The Hyde Park Headsman (41 page)

“Thank you—thank you,” he said again, backing away a little. “If you will excuse me, ma’am, I will make sure that Scarborough is ready to serve when it is required.” And turning on his heel, he escaped to find the butler.

Dulcie smiled at Pitt.

“I had no idea he was so shy. What a curious man. But he has been very kind, and surely that is all that can matter.”

Any further private discussion was cut short by various people approaching to offer Dulcie their condolences and to say how fine the service had been, how they had enjoyed the music.

“Yes, young Mr. Garrick is most gifted,” Dulcie agreed. “He plays with more true feeling than anyone else I can recall. Of course I am not equipped to judge his technical skill, but it seems very fine to me.”

“Oh, it is,” Sir James Lismore agreed, nodding, and glancing across the room towards Victor, still sitting with his cello and talking to Mina Winthrop. “It is a pity he does not see fit to take it up professionally,” he continued. “But he is very young and may yet change his mind. He could go far, I think.” He turned to Dulcie. “Aidan certainly thought well of him.”

“Who is the lady with him?” she asked curiously.

He turned. “Oh, that is Mrs. Winthrop. Do you not know her?”

“I cannot recall that we have met. Poor woman. We have much in common, I am afraid. I must offer her my sympathies.” She smiled with twisted amusement. “Mine will be particularly apt, I’m afraid.”

But before she could move to fulfill her words, they were approached by more guests, and she was obliged to murmur polite acceptances and thanks for several more minutes. Charlotte and Pitt excused themselves and moved away to listen and watch from a discreet distance the faces of the other mourners.

They observed Lord and Lady Winthrop standing side by side, speaking very gravely to an elderly gentleman with rimless spectacles on his nose.

“I am most disappointed in the police,” Lord Winthrop was saying with obvious displeasure. “I had thought, considering my son’s reputation, and his service to his country, that they would have made more of an effort to apprehend the madman who committed such a crime!”

“Dastardly,” the elderly gentleman agreed. “Quite dastardly. One expects such things among the lower orders, but when it begins to invade the lives of respectable, even honorable people, the country is in a sad state. I assume you have spoken to the Home Secretary?”

“Of course,” Lord Winthrop said quickly. “Frequently! I have written to the Prime Minister.”

“He has had no reply,” Lady Winthrop said fiercely.

“That is not quite true, my dear,” her husband corrected her, but before he could take it any further, she cut across him again.

“Meaningless,” she said. “All he did was acknowledge that he had read your letters. That is not a reply! He did not tell you what he was going to do about it.”

The elderly gentleman with the spectacles made a clicking sound with his teeth and muttered something inaudible.

Pitt smiled. At least the Prime Minister was not going to be rattled.

The food was served. Footmen and maids moved among the guests with trays of wine and delicacies. All the time the supercilious butler, Scarborough, ordered the proceedings and saw that everything to the minutest detail was perfect.

Charlotte moved away from Pitt and began to observe for
herself as much as she was able. She spoke for some minutes to Mina Winthrop, who was delighted to see her, and to Thora Garrick, who had apparently chosen to accompany Mina, perhaps to hear Victor play.

“How nice to see you, Mrs. Pitt,” Mina said with a rather uncertain smile. “You remember Mrs. Garrick, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Charlotte said quickly. “How are you, Mrs. Garrick?”

“I am very well, thank you,” Thora answered with a smile.

“I have heard your son play,” Charlotte went on. “He is extremely gifted.”

“Thank you,” she accepted.

“How is your house progressing?” Mina asked.

“It is very nearly finished,” Charlotte answered. “I have a yellow room, thanks to your brilliant creative sense.”

Mina flushed with pleasure.

“How is your arm?” Charlotte looked at her as casually as she could and still express concern.

“Oh it is nothing,” Mina said quickly. “It really didn’t hurt at all. I think it is most foolish to make too much of accidents. I … I really bring it upon myself….”

Thora looked at Charlotte with wide eyes full of incredulity, then at Mina, whose discomfort was now apparent.

Charlotte perceived the layers of meaning and misunderstanding.

“I thought it was a nasty burn,” she said gently. “The tea was extremely hot I admire your fortitude, but …”

Mina relaxed so visibly the color rushed back into her face and her whole body seemed easier.

Thora sucked in her breath in sudden relief.

“But I should not think you self-indulgent to have admitted it was acutely painful,” Charlotte finished. “I don’t think I would have put on such a brave face.” Then she changed the subject, and they spoke of porcelain, and what manner of design was most pleasing for clocks and mirrors.

But when Charlotte excused herself she was still turning over in her mind the fact that Thora Garrick was aware of Mina’s bruises, and presumably of their cause, and yet it stirred in her neither overwhelming pity, nor anger, nor fear that Mina or Bart Mitchell might be involved in Winthrop’s death. She must impart this knowledge to Pitt at the first convenient opportunity.

Victor Garrick was asked to play again, and did so with
exquisite melancholy, to a vociferous appreciation from an audience with a deeper love and understanding of music than he was accustomed to.

Nearly three quarters of an hour later Charlotte was joined by a furious Emily.

“That man is a complete swine!” Emily said with suppressed rage shaking her voice and her cheeks flaming.

“Who?” Charlotte was astonished, and amused. “Who on earth has behaved so appallingly as to cause you to use a word like that? I thought you were far too much the lady to—”

“It’s not amusing,” Emily said between her teeth. “I’d like to see him out in the street, begging with a bowl in his hand!”

“Begging with a bowl in his hand. What on earth are you talking about? Who?”

“That arrogant pig of a butler Scarsdale, or whatever he’s called,” Emily replied, screwing up her face. “I found one of the maids weeping her heart out just now. He caught her singing and dismissed her—because this is a Requiem reception. She didn’t know the wretched man. Why should she know the difference between Victor Garrick’s playing the cello and her singing a sad little song? I’ve half a mind to tell Mr. Carvell and ask him to do something about it. Reinstate the girl and put that abysmal man out in the street.”

“You can’t,” Charlotte protested. “He won’t dismiss his butler because of a maid being disciplined.” But even as she said it, her mind was crowded with other thoughts. Jerome Carvell’s face filled her inner vision, the pain and the grief in it, and the imagination. Surely he would not wittingly have permitted any one of his servants to treat people in that manner?

Or was he too vulnerable to a manservant who lived in his house and knew him as only a servant can?

“Charlotte?” Emily said slowly. “What? What is it?”

“A thought,” Charlotte replied. “Perhaps nothing. But you cannot speak to Scarborough. You wouldn’t help the maid.”

“Why not? I certainly can.”

“No! Believe me, there are reasons.”

“What reasons?”

“Good reasons, concerning Mr. Carvell. Please.”

“Then I’ll employ her myself,” Emily said decisively. “You should have seen her, Charlotte. I’m not going to allow that to happen.”

Charlotte was about to reply when Dulcie Arledge approached
them, smiling, her face weary, her shoulders still straight, her smile fixed.

“Poor creature,” Charlotte said softly to Emily, almost under her breath, her gaze still upon Dulcie.

“I think she looks better than I would do in the same circumstances,” Emily replied, but there was an ambiguity, a hesitation in her voice which Charlotte did not understand. However, it was too late to ask her what she meant. Dulcie was almost upon them.

“It has been a most moving occasion,” Charlotte said courteously.

“Thank you, Mrs. Pitt,” Dulcie accepted.

Emily added some appropriate remark, and before Dulcie could continue with whatever formality came next, they were joined by Lady Lismore and Landon Hurlwood.

“Dulcie, my dear,” Lady Lismore began with a warm smile, “do you know Mr. Landon Hurlwood? He greatly admired Aidan’s work, and came to pay his respects and offer his sympathy.” She turned to Hurlwood.

“No,” Hurlwood said.

“Yes,” Dulcie said at exactly the same moment.

Hurlwood blushed.

“I am so sorry,” he said quickly. “Of course I have met Mrs. Arledge. I simply meant that our acquaintance is very slight. How do you do, Mrs. Arledge. I am flattered you remembered me. There must be so many who admired your husband’s work.”

“How do you do, Mr. Hurlwood,” she answered, looking up at him with wide, dark blue eyes. “It is very kind of you to have come. I am gratified you admired my husband’s work. I am sure his name will live on, and perhaps give pleasure and encouragement for years to come.”

“I have no doubt.” He bowed very slightly, searching her face, his expression full of concern. “Would it be impertinent to say how much I admire your dignity in the face of such a loss, Mrs. Arledge?”

She colored deeply and lowered her eyes.

“Thank you, Mr. Hurlwood, although I fear you flatter me. It is most generous.”

“Not at all,” Lady Lismore said quickly. “It is no more than the truth. Now I am sure you must be ready to retire after all this emotion. I shall be privileged to remain here and bid people good-bye, if you would like me to.”

Dulcie took a very deep breath, not looking at Hurlwood anymore.

“I think I should appreciate that, my dear, if you really do not
mind?”
she accepted.

“May I see you to your carriage?” Hurlwood offered her his arm.

She hesitated for several moments, then with a nervous flicker of her tongue across her lips, her face showing the exhaustion she must have felt, she declined graciously and walked alone to the door, where Scarborough stepped forward and opened it for her, following her out to accept her cloak from the footman and call her carriage.

“A most remarkable person,” Lady Lismore said with feeling.

Hurlwood’s eyes were still on the doorway where she had departed. There was a faint color in his cheeks. “Indeed,” he echoed. “Quite remarkable.”

9

L
ADY AMANDA KILBRIDE
rode out alone, very early, towards Rotten Row. She had quarreled with her husband the evening before and wished him to rise and find her absent. Of course he would not think she had left in any permanent sense. Such a thing would be out of the question, but he would be worried. He would be anxious in case she had done something foolish, just possibly even fulfilled her promise to run off and have a dramatic love affair with the first presentable man who asked her.

Although in the cold, pale light of morning she was obliged to admit that there were not so many presentable men at all, let alone ones who would invite married ladies to have affairs. The chance that one had come along between her threat, made at about nine o’clock, and the time she had retired and locked her bedroom door, a little before midnight, was very remote indeed.

Still, let him wonder!

She reached the end of the Row and saw its rather gravelly surface stretching out in front of her beneath the trees. A good sharp canter was precisely what she needed. She leaned a little forward and patted her horse, giving it a word of encouragement. Its ears pricked at the change in her tone. All morning so far she had regaled it with the injustices done her. Now she urged it into a trot, and then a canter.

She rode well and she knew it. It added to her enjoyment of the sharp spring sunshine, the long shadows across the Row and the sheen of dew on the park grass beyond. There was
hardly anyone else around, even in Knightsbridge, which she could see beyond the edge of the park; there was only an occasional late reveler returning home, or very early risers like herself, enjoying the cold, bare sunlight and the virtual solitude.