Mr. Hogarth pulled out his handkerchief and blew his nose loudly into it. His eyes were reddened around the lower lashes. “Her poor mother,” he murmured. “I have never decided if it is cruel or sympathetic to keep women from burials.”
Charles wondered if the Hogarths had lost any of their children. Common enough, but the tender age of Christiana Lugoson would still make any man despair.
Before the participants left, he did his best to memorize every face, wondering if any of them might be a member of the Rueff family. At least half a dozen were unknown to him.
When the men returned from the vault, the rector blessed them all, then went to Lord Lugoson to tend to him.
“Why don’t you eat with us, Charles?” Mr. Hogarth asked. “It’s late enough, and Mrs. Hogarth has a nice mutton stew for dinner tonight.”
“Delightful,” Charles said. He could do with the cheerful smiles of the Hogarth girls after such a sad scene, and the thought of being able to put his feet in front of a fire for a while was glorious. His toes felt frozen despite thick shoes and wool socks.
They said their good-byes to the men they knew, then made their way across the wintery streets toward Fulham Road. Charles shared what little he’d learned about the Lugosons with Mr. Hogarth. It left the older man shaking his head.
“No wonder Lady Lugoson took the family off to France when she could,” he said. “I have no idea if the stories are rubbish or not, but trouble found them sure enough when they returned home.”
“Do you think I am imagining murder?” Charles asked bluntly, as they walked up the front walk of the Hogarth home.
“As a reporter, I would not give up the story until I knew more about Marie Rueff. Young girls can be verra foolish, and Christiana Lugoson was a fatherless girl newly returned home. What might she have done?”
“So you think Miss Lugoson poisoned herself?”
“Upon reflection, though I know I was a skeptic at first, this had the look of poison to me,” Mr. Hogarth said. “From what little I saw. A strange pagan ritual? Something local girls do on Epiphany night?”
“A ritual.” Charles shivered. “What an interesting line of inquiry. I shall have to do some research.”
The front door opened. Charles’s side clenched when he saw the pure, smiling face of Miss Kate Hogarth, her hair twisted into red ribbons. Some emotion upon seeing her wrought a physical reaction upon him. “Such a delight, your daughter,” he murmured.
“Kate is a credit to me,” Mr. Hogarth agreed, lifting his bushy eyebrows. “And a help to her mother.”
“Father!” Miss Hogarth cried. “And Mr. Dickens.”
She kissed her father’s cheek, seeming not to notice how the damp wool of his coat left a wet square on the skirt of her dark tartan dress, then took Charles’s hand and gave it an affectionate little pat. “How are ye? Was the service terribly sad?”
Charles could scarcely feel the press of her sweet little hand on his cold glove, yet his palm began to sweat underneath.
Mr. Hogarth shook his head. “Let us drip dry in front of the fire, lass, before we catch our death.”
She stepped back, releasing Charles, and helped her father with his coat while Charles removed his snow-dusted outer layer. “The warmest room is the dining room,” she said.
He followed the Hogarths down the hall into the noisy, musical instrument–and family-filled space where he had shared Epiphany with them more than a week ago. Much could be said for the bachelor lifestyle but these homey touches of handmade rugs, warm little bodies dancing around, and cheerful smiles on every face made him long for a more domestic comfort.
If only he felt secure enough to manage the costs, as his father had not. Never did he want to put his innocent children through what he’d suffered in his childhood.
He took a step back to balance as a young boy collided with his legs. Gently, he disentangled the lad. “You’ll get wet,” he chided. He set the child on a piano bench.
Mrs. Hogarth came into the room, holding a platter of bread, followed by a maid with the stew pot. Mr. Hogarth ushered everyone to their seats. Charles picked up the little boy, remembering that the youngest didn’t have their own chairs, and managed to seat himself next to Miss Hogarth.
“I believe you are a great reader,” he said to her, after the food was served. “Have you read anything about pagan rituals?”
“Goodness, what a question.” Her rosebud mouth pursed. “I might have done. Why?”
“What if some kind of ritual brought on these deaths?” he said.
“I can’t think of anything that might occur on January sixth,” she said. “Solstice would be the time for pagan rituals. We had a queer old neighbor in Edinburgh who celebrated Yule for eleven days, but that wouldn’t last until Epiphany.”
Charles took up his spoon. “A dead line of inquiry, then. Unfortunate.”
She looked into his eyes, and he had the certain notion that she wanted to please him. “What about the saints? Father has a book of the Roman Catholic saints in his study, and we still venerate those from before the sixteenth century.”
“And our more modern heroes,” Charles said, “but I can’t think of anyone relevant.”
“May we be excused, Father?” Miss Hogarth asked. “I wish to consult a book in your library.”
Mr. Hogarth gave her an indulgent smile and nodded. Charles followed her out of the dining room. She took a lamp off a table by the door and led him down a chilly passageway, into a little room set off on the main floor.
“Quite a nice collection,” Charles said, staring at the packed bookshelf on one wall. “My father had books when I was young, but nothing like this display.”
She smiled and handed him the candle, then knelt on the rug and ran a finger along the second shelf. “Here it is. Lives of the Saints.” She rose, holding a little, battered, blue leather–bound book.
“Anything?” Charles asked after she opened the volume and ran her finger down a page.
“There is a Feast Day list, but I don’t recognize any of these names. Most of them are men, anyway. Diman?” She turned a page. “No, that’s a man, too. I was hoping for some strange female saint ritual.”
“It was worth a try. It makes sense that the girls died due to something they had in common.”
She bent down to return the book to its spot on the shelf. Charles admired the suppleness of her movements. “Any other ideas about, well, being a seventeen-year-old girl in Brompton, or a St. Luke’s parishioner?”
“No, and Miss Lugoson hadn’t been returned to this area for very long. I never even met her. She was ill the day we called, and they didn’t return the call.”
“I don’t know much about the etiquette of the upper classes.”
“We aren’t the upper classes,” Miss Hogarth said with a sly grin that reminded Charles of her younger sister. “What will you do now?”
His smile matched hers. “My dear Miss Hogarth, we need to pay a call on Lady Lugoson.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, we couldn’t.”
“Fortune favors the bold,” he declared. “She hasn’t returned my letter. The funeral is over now, and I am sure she wants to know what happened to her daughter.”
“Does she?” Miss Hogarth said.
Charles pushed doubt aside. “How could she not? Besides, you might be older than Miss Lugoson, and may be out of any danger that might befall a young girl, but what about Mary, just fifteen? Or the younger girls, Georgina and Helen? Might they in turn befall whatever killed her and Miss Rueff?”
Miss Hogarth nodded. “You are so right, Mr. Dickens. We must learn enough to protect my sisters.”
Chapter 9
Charles had to report on a meeting being held at a church in Knightsbridge on Thursday morning, so he was already well on his way to Brompton by late that morning. He went to the Hogarths’ home as soon as the meeting had ended, attempting to write his article in pencil as the bus jolted along the crowded road. Miss Hogarth and her mothe
r were waiting for him when he arrived, ready to pay their call on Lady Lugoson.
“Such a treat to see you again, Mr. Dickens,” Miss Hogarth said, dressed today in gray with blue ribbons darker than her bright eyes. Her eyelids lowered, giving her a sultry look.
He wanted to take her hand but they were both in view of her mother. While her parents seemed to approve of him, even encourage him, there were very firm limits on their tolerance.
“Do you really think she will be at home?” Mrs. Hogarth asked, taking her cloak off its hook.
“I left a note with one of her footmen last night,” Charles said, handing Miss Hogarth her cloak, recognized from their previous interactions. “If she wants to see us she will be prepared.”
Mrs. Hogarth called out some instructions to her maid regarding the younger children, then opened the front door. Charles had hoped for a quick cup of tea before they departed, but his toes hadn’t even had time to warm before they were back in the cold.
As they walked across the orchard, Miss Hogarth, just ahead of him, tripped on a fallen branch. Charles leapt forward and caught her, one hand on her arm and the other on her back.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her face flushed.
Mrs. Hogarth hadn’t noticed, and still walked steadily ahead of them. He kept his hand on Miss Hogarth’s back since their chaperone wasn’t watching. Miss Hogarth’s lips curved in a small, mischievous grin in response to his forward behavior. He could smell smoke in her cloak, mud and leaves as well.
What a contrast, this daylight walk, to the eerie experience of passing through nighttime fields filled with mist on that fateful night more than a week before. The graveyard weather of Wednesday’s funeral service had passed into something like sunlight, and the wind had gone for now. He felt almost cozy in his heavy coat and hat.
Miss Hogarth’s blue bonnet accentuated her eyes. Her mother did not have her style, but she was a respectable woman, and Charles appreciated the fact that she’d left her children to give them the right air of concern for their call.
“You should always wear blue,” he said in a low voice. “It suits you well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Dickens,” Miss Hogarth said gravely. “You should always wear a checkerboard pattern on your trousers for you are a most complex young man.”
He grinned widely, stifling his chuckle as her mother turned at the edge of the orchard, staring at them quizzically. His hand dropped from Miss Hogarth’s back, hidden by the folds of her cloak.
When they arrived at the front door of Lugoson House, the butler opened it quickly and greeted them by name. “Her Ladyship is expecting you in the south parlor.”
“How kind,” Mrs. Hogarth said, as they gave their wraps to a footman before the butler led them down the hall.
“She does want to see us,” Miss Hogarth said in Charles’s ear as they walked across creaking boards in a back hall. “But we are going to a part of the house we didn’t see before.”
Indeed, Panch opened the door into a pleasant morning room with small but numerous windows. A large fireplace, framed with wood instead of the marble in the main reception room, blazed cheerily with a well-set coal fire. A round table was set with a tea service a couple of feet away from the grate. Lady Lugoson, alone except for a maid and seated in an armchair, lifted her hand to them.
“My poor, dear Lady Lugoson,” said the sympathetic Mrs. Hogarth, rushing to her with concern in her eyes. She took the lady’s hand and pressed it between her own, speaking words too low for Charles to hear.
After a few moments, Lady Lugoson gestured to him and to Miss Hogarth. They too were privileged with clasping the noble lady’s hand before being invited to sit at the table.
“I do not know how I have survived the past ten days,” Lady Lugoson said tearfully, as she poured the tea. Grief had aged her, etching lines of pain and exhaustion onto her beautiful face. “I have relived those hours of my darling’s suffering over and over again.”
“Have you come to any conclusions?” Charles asked. At a sharp glance from Miss Hogarth, he amended, “Any resolution or peace, I mean?”
“My dear Mr. Dickens, I am without rest,” the lady confessed. “What happened? She was perfectly healthy until that evening.”
Charles’s gaze was drawn to the fireplace. Above it hung a portrait of Lady Lugoson and her two children. It must have been painted a decade ago. He could well believe the children were about age five and seven. Lord Lugoson wore a black velvet jacket and his sister was in white. They both had pale curls and sweet, childish expressions. Charles felt utterly saddened. Someday a portrait of that little girl, grown with children of her own, should have hung here. Instead, nothing but the grave.
“Do you wish to discuss the matter plainly?” he asked, throat tight with emotion. “As you may recall, I am a journalist, and while I do not wish to be unkind, I would be happy to help you unravel this situation.”
“I welcome your thoughts,” admitted the lady, handing around the plate of seedcake.
“I sent you a note about your servants,” Charles said, happy to take the largest slice. “There was another girl who died in the area last year, and I did wonder if you had taken on a servant from the Rueff household.”
“Why would it matter?” the lady asked, returning the plate to the table.
“Someone incompetent in the kitchen?” Miss Hogarth suggested. “Someone who put some poison into the food?”
“Into her food, you mean? And murdered my poor girl?” Lady Lugoson made a choking sound and buried her red nose in a cambric handkerchief.
Charles and Miss Hogarth shared a glance. At least the lady herself had been the one to raise the specter of murder.
“It doesn’t mean murder for certain,” Charles said, as Mrs. Hogarth passed him the butter dish and knife. “Simple incompetence. Letting food spoil. Cream, for instance, in the potato sauce.”
“I have wondered if my sister might have bribed someone to hurt my daughter,” Lady Lugoson said, ignoring Charles’s calm words. “But I have no knowledge of this other girl. Was she a friend of my daughter’s?”
“Who is your sister?” Mrs. Hogarth asked with a frown.
“An actress,” Charles said softly, shocked by the lady’s words. “Lady Lugoson, the other girl’s name was Marie Rueff, and she would have been a year older than Miss Lugoson.”
“You mean Jacques Rueff’s daughter?” Lady Lugoson tucked her handkerchief into her apron pocket. “I did not know she had died. Some correspondence did not reach me in France, but I must confess I was terribly inadequate with my letter writing. Since my husband died it has been so hard.”
“So you did know her,” Miss Hogarth prompted.
Lady Lugoson nodded. “Yes, she and my daughter were bosom friends when they were young, but we were in France, of course, and I do not think she and Christiana corresponded.”
Charles decided to leave the specifics of that relationship alone for now, and learn more about Lady Lugoson’s most troubling accusation. “Why do you think your sister, Miss Acton, might wish to harm your daughter? Have you spoken to the police about this matter?”
“Of course not, this is my family. I cannot burden my son’s future with a scandal.” Lady Lugoson sniffed. “To be honest, Christiana expressed an interest in treading the stage herself.”
“I see. She wanted to be an actress.” Charles understood how unrespectable the profession was. He finished spreading a thick layer of butter over his cake and picked up his fork. “Please continue.”
“Angela claims to be twenty-two, though she is really thirty-one,” the lady said.
“Goodness,” Mrs. Hogarth exclaimed. “There’s a wee difference.”
“If Christiana joined Mr. Chalke’s theatrical company and it was known that she was family, it might expose Angela’s true age.” Lady Lugoson crumbled the bit of cake on her plate. None went past her lips.
“Is that worth murdering for?” Charles asked.
“It mig
ht be to her,” the lady said in a glum voice. “Angela has sunk every penny she had into that theater, yet never seems to see any profit. She needs to act, yet she is already more than twice the age of some of the other girls.”
“Would you have let your daughter perform? The daughter of a baron?” Mrs. Hogarth inquired.
“Not under her real name, of course,” Lady Lugoson said, “but she was so very talented. She could have played at it for a few months, before joining the fashionable world. Or even returned to France to marry. There are a couple of young men there most eager to seek her hand, but I would not hear of it at just seventeen, and she herself was not ready to wed.” She sighed, the barest hint of a smile on her lips.
“Is that why you returned to England? So that Christiana could join her aunt’s theatrical troupe?” Miss Hogarth asked, setting the butter knife back in the dish and moving it to the center of the table.
“I had hoped to seek an English husband for her.” Lady Lugoson shuddered. “I cannot feel it is entirely safe to be a person of noble birth in France, even now. But children do not take life seriously.”
“I can see why you would choose not to wed in France yourself,” Charles said, injecting a note of sympathy. “Would you like me to speak to your sister, and to Mr. Chalke? I can attempt to uncover their state of mind for you, so that you do not have to involve the police.”
“I would like that very much,” Lady Lugoson said, turning her face toward him.
The sight of all that beseeching loveliness would have overset a young man whose thoughts were not already enchanted by a much younger lady. But still, Charles could not help feeling pity for the woman, who had married so young herself. “I shall accept your commission with all the severity it requires,” he said. “I ask only one thing.”
“Name it, Mr. Dickens.”
“I would like your permission to speak to your butler about your dinner party that night.”
A Tale of Two Murders Page 7