Ashworth Hall

by Anne Perry

  “Padraig Doyle?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly.”

  “Eudora will never get over it.” She stared at him. “Thomas …”

  “What?” He thought he knew what she was going to say, something about pity and that it was not his fault; not to be too hurt for her, grieved, and above all guilty. He was wrong.

  “You must prepare yourself for the possibility that she already knows,” she answered.

  Everything in him was repelled by the idea—it was appalling. It was unimaginable that behind those soft features and wounded eyes was an accomplice, even a silent one, in cold, indiscriminate political murder.

  Charlotte was looking at him with hurt and sorrow in her face, but for him, not for Eudora. “She is very close to her brother,” she went on quietly. “And she is as Irish as any of them, even if she doesn’t seem like it or hasn’t lived there for twenty years. She might still carry the old hatreds and the unreason which seems to infect everybody in this issue.”

  She put out her hand and laid it softly over his. “Thomas … you’ve seen them, you’ve heard them argue. You can see what happens to people once they start talking about Ireland. One man’s freedom is seen as another man’s exploitation and loss, or theft of all he has built up over the generations, and far worse than that, and far more justifiable to defend, as loss of his freedom of faith. A Nationalist independent Ireland would be Roman Catholic. Its laws would be Catholic, whatever the beliefs of the individual. There would be censorship of books according to the Papal Index. All sorts of things would be banned.”

  She grasped the coverlets and pulled them half around her.

  “I resented it when my own father told me what to read and what not to. I should rebel if the Pope did. He’s not anything to do with me. But in a Catholic Ireland some books would be illegal. I wouldn’t even know they existed ….I’d learn only what the Church decided I should hear. Maybe I don’t want to read them ….I might even agree ….I just want the choice to be mine.”

  He did not interrupt.

  “On all things, I want laws my own people can vote on ….” She smiled lopsidedly. “Actually, I’d even like to vote on them myself. But either way, I won’t be told by a lot of cardinals in Rome what to do.”

  “You’re exaggerating …” he protested.

  “No, I’m not. In a Catholic state the Church has the last word.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve been talking to Kezia Moynihan. And before you say she is exaggerating too, she told me proof of it. There’s a lot they say which I think is nonsense. They blame the Catholics for all kinds of things, but that much is true. Where the Church of Rome has power, it is absolute. You can’t force religion on other people, Thomas. Mostly I think the Americans have it right. You should keep church and state separate ….”

  “What do you know about the Americans?” He was startled. He had never thought of her as having the slightest interest in, let alone knowledge of, such things.

  “Emily was telling me. Do you know how many millions of Irish people have emigrated to America since the potato famine?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Yes … about three million,” she replied unhesitatingly. “That’s about one in three of the whole population, and it’s largely the young and able-bodied. Nearly all of them went to America, where they could find work—and food.”

  “What is that to do with Eudora?” He was shaken by the information, and by the fact that Charlotte apparently knew it, but nothing could take the image of Eudora entirely from his mind.

  “Only that the situation is desperate,” she answered, still looking at him with the same gentleness. “There are many people who think when issues are so large that the end justifies any means, even murder of those who stand in the way of what they see as a larger justice.”

  He said nothing.

  She hesitated, seeming on the brink of leaning forward and putting her arms around him, then changed her mind. Instead she climbed out of bed and went for her dressing robe.

  “Where are you going?” he said in surprise. “You’re not going to Eudora?”

  “No … I’m going to Justine.”

  “Why?”

  She put her robe on and tied the long sash. She was completely awake now, but she did not bother to wash her face from the ewer of cold water or run the brush over her tangled hair.

  “Because I want to tell her she didn’t kill Ainsley Greville. She thinks she did.”

  He stood up. “Charlotte, I don’t know that I want Justine to know ….”

  “Yes you do,” she said firmly. “If you have to arrest Padraig Doyle tomorrow, you need this dealt with tonight. Don’t come with me. I can speak to her better on my own. We need to know the truth.”

  He sat frozen on the bed. She was right in that they needed the truth, but he also dreaded it.

  She went quietly along the corridor, across the landing and into the other wing. The whole house was silent. Everyone had long since gone to bed, apart from Pitt and Tellman, and presumably Piers. But he would not go to Justine’s room at this hour, and certainly not after what he had just been involved in. He would not take the smell and the emotional chaos of such a thing to her.

  It was dim in the corridor, the gaslamps on very low, only sufficient to guide anyone who might wish to get up for any personal reason. She knocked on Justine’s door once, sharply, then without waiting for a reply, went in.

  It was in darkness and complete silence.

  “Justine,” she said in a soft voice, but well above a whisper.

  There was a faint sound of movement, then a crinkle of bedclothes.

  “Who is it?” Justine’s voice was tight, afraid.

  “It’s Charlotte. Please turn up the light. I can’t see where it is.”

  “Charlotte?” There was a moment’s silence, then more movement and the light came on.

  Charlotte could see Justine sitting up in bed, but wide awake, her ink-black hair over her shoulders and a look of anxiety and puzzlement in her face.

  “Has something happened?” she said quietly. “Something more?”

  Charlotte came over and sat on the end of the bed. She must learn the truth from Justine, but she could think of no subterfuge with which to trick her in any way, nor did she want to trick her.

  “Not really,” she said, making herself comfortable. “But we know more than we did at dinnertime, although we knew quite a lot then.”

  Justine’s face reflected no emotion except relief that no further disaster had happened.

  “Do you? Do you know who killed Mr. McGinley yet?”

  “No.” Charlotte smiled in sad irony. “But we know who did not kill Mr. Greville ….”

  “We already know who did not,” Justine said, still keeping a suitably good temper in the circumstances. “Mr. O’Day and Mr. McGinley, and the valet Hennessey, if you had considered him. I hope you would know it was not Mrs. Greville, or Piers, but I suppose you cannot take that for granted. Is that what you have come to say … that it was not Mrs. Greville?” She put her hand on the covers as if to get out.

  Charlotte leaned forward and stopped her.

  “I don’t know whether it was Mrs. Greville or not.” She met Justine’s dark eyes levelly. “But I should think it unlikely, although she might very well know who did. It was someone very skilled, very professional at killing.” She watched Justine closely, her eyes, her movement. “It was done with one very accurate blow.”

  Justine sat absolutely motionless, but she could not keep the start of shock from her eyes. The instant after came a shadow of fear as she wondered how much Charlotte knew, what she had seen in her face. Then it was gone again.

  “Was it?” she asked, her voice very nearly steady. Any huskiness in it could easily be attributed to the unpleasantness of the subject and the fact that she had been awoken from the first deep sleep of the night.

  “Yes. His neck was broken.”

  Thi
s time the surprise was accompanied by bewilderment, and for all her iron will and practiced composure she could not hide it. She masked it the instant she saw the recognition in Charlotte’s eyes. She shuddered in revulsion.

  “How horrible!”

  “It is cold-blooded,” Charlotte agreed. She clenched her hands in her lap where Justine could not see them. “Less understandable than the person who came in after that, with a maid’s cap on and a maid’s dress over her own, and walked behind him with ajar of bath salts in her hand and hit him over the back of the head, then, believing him senseless from the blow, pushed him under the water and held him there.”

  Justine was white. She grasped the sheets as if they kept her afloat from drowning.

  “Did … somebody … do that?”

  “Yes.” Charlotte kept all doubt out of her voice.

  “How …” Justine swallowed in spite of her effort at control. “How do you … know that?”

  “She was seen. At least her shoes were seen.” Charlotte smiled very slightly, not a smile of triumph or blame. “Blue fabric slippers, stitched on the sides, with blue heels. Not a maid’s shoes. You wore them today at luncheon, with your muslin dress.”

  This time Justine made no pretense. She would not lose her dignity so far as to continue to fight when the battle was over.

  “Why?” Charlotte asked. “You must have had a very powerful reason.”

  Justine looked drained, as if the life had ceased inside her. In a few words Charlotte had ended everything she had longed for and worked for, and almost had within her grasp. There seemed nothing she could say which would alter or redeem even a portion of the loss. There was no anger in her, only resignation in the face of absolute disaster.

  Charlotte waited.

  Justine began in a low, quiet voice, not looking at Charlotte, but down at the embroidered edge of the linen sheet under her fingers.

  “My mother was a maidservant who married a Spanish sailor. He died when I was very young. He was lost at sea. She was left with no money and a small child to bring up. Because she had married a foreigner, against her family’s wishes, they would have nothing to do with her. She took in laundry and mending, but it barely kept us alive. She didn’t marry again.”

  She smiled a curious, half-amused smile. “I was never beautiful. I was too dark. They used to call me names when I was a child: gypsy, dago, and worse. And make fun of my nose. But as I got older I had a kind of grace, I was different, and it interested some people … especially men. I learned how to be charming, how to awaken interest and to sustain it. I …” She kept her eyes studiously away from Charlotte’s. “I learned how to flatter a man and make him happy.” She did not specify in what way she meant.

  Charlotte believed she understood.

  “And Ainsley Greville was among them?”

  Justine jerked her head up, her eyes bright and angry.

  “He was the only one! But when you are desperate, and it is your way of surviving, you can’t pick and choose. You take who has the money, and doesn’t knock you around or carry disease, at least that you can see. Do you think I liked it?” She was defiant, as if Charlotte were judging her.

  “You poor soul,” Charlotte said, slightly sarcastically.

  Rage blazed in Justine’s eyes for an instant as they sat staring at each other. It never crossed Charlotte’s mind that she was in any danger. She had in all practical senses forgotten that Justine had only a few days ago attempted to murder a man. She had failed only because he was already dead. She had thought until ten minutes before that she had succeeded.

  Charlotte looked at the gorgeous embroidered lace on Justine’s nightgown. It was immeasurably prettier than her own, and more expensive.

  “I like your nightgown,” she remarked dryly.

  Justine blushed.

  Again they sat in silence for several moments.

  Justine looked up. “All right … I did it to survive, to begin with. Then I learned to like the luxuries I could afford. Once you’ve been poor, really hungry and cold, you never feel safe enough. You always know it can happen again tomorrow. I was always thinking I’d give it up, do something respectable. It just … never seemed the right time.”

  “So why murder Ainsley Greville? Did you hate him so much? Why?”

  “No, I didn’t hate that much!” Justine said angrily, contempt hot in her black eyes. “Yes, I hated him, because he despised me just as he despised all women,” she said viciously. “Except when he couldn’t be bothered with us at all. Yes, there was a way in which he was typical of all the men who use women and loathe them at the same time. But I killed him because he would have told Piers what I am—what I was ….”

  “Does that matter?” Charlotte did not ask as a challenge this time, simply a question.

  Justine closed her eyes. “Yes … it mattered more than anything else in the world. I love him … not just to get out of being a—a whore!” She made herself say the word, and her face showed that it was like stabbing herself. “I love him because he is kind and funny and generous. He has hopes and fears I can understand, dreams I can share, and the courage to seek them. And he loves me … most of all, he loves me.” Her voice was strained so tight it cracked with her effort to keep control. “Can you imagine what it will do to him if he hears? Can you see the scene … Ainsley laughing at him, telling him his precious betrothed was his father’s whore? And he would have enjoyed that. He could be very cruel.”

  Her hands were knotted on the edge of the sheet. “He resented anyone’s happiness, especially if he knew them well, because they had something he didn’t. He couldn’t find happiness in any woman because he didn’t know how to love. He didn’t permit the gentleness in himself, so he couldn’t see it in others. He only saw his own reflection, unsatisfied, seeking the weakness to exploit, using his power to hurt, before anyone hurt him.”

  “You did hate him, didn’t you?” Charlotte said, feeling not only the emotion behind Justine’s words but the knowledge and the reason.

  Justine met her eyes. “Yes, I did, not only for what he did to me, but to everyone. And I suppose for a moment to me he was all men like him. What are you going to do now?”

  Charlotte made her decision as she was speaking the words.

  “You didn’t kill him, but that was only chance, your good fortune, if you like. You meant to.”

  “I know that. What are you going to do?” Justine repeated.

  “I don’t know what kind of a crime it is to attack a man who’s already dead. It’s bound to be some sort.”

  “If … if Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me …” Justine took a shuddering breath. She did not weep. Perhaps that would come later, when she was alone and it was all over, and there was nothing left ahead but the regret. She regained her control and started again. “If Mr. Pitt is going to arrest me, may I please go and tell Piers myself why? I think I would rather … at least …”

  Again there was silence. The gas hissed gently in the bracket. There was no other sound in the house.

  “I’m not sure if I can!” It was a cry of despair. Her body was rigid. She really was very slight, almost thin. She looked tight and tense, every muscle in her was knotted. One would have thought physical pain racked through her.

  “Yes, you can,” Charlotte assured her. “It may be dreadful, but whatever it is, if you don’t, you will ever afterwards wish you had. Even if you have nothing else left, have courage.”

  Justine laughed abruptly, a bitter sound close to hysteria.

  “You say that so easily. But it isn’t you facing the only man you’ve ever loved, perhaps the only person, apart from my mother, and she’s dead now, and telling him you are a whore, and a murderess at heart—but not in fact only because some mad Irishman got there first.”

  “Do you prefer the alternative?” Charlotte said gently. “That is that someone else tells him. I will, if you want, but only if you make me believe you can’t.”

  Justine sat still, staring back at
her.

  “What do you want?” Charlotte repeated. “Time? It isn’t going to alter what must be done, but I’ll wait here if you like.”

  “It isn’t going to change, is it?” Justine said after a moment or two. “I am not going to wake up and find you were only a nightmare?”

  Charlotte smiled. “Perhaps I’ll wake up, and it will be Kezia or one of the maids who hit him.” She shrugged. “Or perhaps the Red King will wake up and we’ll all disappear.”

  “What?”

  “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Charlotte explained. “Everybody in it was supposed to be part of the Red King’s dream.”

  “Then can’t you waken him?”

  “No.”

  “Then I had better go and tell Piers,” Justine replied.

  Charlotte smiled very slightly without saying anything.

  Justine climbed out of the bed, hesitated, as if debating whether to dress or not, then put on her robe. She went to the dressing table and picked up the brush. She stood with it in her hand, looking at her reflection in the glass. She was tired, pale with shock and strain; her hair was twisted and had come out of the braid she had placed it in on going to bed.

  “I wouldn’t,” Charlotte said, before she realized it was not her place, now of all times, to try to influence such a decision.

  Justine put the brush down and looked back at her. “You’re right. It is hardly the time for vanity, or anything that looks like forethought.” She bit her lip. Her hands were not quite steady. “Will you come with me?”

  Charlotte was surprised. “Are you sure that’s what you want? This is about the most private thing you will ever do.”

  “No, I’m not sure. If I could think of any other way, I’d take it. But someone else there will help to keep it rational and … and honest. It is not a time for trying to use the emotions. It will stop either of us from saying things we might later wish we had said differently, or not at all.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. Please, let us go before I lose my courage.”

  Charlotte did not argue any further but stood up and followed Justine out into the passage and the short distance to Piers’s room. Justine stopped, drew in her breath and knocked.