Lady Anne and the Menacing Mystic
Page 20
“There has been gossip. It is unusual for a young man of such obvious good health and in the flower of youth to die suddenly.”
“I see.” It was urgent that she hasten her investigation, and to do so she must approach it in a more organized fashion, rather than rambling about listening to gossip. Someone murdered Alfred Lonsdale. The first step to finding out who could have poisoned him was to establish his day, where he had been, who he had seen. She knew its beginning, with tea and toast at home, the tea served by Roger Basenstoke, suspicious enough in its unusualness. But for the rest . . . “Do you know Mr. Thomas Graeme?”
The gentleman eyed her with a frown. “That supposed tea merchant? I have seen him about. Young fellow seems to know everybody. Why do you ask?”
She hesitated. She didn’t wish to speak of her suspicions of Graeme’s involvement in some marriage scheme . . . not yet anyway. Nor could she reveal what she knew, that Lonsdale had been poisoned. She had promised to keep that to herself. What a tangled web information was, for how could she foresee what would lead to what? It came back to her that moment that her old acquaintance had been one who gave Lonsdale something to imbibe that night. For all she knew the yew could have been in the wine he handed Lonsdale, though she had no reason to think it possible. It was ludicrous to suppose it on purpose, but the older gentleman could have been used as an innocent carrier of the glass. How could she frame that question? It was impossible. For all his affectations the gentleman was astute and would see through any pretense.
She needed to know more, first. Perhaps she could use Lord Westmacott’s vast social network to improve her knowledge.
“My dear, I can see you are struggling with something. Surely you can trust me, your grandmother’s oldest friend?”
Of course she could trust him. She was being unnecessarily labyrinthine in her thoughts. “If Alfred Lonsdale’s death was not suicide, what do you think it was? You hinted at . . . you hinted at murder. What did you mean by that?”
He shrugged, a helpless look on his face. “I don’t know, my dear; truly, I don’t. Who would want to kill such a harmless, delightful young fellow? How well did you know him?”
“I came to know Mr. Lonsdale first by word, through Mrs. Clary Basenstoke. But then I found he was a friend of the Birkenheads’, who are friends of yours as well, of course. We were just speaking of Mr. Thomas Graeme; he approached us all quite boldly as we were out walking, which is when I first learned of him as a friend of Mr. Lonsdale’s. I saw the fellow again at the Pump Room, and Lolly saw him outside of the Mystic of Bath’s rooms. How weblike Bath society is, a spider’s trap of links!”
“Yes, I suppose that is true,” he said, watching her, his pale intelligent gaze fixed on her face. “An astute observation, Lady Anne.”
“There is something not quite right about Graeme. I cannot find out for sure how they met each other, him and Lonsdale. I have varying accounts . . . Eton, a club—”
“A club? What kind of club?”
How odd, Anne thought, staring at him. That was exactly Alethea’s reaction when she said something about a club. “Why do you ask?”
“No particular reason. But Bath is not London, you know, with a hundred gentlemen’s clubs. It is, as you yourself have noted, a narrow society. What kind of club do you mean, Anne?”
“I don’t know. Graeme said they knew each other from a club. A gentlemen’s club, I assumed. What other kinds are there?”
“Oh, so many,” he said airily. “You know these young gentlemen, with their varied interests. Astronomy, science, four-in-hand driving . . . it could be anything.”
“But you said Bath was not like London and there were not so many clubs.”
He took out his pocket watch. “Oh, dear!” he exclaimed with a start. “I had no idea it was so late. I believe I must go,” he said, rising. “Good day, Lady Anne. If I discover anything, I will share the knowledge with you.” Pausing, he eyed her with a look somewhere between curiosity and suspicion. “Though, it gives me pause . . . why are you inquiring? We spoke of murder; I cannot fathom it, myself. Do you truly think there is something about Lonsdale’s death that is suspicious?”
“What could I possibly know about it one way or the other?” she said, dismissing his query with an evasion. “You have known me, my lord, for many years; I’m perpetually meddlesome and think I know better than anyone else.” She smiled, to show her humorous intent, and to pass it off as lightly as she could, but the fiction was impossible to maintain. “It would be best for everyone if we knew how the fellow died,” she said, her tone somber. “I know Bertie and Alethea would feel better if they understood it. Perhaps it will come out that it was some shocking and sudden illness.”
He nodded with a thoughtful look, bowed, and said his goodbyes to the ladies. Anne excused herself soon after to retreat upstairs, and the relief of the bordelou. She must soon change for dinner and the evening’s concert at the Upper Assembly Rooms, which she had decided to attend. Concert director Venanzio Rauzzini mounted an ambitious and entertaining musical program for the Bath Season, and it invariably drew everyone who cared about music, along with everyone else who cared about others thinking they cared about music. She sent a note to Lolly asking if she’d like to go, and considered inviting Osei. As subscribers her family was entitled to seats, and the marquess’s secretary enjoyed music as much as anyone, she supposed. If he attended her, as she hoped he would, she would ask him.
But first . . . the letters and the journal. She was nervous but eager, and hopeful that one or the other would provide clues as to who would wish Alfred Lonsdale dead.
Chapter Twenty
She retreated to the privacy of her bedchamber, sat on her low chair by the dressing table and picked up the first letter on the stack. It was a poem dedicated to Lonsdale, badly written verse, accusations of his “cold manner” in public, and how much the writer longed for “one sign, one touch, one lovely gesture of true affection.” Irusan demanded her attention, and she patted her lap; he jumped up and sprawled. She pet him as she read it all the way through, with the paragraphs after the poem. It seemed that perhaps the two had not formed any relationship yet at that point. But the writer was persistent, there were a couple more along the same line, but then from the tone of the next letter, it was clear that he was at long last rewarded with the love he so desperately sought.
“My Dark-haired Darling,” the writer called Alfred—a name he must have used before settling on the “Dearly Beloved” nickname—then went on with the extensive praise that proved beyond doubt that Clary was right; both lovers were male. Anne’s cheeks burned as she read the lines, which effusively described male anatomy. “How shocked would Mother be to know what I am reading?” she said aloud. Irusan purred and lolled; she ruffled his fur. “She’d be even more shocked at how well I understand these descriptions of male physique.”
But then it went on to softer fulsome praise:
My dear one, how different we are, you with your dusky gazes and visage, and me with my sunny locks and light eyes, each of us convinced the other is the handsomest man he has ever seen!
She shifted uneasily. Sunny locks. Light eyes. Could it be . . . ? She set that letter aside and read another:
Dearly Beloved . . .
How I long to be with you! My day is dreary, as I go from Pump Room to club, and delight in all company pales in contrast to your dear voice in my ear, your sweet breath on my cheek, your endearing eyes watching me, only to seek what you insist are my perfections, and I see as my faults.
Please . . . do not worry about me. You say I have been too busy lately, with my many schemes, to spend my time with you at the Sacred Theban Club.
The Sacred Theban Club . . . was it at that club that they met? Probably. Why did the word Theban ring some distant dusty bell at the back of her mind? She stared into the fire and sorted through her muddled thoughts. Theban . . . was her memory of that word from something in her father’s studies? Thebes she knew
of as an important place in Greek myth. How the gentlemen did like their classical references! But Theban . . . there was something else. She shook her head. She’d think of it later.
She read on:
Trust me, my dearest, you know I think only of you. Do not be jealous, but one must be social. You know that well; have you not introduced me to many gentlemen who have proved to be of value to me? You don’t approve; you say I am wicked. But a fellow must make a living, yes?
Anyway, I have other services to render, you know, beyond my schemes. There are many engagements at the Pump Room, and I must dance attendance on the ladies at the Assembly Rooms, or our little secret will be revealed. And so many introductions . . . where would the sickly old gents of Bath be without me to find them a nursemaid to marry? I wink as I write this, and blow you a kiss . . .
I am, as always, your precious Tulip
Anne sat up straighter at this, and stared at the page as Irusan grumbled his displeasure. It was beginning to seem like her guess as to the identity of the lover/letter writer was correct. She set that on the stack of those she had read and picked up the next note. It was much less loving and had a more serious tone.
Do not think to threaten me, Dearly Beloved, nor to say I should not do what I do. I know so much about you. More than you know, for like a faithful terrier I have done some digging. I know of your past . . . shall we call them friendships? Your past close friendships. You would not want those revealed, would you? Those with whom you have shared your body before me? And you would not like all your exquisite writings, your pretty praise of my male beauty, to be revealed? I kept them, you know, though you thought them committed to memory and burned. I have them still in your own dear hand, one that could be compared to your other letters and noted.
Eyes wide, Anne stared down at the stack; he had kept Alfred’s letters, had he? And yet told Lonsdale he was destroying them. Alfred had kept his, as well, so there was that. She unfolded the next.
Dearly Beloved . . . I begin to think you false, since you have yet to bring me into your inner circle, your web of close friends. I don’t wish to think you a trickster, but what else am I to imagine? What would I do then, hurt and abandoned?
Destroy this letter, as you have done my past, and I vow I shall do the same this time. I promise, on everything we have shared . . . do not disappoint me, dear fellow.
Anne frowned down at the spidery writing slanting across the page, racing to an end. There were phrases and hints that were nothing but threats. The author of the letters was seeking something, an introduction to Alfred’s inner circle. Lonsdale was resisting. Was he afraid others would discover his secret life?
And both men assured the other that they had destroyed the letters, while both kept them. If Lonsdale had kept the other man’s letters as protection against blackmail, Anne doubted it would work. As a man of the cloth and a member in good standing of society, Lonsdale had much to lose while the other man . . . if it was who she suspected, he had little to lose, since his whole identity seemed cloudlike, vaporous and ethereal, with little substance.
The last note in the stack, dated Sunday, October 8, was a chilly little missive, written after a spat, and confirmed for Anne what she had been thinking.
How can you allow B___ to speak to me that way? I could cry a thousand tears, but I begin to fancy you unworthy. Have I wasted my love? Perhaps. Know, anyway, that I have far less to lose than you, my Dearly Beloved (how the words seem a hollow mockery now that you have allowed me to be so cruelly turned away from your company!), should our affair be revealed. I could live on without the Sacred Theban Club, or your cruel friend, or any other Bath-ing gents. I could disappear, invent myself elsewhere. I’ve done it before; I can do it again. There are other men than you, you know. Ones who would reward me for my gifts.
The writer thought Lonsdale too concerned with the opinions of others, too taken up with friends the writer was not close with, perhaps the very ones who formed his “inner circle.” He thought that Lonsdale did not care enough, or he’d defy those friends. “Tulip” then asked for money, something that had been paid in past, he said. Should Lonsdale choose not to send the money, perhaps, Tulip said, there would be a bishop who might care to learn what naughty business Dearly Beloved was up to in Bath.
Blackmail. She knew it.
She took a moment to let it all sink in. Was “Tulip” Mr. Thomas Graeme, as she now suspected? On the surface there were enough clues pointing to the conclusion that she felt she must be right. And if she was right . . . had his threats led him to violence? She reread the letter. Why kill Alfred, when he was a source of money? Or had Alfred threatened something worse than the withholding of money, like turning him in to the law? Anne shook her head; as Tulip intimated, Lonsdale would have been risking much more than the other man with such an action, for he was the one with family, friends and social standing. Graeme could, he had made clear, assume a new name and start over somewhere else.
For Alfred the stakes were much higher. If he was arrested for sodomy his whole family would be shamed beyond thinking, even beyond the physical punishment of incarceration or worse for the gentleman himself. And there was worse than imprisonment; the law on the books stated that one punishment for such a crime was death.
Was the answer to the mystery of his death so simple, ultimately? Had he taken his own life after all, to prevent his secret from destroying his family?
“No!” she said, slapping her hand on her dressing table. Irusan started and growled. “Sorry, dear one,” she said, making him settle back down. Reason demanded one conclusion: if Alfred had been about to kill himself to conceal his failings, surely he would have destroyed the letters and the journal! She shuffled the letters together and slipped the ribbon on the bundle. He was struggling with a moral decision, and had decided to do the right thing, he told her himself. Was Lonsdale about to turn Graeme in to the magistrate, no matter the personal consequences? What a risk that would be. She contemplated it, trying to imagine how much courage it would take to expose Tulip—Graeme—knowing that to do so might result in exposure of an illicit love so dangerous to reveal that it could lead to prison.
Their society had many paths to ruin, each more perilous than the last. Gambling debt was shameful. Drink or drugs in excess also. But neither would result in a scandal so devastating it could not be recovered from. Sex was another matter altogether. For a lady the road to ruin was clear; sexual activity before marriage was perfectly scandalous. As an example, if someone were to tell the world about the sexual experimentation she had engaged in with Tony, she would be fallen, her name so sullied that she would be considered a disgrace to her family. They would have no alternative but to banish her to the country, and even there she would have to live in a cottage away from Harecross Hall. No morally upstanding family would visit her home.
In theory this was all true, though in practice her reputation would be rescued by marriage to Tony and her moral failings would be forgotten except for being dredged up as spicy gossip.
But for a gentleman like Lonsdale there could be no rescue from ruin. Once accused of the crime of sodomy he would be shunned at the very least, imprisoned, more likely. It was dreadful to contemplate and she no longer wondered at his depression as he contemplated his fate should he choose to expose Graeme’s blackmail. If that was what had him in the doldrums. She still didn’t know if that was what had him so downhearted.
Anne slipped the ribbon off the journal and opened again to the flyleaf, then turned past it. Irusan batted at the ribbon, but she kept it away from him and set him down. What would his own words reveal? The journal started the year before, then there was a break when he did not write, perhaps while he was ill. He resumed when he came to stay with the Basenstokes. He was so grateful for his aunt, and wrote of it with fulsome praise for her love, dedication and support. Anne would share some of what he said, if she wished to hear it. He had found in her a true friend, he wrote, when he felt friendless.
Anne felt a cold shudder pass through her. Who had access to Alfred better than someone who lived in the same home as he did? The open hostility Alfred wrote of could not be ignored. But it appeared that Alfred was puzzled by Roger’s animosity toward him, which indicated that his cousin was not in on the secret of his life. That he knew of, anyway. How often in life did one think he or she had concealed some aspect of their life only to find that the truth was clear to many?
She read on. Over the months Lonsdale made friends in Bath. He spoke of a club he belonged to where he found joy and friendship. Westmacott had asked what she meant when she said something about a club, and it had put her in mind of Alethea, and her reaction. Did they know about Lonsdale, and this Sacred Theban Club he and Graeme apparently belonged to? Men gossiped, though they preferred to call it conversation, and knew more of some aspects of life than they would ever speak of in front of a lady.
Alfred wrote most days. He used coded language, never completely open, afraid, perhaps, that his deepest secrets would be plumbed. Toward the end it was clear how troubled he had become. He wrote of someone he loved but who did not love him in return, or at least not in the same way. Could that have been reflective of his disappointment in young Graeme? Did he at last conclude that the fellow was using him for an introduction to society, or as a bank from which to withdraw funds?
Or was there someone else? She read on. One passage in particular was revelatory. I have betrayed the one I love most, Lonsdale wrote. I’ve been weak, and lost myself in the sensual attractions of novelty. In doing so I’ve disappointed someone who is, to me, as important as a god of old. I can cry a thousand tears, but I will never be able to make up for a loathsome error of deep disgrace. I’ll never forgive myself.