or nearly as long.”

“He was last seen nine days ago,” Pitt said. “In the morning near the Serpentine. He had an altercation with a friend and left rather heatedly.”

“How do you know?” Wilde asked.

“It was observed by a number of people,” Pitt explained. “There was a camera club out taking pictures in the early light. Both men were members.”

Tellman shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“I prefer my visions in words.” Yeats lost interest and turned away.

“A poetry of light and shade,” the man with the quiff observed. “An enormous number of pictures in black-and-white and shades of gray. Better than Whistler, what?”

“But not as good as Beardsley,” someone else said sharply. “A photograph will catch only the obvious, the outside. Beardsley’s drawings will catch the soul, the essence of good and evil, the eternal questions, the paradox of all things.”

Pitt had no idea what the man was talking about. From the look on Tellman’s face, he was no longer even trying to understand.

“Of course,” the man with the quiff agreed. “The brush, in the hands of a genius with the courage to draw whatever he wants, and no bigoted, frightened little censor to stop him, can mirror the torment or the victory within. Anything you dare to think, he can show.”

Someone else leaned forward enthusiastically, almost knocking a glass of wine off the table with his elbow. “The immediacy of it” he declaimed, looking at Wilde. “Your
Salome
, his drawings, the ideas of black, gold, and red were brilliant! Bernhardt would have adored it. Can’t you just imagine her? We would have broken into a new age of the mind and of the senses. The Lord Chamberlain should be shot!”

“The man’s a policeman!” a handsome man warned, waving at Pitt, then banging his fist on the table top and making the glasses jump.

“He won’t arrest you for expressing a civilized opinion,” Wilde assured him, glancing at Pitt with a smile. “He’s a good fellow, and I know he goes to the theatre because I remember now where I saw him before. When that wretched judge was murdered in his box—Tamar MacAuley was on the stage, and Joshua Fielding.”

“That’s right,” Pitt agreed. “You actually supplied me with the pieces of information that indicated the truth.”

Wilde was obviously delighted. “I did? How marvelously satisfying. I wish I could help you find poor Henri Bonnard, but I have no idea where he is or why he should have gone.”

“But you do know him?”

“Certainly. A charming fellow . . .”

“Here or in Paris?” the man with the quiff enquired.

“Did you know him in Paris?” Pitt asked quickly.

“No, not at all.” Wilde dismissed Pitt’s question with amusement. “I just went for a short trip. Visited around a little. Superb city, lovely people . . . at least most of them. Went to see Proust. Awful!” He waved his arms sweepingly. “He was late for our appointment at his own home—and it was the ugliest house I ever saw. Dreadful! I don’t know how anyone could choose to live in such a place. Anyway, Bonnard didn’t come from Paris. I think his family is in the south somewhere.”

“Have you any idea why he might suddenly leave London?” Pitt looked around the table at each of them.

Tellman straightened to attention again.

Yeats frowned. “Could be anything from a woman to a bad debt,” he answered. He seemed about to say something more, then changed his mind.

“He had plenty of money,” the man with the quiff said, dismissing that idea.

“Not the sort of man to throw up everything on a romance either,” someone else offered.

“How sad,” Wilde murmured. “There should always be at least one thing in life for which one would sacrifice everything else. It gives life a sort of unity, a wholeness. And then you spend your time soaring and plunging between hope and terror that you never have to. To know that you will not—it would be as dreadful as to know you will. Have a glass of wine, Mr. Pitt.” He picked up the bottle. “I’m afraid we can’t help you. We are poets, artists, and dreamers . . . and occasionally great political theorists—of the socialist order, of course—except Yeats, who is tangling his soul in the troubles of Ireland, and that has no names an Englishman could pronounce. We have no idea where Bonnard is or why he went there. I can only say I hope he returns safe and well, and if you have to go and look for him, that it is somewhere with an agreeable climate, people who have new ideas all the time, and the last censor died of boredom at least a hundred years ago.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wilde,” Pitt said graciously. “I wish I could begin in Paris, but I’m afraid we know he did not take the Dover packet he was booked on, and I regret I have something uglier and more urgent to attend to than pursuing this any further.”

“Another judge?” Wilde enquired.

“No, a man found dead in a punt at Horseferry Stairs.”

Wilde looked sad. “Delbert Cathcart. I am very sorry. When you find who killed him, don’t forget to charge him with vandalism as well as murder. The unwitting fool destroyed a genius.”

Tellman winced.

“That kind of vandalism is not a crime, Mr. Wilde,” Pitt said quietly. “Unfortunately.”

“Did you know Mr. Cathcart well, sir?” Tellman spoke for the first time, his voice sounding a little hoarse and very different from those of the group around the table.

They stared at him in amazement, as if one of the chairs had spoken to them.

Tellman flushed, but he would not lower his eyes.

Wilde was the first to recover his composure.

“No . . . only saw him once, at a party somewhere or other. But I’ve seen quite a lot of his work. You don’t have to meet a man who is an artist in order to know his soul. If it is not there in what he creates, then he has cheated you, and worse than that, he has cheated himself.” He was still holding the wine bottle. “Perhaps that and cruelty are the greatest sins of all. I never spoke to him—or he to me—in the sense you mean.”

Tellman looked confused and crestfallen.

Pitt thanked them again and, finally declining the offer of wine, excused them both.

Outside in the dark alley, Tellman drew in a deep breath and wiped his hand over his face.

“I heard he was odd,” he said quietly. “Can’t say I know what to make of him. Do you think that lot have anything to do with Bonnard and Cathcart?”

“I don’t even know that Bonnard and Cathcart have anything to do with each other,” Pitt said grimly, and pulled his coat collar up as he turned along the alley, Tellman’s footsteps sounding hollowly after him.

CHAPTER EIGHT

The nightmare was so real that even when the old lady woke up the room around her seemed to be the one in which she had spent her married life. It was a moment before her vision cleared and she realized there was no door to the left leading to Edmund’s room. There was no need to be afraid. It would not open because it was smooth, patterned wall. She could see the light on the paper, unbroken. But it was shades of deep rose pink. It should be yellow. She was used to yellow. Where was she?

Her feet were cold. There was light coming through a crack in the curtains. She heard footsteps outside, quick and firm. A maid.

She grasped the covers and pulled them up to her chin, hiding herself. She saw the hands on the sheet, knuckles swollen and clenched, an old woman’s hands, blue veined, thin skinned with dark patches on them, the thin gold wedding ring slipping around easily. They had once been slim and smooth.

The past receded. But where was she? This was not Ashworth House.

Then she remembered. Emily and her husband were away in Paris, gadding around again. They were having the plumbing altered in Ashworth House and she was obliged to stay with Caroline. She hated being dependent. It was the worst part of being a widow. In fact, in some respects perhaps it was the only part that was really hard to bear. Now she was answerable to no one. There was a certain degree of sympathy and respect for a widow, the last one of her generation alive in her family.

Of course all that could change . . . now that Samuel Ellison had arrived from America. Who in all the green earth could have imagined that that would have happened? Alys had had a son. Edmund had never known that. He would have been . . . she stopped. She had no idea how he would have felt about it. It hardly mattered now. In fact, there was only one thing which did matter, and control over that was fast slipping away from her.

Where was Mabel? What was the use of bringing a maid all the way from Ashworth House if the woman was not there when she was needed? The old lady reached out and yanked on the bell rope at the side of the bed so hard she was fortunate it did not come away in her hand.

It seemed forever until Mabel came, but when she did she was carrying a tray with hot tea. She set it on the small table by the bed, then opened the curtains and let in the sunlight. There was a sort of sanity in it, a reassuring, pedestrian business in the very ordinary sounds of the day: footsteps, horses’ hooves in the street, someone calling out, a bucket dropped, a girl somewhere laughing.

Perhaps she would find a way to keep control of it after all?

It was eight days since Caroline had come back from the theatre saying Samuel Ellison had turned up.

Breakfast was satisfying, if a meal taken in near silence, and alone except for Caroline, could be said to be satisfactory. Caroline was even more self-absorbed than usual. Sometimes she looked thoroughly miserable, which was very unbecoming in a woman of her age, who had little to offer except good temper, knowledge of how to behave in any company whatsoever, and the ability to run a household. Since Caroline had no household to speak of, and she no longer mixed in public society, an equable nature was her only asset.

Her mood this morning was one of excitement and unattractive smugness, as if she knew something amusing which she refused to share. That was even more unbecoming. It was bad enough in a young girl, who could not be expected to know better, and had to be taught. In a woman with grandchildren it was ridiculous.

The reason for her satisfaction manifested itself in the middle of the afternoon. Samuel Ellison arrived yet again. Caroline had not the sense to put him off, even after all Mariah had said, and it seemed he was totally insensitive to all hint or suggestion, however plain. This time he brought flowers and a box of Belgian sweetmeats. They were ostensibly for her, but she knew perfectly well they were really for Caroline; etiquette forbade he be so open about it.

The old lady accepted them in a matter-of-fact manner, and even considered having the maid take them up to her room straightaway so Caroline would not have them at all. She did not do it, and then was annoyed with herself for her failure of nerve. It would have served them both right.

Before tea was sent for and he was made thoroughly welcome, the old lady considered excusing herself. A headache or any other such thing would have served. Certainly neither Samuel nor Caroline would have tried to persuade her to stay. They might be only too delighted were she to retreat. It would leave them unchaperoned, of course. But would they have the decency to care? She could not even rely on that. Family honor required she remain, and so did a certain sense of self-preservation. At least if she was present she might exercise some degree of control over events. Samuel would hardly speak about her if she was sitting right in front of him. Yes, painful as it was, it was definitely better to stay. She could not afford the luxury of running away.

After the usual exchange of pleasantries, Caroline asked Samuel about his early days in New York.

“I cannot imagine what it must have been like for you and your mother, completely alone in a city teeming with immigrants, many of them with nothing but hope,” she said earnestly.

“Hope, and a will to work,” he answered. “To work all day and as much of the night as one could stay awake. They spoke a hundred different languages . . .”

“Babel,” the old lady said distinctly.

“Absolutely,” he agreed with a smile towards her. Then he looked again at Caroline. “But it is amazing how much you can understand what people mean when you share the same emotions. We all feel hope and fear, hunger sometimes, exhilaration, the sense of being miles away from anything familiar—”

“I thought you were born there!” the old lady said.

“I was,” he agreed. “But for my mother it was a terrible wrench to leave all that she was used to and begin again, with nothing, and among strangers.”

Mariah could have kicked herself. How incredibly stupid of her? She had found a dangerous situation and turned it into a disaster. Ice gripped her stomach. She gulped as fear overcame her. Did her face show it? Did he know?

He looked as perfectly smug and bland as usual. She did not want to meet his eyes.

Caroline was talking. For once, the old lady was glad of it.

“I cannot say how much I admire her courage,” Caroline said warmly. “It is both frightening and uplifting at once to hear of such people. I admit it makes me feel as if I have done very little.”

Dear Caroline! How dare she be so perceptive? How dare she put so exquisitely into words the compassion between Alys and other women, Alys and Mariah herself.

The room seemed to blur around her. Her face was hot, her hands and stomach cold.

“Thank you,” Samuel said softly, his eyes on Caroline’s face. “I think she was marvelous. I always thought so . . . but then I loved her.” He blinked quickly. “But I’m sure much happened here that was

extraordinary and exciting too. I seem to have talked endlessly about myself.” He shook his head a little. “Please tell me something about England in all these years. I daresay your news of us was more than ours of you. We tend to be rather absorbed in our own affairs. I am American by birth . . . just . . . and by upbringing, but I’m English by heritage.” He leaned back in his chair and turned to face Mrs. Ellison. “What was it like here at the heart of things when I was growing up in New York, out on the edge of the world?”

He was waiting for her to answer. She must do so, take control of the conversation. Remember all the things that were going on outside in the city, in the country. Think of nothing in the house, nothing of history. That should be easy enough.

She told him all manner of things as the memories came to her. He listened with apparent interest.

“Actually, it was the year before the old king died and the new one was crowned,” she resumed with an effort. “And the Duke of Wellington resigned.”

“I didn’t know dukes could resign,” he said. “I thought it was for life.”

“Not as duke,” she said contemptuously. “As prime minister!”

Samuel colored. “Oh . . . yes, of course. Wasn’t he the general who fought at Waterloo?”

“Certainly he was,” she agreed. She made herself smile. This, after all, was as safe a subject as possible. “Most people alive now have never known war,” she boasted. It was a staggering thought. She found herself smiling, lifting her chin a little.

Samuel was watching her, his face alight with interest, waiting for her to go on.

But that was her youth, a time it was painful to think of. It was another life, another person, when she had been a girl full of hope and an innocence which was unbearable to look back on, knowing what came after. It had not occurred to her until this moment to wonder what secrets too awful to touch lay in other women’s lives, behind their composed outward faces. Maybe none. Maybe she was as alone as she felt. The silence grew heavy. She became aware of outside sounds, beyond the windows, horses in the street. It was Caroline who broke the tension.

“All I know of the reign of William IV was to do with the Irish. Tens of thousands of people left Ireland for America. You will have known some of them, I daresay.”

There was a sharp compassion in his eyes. “Of course. I couldn’t count how many of them fetched up in New York, haggard faced, their clothes hanging off them as if they were made of sticks underneath, their eyes full of weariness, trying to hope, and yet not hope too much, and homesick.”

“Your mother must have felt like that too,” Caroline said gently, and it was clear in her face how vividly she was imagining how that unknown woman felt, trying to put herself in her place and understand.

Samuel must have seen it. His smile was touched with grief.

Mariah tried to imagine it. She knew nothing of Alys, except that she had gone. Edmund had never described her. Mariah did not know if she had been beautiful or homely, fair or dark, slender or buxom. She knew nothing of her personality or tastes.

But Alys had gone. That was the one thing that rose like a mountain in her mind, and it made her as different from Mariah as if she had been of another species. That was why she had hated Alys all these years, and envied her, why it choked in her throat to say she admired her, because it was the truth.

Did she want to know more about her? Did she want to be able to see her in the mind’s eye as a real woman, flesh and blood, laughter and pain, as vulnerable as anyone else? No—because then she would have to stop hating her. She would be forced to think of the differences between them and ask herself why she had stayed.

Samuel was talking about her. Caroline had asked him. Of course—Caroline—it was always Caroline!

“. . . I suppose a little taller than average,” he was saying. “Fair brown hair.” He smiled a little self-consciously. “I know I am prejudiced, but I was far from the only one who thought she was beautiful. There was a grace about her, a kind of inner repose, as if she never doubted what she held dearest, and she’d fight like a tiger to protect it. She could get terribly angry, but I never heard her raise her voice. I think she taught me more than anybody else what it means to be a gentleman.”

There was nothing to say that sounded appropriate, and Caroline held her peace.

Mariah knew the familiar bitterness that rose up inside her. How could Alys have been such a perfect lady? Wasn’t she broken inside as well, broken and crying like a hurt child, alone in the dark? Why was her anger only a fleeting thing, acted upon and then forgotten, so that she kept her temper and behaved with such sublime dignity . . . and was loved? Mariah’s anger was deep, inward, lacerating until there was no dignity left, and she seldom ever tried to keep her temper these days. What had made Alys so golden, so bright and brave? Was she just a better woman? Was it as simple as that? What had given her the courage?

“. . . but I want to know more about all of you,” Samuel was saying, looking earnestly at Caroline, then at Mrs. Ellison.

“It is you I really care about. Where did you live? What happened to you? Where did you go and what did you do? What did you talk about to each other? You are my only link with a father I never knew. Perhaps I need to know more of him to understand myself ?”

Mariah drew in her breath sharply, and it caught in her throat, making her choke. It was several moments before she could speak.

“Nonsense!” She coughed violently. Caroline was staring at her. “What I mean . . .” She tried again: “. . . is that you are who you are, regardless of your father.” This was terrible. She must say something that would not make him suspicious. Her mind raced futilely.

Caroline came to the rescue.

“Papa-in-law was very charming,” she said gently, as if she thought the old lady’s coughing were to hide emotion—as it was—she thought of grief, not cold, gripping fear. “He was tall, about the height you are, I should think,” she went on. “And he dressed beautifully. He had a gold watch, and he wore the chain across his waistcoat. He liked very good boots, and always had them perfectly polished till you could see your reflection in them.” There was a faraway look in her eyes. “He did not smile very often, but he had a way of listening that gave you his complete attention. You never felt as if he were merely waiting for you to stop so he could say something, without being rude.”

It was all true. Mariah could picture Edmund as Caroline was speaking. She could almost hear his voice. It surprised her that after all this time she could recall it so perfectly. In her mind she imagined his step across the hall, brisk and firm. Whenever she smelled snuff she thought of him, or felt the faint scratch of good tweed. He used to stand in front of the fire, warming himself and keeping the heat from other people. Edward had done just the same. She wondered if Caroline had noticed it as she had, and if it had annoyed her as much. She had never said so, but then one did not.

Caroline was talking about Edmund again, telling Samuel some of the stories he used to enjoy, and how he sang sometimes, and how fond he was of the girls, Sarah, Charlotte, and Emily, especially Emily because she was so pretty and she laughed easily when he teased her.