Silent in the Grave

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  Whenever the subjects of politics or religion or philosophy arose, generating a heated debate at the March dinner table, Edward would sit with a tolerant half smile firmly on his mouth and say nothing. No matter how fiercely Father baited him, he never rose to it, never offered an opinion on anything more serious than the cut of an evening suit or the vintage of a wine. He let the property at Greymoor decline—the most venal of sins to my own land-mad family. Marches had been taking the notion of stewardship seriously for centuries. We could no more leave a field unploughed or a hedgerow untended than we could keep from breathing. I remembered one conversation in particular. There had been a spirited disagreement regarding enclosure and my brother Benedick had appealed to Edward for his opinion. This was early days yet, when they had not realized that he was never going to take an interest in such things. They had all looked to Edward, eager for his view. He had simply smiled his sweet, sleepy smile and lifted his glass.

  “Brother Benedick,” he had said, “I cannot think of such things when there is wine such as this to drink. You must tell me the name of your agent,” he concluded, turning to my father.

  This was a blind, of course. Edward might like to discuss vintages, but he never bothered to keep them straight. His own cellar was a disgrace, not because he lacked the intellect to stock it properly, but because he lacked the initiative. Quite simply, he was the most indolent person I have ever known.

  And just then, Benedick must have realized it, too, for I heard him as Father began to discuss the wine, mutter under his breath, “Bloody useless.” I raised my eyes just in time to see the tiny smile flicker over Olivia’s lips and the way Bellmont was carefully studying his plate. They all thought so. But Olivia’s smile was not malicious, and Benedick, for his disapproval, did not actually dislike Edward. They deplored his lack of energy, his casual ways and his refusal to properly manage his land, but they all liked him in spite of themselves. He had a way of endearing himself to people, a manner of charming them with clever conversation and self-deprecating humour that made them in turn feel quite witty. Everyone always felt brighter and sharper and more brilliant when Edward was one of our number.

  “He is a diamond-polisher,” Portia once told me, and she was correct. He had a gift of being able to take one’s feeble little quips and shine them up into real cleverness. He never read books, and rarely newspapers, except to see if his name was mentioned. But he always seemed to know what was being said, and about whom, who was doing what, and to whom. I suspected it was this ability to keep his finger firmly on society’s pulse that multiplied the respectable fortune he had inherited into a tiny empire by the time of his death. He listened closely when others talked, and people always talked freely around him. He always cocked his head toward the person to whom he was speaking, enveloping them both in a warm intimacy. He knew just what questions to ask, and did so without anyone ever feeling that he had been intrusive or prying. He always prised just the precise nugget of information he needed, then passed it along to his man of affairs with instructions on how to act upon it.

  I knew none of this until after his death, of course. It came out during a long session with the solicitor, Mr. Teasdale. We were making an exhaustive tour of Edward’s investments, and I was expressing my astonishment that his affairs had been so sophisticated, so diversified and far-thinking. Mr. Teasdale finally explained to me about Edward’s business practices, shamefacedly, as if it was something slightly tawdry. But ingenious, just the same, and behind Mr. Teasdale’s demure expression lay more than a little admiration for Edward’s abilities. I did not bother to explain to Mr. Teasdale that he might have saved his adulation. Edward had only engaged in his pony tricks for his own amusement. If making money had required anything more demanding than gossiping with friends and penning occasional letters to his agent, he would never have bothered.

  It was rather like his pretensions to collecting art. Edward loved landscapes and would often come upon one that he loved at a friend’s home. A discreet inquiry would be made and, if his friend was amenable, a quiet sale would be arranged. But Edward would never have troubled to actually visit a gallery, or worse yet, commission an artist for himself. Even his tailor knew better than to require more than two fittings for any garment as Edward simply could not be bothered. He liked things that came easily to him—his inheritance, money, me.

  It was highly interesting to me to see that what I always thought of as Edward’s little game—spending time quietly drawing people out of themselves—had in fact been an extremely lucrative business practice. I thought of all the people who had said to me over the years that Edward was such a wonderful listener, so very compassionate and feeling. They always envied me, although they needn’t have bothered. I was the one person Edward rarely listened to, simply because we were so seldom together.

  But everyone else felt the warmth of his sunny attentions, never realizing that there was something slightly chilly and shadowy behind them. I found myself staring at my bedroom ceiling—pale bluish-grey, Edward’s choice—and wondering if anyone had guessed that his interest in them had been more calculating than convivial. Had someone been hurt by this? Betrayed, even? Could such a thing drive a person to murder? Possibly, under the right circumstances.

  But what were the right circumstances? And what sort of person?

  I toyed with that question while I listened to the cabs beginning to rattle down Curzon Street. Traffic was becoming appalling in London and I was longing for the country. I usually decamped by May, but not this year, I feared. Last year, just after Edward’s death, I had taken Simon to Bellmont Abbey. The journey was slow, in deference to his failing health, but he had loved it. He felt well enough to have his Bath chair out in the garden where we spent long hours, reading and working on word puzzles together. I painted sometimes, very badly, and we talked or remained silent as the mood took us. His cheeks were brown by the time we came back to London in September, but the city air was a vicious change. He took to his bed again immediately, his cough bad, his colour worse. That summer had been his last rally. Since then his strength had continued to ebb and I knew that if I tried to take him back to Sussex again he would not survive the journey. Even if Brisbane and I concluded our investigation, I would not leave Simon.

  But I would regret the summer in the country, I knew. I would miss the fresh, jeweled berries and the sprightly games of croquet, the long sunny afternoons on the lawn stretching from luncheon to tea, the turns on the lake in the ancient rowboat Father kept, the thin muslin gowns that seemed almost indecent after the thick winter garments we had worn in town. Well, I could at least walk in the Park and instruct Cook to purchase berries, I supposed. There was no substitute for the long walks over the Downs, but I made a mental note to order some lighter things from the dressmakers and returned to my ruminations.

  Father—and his curious visit. Now that I thought on it, it did not much surprise me that he suggested I take a lover, however discreet he had been. I must have been a sad disappointment to him with my quiet, conventional ways. I had sometimes caught him looking at me with a pensive, almost wistful air, as if he were waiting hopefully for me to do something dashing and romantic and decidedly Marchian. With a legacy of seven centuries of elopements, abandonments, disinheritings, and the occasional execution to spice things up, nothing I did would shock him greatly. And perhaps he and Portia were correct. Perhaps the attention of a man who appreciated me would prove a balm….

  One of the maids—Sally, I think it was—came in then with morning tea, and I put aside Father’s visit to ponder the more serious events that had followed.

  Val’s appearance, gore-stained and unprepossessing, had not been a happy development. I had thought he had settled down rather nicely into life at Grey House. Granted, we saw almost nothing of each other, but that suited us both quite well and he had seemed more contented in my house than in Father’s.

  But he had become almost mysterious of late in his comings and goings. The exist
ence of Her Majesty’s raven in my Blue Room was solid proof of that. I should have handed him over to Father before Val returned from the opera, I realized ruefully. Father would have been furious with him initially; I always suspected he harbored some tender feelings for the queen, their having played together as children being one of his fondest memories. But his irritation would have subsided—eventually. He would have seen to it that the thing was taken back to the Tower and restored to its proper place.

  And he would have taken up Val’s part with the queen, I had no doubt of that. He might rail against the little idiot in private, but no one, not even the queen, would be permitted to speak against one of his own. He might even think of it as one of those high-spirited little japes he was always wishing on us. And surely Val would forgive me for breaking his confidence if everything turned out for the best.

  Unfortunately, I had not had the presence of mind to think of it the night before. I had been too preoccupied with Father and Brisbane. And Magda. I sipped at my cooling tea, thinking again of the words she had hissed at him in the darkness.

  I know who Mariah Young was…and I know how she died.

  Ominous words, chilling even. I had no idea who Mariah Young was, but I did not much think I would like to find out. Was Magda trying to imply that Brisbane knew something about the death of this woman? Or worse, had had something to do with it himself?

  I put down my tea and pulled the coverlet to my chin. Had I entrusted myself, foolishly, to a person capable of the very crime we were trying to investigate? Was he capable of violence? Or had Mariah Young died as the result of some tragic accident, perhaps at Brisbane’s hands? What did I really know of Brisbane? And, more to the point, what did Magda know?

  I was still puzzling over these questions when Morag bustled in with the news that my bath was ready. I bathed and dressed that morning in a state of distraction, still mulling questions for which I had no answers.

  And because I was thinking of Brisbane when I took my seat at the breakfast table, it seemed like some sort of sorcery to find a letter from him waiting on the salver next to my plate.

  I put out a finger to poke the envelope, not entirely certain it was real. It was, although the handwriting was thinner, less confident than I had seen it. Whatever ailed him, he was clearly in a decline. I opened it, scanning it quickly as Aquinas presented the toast.

  My lady,

  My friend finds himself unexpectedly available and places himself at our disposal this morning. He will be in Chapel Street at eleven o’clock. I hope that this does not inconvenience you.

  Unlike the body of the note, the signature was firm and thick, as though Brisbane had borne down hard with the pen, making an impression in the paper. I ran my finger over it, tracing the loops of his handwriting. If Brisbane’s condition was worsening, I did not think I much wanted to call upon him. But only he knew the limits of his strength. I doubted he would have allowed his friend to visit if it was a very great hardship to him.

  In a matter of minutes I had penned a quick response and dispatched Desmond to Chapel Street. I sat back, picking at my cold eggs and waving off Aquinas when he offered to fetch me hot ones.

  For some reason I could not identify, my appetite had entirely fled.

  THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER

  I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing

  To those that know me.

  —William Shakespeare

  Macbeth

  I arrived at Brisbane’s rooms at ten past eleven, when I was quite certain his friend would have already arrived. Between my father’s thinly veiled hint that I take Brisbane for a lover and Magda’s less thinly veiled hint that Brisbane was a possible murderer, I was not inclined to be alone with him. In fact, I was not certain which idea made me the more nervous.

  The day was pleasant enough—cloudy, but without the chill wind that would have necessitated the carriage. I walked, for the second time in two days, but this time I took careful note of my surroundings. It was liberating, really. I had never been accustomed to walking in London—limiting my exercise to occasional walks in the Park—but I found it exhilarating. Mindful of propriety, I was thickly veiled and I walked purposefully, keeping my head still so that I appeared to look neither right nor left.

  But my eyes roved constantly, taking it all in. I was amazed at how different a town it seemed now that there was no carriage window between London and me. My hems were inevitably filthy by the time I arrived at Brisbane’s rooms, but I saw so much! There were Mayfair gentlemen, striding with an air of entitlement—these I was careful to avoid. Some of them I recognized, but although a few of them cast glances (appreciative?) in my direction, none ventured to speak to me and none peered too closely through my veil.

  These lords did not interest me. I had spent my life packed elbow to elbow with them at dining tables and in ballrooms. No, I was enthralled with the nannies, starched and upright, taking their clean-scrubbed and well-bundled charges for air in the Park. There were becapped maids, scurrying on errands for their mistresses, and less frequently, footmen decked in velvet livery. I wondered at the letters in their hands. Invitations? Billets-doux? They were full of their own importance with their elegant braid trim and plush knee breeches and I thought, not for the first time, that I would be rather relieved to sell Grey House and be rid of mine. It seemed silly now to keep a pair of young men in service simply because they were decorative. Loftily they pushed their way down the street, striding amid the flower girls and chestnut sellers and barrel-organ players, shouldering a path through the crowds. I saw one, a tall fellow in sky-blue livery, ruthlessly elbow a flower seller out of his way, jostling her bouquets into the mud. She cursed at him fluently and I took note of some of the words. I gave her a shilling and she handed me a bunch of springy lavender with a smile. I waved her off as she went to find change for me and she bobbed me a curtsey, wishing me well.

  I walked along, sniffing the crisp scent of the lavender, trying to remember the last time I had actually paid for something myself. All of the shops I frequented sent their bills to Grey House. And Morag usually carried the coins we required for incidental expenses. It was invigorating to be alone for once, surrounded by so many people, each of them speaking a slightly different English, each of them owning a slightly different London. I realized then that for all my pining for the country, I had come to love the town just as fiercely.

  I strode proudly as those lords then, marking my steps with the point of my umbrella and occasionally taking a deep, pungent breath of my lavender. It was one of the loveliest moments of my life, I thought—the more so for having been unexpected.

  I arrived at Brisbane’s rooms feeling fresh and more than ready to meet whatever challenge lay ahead of us. It seemed ridiculous now, that accusation of Magda’s. Whatever she meant, she could not have meant to imply murder. It simply was not possible.

  Or so I thought until Brisbane opened the door. He looked wretched, like a man just this side of hell—pale and tight-featured. His eyes were glassy, the pupils pulled in so small that I wondered if he had taken laudanum. My own grandmother, racked by pain, had taken refuge in a green laudanum bottle herself. She had looked just the same in the days before her death, hollow-eyed and brittle.

  “Mr. Brisbane. I hope you are well,” I ventured, although I knew perfectly well he was nothing of the sort.

  He nodded, then winced. The slight motion must have brought on a shaft of pain, for his face whitened even further.

  “Mordecai is already here,” he said, his voice thin and rasping.

  I moved into the room, lifting my veil. Before the fire stood a youngish man, early thirties, perhaps. He was tall, nearly as tall as Brisbane, and dark, but there the resemblance ended. This man was thicker, almost plump, and his features were marked by the sort of earnest sweetness that one associates with happy dogs. In fact, he put me greatly in mind of a puppy—a very large one, but a puppy still. His hair was floppy and his clothes gently shabby. He looked
a comfortable, lived-in sort of person. I liked him instantly.

  He turned, smiling at me a smile that extended to his eyes and suffused his entire face with pleasure.

  From behind me Brisbane made the introductions.

  “Lady Julia Grey, allow me to introduce to you my good friend, Doctor Mordecai Bent. Mordecai, this is Lady Julia Grey, the widow of Sir Edward Grey.”

  I moved to shake his hand and it engulfed mine warmly.

  “I cannot tell you how grateful I am that you are willing to help us,” I began.

  He waved me off immediately. “The gratitude is entirely mine, my lady. Nicholas knows I love nothing so much as a good puzzle. And poisons are a special hobby of mine.”

  I felt my eyebrows lift a little. “Oh? How very unusual.”

  “Not at all,” he said, his large, spaniel-brown eyes boring into mine earnestly. “All of our medicines have their origin in plants that are deadly if taken in too great a dose. There is no curative in the world that is not a potential poison in the wrong hands.”

  “I had not thought of it in quite that way,” I replied.

  Brisbane waved us to chairs then and I sat opposite Doctor Bent, drawing off my gloves as I cast a surreptitious glance at Brisbane. He had sat slowly, as if the smallest motion was painful to him. I wondered that his friend did not seem more aware of his condition, but it was not my place to ask. Perhaps he was already treating Brisbane for his ailment. I certainly hoped so. Brisbane looked ready for a shroud.