‘No, indeed,’ snarled Walker. ‘I agree with you there, but it’s what you get up to when you’re not in full view that troubles me.’
Cobie gave a weary sigh. ‘Delightful though this exchange of courtesies is, Inspector, you really must allow me to continue on my way. I have urgent business awaiting me in my City office. Like many of my society friends, you appear to forget that I have to earn my own living, and that doing so takes up a great deal of my time. I wish you luck in all your ventures, and oh, by the by, do remember me to Bates and Alcott, I quite miss their friendly faces.’
He could almost feel Walker’s scowl boring into his back when he walked away. The pity of it was that he respected the man and his office, but since he had started off on the wrong foot with him, they were doomed to remain at cross purposes. Cobie admitted ruefully that this was his own fault since he had underestimated Walker and his determined honesty.
No, it wasn’t Walker’s honesty he mistrusted—it was that of those above him.
He was back in the present again. The present where he was sitting down at the whist table, cutting the cards, with the Prince of Wales for a partner seated opposite to him.
He was only a few miles in space from Sea Coal Street in London’s Docklands, but, in the great scheme of things—as he had suggested to Walker—he was a whole world away.
Chapter Thirteen
‘I thought that we were being invited to a house party, not a family party,’ Dinah remarked to Cobie on their second day at Moorings.
‘Mmm, so did I,’ he said.
He was standing before the long mirror in Dinah’s bedroom, checking that he was the perfect image of an English gentleman about to enjoy himself in the country.
Unlike most of the English upper class, however, he was spending his nights in his wife’s bedroom rather than the one which he had been given as his own—or in someone else’s wife’s.
‘I prefer this, don’t you? It’s easier,’ he continued, turning to look at Dinah who had been as careful as he had been in preparing for the day before them.
‘Oh, yes. In all honesty I was growing a little tired of constantly being one of a crowd—even if that crowd is the one surrounding the Prince of Wales. I want to visit Markendale, of course—it’s supposed to be very beautiful and grand, Violet has never seen fit to have me there before—but the price I shall have to pay for it is to join the social round again. The same holds true of our visit to Sandringham—honour though it is.’
‘True,’ said her husband, ‘but I have the feeling that you will find some pleasant bolt-holes away from the crowd. If you don’t, HRH will arrange some for you—like he did at the Leominsters!’
They had a happy laugh together at that.
Later in the day Dinah took her book into the park, and was enjoying it on an iron bench in the shade of a small gazebo facing the lake at the back of the house. She did rather miss Mr Van Deusen, who had joined Bellenger Hodson for a short stay in Brighton, and whom they would meet again at Sandringham. Otherwise she was pleased by the solitude created by the only other members of the house party: Violet and her husband, and Rainey, who was only too delighted to be living at someone else’s expense.
He was finding the income which Cobie had given him rather constricting. He had been warned that under no circumstances, if he exceeded it, would he be given a loan by his brother-in-law.
Dinah’s solitude was not to last long. She was presently joined by Lord Kenilworth who was taking a stroll round his grounds in the warmth of the mid-afternoon.
‘You will allow?’ he asked in his pleasant voice, before seating himself by her.
She closed her book. ‘Of course. I have been reading for quite long enough.’ Which was not the truth, but was the kind of polite lie which Madame had taught her to employ when in company. ‘To oil the wheels of life,’ she had said.
Dinah had had very little to do with her brother-in-law before she had married Cobie, and had thought him rather dull and a trifle slow. She was beginning to discover that he possessed an acute mind behind his lazy manner. Lord Kenilworth, for his part, was finding Lady Dinah to be not only a pleasant child, but also a clever one.
He was beginning to understand why Grant had married her, and had taken the trouble to improve her looks. He supposed that she had got her brains from the unacknowledged father, and was now being trained not to show them overmuch, but to use them all the same.
‘You might like to know—I don’t suppose that Violet has informed you yet—that we have invited your mother to stay with us until we go on to Windsor. Now that Violet’s father is dead I don’t think that we need to keep her in permanent exile, do you?’
‘Oh, how kind of you,’ exclaimed Dinah. She was shrewd enough to know that the invitation had been inspired by Lord Kenilworth rather than Violet, and also shrewd enough not to let him know that she was aware of that.
He waved an idle hand. ‘Not kind, sensible rather. These grand feuds are rather silly, don’t you think? Time to forget the past. Particularly when the result of it is such an ornament to Society as you are.’
This was going a bit far, thought the dazzled Dinah; nevertheless she smiled her thanks at him.
He waved them away, too.
‘I’m pleased to learn that your husband accepted our invitation to Markendale. I rather feared that his business in the City might keep him in town, but he has assured me that everything is under control at the moment. In any case, if anything should go wrong, it would not be too difficult for his staff to contact him. He said that he would not miss seeing Markendale’s treasures for the world. And then, of course, there are the local races.’
‘Ah, yes, the races,’ agreed Dinah politely. She had never been to a race meeting in her life and had not the slightest notion whether they were among Cobie’s many interests. She thought that the Marquise would be particularly proud of her today!
‘One problem, though,’ he said confidentially, ‘is that the Prince has asked me to invite Sir Ratcliffe Heneage to be a member of the party at Markendale. I don’t fancy the man, I wouldn’t have had him in the house, but I couldn’t refuse to obey them when Beauchamp came up and told me of Tum Tum’s express wishes. I couldn’t refuse him, could I?’
Dinah was puzzled. ‘Why didn’t the Prince just ask you himself? Why did he send Mr Beauchamp?’
Lord Kenilworth barked out a short laugh.
‘No, no, my dear. Beauchamp is the Prince’s grey man: the private and trusted servant who does his master’s work for him—the dirty work which his master doesn’t want to do himself. Tum Tum knows I don’t care for Heneage, so he didn’t want to order me in person to invite him—easier to send Beauchamp, and avoid any embarrassment putting me out might cause him personally. Although why he should want Heneage at Markendale, I can’t imagine.’
Dinah’s initiation into the Machiavellian politics of the great was going apace. How clever Cobie must be to manoeuvre through all this as easily as he did!
Rather daringly she decided to ask Lord Kenilworth a personal question.
‘You said that you didn’t like Sir Ratcliffe. Do you like my husband, Lord Kenilworth?’
‘I wouldn’t have had him here if I didn’t. I’d have refused to invite Heneage to Moorings whatever the Prince’s orders. Markendale now, that’s different. More of a museum than a family home. I only have my real friends here. I regretted having asked him this spring. The man’s a bounder, and I’ve decided that Moorings is now closed to him. Besides, there’s something about your husband which intrigues me, don’t you know. He’s a clever fellow and commands my respect.
‘I heard that you told Rainey and Violet that you think he’s dangerous—which they pooh-poohed. Very shrewd of you, my dear, very shrewd. He showed his true colours a bit, didn’t he, when he did for Sir Ratcliffe and Rainey at cards? Besides, he didn’t make his fortune sitting about being Goody Twoshoes, did he? Indeed not.’
His laugh at his own wit was so jollily
hearty that Dinah joined in with him. ‘Not if what he told the Prince of Wales at the Leominsters’ was true,’ she replied.
‘Um, heard about that from Sykes. He and Lipton were cut up at whist by your husband and the Prince—a real treat for Tum Tum: he’s not the greatest card player in the world, you know. His real talents lie elsewhere.’
Yes, there was more to Lord Kenilworth than one might have thought. It was to be hoped that Violet appreciated that—and him. He and Dinah talked on companionably. He told her that her mother was expected on the morrow.
‘I knew her years ago when I was first on the town. Violet’s very like her.’
That was true.
‘I’m not,’ Dinah said sadly.
He smiled at her, and said, ‘You are like no one but yourself, my dear sister-in-law, and if, as they tell me, you take after your father, then he must be a most remarkable man. You make me wish that I were twenty years younger. You will forgive me if I leave you: I have urgent letters to write.’
With that he kissed her hand, rose and strolled away.
Dinah stared after him. Now, what was all that about?
She did not have long to ponder on the puzzle Kenilworth had suddenly presented her with, because another man, who posed an even greater one, was the next to join her.
Cobie appeared, also carrying a book. ‘There you are, my dear. I’ve just met Kenilworth who told me that you were hidden away here. I was detained by the ineffable Violet, and spent some little time trying to fend off suggestions that we might carry on where we left off the last time I was at Moorings. I pointed out to her, as gently as I could, that I was then a free man, but that now, alas, I have a pretty young wife to care for. That being so, I knew that she, Violet, would not really wish me to break my marriage vows to her sister, either now or later.
‘You are, perhaps, not acquainted with a rather good poem by the late A.H. Clough, where he says, among other wise things, “Do not adultery commit. Advantage rarely comes of it.” It is one of my few maxims for good conduct—not that I have always followed it in the past!’
No, Dinah did not know the poem. What she thought that she knew was that whatever Violet might hint, Cobie was setting her mind at rest, by assuring her that he was not about to renew his brief liaison with her either in the present or in the future.
‘I also have to tell you, although I suspect that Kenilworth may have forestalled me, that he has insisted on your mother being invited to Moorings. I gather that he told Violet, very firmly, that bygones must be bygones.’
‘Yes, he has told me, Cobie. But is it you that I really have to thank? Because if it is, it is yet another debt of gratitude which I owe you.’
‘Wise child,’ he said—and would say nothing more, until he stretched himself out on the grass in front of her, and began to read to her from his book. It was the satiric epic poem Don Juan, by Lord Byron.
‘Just to complete your education about the goings-on in society,’ he told her, before he began. ‘Nothing changes over time but the clothes and the trappings we wear, you know. Men and women remain the same whatever the age they live in—and however much they try to deceive themselves.’
Dinah said daringly, ‘You deceive people, Cobie. I do know that.’
His smile at her was a rueful one. ‘Yes, I am aware that you do. But I try not to deceive myself, and that is the important thing, Dinah. One must never believe one’s own myth—that way self-destruction lies.’
He fell silent for a moment before continuing to read.
I would do well, he told himself later, to remember what I have just said the next time that I confront Walker—or Sir Ratcliffe for that matter.
Dinah’s mother arrived on the following day as Kenilworth had promised. Cobie drove Dinah to the station to collect her and her little maid.
Moorings Halt looked exactly the same as it had done when Dinah had arrived there in the early spring.
The cat lay in the sun, the flower-beds were carefully tended, the porter still sat in his little sentry box. The only thing which had changed was Dinah Freville. Changed by the man who stood beside her who was helping his mother-in-law down from the railway carriage and accepting her kiss on his warm cheek.
‘Hello, my darling, how good of you both to come to collect me,’ exclaimed her mother, kissing Dinah, while Cobie transferred her luggage from the platform to the waiting carriage.
‘What a lovely day!—and oh, how charming you look!’
She whispered conspiratorially into Dinah’s ear, ‘His doing, I suppose?’
‘Definitely,’ murmured Dinah, smiling.
Violet, of course, was on her best behaviour when she welcomed her mother to her home and took care to address her formally as Lady Rainsborough, before calling her mother, something which she had not done for many years. Kenilworth had, for once, put his foot down before her mother arrived.
‘I expect you to be civil to your mama and to your sister, at least while they are at Moorings,’ he had told her. ‘Nothing is to be gained by being otherwise. You do understand me, my dear? I will have my way in this.’
Yes, Violet understood him. Of all things, her husband had fallen for the charms of his sister-in-law. If she threw any darts at Dinah, she would have to do so when he was not present. All, therefore, to Dinah’s amusement, was sweetness and light. It was as though her mother had never run away with the tutor and borne an illegitimate child, as though Violet had never had an affaire with Cobie, and as though the illegitimate daughter had never married a Yankee of dubious origin after he had blackmailed her brother in order to be allowed to do so.
All in all, it was rather like being part of a Jacobean tragi-comedy without there being any dead bodies on the stage to frighten the footmen—something which Cobie had recently said in a different context!
It was, though, delightful to pass the time in idleness at beautiful Moorings, which unlike Markendale was not too hugely grand. In their different ways both Cobie and Dinah were enjoying this brief interlude where they were not required to act, as they were when they trod on life’s wider stage.
For Cobie it was a time to lie in the sun, his panama hat over his eyes, and think. About everything. About his extraordinary social success which had resulted in him being named the friend and favourite of a Prince. About Sir Ratcliffe and of how he had escaped punishment and was still roving the world, enjoying himself—apparently secure in the knowledge that, once again, he was free to indulge himself in his disgusting vices.
He owed it to Lizzie to see that her murderer would not escape punishment, although how he could bring him to some sort of justice Cobie could not at present foresee.
He thought about the dogged Walker and his blatant honesty—but he was not so honest that he would not engage in any ploy which might net the criminal which he had decided Cobie was! We are more alike than he knows, Cobie thought wryly—we both make up our own rules.
To control the present was difficult enough: to control the future was harder still. In that unexplored land which changed even as one breathed, there were always so many branching possibilities to consider. Perhaps best not to consider them at all, but simply to grasp the skirts of Chance when she, frivolous goddess that she was, chose to swing by him in her merry, mindless dance among the scrambling mortals from whom she took her pleasure.
He dismissed both Chance and Sir Ratcliffe and thought instead about Dinah. To his astonishment, and little had ever astonished him since his time in America’s Southwest, his feelings towards her were undergoing a rapid, and daily, change.
He had rescued her out of pity: there had been nothing of love, or lust in his mind when he had done so. Yet…yet…day by day, living with her, watching her, even before she had come to change and blossom, something strange had begun to happen to him.
What were these new feelings? At first he had thought that it was simple protection that he felt: protection for someone who, although charmingly innocent, had proved to have a sharp and
incisive mind. Was that what had attracted him—that he could give her the opportunity to let that mind rove free? He had initiated her into the pleasures of the bed and she had rapidly become as adept as he, but it was not simple lust which he felt for her. No, it was more than that.
For all his cleverness—perhaps, indeed, because of it—he could not give his feelings a name. Was this, then, love? If so, it was something which he had never felt before, and if it were, he knew that he had never loved Susanna as she had loved him. Or, if he had, it had been the untutored love of a boy, not this complex feeling which Dinah evoked in him.
He sat up, violently, pulled his hat away from his eyes, and stared across the beautiful garden to where Dinah was walking and talking with her mother.
No, he didn’t want it, no. He did not want to be overcome by what he had deliberately renounced. For to love was to be obligated, to be in some way tied to the person loved, and he did not want that. He had spent ten years creating and preserving his solitude, and to love Dinah was to breach it, and destroy in a moment every brick in the wall which he had built around himself to keep others out…and himself secure.
Long ago on a hot morning in the desert he had confronted the possibility of a cruel death at the hands of a man who was determined to make an example of him to deter others who might wish to free themselves from the bondage in which he and his master held them.
It was love and friendship which had brought him to that pass, and he had vowed then, that if he survived, he would never be at anyone’s mercy again. He would live by and for himself, and no one else. If he helped others, it would always be on his own terms…
But what had he done, all unwittingly? He had bought himself a wife, almost by accident, and in doing so was discovering that he had altered the nature of his whole world, that his personal future, once carefully mapped out, had changed completely. He had lost the key to the map of his life and was wandering on strange roads, not sure of his destination.
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