The Dark Enquiry

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I blinked at the mention of Bellmont’s eldest daughter. “Virgilia came out two years ago. Is she still on the loose? I rather thought Bellmont would have arranged something for her by now.”

  “You know Bellmont has a blind spot where she is concerned.” Puggy emitted a foul noise, followed hard by an even fouler odour, but Portia ignored him. “He has grown quite sentimental of late about Gilly. He has been very worried about an attachment she has formed with Lord Fairbrother’s heir. He promised if she made no formal arrangements with the lad, he would consider the match.”

  I lifted a brow. “The season ended three months ago. Has he really prevented her from entering into an engagement? I must credit him with greater powers of persuasion than I thought.”

  Portia shrugged. “Gilly has always been his favourite, I suspect because she resembles Mother.” I said nothing. Our mother had died in childbed with our youngest brother when I was very small. I did not remember her at all; I carried only the vaguest recollection of the rustle of yellow skirts and the scent of lemon verbena. But Portia remembered more, and sometimes, when she fell silent and brooding, I knew she was thinking of our mother, who had laughed and danced and left us far too soon. As the eldest, Bellmont would have remembered her better than any. He had been almost grown at her death, and I sometimes thought he had felt it most keenly.

  “All the more reason for him to forbid the match entirely if he truly objects to the Fairbrother boy. What is wrong with the fellow?”

  Portia gave me a little smile. “He is a devoted follower of Mr. Gladstone.” We laughed aloud then to think of our priggish elder brother forced to spend the rest of his natural life with a son-in-law who was entirely committed to the Liberal cause. Bellmont loathed Gladstone, not the least because Sir William had been a frequent visitor to our house during our formative years. Our devoted Aunt Hermia had been so moved by Gladstone’s work with prostitutes that she had formed her own Whitechapel house of reform for teaching ladies of the night the domestic trades. Most of our ladies’ maids had come from her refuge, including my own Morag. I ought to have applied to Aunt Hermia to help me staff my new home, but one reformed prostitute in my employ was quite my limit.

  “Poor Bellmont,” I said at last. “Still, I wonder if he would stoop to asking Brisbane to ferret out something unsavoury to keep poor Gilly from an engagement.”

  “If there is something unsavoury about the fellow, Bellmont has a right to know it,” Portia pointed out rather primly. I stared at her. Since becoming a mother, her own priggish tendencies, once entirely smothered, were coming occasionally to the fore.

  “Yes, but I hope he has not taken it in his head to ask Brisbane to create some fiction of impropriety to prevent the marriage.”

  “Would Brisbane do such a thing?”

  “Of course not!” I returned hotly. “Brisbane has a greater sense of integrity than any man I have ever known, including any of our family.”

  “Then you have nothing to worry about,” she said, her voice honey smooth. Portia was convinced, but I was not. Something about the set of his shoulders as he walked away from Chapel Street told me something was very wrong with our eldest brother. His usual arrogance had been taken down a bit, and the aristocratic set of his chin—quite natural in a man who was heir to an earldom of seven hundred years’ duration—had softened. Was it merely the thought of losing his beloved daughter to a political opponent that gnawed at him? Or did he wrestle with something greater?

  I meant to find out. I turned to Portia. “In any event, you must see that it is impossible for me to go away. I have to know what Bellmont is about.”

  “Why?” she demanded. She wore a mantle of calm as easily as any Renaissance Madonna, and I suppressed a sigh of impatience at her newfound serenity.

  “Because either Bellmont is in trouble or Brisbane is,” I told her with some heat.

  “Brisbane? What sort of trouble? And why would he look to Bellmont for aid?”

  I spread my hands. “I do not know. But if Brisbane were in some sort of trouble, his first inclination, his very first, would be to see me safely out of the way. You know how annoying he is upon the point of my personal safety.” The issue was one—the only one, in fact—that caused dissension in our marriage, but it was a common refrain. “And once I was safely out of the way, he might well turn to Bellmont. Our brother is superbly connected, one of the most trusted men in government, and he has the ear of the Prime Minister. One snap of the fingers from Lord Salisbury, and whatever trouble Brisbane might have found himself in goes away.” I snapped my fingers for emphasis, rousing Puggy who promptly flatulated again.

  “True,” Portia said, somewhat reluctantly. “But I cannot imagine a situation Brisbane couldn’t extricate himself from. The man is as clever and elusive as a cat,” she added, and I knew she meant it as a compliment.

  “Yes, but even cats need more than one life,” I reminded her. “And this particular cat now has a partner to look after him.” I took a deep breath and lifted my chin. Whatever difficulty beset my husband, I was determined to see it through by his side, offering whatever aid and succour I could.

  I fixed my sister with a deliberate look. “And that is why I have formed a plan…”

  * * *

  I arrived home to find Brisbane busily engaged in a project that required a pair of workmen wearing leather aprons, endless spools of wires and significant alterations to the cupboard under the stairs.

  “Brisbane?”

  He backed out of the cupboard, shooting his cuffs. “You are rather earlier than I expected. I had hoped to present you with a surprise.”

  He gave me a bland smile and I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. I had reason to be cautious of his surprises, I reflected.

  “What is this?” I asked, collecting the workmen and their wires with a sweep of my arm.

  “A telephone,” Brisbane informed me.

  I stared, blinking hard. “A telephone? To what purpose?”

  “To the purpose of being able to speak upon it,” he explained with exaggerated patience.

  “Yes, but to whom? In order to speak upon the telephone, one must know someone else with a telephone.”

  “We do.” He wore an air of satisfaction. “I am having a second one installed in Chapel Street. We shall be able to communicate with the consulting rooms from here and vice versa.”

  “We are paying for two telephones?” I asked, sotto voce. I had no wish to quarrel with Brisbane, particularly over money, and most particularly in front of workmen. Still, the expense was staggering. “Whatever would possess you?”

  “It will be extremely convenient for my work,” he replied smoothly. “I am surprised you are not more enthusiastic, my dear. I should have thought the notion that we could speak with one another at any time would have appealed to you.”

  “Of course it does,” I told him in full sincerity. “I was simply taken by surprise. It does seem a rather complicated enterprise.”

  “Not at all,” he assured me. “In fact, Bellmont has had a device for some weeks and says it is quite the most useful invention.”

  “Bellmont?” My pulses quickened. “Have you spoken with him recently?”

  Brisbane was skilled at cards, and with a gambler’s sense of timing, he did not pause for an instant. He merely lifted one broad shoulder into a shrug. “Not since the last dinner at March House. But Bellmont and I spoke at length about it then. Surely you heard us. And you were supposed to ask your Aunt Hermia to give you the recipe for the persimmon sauce she served with the duck that night. It was particularly good.”

  Brisbane’s lie had taken the warmth out of the room. I felt a chill seep into my bones, and when I spoke, it was through lips stiff with cold. “I am afraid I forgot. I will send a message to March House to ask her for it. We will have it when I return from the country,” I added, twisting my lips into a semblance of a smile. “I must see if Morag has finished the packing if I am to leave tomorrow,” I told him, turning to
wards the stairs.

  “Pity Lord Mortlake doesn’t have one of these,” he said, nodding to the device being fixed to the wall. “I would have been able to speak to you even in the country.”

  I silently blessed the fact that the expense of telephones had kept most of our acquaintances from their use. The last thing I needed was Brisbane telephoning the Mortlake country house only to find I had never arrived.

  I gave him a brilliant, deceitful smile. “A pity indeed, my love.”

  * * *

  The next morning, I dispatched my trunk and Morag to the country with very specific instructions.

  “It will never work,” she warned me. “That Lady Mortlake might have less sense than a rabbit, but even she will notice a missing guest.”

  “Not if you do precisely as I have ordered,” I retorted. “It is very simple, really. I have already left a note for my brother that I mean to take the early train. He is a late riser, and by the time he reads the note, the early train will have already departed with you and my trunk. When you arrive at the Mortlake house, it will be far earlier than expected. They will be at sixes and sevens,” I continued. “You have only to request my trunk be sent to my room and explain that I had a headache from the train and wished to walk in the garden before I saw anyone.”

  Morag was listening closely, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth. But disapproval lurked at the back of her gaze, and I hurried on. “You will say that my headache has not improved, and you will make my excuses tonight at dinner. I am unwell and wish to see no one as I mean to retire early. I have already written a note of apology to Lady Mortlake, which you will send down when the dinner gong is sounded. It explains that I am dreadfully sorry but I am simply too ill to meet with anyone, and that I am quite certain the fresh country air will revive me by breakfast.”

  “And when it doesn’t? What then? Shall I tell them you’ve gone for a walk and fallen in the carp pond?” she asked nastily.

  I took her firmly by the elbow. “This is not for me,” I hissed at her. “This is for Mr. Brisbane, of whom I need not remind you, you are inordinately fond.”

  I struck a nerve there. Morag, with her common ways and her flinty heart, had formed an attachment to Brisbane. Perhaps it was the shared link of Scottish blood—or perhaps it was simply that he was a very easy man to idolize—but Morag adored him. She insisted upon referring to him as the master and had taken it upon herself to do his mending, as well as my own. I had little doubt she liked him more than she did me, and the disloyalty rankled, but only a bit. The truth was she had been somewhat easier to live with since Brisbane had entered our lives. At least she was now occasionally in a tractable mood.

  “Very well,” she said, rubbing at her arm. “I will do it, but only for the master. Still, it is a pretty state of affairs when a lady must lie to her own husband.”

  She gave me a look of injured reproof and I pushed her. “Do not be absurd. I am not betraying him. But I fear he may be in trouble, and he will not confide in me. I must discover the truth on my own, and then I will be in a position to help him.”

  To my astonishment, tears sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away with the back of her hand and before I could prepare myself, she dropped a kiss to my cheek. “Forgive me, my lady. I ought not to have thought you would ever be disloyal to the master.”

  “Disloyal!” I scrubbed at my cheek. “Morag, could you possibly have a lower opinion of me?”

  “Well, you did mean to sneak about like a common trollop,” she pointed out. “How was I to know you had no plans to meet a lover?”

  She adopted an expression of wounded indignation and would have kissed me again, but I waved her off. “Oh, leave it,” I snapped at her. “I should have thought that after so many years together, you would know me better.”

  Morag raised her chin with a sniff. “You’ve no call to be so high and mighty with me, my lady. Many a finer lady than you has been tempted from the path of righteousness.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Have you been reading improving tracts again? I told you I will not have Evangelicalism in my house. You are free to practise whatever religion you like, but I will not be preached at like a Sunday mission,” I warned her.

  She patted my hand. “I shall pray for you anyway, my lady. I shall ask God to give you a humble heart.”

  I suppressed an oath and handed her the note I had prepared for Lady Mortlake. “Take this and do exactly as I have said. I will send further instructions by telegram when I have plotted my next move.”

  Morag tucked the note into her sleeve and gave me an exaggerated wink. “I am your man,” she promised. “Where will you be whilst I am pretending to attend you at the Mortlakes’?”

  “I shall be staying with Lady Bettiscombe,” I informed her. Portia had agreed to supply me with a bolthole and any other necessities I should require.

  “And what shall you give me to ensure I do not relate that information to Mr. Brisbane or Mr. Plum should they ask it of me?”

  I squawked at her. “You cannot seriously think you can extort money from me to purchase your silence!”

  She gave me a calm, slow-lidded blink. “It might be worth rather a lot to your plans to keep me silent, and I think it is not the job of a lady’s maid to enter into intrigues.”

  I smothered a bit of profanity I had learned from Brisbane and rummaged in my reticule. “Five pounds. That is all, and for that, you will persuade everyone—everyone—that I am rusticating in the country.”

  I brandished the note in front of her, and her eyes lit with avarice. “Oh, yes, my lady! I will make them all believe it, even if I have to lie to the queen herself,” she promised.

  “Good.” She reached for the banknote and I held it just out of reach. At the last moment, I tore it sharply in half and gave one of the halves to her.

  “What bloody use is this?” she demanded.

  “Do not swear,” I told her. “Aunt Hermia would be most disappointed if I told her you still spoke like a guttersnipe.”

  “If you don’t want me to swear, don’t steal my bloody money,” she returned bitterly.

  I tucked the other half of the note into my reticule.

  “You may have the other half when the task is completed to my satisfaction. If you exchange both halves at the bank, they will give you a crisp new banknote in its place,” I informed her. She brightened.

  “I suppose that’s all right then,” she conceded. “Mind you don’t lose the other half.”

  “Shall I give it to the Tower guards to look after with the Crown Jewels?” I asked.

  She waggled a finger at me. “I shall speak to God about that tongue of yours, as well.”

  “Do, Morag, I beg you.”

  The Third Chapter

  I had the gift, and arrived at the technique

  That called up spirits from the vasty deep…

  —“The Witch of Endor” Anthony Hecht

  With my maid and my trunk safely dispatched to the country and my web of lies coming along nicely, I took myself off to my sister’s house on foot, approaching through the back garden. I thought to make an unobtrusive entrance, but when I arrived, I found the entire household standing outside, admiring a cow. A man stood at the head, holding its halter and nudging its nose towards a box of hay.

  Portia waved me over to where she stood with Jane the Younger and Nanny Stone.

  “Isn’t she divine?” Portia crooned.

  I sighed. “Yes, she is quite the loveliest baby,” I assured her, although truth be told, she had the rather unformed look of most children that age, and I suspected she would be much handsomer in another year or two.

  “Not the baby,” she sniffed. “The cow.”

  I turned to where the pretty little Jersey was being brushed as it munched a mouthful of fresh hay. “Yes, delightful. Why, precisely, do you have a cow in London?”

  “For the baby, of course. Jane the Younger will require milk in a few months, and I mean to be ready. She
cannot have city milk,” she informed me with the lofty air of certainty I had observed in most new mothers. “City milk is poison.”

  I said nothing. Portia could be rabid upon the subject of the infant’s health and I had learned the hard way not to offer an opinion on any matter that touched the baby unless it concurred with hers in every particular. In this case, I could not entirely fault her. Adulterated milk had been discovered in some of the best shops, much of it little better than chalky water and full of nasty things. It was difficult to believe that in a city as grand as London we should resort to keeping cows in the garden to feed children, but I suppose the greater evil was that not everyone could afford to do so.

  I studied the animal a moment. It was a sound, sturdy-looking beast, with velvety brown eyes and a soft brown coat. It paused occasionally to give a contented moo, and in response, Jane the Younger gurgled.

  “Well, congratulations, my dear,” I told her. “You have just acquired the largest pet in the City.”

  We both subsided into giggles then, and Portia passed the baby off to Nanny Stone and escorted me to my room for the night. I had brought with me only a carpetbag, but the contents had been carefully selected. Her eyes widened as she watched me extract the garments, a short wig and a set of false whiskers.

  “Julia! You cannot possibly go about London dressed like that,” she objected, lifting one garment with her fingertips.

  “Leave it be! You will wrinkle it, and I will have you know I am very particular about the state of my collars,” I added with an arch smile.

  But Portia refused to see the humour in the situation. “Julia, those are men’s clothes. You cannot wear them.”

  “I cannot wear anything else,” I corrected. “If I am to sleuth the streets of London undetected, I can hardly go as myself, nor can I take my carriage. It is recognisable. I must take a hansom at night, and that means I must travel incognita.”