“Of course, if you think it will help. I shall call Panch for you immediately.” She reached for the bellpull as Charles managed a third and fourth bite of his cake. It scarcely filled the empty space in his belly, but it was better than nothing.
Five minutes later, Charles had pled for and received a second slice of cake and butter, feeling hypocritical for his concern that someone in the Lugosons’ kitchen might be adulterating the food while partaking of it so liberally. Miss Hogarth’s eyes danced with amusement.
When Panch entered the room, bowing to his lady and reminding Charles yet again of a long-stemmed flower on a stalk, Lady Lugoson told him that he needed to answer some questions.
Panch looked down his nose at Charles. “Yes, sir?”
“Have you hired any staff from the Jacques Rueff residence into this establishment, since Lady Lugoson and her children returned?”
The butler’s eyelids drooped to half-mast before opening again. “No, sir.”
“Did Miss Lugoson partake of anything at dinner that last night that no one else ate?”
“I thought of that myself at the time,” the butler drawled. “And the answer is no.”
“Did she eat the potatoes in cream sauce?”
“A large portion, sir.”
That seemed to sharpen Lady Lugoson’s intellect. “Did she eat more than anyone else?”
“No, I believe Mr. Carley and Mrs. Decker also partook, liberally. We had to refresh the dish.”
“Is it possible that Miss Lugoson therefore ate the first dish, or the refreshed one?” Charles asked.
“It all came from the same cooking pot.”
“I made the seating plan myself,” Lady Lugoson said. “Mr. Carley would have been served last.”
“Therefore your daughter couldn’t have had a version of the potatoes that no one else did,” Charles said. “Very well, then.”
“That broth she drank in the morning made her ill again,” Miss Hogarth said thoughtfully.
“With all due respect I must disagree,” the butler said. “I have seen many fatal illnesses in my eight-and-sixty years, and often the body gathers its strength for a time before continuing its fatal journey. It is as if we save some small amount of strength with which to give our final good-byes.”
Miss Hogarth nodded politely. “Thank you for that information, Panch. I will remember it.”
“If there is nothing else, my lady, I was supervising some intricate polishing.”
“Thank you, Panch, you may go.” Lady Lugoson looked down at her folded hands. “I should write Monsieur Rueff a condolence note, reminding him of happier times, since I have only just learned of poor Marie’s death.”
“We shall leave you to it, my lady,” Mrs. Hogarth said. “Mr. Dickens will send you a note after he interviews your relations.”
A dozen more questions prickled on Charles’s tongue, but he recognized that Mrs. Hogarth desired to leave this house of mourning, and it would be bad manners to attempt to stay one minute longer.
In the orchard on the walk back, Miss Hogarth put her hand delicately on Charles’s sleeve. His heart skipped a beat and he stopped, letting her mother gain a few footsteps on them before he began to walk again, more slowly.
“What were your impressions?” Miss Hogarth asked in a low voice.
“Not a servant, not the potatoes,” Charles said, impressed that she was so keen on the mystery. “But still a possible connection to Marie Rueff.”
“I was utterly shocked that Lady Lugoson herself suspected foul play,” said the girl. “Why, it gave color and form to your own suspicions, Mr. Dickens.”
Charles nodded soberly. “So it did, my dear Miss Hogarth. We must continue our lines of inquiry.”
Her nod matched his. “I share the same resolve. I will help in any way I can.”
Chapter 10
Charles didn’t have any meetings the next morning. He’d meant to spend the time working on one of his sketches, but instead he went to the Garrick Theater, to fulfill his promise to Lady Lugoson.
He’d dressed in his best checked trousers and black frockcoat, and carefully brushed his hat and coat while his brother Fred polished his shoes, with some idea of looking like a possible investor. Barring that, he could always claim to be a budding playwright, which indeed he was, or at least a hopeful one.
When he reached the cobbled street, he went down a side road and turned into the alley, looking for the stage door. At that time of day most actors might well still be abed, but he suspected that actor-managers and actress–building owners did not have the luxury, but instead would be in meetings with workmen or someone of that sort.
Indeed, as Charles walked in through the back, he saw a rush of activity. A trio of paint-stained men were carrying buckets and brushes, a seamstress rushed by with a bolt of fabric in her arms, and some other man, whom Charles suspected had something to do with the gas, bustled by, his belt jangling with tools. He heard shouting behind a tall partition that hid the alley door from a more businesslike part of the theater.
As he peered around the partition, made of freshly sawn wood that still smelled like a tree, he heard one of the men’s voices rise into a powerful rant. Percy Chalke pointed at the other man, his strong tone mesmerizing, even if the words didn’t make much sense. Charles had a sense that the other man was a painter and he’d made an error on the backdrop.
The man raised his fist and shook it at Chalke, then pushed his way through a narrow opening to the stage and disappeared. Chalke huffed out a breath and put his hands on his narrow hips.
“Mr. Chalke?” Charles said in a deferential tone.
The actor-manager seemed to go on point like a hunting dog, his nose quivering, his lean form greyhoundlike. After a moment in that pose, he turned slowly, sighting Charles.
“Yes?” He pushed his straggly blond locks out of his eyes.
“I am Charles Dickens, reporter at the Morning Chronicle and an, er, friend of Lady Lugoson.”
Arrogantly, Chalke’s gaze went up and down Charles. He held his ground, as befitted a man who claimed friendship to a baron’s widow.
“What do you want?” Chalke growled.
“I’d like to pay my respects to Miss Acton.”
“She isn’t seeing anyone. Death in the family.”
“I know, Mr. Chalke. I was at the funeral. I stood right across from you, if you remember.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“I’ve come with a message from Lady Lugoson.”
Chalke grunted. “Give it here, then.”
Charles stepped forward. He could see the lines around the other man’s eyes. They put him close to forty, some years older than Miss Acton. “It’s a verbal message. Where is Miss Acton?”
“Not your business, sir. If Lady Lugoson wants to see her sister, she sends a note, not a lackey.”
Charles drew himself up. “I am no lackey.”
“I don’t know who you are,” Chalke said, with an oily sneer that reminded Charles of the actor’s portrayal of Richard III. “But I’m not bothering Miss Acton with your nonsense. She has to go on tonight, despite her pain and grief, and I won’t disturb her preparations.”
“She lost her niece, whom she must not have known very well,” Charles said. “Given that the girl had only recently returned to England. Or is perhaps Miss Acton’s grief more that of a mother’s?”
Chalke’s eyes narrowed. Two workmen entered the space from the stage side of the partitions, and moved into place behind him, muscular arms crossed over beefy chests. Charles wondered what he had said that had sent the workmen toward them. Ex-boxers, from the look of them, one with a badly repaired nose and the other with a cauliflower ear.
“I shall speak to Lady Lugoson about this insult,” Charles said, ignoring the blood rushing through his ears, making a humming sound. “I will fulfill my commission to her.” He held Chalke’s gaze for a long moment, then hurtled himself through the narrow opening back into the large backspac
e area.
He was almost to the alley door when he heard light, rapid footfalls. Glancing back, he saw a girl. She followed him out the door, then put a finger to her lips and gestured to him to follow her.
Back in the daylight, he could not see the girl’s hair under her bonnet, but he recognized the freckles. This was Julie, the girl actress who had so enchanted the lads in the pit.
When they reached the wall where he had pulled down the playbill some days ago, she paused and turned to him. “You said you were a friend of Lady Lugoson’s?”
“Yes. You are Julie?”
“Julie Saville. I was a friend of Miss Lugoson’s.”
“You were?” Surprised, he wondered if Miss Lugoson had envied this girl’s life and had cultivated her friendship as a result.
“Yes, I’m not just an actress. I help Miss Acton with her scripts and letters. If you need to get a message to her, I can take it.”
“I see. Thank you.” He considered her. “Could you answer some questions for me? It may do just as well.”
“Of course.” Her eyebrows rose, giving her an expectant air. “Miss Lugoson and I are, were, the same age, you see. She and her brother liked to visit the theater.”
“I thought you were younger.”
“It’s the freckles,” she said, pointing ruefully to the brown dots that crossed her nose and spread across the top of her cheeks. “But I’m seventeen.”
“Did Miss Lugoson ever speak of her parentage?”
Julie frowned. “I don’t know what you mean, but she only spoke about one thing to me. Obsessed, she was.”
“What?”
“She had a dance instructor. Practicing for her come-out, like ladies must.”
“And she talked about dancing?”
“No, about him. The instructor. French, you see. She’d just come from France, and they spoke French together. She was in love with him.”
Charles’s eyebrows lifted. “I see. Do you think she might have done herself harm, in grief over him rejecting her?”
Julie’s mouth rounded into an O. “No, she didn’t kill herself. But did she die of a broken heart? Maybe he rejected her. I don’t know.”
He found it hard to believe that an aristocrat would confide her deepest longings to a mere actress. Even more, he doubted the theory. Christiana Lugoson had not perished from a broken heart. “When did you see her last?”
“They came for the pantomime just before Christmas.”
Aha. “So you hadn’t seen her in weeks before she died?”
“No, she didn’t come into London, then, but I know she was still taking her lessons.”
“Do you think this instructor took advantage of her?” He paused, then pursued a forbidden subject. After all, this was an actress, not a lady of quality. “Could there have been expectations of a child?”
“She was much more of a child than me,” Julie said frankly. “Not wise in the ways of the world. I don’t think she’d have recognized the signs.”
“But you think this man was her lover,” Charles said flatly.
Julie bit her lip. “She spoke of him very loverlike, but what that meant to her, I really don’t know. She still had dolls.”
He came to the heart of Lady Lugoson’s concerns at last. “Do you think Miss Acton or Mr. Chalke would have meant her harm?”
Julie glanced around, as if looking for spies. “I don’t like them,” she confessed. “Rather desperate, they are, worried about money. Theaters are a hard business. It’s easier for her, she owns the building, but he’s always trying to lower the rent. They fight about it.”
The painter Charles had seen arguing with Percy Chalke came out of the alley, a pipe in his hand. His gaze roamed over Julie as he made a show of lighting his pipe. Charles knew the man couldn’t hear them, but still, the girl could still be scolded for speaking to him.
“Thank you.” He wanted to offer her some money for speaking to him, but not in front of a witness. “I’m Charles Dickens, of the Morning Chronicle. You can send me a note at the newspaper if you have more to tell me.” He turned away and strode down the street in the opposite direction, many thoughts crossing his mind.
* * *
He had the direction of the Carley house from another parliamentary reporter. Mr. Carley was an MP for the City of London and must indeed be a very wealthy man, for his home on Grosvenor Square could be included as one of the most fashionable addresses in London.
The house, when Charles found it, was not one of the best buildings arranged around the large central park. It had not been updated with a top story the way many of the houses had. In fact, it had not likely been touched in the hundred or so years since it had been initially built. Still, the address impressed, and the neighbors were among the highest the aristocracy and government had to offer.
When a footman opened the door, he offered his card, mentioning Lady Lugoson’s name, and was sent to wait in a small parlor.
“At least I wasn’t turned out on my ear,” Charles muttered, as he glanced around the room. Like the outside, it had seen better days. It held furnishings likely purchased around the turn of the century, mostly carved with marine motifs, and an occasional crocodile. The purple-and-gold wallpaper border included shells and pearls in its decorations and must have been a good twenty years old. Given that public rooms would have the best furnishings, he could only imagine the state of the upstairs.
He wandered around the room for twenty minutes memorizing the furniture, hoping someone would arrive with a tea tray, but no one did. So he imagined the day where he wouldn’t be a mere parliamentary reporter, when houses like this would be pleased to offer him entry, and pretty parlormaids would fall over themselves offering him the finest cake the household had to offer. Perhaps he would become a famous solicitor, or a playwright with a theatrical run so outstanding that his play would travel through the provinces for years to come.
Some minutes into these fanciful musings, the door finally opened, and Mrs. Carley came in. Old enough to be his mother, though quite a young one, she wore a brown-and-white dress with pronounced sleeves, very fashionable, with lace cuffs and collar. Her brown hair was well curled and her figure displayed just as spectacularly as he remembered. The household funds must be diminished in favor of the lady’s dresses. He recalled she was the more fashionable lady on Epiphany night as well.
“Mr. Dickens,” Mrs. Carley said, touching the ringlets drooping down her temples. The hairstyle further elongated her narrow face and the rouge she wore did not disguise the sallowness of her cheeks. For all that, she moved like a younger woman, and the smile that flashed across her thin lips was flirtatious.
“Mrs. Carley.”
“Please, have a seat.” She gestured toward an armchair next to the fire, and seated herself opposite. “Lady Lugoson sent you?”
He thought quickly. “Lady Lugoson wants to trace the movements on her daughter in her final days of life.”
“Whatever for?” She pulled the bellpull on the wall next to the fireplace.
“Sentimentality, I suppose. She must have visited your daughter in those last days.”
“I believe Beatrice saw her at our country house,” Mrs. Carley said carelessly. “They were often together.”
“Did Miss Carley share a dance master with Miss Lugoson?”
“Why?”
“I believe there was such a person,” Charles said. “Or so I’ve been told.”
“There is such a person, of course,” she said.
A maid appeared in the doorway, and the lady ordered the tea Charles had so wished for before the fire had warmed him. Now the room seemed too hot, and he could smell rosewater radiating from the lady’s clothing.
“Do you know his name? Did the young ladies take lessons together?”
“He is called Émile Dubois, and no, their lessons were separate.” She picked up a piece of embroidery and pulled the needle from the cloth.
“A Frenchman?”
“Yes, in
fact, I believe the Lugosons knew the dance master in France.” The needle hung from red silk. The lady stabbed it in and out of the cloth with great competence.
“Where did they live in France? I have never heard.”
“Fontainebleau, as I recall. I have never been to France, myself.”
“Nor I,” Charles said. “I would like to travel. The French Revolution fascinates me.”
“That is because you are far from the gates of power, Mr. Dickens. I am certain you would not like your neck to be at risk.”
Charles felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise at the thought of the guillotine’s kiss. They both sat in quiet contemplation, until the maid returned with a tray. The four-piece silver set, shaped like gourds, gleamed with freshly polished flair.
Charles smiled when he saw the teacups were hand painted with yellow shells and red and blue flowers. “Very in keeping with the room.”
Mrs. Carley nodded as the maid poured. “My mother’s china. I remember it being unpacked from crates when I was very young.”
“Did she decorate this room?”
“Yes. This was her home. She departed this earth just two years ago, and I have not yet had the heart to redecorate.” She tied off the silk, removed the needle, and set her cloth aside.
“You must have been very close,” Charles said.
“Indeed.” Mrs. Carley handed him a cup and saucer. “The loss has made my children all the more dear to me.”
“Might Miss Carley be called downstairs?” Charles asked. “I’m sure Lady Lugoson would be delighted to hear anything of her final interactions with Miss Lugoson.”
“Lady Lugoson can expect us to call on her personally, as soon as she is able to receive guests,” Mrs. Carley said, eyeing him over her cup rim.
Charles had the uncomfortable idea that Mrs. Carley was afraid he had designs on her daughter. He cast about for some way to inject Miss Hogarth into the conversation, but as the Carleys were no doubt in close relation to the titled, despite not having titles themselves, he knew Miss Hogarth would not be likely to be favored in their acquaintance. He’d only accessed the house using Lady Lugoson’s name himself.
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