Chapter 18
The concussion Sophy had sustained was serious. It was a full two weeks before the doctor would allow visitors, and a further week after that before she was able to leave her bedroom and venture downstairs. She hadn’t argued with the doctor’s orders, mainly because she felt too exhausted and ill to object, but also because she didn’t want to see anyone until the bruising to her face had gone down. Kane had been the only exception to the doctor’s rule simply because he would not have it otherwise. He had visited each day for a short period, treating her with the same friendliness he’d always shown and often just sitting by the side of her bed while she slept. This embarrassed her once she thought about it when she was getting better, but at the time it had seemed perfectly natural for him to be there when she awoke.
Sadie had told her that Toby had returned home the morning after the attack. Kane and Ralph had been waiting for him. They had taken him into the drawing room and closed the door in Sadie’s face. Sadie didn’t know what had been said but when the three men had emerged, Toby was clearly shaken. He’d quickly packed a case and left the house, and that afternoon Kane had told Sadie he wouldn’t be back in the forseeable future. They’d since been informed he was staying at his club, but nothing more.
The subject of her husband was not mentioned between Sophy and Kane until the first afternoon she came downstairs. She was still feeling shaky and some vestige of the severe bruising to her face had yet to fade completely, but now the terrible headaches and nausea had all but gone she felt much more like herself. Sophy was lying on a chaise longue close to the window where she could see a little of the comings and goings in the square when Sadie showed Kane into the drawing room. It was a beautiful day and the May blossom was drifting in the air like summer snow, but the bright sunshine and blue sky merely emphasised the darkness in her life, and once Kane was seated and Sadie bustled away to prepare a tea tray, she said, ‘I need to know exactly what you said to Toby, Kane, but first, is there any news about Cat’s murderer?’
The vivid blue eyes narrowed for a moment. ‘We can discuss all this when you’re feeling better.’
‘I am feeling better.’
This was said impatiently and the tone convinced Kane more than a thousand words that he couldn’t prevaricate. He looked at Sophy. He had been dreading this moment. ‘Ralph’s enquiries have borne fruit,’ he admitted softly.
‘Ralph’s? Not the police’s?’
‘Ralph can go places and ask questions the police can’t,’ Kane said shortly. And money was a great persuader. He’d spent a small fortune buying information, and Ralph had put himself in peril and to what end? He’d given the police enough reason to apprehend the man in question and the same day he’d skedaddled abroad. It stank of friends in high places. The aristocracy looked after its own, there was no doubt about that, and closed ranks when scandal threatened.
Aware Sophy was waiting, he cleared his throat. ‘I think the man who hurt Cat knew we were on to him and has gone abroad.’
Sophy stared at him. ‘Are you sure? That he was the man, I mean? Who is he? What’s his name? Did Cat know him?’
‘Yes, I’m sure it’s him. His name’s Chide-Mulhearne. And no, I have no reason to think Cat was acquainted with him before she was taken captive, although he may have been the individual who wrote certain obscene letters to her in the weeks before her murder,’ said Kane, answering her questions in order. ‘He’s rich enough to buy loyalty, but one of his servants made the mistake of talking a little too freely to a woman he later got with child and then abandoned. Her terror of the workhouse was greater than her fear of the man in question, and on being assured she’d be provided with enough money to make a new start far from London with her baby, she was very helpful. But Chide-Mulhearne was too clever, I’m afraid. He’s left and no doubt covered his tracks in the process so nothing can be proved. I’m sorry, Sophy.’
‘But that’s so wrong, so unfair! Can’t anything be done?’
Kane shook his head. ‘The only satisfaction gained out of this is that he probably won’t risk returning to England again if he’s as wily as I think he is, but I admit that’s not much comfort.’
Sophy shook her head in bewilderment. What sort of world was this? It seemed as though, if you were a man and you were rich enough, you could do anything you liked with impunity. Marriage, society, even the law was weighted on the side of men; she had never seen it so clearly before or resented it so bitterly.
‘This is a horrible world,’ she said slowly. ‘Where is the protection for the innocent? I always thought the law was supposed to help in the fight against wrongdoing, but half the time it doesn’t seem like that to me, not if the transgressor is rich or influential. Children can be imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread to keep their family from starving, and someone like this man can do the things he did and get off scot-free.’
‘Most of the time the law works.’
‘No, it doesn’t. It doesn’t, Kane. Not for one half of society, the female part.’ All the talking in the world wouldn’t bring Cat back, but she couldn’t bear to think this man was somewhere – eating, drinking, laughing, enjoying life – and her friend was dead.
She stared at Kane. ‘So he’s got away with it, this man? He could do unspeakable things to Cat and probably other women too, and then just leave the country?’
Kane’s discomfort showed as he strained his neck upwards, adjusting the collar of his shirt. ‘Like I said, he’s clever. And very wealthy. When the police went to the address we’d been given, they found the cellar room the female informer had described, but it held nothing incriminating and had been newly whitewashed.’
Sophy drew in a sharp breath. ‘A cellar room? Cat was held in a cellar? Was she killed there?’
‘Possibly.’
Sophy repeated the word but only in her mind. She felt sick and furiously angry, and this showed in her voice when she said, ‘I shall go and see the police myself and demand that more is done. I shall shout it from the rooftops if necessary.’
‘It will do no good, Sophy. Believe me. Everything that could be done has been done. Cat is gone and nothing can bring her back, and if you continue to torture yourself like this, you’ll only delay your recovery.’
She glared at him, incensed by the male logic, incensed by everything male, including Kane. For the moment he wasn’t Kane, her friend, but a member of the sex responsible for the outrage on her dear friend.
Sadie knocked on the door and entered immediately with the tea tray. She fussed about, pouring the tea and plying Kane with cake before bustling off again, a little put out by the atmosphere she sensed.
As soon as they were alone again, Sophy said stiffly, ‘And Toby? I understand you and Ralph spoke to him the morning he returned. Can I know what was said?’
‘Of course.’ Kane was well aware of how she was feeling and not altogether surprised by her reaction to the news about Chide-Mulhearne. He had said to Ralph it might well be a case of shoot the messenger when he broke it to her, but that couldn’t be helped. He’d done his damnedest to see to it that the man was brought to justice, and he hoped Sophy would eventually come to see that. ‘I told him what would happen to him if he laid a finger on you again and suggested he removed himself from this house until such time as you saw fit to invite him back.’ He had also told Toby that certain acquaintances of Ralph would pay him a visit if he so much as came within a hundred yards of Sophy without her summoning him, but he had no intention of admitting this, or that one of these acquaintances had been to see Toby a few days later to remind him to behave himself.
Sophy nodded. ‘Thank you,’ she said tightly. She wanted to tell Kane that she had already made arrangements for her solicitor to call in a few days with a view to starting divorce proceedings, but somehow she couldn’t voice it. She also knew she was being uncharacteristically antagonistic and unfair, and she didn’t understand why, except that an echo of the woman’s voice she’d heard that morning
in Kane’s house frequently came to mind when she was in his company. Kane wasn’t who she’d thought he was. No man seemed to be. And she didn’t know if she was on foot or horseback.
A week later, against the advice of her doctor, Sophy returned to work, much to the disappointment of her understudy. Her solicitor had personally gone to see Toby at his club but had reported back that Mr Shawe had been sullen and non-committal. Indeed, Mr Brownlow of Brownlow & Son had added, he was doubtful if the gentleman in question had understood what was happening, so withdrawn had he seemed, and when he had given him the necessary papers he had stared at them with the strangest expression on his face before tucking them into the inside pocket of his suit jacket.
Sophy had half-anticipated a visit from Toby, but one had not been forthcoming. Nevertheless, Sadie made sure the doors and windows to the house were always locked and bolted, and checked at least three times at night that everything was secure before going to bed.
Despite feeling so exhausted she could barely put one foot in front of the other at the end of each evening, Sophy was glad to be playing at the theatre again. When acting her part, for a brief time she was someone else, and the long speeches and complicated interaction with the male lead meant she had to put everything else out of her mind. She rose late every morning and after an early lunch of something light arrived at the theatre in good time for the afternoon performance, not leaving until the evening performance was over. This meant Kane’s daily visits had come to an abrupt end, for which she was thankful. As she had got better she had found he unsettled and disturbed her in a way she couldn’t describe, even to herself.
And so May gently led into June, with just one or two events registering from the world outside Sophy’s tiring routine. She attended the meeting presided over by Lord Lytton calling for a UK national theatre to be built by 1916 so as to commemorate the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, rubbing shoulders with Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells and other influential celebrities, some of whom were remarkably self-effacing and others less so. And when France introduced a new law whereby automatic divorce was granted after three years’ legal separation, she took note, due to her own situation. On the whole, though, her life consisted of sleeping, eating and working at the theatre, an insular existence, and something she could never have imagined on the day she had got married. She had thought her life was set on a course of togetherness, encompassing children and family life, and now she found it had taken the opposite direction. But there was nothing she could do about it. It would be years before she was free of Toby. And the last decade had taken its toll. She had no wish to marry again, to come under the headship of a man, any man, after the misery she had suffered. It would be enough to be unrestricted by the bonds of matrimony, to be independent and footloose. With that she would be content.
Grieving for Cat was a daily process, that and coming to terms with the way her friend had died and that the man responsible had escaped justice. And so, when she heard about a Votes for Women rally being held in Hyde Park in the middle of June, she knew she had to go to represent Cat and her beliefs.
Sadie stared at her askance when she announced her intentions at the breakfast-table, the day of the rally. She had risen early and been downstairs at nine o’clock. Already the morning was hot, the sky blue and high. The perfect day for a rally, she told Sadie cheerfully.
When Sadie had realised she couldn’t dissuade Sophy from attending, she declared she was accompanying her and nothing Sophy said could convince her otherwise. So it was, at just after ten o’clock, the two women set off.
Huge crowds were jamming Hyde Park when they got there. Bugles blew and banners waved, and although most of the crowd seemed sympathetic to the cause, there was a minority of individuals who had clearly come to heckle the speakers. The leading speakers were positioned round the park on twenty different platforms wearing sashes in the campaign colours of purple, green and white, and each platform had a policeman or two beside it. The morning was bitter-sweet for Sophy. She was roused by the inspiring speeches of Christable Pankhurst and Annie Kenney, and the fellow-feeling in the crowds which encompassed women from all walks of life and all classes was like nothing she had experienced before, but Cat should have been there beside her, her lovely face aglow with passion for the cause and her voice joining in the cheers for the speakers. The sea of pretty hats and summer dresses worn by the tens of thousands of women present, the bright sunshine and the almost carnival atmosphere, brought home her loss even more, and Sadie must have been feeling the same because she whispered in Sophy’s ear, ‘She’s in a better place, ma’am, that’s what you’ve got to keep remembering,’ as she squeezed Sophy’s arm.
The rally finished with a resolution calling on the government to bring in an official Women’s Suffrage Bill without delay which was passed overwhelmingly, and although there were one or two ugly moments when trouble flared, the police came to the rescue immediately.
There were the usual groups of Hooray Henrys dotted about the fringe of the park as the rally broke up – rich, ineffectual young men who made a nuisance of themselves at such events because they had more money than sense, drank too much and had little respect for women outside their own class. Since Toby had become unemployable due to his drink and drug addiction, he had drifted into the company of such types now and again, but however freely he spent Sophy’s money, he was still unable to keep up with the profligate lifestyle of most of them, who were recklessly extravagant and wild.
It was as Sophy and Sadie approached the line of horse-drawn cabs waiting for hire at the perimeter of the park that she heard her name bandied about by one such bunch of wastrels. ‘Hey, chaps, isn’t that Sophy Shawe the actress, good old Toby Shawe’s wife? She’s even more of a beauty close to, and willing to entertain, according to Toby.’
‘Ignore them, ma’am,’ Sadie murmured at her side.
Sophy nodded. The words had been spoken loudly, and clearly meant to reach her ears.
The next moment, the two women found themselves surrounded by a group of laughing young men who were eyeing Sophy in an insolent manner as they jostled each other. Aware that they only had a few yards before they reached the cabs, Sophy glanced at them coldly. ‘Please let us pass.’
Disregarding this, the foppish young man who seemed to be the ringleader and who had spoken before, swept his hat off his head in an exaggerated bow. ‘Let me introduce myself. Rupert Forester-Smythe at your service, Mrs Shawe.’
Sophy allowed no expression on her icy features. ‘I said, please let us pass.’
‘Hoity-toity.’
From the laughter which followed from his cohorts you’d have thought Forester-Smythe had said something extremely witty.
Sadie jabbed at the man nearest her with the end of her parasol, causing him to jump to one side. More laughter followed.
‘We have a mutual acquaintance, Mrs Shawe.’
Sophy had no intention of holding a conversation with Rupert Forester-Smythe and stared at him without speaking.
‘A certain Toby Shawe?’ he carried on, undeterred. ‘And he’s been very . . . vocal about your – shall we say willingness – to show a fellow a good time.’
This was too much for Sadie. Using her parasol again she lunged at Forester-Smythe and prodded him in the stomach. ‘Get away, you foul-mouthed creatures!’ she hissed furiously, before using the light umbrella to clear a path to the first cab, the driver of which had jumped down from his seat behind the horse and was saying, ‘Can I be of any assistance, ladies?’
The group of young men were now hooting with laughter and blowing kisses to the two women as the cab driver assisted them into the carriage, but as it drew away Sophy caught a fleeting glimpse of Forester-Smythe’s face, and he wasn’t smiling like the others.
‘What are things coming to?’ Sadie was highly indignant and bristling like a porcupine. ‘I’d like to take their silver-topped canes and stick them where the sun don’t shine; that’d take the sm
iles off their silly faces and make their eyes pop, sure enough.’
Sophy had to smile. But the incident had shaken her. The more so now she had time to think about what the man had said. That Toby had been saying such things about her, hurt her to the quick – but perhaps she should have expected it.
She instructed the cab driver to take her straight to the theatre before he drove Sadie home, and as she was a little late she didn’t have time to dwell on the episode before the afternoon performance. In the interval before the evening show, several members of the cast, including Sophy, had a light meal brought in from a nearby restaurant, and the usual jocularity and clowning around from one or two of the younger members of the cast banished the last of her distress. If nothing else the incident had shown her she was right to distance herself from Toby, she told herself when she was back in her dressing room getting ready for the next performance. Not that she had doubted it. Yet, she asked herself, how could she have been so mistaken about the man with whom she had thought she would share the rest of her life? When she looked back over those first two or three years of their marriage, she could see a hundred different times when she should have realised what he was really like, but loving him as she had, she’d made countless excuses for him. Perhaps she herself had contributed to his decline into the habit which had mastered him body and soul? If she had challenged him earlier, forced him to get help, maybe he could have risen above his addiction? She had tried, heaven knows she had, but perhaps not hard enough . . .
The five-minute curtain call came and she mentally shook herself. Toby had made his decisions and nothing she had done or said could have persuaded him otherwise. She had loved him, she had genuinely adored him, but love hadn’t been enough.
Break of Dawn Page 23