The William Monk Mysteries

by Anne Perry

  Hester smiled and looked down at her hands in her lap to avoid meeting Edith’s eyes. That was a charmingly euphemistic way of putting it. Hester was too old to be strictly marriageable, well over twenty-five, and even twenty-five was optimistic. And since her father had lost his money before his death, she had no dowry, nor any social background worth anyone’s while to pursue. Also she was of an unbecomingly direct character and both held and expressed too many opinions.

  “I have no time I can afford to waste,” she answered aloud.

  “And I have too much,” Edith added.

  Hester brought them back to the subject. “Please tell me something of the Furnivals.”

  Damaris’s face lost its momentary look of ease.

  “Maxim is really quite agreeable, in a brooding, dark sort of way. He’s fearfully decent, and he manages to do it without being stuffy. I often felt if I knew him better he might be quite interesting. I could easily imagine falling madly in love with him—just to know what lies underneath—if I didn’t already know Peverell. But whether it would stand a close acquaintance I have no idea.” She glanced at Hester to make sure she understood, then continued, staring up at the molded and painted ceiling. “Louisa is another matter altogether. She is very beautiful, in an unconventional way, like a large cat—of the jungle sort, not the domestic. She is no one’s tabby. I used to envy her.” She smiled ruefully. “She is very small. She can be feminine and look up at any man at ail—where I look down on far more than I wish. And she is all curves in the most flattering places, which I am not. She has very high, wide cheekbones, but when I stopped being envious, and looked a little more closely, I did not care for her mouth.”

  “You are not saying much of what she is like, Ris,” Edith prompted.

  “She is like a cat,” Damaris said reasonably. “Sensuous, predatory, and taking great care of her own, but utterly charming when she wishes to be.”

  Edith looked across at Hester. “Which tells you at least that Damaris doesn’t like her very much. Or that she is more than a trifle envious.”

  “You are interrupting,” Damaris said with an aloof air. “The next to arrive were Thaddeus and Alexandra. He was just as usual, polite, pompous and rather preoccupied, but Alex looked pale and not so much preoccupied as distracted. I thought then that they must have had a disagreement over something, and of course Alex had lost.”

  Hester nearly asked why “of course,” then realized the question was foolish. A wife would always lose, particularly in public.

  “Then Sabella and Fenton came,” Damaris continued. “That’s Thaddeus’s younger daughter and her husband,” she explained to Hester. “Almost immediately Sabella was rude to Thaddeus. We all pretended we hadn’t noticed, which is about all you can do when you are forced to witness a family quarrel. It was rather embarrassing, and Alex looked very …” she searched for the word she wanted. “… very brittle, as though her self-control might snap if she were pressed too hard.” Her face changed swiftly, and a shadow passed over it. “The last ones to arrive were Dr. Hargrave and his wife.” She altered her position slightly in the chair, with the result that she was no longer facing Hester. “It was all very polite, and trivial, and totally artificial.”

  “You said it was ghastly.” Edith’s eyebrows rose. “You don’t mean you sat around through the entire evening being icily civil to each other. You told me Thaddeus and Sabella quarreled and Sabella behaved terribly, and Alex was white as a sheet, which Thaddeus either did not even notice—or else pretended not to. And that Maxim was hovering over Alex, and Louisa obviously resented it.”

  Damaris frowned, her shoulders tightening. “I thought so. But of course it may simply have been that it was Maxim’s house and he felt responsible, so he was trying to be kind to Alex and make her feel better, and Louisa misunderstood.” She glanced at Hester. “She likes to be the center of attention and wouldn’t appreciate anyone being so absorbed in someone else. She was very scratchy with Alex all evening.”

  “You all went in to dinner?” Hester prompted, still searching for the factual elements of the crime, if the police were correct and there had been one.

  “What?” Damaris knitted her brows, staring at the window. “Oh—yes, all on each other’s arms as we had been directed, according to the best etiquette. Do you know, I can’t even remember what we ate.” She lifted her shoulders a little under the gorgeous blouse. “It could have been bread pudding for all I tasted. After the desserts we went to the withdrawing room and talked nonsense while the men passed the port, or whatever men do in the dining room when the women have gone. I’ve often wondered if they say anything at all worth listening to.” She looked up at Hester quickly. “Haven’t you?”

  Hester smiled briefly. “Yes I have. But I think it may be one of those cases where the truth would be disappointing. The mystery is far better. Did the men rejoin you?”

  Damaris grimaced in a strange half smile, rueful and ironic. “You mean was Thaddeus still alive then? Yes he was. Sabella went upstairs to be alone, or I think more accurately to sulk, but I can’t remember when. It was before the men came in, because I thought she was avoiding Thaddeus.”

  “So you were all in the withdrawing room, apart from Sabella?”

  “Yes. The conversation was very artificial. I mean more so than usual. It’s always pretty futile. Louisa was making vicious little asides about Alex, all with a smooth smile on her face, of course. Then Louisa rose and invited Thaddeus to go up and visit Valentine—” She gave a quick little gasp as if she had choked on something, and then changed it into a cough. “Alex was furious. I can picture the look on her face as if I had only just seen it.”

  Hester knew Damaris was speaking of a subject about which she felt some deep emotion, but she had no idea why, or quite what emotion it was. But there was little point in pressing the matter at all if she stopped now.

  “Who is Valentine?”

  Damaris’s voice was husky as she answered. “He is the Furnivals’ son. He is thirteen—nearly fourteen.”

  “And Thaddeus was fond of him?” Hester said quietly.

  “Yes—yes he was.” Her tone had a kind of finality and her face a bleakness that stopped Hester from asking any more. She knew from Edith that Damaris had no children of her own, and she had enough sensitivity to imagine the feelings that might lie behind those words. She changed the subject and brought it back to the immediate.

  “How long was he gone?”

  Damaris smiled with a strange, wounded humor.

  “Forever.”

  “Oh.” Hester was more disconcerted than she was prepared for. She felt dismay, and for a moment she was robbed of words.

  “I’m sorry,” Damaris said quickly, looking at Hester with wide, dark eyes. “Actually I don’t know. I was absorbed in my own thoughts. Some time. People were coming and going.” She smiled as if there were some punishing humor in that thought. “Maxim went off for something, and Louisa came back alone. Alex went off too, I suppose after Thaddeus, and she came back. Then Maxim went off again, this time into the front hall—I should have said they went up the back stairs to the wing where Valentine has his room, on the third floor. It is quicker that way.”

  “You’ve been up?”

  Damaris looked away. “Yes.”

  “Maxim went into the front hall?” Hester prompted.

  “Oh—yes. And he came back looking awful and saying there had been an accident. Thaddeus had fallen over the banister and been seriously hurt—he was unconscious. Of course we know now he was dead.” She was still looking at Hester, watching her face. Now she looked away again. “Charles Hargrave got up immediately and went to see. We all sat there in silence. Alex was as white as a ghost, but she had been most of the evening. Louisa was very quiet; she turned and went, saying she was fetching Sabella down, she ought to know her father had been hurt. I can’t really remember what else happened till Charles—Dr. Hargrave—came back to say Thaddeus was dead, and of course we would have
to report it. No one should touch anything.”

  “Just leave him there?” Edith said indignantly. “Lying on the floor in the hallway, tangled up with the suit of armor?”

  “Yes…”

  “They would have to.” Hester looked from one to the other of them. “And if he was dead it wouldn’t cause him any distress. It is only what we think …”

  Edith pulled a face, but said nothing more, curling her legs up a little higher.

  “It’s rather absurd, isn’t it?” Damaris said very quietly. “A cavalry general who fought all over the place being killed eventually by falling over the stairs onto a halberd held by an empty suit of armor. Poor Thaddeus—he never had any sense of humor. I doubt he would have seen the funny side of it.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Edith’s voice broke for a moment, and she took a deep breath. “And neither would Papa. I wouldn’t mention it again, if I were you.”

  “For heaven’s sake!” Damaris snapped. “I’m not a complete fool. Of course I won’t. But if I don’t laugh I think I shall not be able to stop crying. Death is often absurd. People are absurd. I am!” She sat up properly and swiveled around straight in the seat, facing Hester.

  “Someone murdered Thaddeus, and it had to be one of us who were there that evening. That’s the awful thing about it all. The police say he couldn’t have fallen onto the point of the halberd like that. It would never have penetrated his body—it would just have gone over. He could have broken his neck, or his back, and died. But that was not what happened. He didn’t break any bones in the fall. He did knock his head, and almost certainly concuss himself, but it was the halberd through the chest that killed him—and that was driven in after he was lying on the ground.”

  She shivered. “Which is pretty horrible—and has not the remotest sort of humor about any part of it. Isn’t it silly how we have this quite offensive desire to laugh at all the worst and most tragic things? The police have already been around asking all sorts of questions. It was dreadful—sort of unreal, like being inside a magic lantern show, except that of course they don’t have stories like that.”

  “And they haven’t come to any conclusions?” Hester went on relentlessly, but how else could she be of any help? They did not need pity; anyone could give them that.

  “No.” Damaris looked grim. “It seems several of us would have had the opportunity, and both Sabella and Alex had obviously quarreled with him recently. Others might have. I don’t know.” Then suddenly she stood up and smiled with forced gaiety.

  “Let us go in to tea. Mama will be angry if we are late, and that would spoil it all.”

  Hester obeyed willingly. Apart from the fact that she thought they had exhausted the subject of the dinner party, at least for the time being, she was most interested in meeting Edith’s parents, and indeed she was also ready for tea.

  Edith uncurled herself, straightening her skirts, and followed them downstairs, through the big hall and into the main withdrawing room, where tea was to be served. It was a magnificent room. Hester had only a moment in which to appreciate it, since her interest, as well as her manners, required she give her attention to the occupants. She saw brocaded walls with gilt-framed pictures, an ornate ceiling, exquisitely draped curtains in claret-colored velvet with gold sashes, and a darker patterned carpet. She caught sight of two tall bronzes in highly ornate Renaissance style, and had a dim idea of terra-cotta ornaments near the mantel.

  Colonel Randolf Carlyon was sitting totally relaxed, almost like a man asleep, in one of the great armchairs. He was a big man gone slack with age, his ruddy-skinned face partially concealed by white mustache and side whiskers, his pale blue eyes tired. He made an attempt to stand as they came in, but the gesture died before he was on his feet, a half bow sufficing to satisfy etiquette.

  Felicia Carlyon was as different as was imaginable. She was perhaps ten years younger than her husband, no more than her mid-sixties, and although her face showed a certain strain, a tightness about the mouth and shadows around the large, deep-set eyes, there was nothing in the least passive or defeated about her. She stood in front of the walnut table on which tea was laid, her body still slender and rigidly upright with a deportment many a younger woman would have envied. Naturally she was wearing black in mourning for her son, but it was handsome, vivid black, well decorated with jet beading and trimmed with black velvet braid. Her black lace cap was similarly fashionable.

  She did not move when they came in, but her glance went straight to Hester, and Hester was intensely aware of the force of her character.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Latterly,” Felicia said graciously, but without warmth. She reserved her judgment of people; her regard had to be earned. “How pleasant of you to come. Edith has spoken most kindly of you.”

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Carlyon,” Hester replied equally formally. “It is gracious of you to receive me. May I offer you my deepest sympathies for your loss.”

  “Thank you.” Felicia’s complete composure and the brevity with which she accepted made it tactless to add anything further. Obviously she did not wish to discuss the subject; it was deeply personal, and she did not share her emotions with anyone. “I am pleased you will take tea with us. Please be comfortable.” She did not move her body, but the invitation was implicit.

  Hester thanked her again and sat, not in the least comfortably, on the dark red sofa farthest from the fire. Edith and Damaris both seated themselves and introductions were completed, Randolf Carlyon contributing only what was required of him for civility.

  They spoke of the merest trivialities until the maid came with the last of the dishes required for tea, paper-thin sandwiches of cucumber, watercress and cream cheese, and finely chopped egg. There were also French pastries and cake with cream and jam. Hester looked at it with great appreciation, and wished it were an occasion on which it would be acceptable to eat heartily, but knew unquestionably that it was not.

  When tea had been poured and passed Felicia looked at her with polite enquiry.

  “Edith tells me you have traveled considerably, Miss Latterly. Have you been to Italy? It is a country I should have liked to visit. Unfortunately at the time when it would have been suitable for me, we were at war, and such things were impossible. Did you enjoy it?”

  Hester wondered for a frantic moment what on earth Edith could have said, but she dared not look at her now, and there was no evading an answer to Felicia Carlyon. But she must protect Edith from having appeared to speak untruthfully.

  “Perhaps I was not clear enough in my conversation with Edith.” She forced a slight smile. She felt like adding “ma’am,” as if she were speaking to a duchess, which was absurd. This woman was socially no better than herself—or at least than her parents. “I regret my traveling was in the course of war, and anything but educational in the great arts of Italy. Although I did put in to port there briefly.”

  “Indeed?” Felicia’s arched eyebrows rose, but it would be immeasurably beneath her to allow her good manners to be diverted. “Did war oblige you to leave your home, Miss Latterly? Regrettably we seem to have trouble in so many parts of the Empire at the moment. And they speak of unrest in India as well, although I have no idea whether that is serious or not.”

  Hester hesitated between equivocation and the truth, and decided truth would be safer, in the long run. Felicia Carlyon was not a woman to overlook an inconsistency or minor contradiction.

  “No, I was in the Crimea, with Miss Nightingale.” That magic name was sufficient to impress most people, and it was the best reference she had both as to character and worth.

  “Good gracious,” Felicia said, sipping her tea delicately.

  “Extraordinary!” Randolf blew out through his whiskers.

  “I think it is fascinating.” Edith spoke for the first time since coming into the withdrawing room. “A most worthwhile thing to do with one’s life.”

  “Traveling with Miss Nightingale is hardly a lifetime occupation, Edith,” F
elicia said coolly. “An adventure, perhaps, but of short duration.”

  “Inspired by noble motives, no doubt,” Randolf added. “But extraordinary, and not entirely suitable for a—a—” He stopped.

  Hester knew what he had been going to say; she had met the attitude many times before, especially in older soldiers. It was not suitable for gentlewomen. Females who followed the army were either enlisted men’s wives, laundresses, servants, or whores. Except the most senior officers’ ladies, of course, but that was quite different. They knew Hester was not married.

  “Nursing has improved immensely in the last few years,” she said with a smile. “It is now a profession.”

  “Not for women,” Felicia said flatly. “Although I am sure your work was very noble, and all England admires it. What are you doing now you are home again?”

  Hester heard Edith’s indrawn breath and saw Damaris swiftly lower her eyes to her plate.

  “I am caring for a retired military gentleman who has broken his leg quite severely,” Hester answered, forcing herself to see the humor of the situation rather than the offense. “He requires someone more skilled in caring for the injured than a housemaid.”

  “Very commendable,” Felicia said with a slight nod, sipping at her tea again.

  Hester knew implicitly that what she did not add was that it was excellent only for women who were obliged to support themselves and were beyond a certain age when they might reasonably hope for marriage. She would never countenance her own daughters descending to such a pass, as long as there was a roof over their heads and a single garment to put on their backs.

  Hester made her smile even sweeter.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Carlyon. It is most gratifying to be of use to someone, and Major Tiplady is a gentleman of good family and high reputation.”