There followed a long period when nobody came out of the house. Jackman began to think Miss Fentiman might have left from the rear and cursed himself for not having checked whether there was an exit there. But if he’d done that, he could have missed her departure by the front door.
He whiled away time by thinking again of Ursula Grandison. If she was in his place, he knew exactly what she would do: ensure that Alice Peters escaped her brute of a husband. What, though, would she think of Daniel Rokeby, poet and scandal-sheet writer?
Then his eye was caught by the opening of the front door. Rachel Fentiman stood for a moment on the top of the steps, then walked down and turned to the right. Jackman prepared to follow her, only to find she had taken up a position by the basement steps.
Even more surprising a little while later was to see climbing those steps and being accosted, nay, claimed by Miss Fentiman, Ursula Grandison.
Chapter Five
When Ursula looked again, Thomas Jackman could no longer be seen. She tied her shoelace, then rejoined Rachel Fentiman.
‘Now, where were we?’
The girl slipped her arm through Ursula’s. ‘I want to know why you opened that ostrich cage.’
Miss Fentiman looked to be in her mid-twenties, a few years younger than Ursula. She had an openness that was heartwarming. Ursula realised how long it was since she had had a friend. Was that one of the reasons Jackman had so disappointed her? Had she thought he could be a friend? Initially a reluctant partner with him in the investigation that had involved her so insidiously, she had grown to enjoy their sometimes acerbic discussions and to value his judgements. Ursula acknowledged to herself that she really had thought that in London they could meet as friends. Instead, he had tried to involve her in the sordid investigation he was carrying out for a despicable man.
However, it was through Jackman that she had met Rachel Fentiman. ‘You were so brave,’ Ursula told her honestly. ‘You could see your sister was in trouble and needed help. And the way you got everyone’s attention was inspirational. I, well, I thought an additional distraction was needed.’
Miss Fentiman smiled happily and squeezed Ursula’s arm. ‘It was all we needed to make an escape. The moment I saw that man with his camera, I knew it was something to do with Alice. Several days before we went to the menagerie, she mentioned having an odd feeling of being watched and Joshua is just the sort of man to hire a detective to follow his wife. Can you imagine a worse act? So to distrust your wife?’
Ursula was silent and after a moment Rachel said ruefully, ‘I know, she was spending far too much time with Daniel but, even so,’ she added robustly, ‘wouldn’t you have thought Joshua would try harder to succeed in her affections?’
An image of Daniel Rokeby’s charmingly informal looks swam insistently into Ursula’s mind, followed swiftly by a picture of Mr Peters as he had appeared that afternoon. Then she remembered her glimpse of Thomas Jackman. Was he actually following Rachel now, expecting her to lead him to her sister? If so, she must warn the girl.
Why on earth had Jackman got himself involved with that unpleasant man and his marriage difficulties? Then Ursula wondered. It had only been the swiftest of glimpses; could she have been mistaken?
Rachel was continuing. ‘Alice is the sweetest of souls but you have to understand, Miss Grandison, that she is happiest surrounded by those who love her. It was such a tragedy …’ she broke off, disentangled her arm from Ursula’s, stopped and, pulling at her white cotton gloves in a nervous gesture, said, ‘All Alice’s life I have tried to look after her. She is such an innocent, and she does not think ahead. That is why she allowed herself to be given in marriage to that … that quite appalling man. Oh, if she has left him, despite the scandal that will follow, I shall be so pleased! But why didn’t she tell me where she was going? Let us hurry on, Miss Grandison. Maybe I will find a note waiting for me.’
She seemed to assume that her companion would come home with her.
Ursula allowed herself to be swept along the busy street. Workers were going home and several times she found herself jostled by hurrying passers-by. The question as to whether or not it was Jackman she had seen had to be answered. She glanced behind but it was impossible to make out whether he was following them or not.
‘Miss Fentiman,’ Ursula pointed to a small general store on the corner of a street. ‘Do you mind if I obtain something for this evening?’ Without waiting for a response, she pulled the girl in with her, then pretended to be studying a display of tinned meats next to the window. She had a clear view up the street.
‘Are you not supplied with an evening meal where you are living?’
‘Oh, yes, but I was late the other night and missed it. I need to guard against having to starve for a second time.’ Ursula picked up the first tin her hand found. ‘This will do,’ she said, took it to the counter and apologised to the assistant for helping herself.
‘Oysters!’ exclaimed Rachel. ‘You have strange tastes, Miss Grandison, if that is how you sup.’
‘They bring back a happy time I spent on Chesapeake Bay,’ Ursula said brightly, wondering how she was going to make them into a meal if the need ever arose. But she had not seen any sign of Thomas Jackman. Feeling her heart suddenly lighter, she led the way out of the shop, clutching a paper-wrapped parcel.
Rachel Fentiman lived near the Embankment, in an elongated square with a church at one end. The sides were lined with terraced houses, tall, with classical columns at the front of each. Ursula was led into one somewhere near the middle. Inside was a narrow hall, with a tiled floor in black and red. It had the anonymous look typical of an establishment that let out rooms. A door on the right led into a living room.
‘I’m back, Martha,’ Rachel Fentiman called, taking off her hat.
Alice Peters appeared and flung herself into her sister’s arms.
‘Oh, Rachel; I have been such a fool,’ she said and burst into tears.
‘Please, Alice,’ said Mrs Trenchard wearily. Ursula was surprised to see her sitting in a straight-backed chair beside a desk. Rachel’s living room was large and well proportioned, furnished with a minimum of pieces and dominated by a well-stocked, breakfront bookcase. Beside it, upsetting any semblance of symmetry, was a set of open shelves crammed with more books and a pile stood on the floor threatening to overtip. There was only one picture on the walls, a portrait of a sweet-faced woman with fair hair who bore a great resemblance to Alice Peters. A tall window gave on to the square and a round table stood before it. There were only two chairs that looked at all comfortable and the room had a look that said here lived someone concerned only with practicalities.
‘Come and sit down, my sweet.’ Rachel guided her sister to one of the comfortable chairs and settled her in it. ‘Now tell me what has happened.’
‘I will take my leave,’ said Ursula, feeling a great reluctance to go but knowing that she was an intruder. ‘Perhaps we may meet up another day?’
‘No,’ said Rachel Fentiman decisively. ‘You have already seen so much, we have no secrets to hide. Do you not agree, Aunt?’
Mrs Trenchard gave a hopeless shrug. The woman who had dominated Mrs Bruton’s tea party seemed older and her air of command seemed to have slipped from her like a too-heavy cloak.
‘And you may well be able to help us once again.’ Rachel crouched down beside her sister. Alice tried to wipe her eyes with a small handkerchief that already looked quite sodden.
An elderly woman brought in a tray of tea and set it on the table in front of the window.
‘Thank you, Martha,’ said Rachel. ‘I was just about to ask you to bring some. As usual, you read my mind.’
Ursula smiled at the woman. ‘Why don’t I pour the tea?’ she suggested.
The little ceremony seemed to calm the atmosphere in the room. Ursula cut large pieces of the excellent-looking seed cake.
While attending to this task, Ursula had a good view of the square with a heavy curtain protecting her from
being seen. A postman was delivering letters to houses on the other side. Two men dressed in formal business attire descended from a cab. A middle-aged woman hurried past the window. There was no sign of Jackman.
‘I found her on my doorstep,’ said Mrs Trenchard, taking the plate with a slice of cake Ursula handed to her. ‘About to ring the bell. Dear Felix is not at all well and must not be disturbed, so I bundled her into a cab and brought her here. I am afraid she was quite unable to give me a coherent account of her activities.’ She drummed her fingers irritably on the desk. ‘Apart from the fact that she has left her husband.’
Alice Peters was shivering, her huge violet eyes swollen and red, her mouth quivering. ‘I could not stay,’ she moaned. ‘I could not stay one more minute. Not after I knew my feelings for Daniel.’
A hand banged down on the desk. ‘I never thought to hear my sister’s child abandon her duty!’ The words seemed wrenched from Mrs Trenchard, her face a cold mask. Alice Peters visibly flinched.
‘She owes no duty to that brute,’ Rachel Fentiman said angrily. She rose. ‘How can you talk like that, Aunt? What about the equality for women that you fight for?’
‘Achieving female suffrage has nothing to do with the duty a wife owes to her husband.’
‘Balderdash!’ Rachel once again crouched beside her sister. ‘Tell us everything, Alice,’ she said gently. ‘When did you decide to leave Joshua?’
Alice sat pulling at the sodden linen of her handkerchief, took a deep breath and found her composure. ‘Joshua faced me with a private detective. He told me I had been followed. He had a whole list of times and places where Daniel and I had met.’ She gave a small gasp. ‘Rachel, you would have been proud of me. I don’t know how I held myself together; Joshua was outrageous and I found myself so angry.’ She looked round the room. ‘I think that’s why I’m here. Somehow, facing Joshua and that detective, I found I was stronger than I ever thought I could be. And I determined that from now on, I would not let Joshua rule my life.’
Rachel patted the now still hands. ‘But didn’t you tell me you thought someone had been observing you?’
‘Oh, that! But I only thought maybe a young man was trying to find an opportunity to meet an unaccompanied female. I wasn’t used to going around on my own; I felt vulnerable. But I never imagined I was being followed by a detective.’
‘What did you tell Joshua?’
‘I said Daniel was a friend of yours, Rachel. Well,’ Alice glanced quickly at her aunt then looked again at her sister. ‘It’s true, isn’t it? Didn’t we meet at a poetry afternoon you took me to? Didn’t you introduce us?’
‘Quite right. Daniel and I have been friends for several years,’ Rachel said soothingly. She removed the sodden handkerchief and handed her the plate with a slice of cake that Ursula offered.
‘When we went to the menagerie, I hadn’t told you he would be there, had I?’
Rachel shook her head. ‘But I was not surprised to find him waiting for us.’ She smiled at Alice.
Her sister dropped her gaze. ‘He’d been pleading with me for weeks to leave Joshua. He said we could live on the continent, that it was cheap in the South of France. I have the income that Mama left me. It should be enough if we live simply. That is until Daniel becomes a famous author.’ She looked passionately into Rachel’s eyes. ‘He is so clever and yet he loves me; loves me as Joshua never has.’
‘We all love you, darling.’
Alice ate a little of the cake in an absent-minded way. ‘It was at the menagerie that I realised how much I needed Daniel, that I couldn’t live without him.’
‘Pshaw!’ exclaimed Mrs Trenchard. Her hand resting on the desk clenched but she said nothing further.
‘I didn’t tell Joshua that, though, when he faced me with his detective,’ Alice said proudly. ‘I couldn’t tell him then that I was going to leave him; I had to make sure that, when I went, I wasn’t followed, because if Joshua found me, he’d force me to return.’ She gave a big sigh. ‘You will never know how hard it was to keep my true feelings secret, to make him think I was still an obedient wife.’ She smiled proudly and ate more of the cake.
Ursula watched the way Alice leaned confidingly towards her sister. The girl seemed young for her years. How long had Jackman said Mr and Mrs Peters had been married? Five years? Alice could have easily passed for eighteen and yet she had been married to that brute of a husband for five years.
‘Yesterday I discovered that Joshua would be out that evening, a Masonic affair. I knew he would be late home and that he would sleep in his dressing room. So I wrote to Mrs Rokeby. Daniel had said his mother would be happy to take me in until we could leave for France. I told her I would come today. Then I wrote and told Daniel the same.’ She gave her sister another of those confiding looks. ‘Usually I would have given the letters to Millie, my maid, to post. But lately I have suspected that she has been too free with details of where I’m going. I told myself I was too suspicious; Millie and I have always been close.’ She gave a little gasp and put down the now empty plate, ‘I’ve always relied on her; in that dreadful house, she’s been my support, but how else could that detective have been able to follow me?’
‘So you didn’t tell Millie you were going to leave?’ Rachel said.
Alice shook her head. She’d taken off whatever hat she had been wearing and tendrils of fair hair hung down beside her cheeks. ‘I posted the letters myself. Last night I hardly slept. I rose very early, long before it was Millie’s time to come and wake me, and I dressed myself.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘I had trouble with my corsets and then could hardly do up my waist band; it was such a relief to have Martha pull the strings properly tight.’
Ursula could not help wondering at the girl’s anxiety about the size of her waist, then told herself she did not care enough about her own. As long as she looked neat, she was happy.
‘I left a note for Joshua and took a small bag with necessities. Nobody saw me leave.’ Another little gasp. ‘Millie will have had such a shock!’
Martha reappeared. ‘Thought you might need some hot water,’ she said, filling the teapot. ‘Are you all right now, dear?’ she said to Alice. ‘Your poor mother would be so upset to see you in this state.’
Alice smiled at her. ‘If only I had taken you as my maid after Mama passed away.’
‘There, there, my little dear. Who would have looked after your sister? Now, you let me know if there’s anything else I can do.’ She looked across at Rachel Fentiman. ‘Will there be anything else?’
‘No, thank you, Martha, that will be all.’
The woman patted Alice’s shoulder and left the room.
‘I do wish you had let me know what you meant to do, Alice,’ said Rachel, handing her cup to Ursula for a refill. ‘I could have told you that Mrs Rokeby was unexpectedly called away. Her mother is very ill in the Lake District. I met Daniel at a friend’s house three days ago and he told me he was to take her there the following day. Did you go to her house?’
Ursula offered more tea to Mrs Trenchard, who waved her away with an impatient gesture.
‘No one was there,’ Alice wailed. ‘So then I went round to Daniel’s rooms and no one was there either. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t dare come here because I was certain this was the first place Joshua would look for me. I couldn’t think where to go.’ Tears came again and Rachel found a clean handkerchief for her. ‘I wasn’t far from Regent’s Park. Daniel took me to the Zoological Gardens there a little while ago; he wanted me to see the new idea of bringing the animals out into the open instead of keeping them inside. I was amazed that camels and lions and monkeys, which are used to such hot climates, could survive our cold weather, but they do!’ Her eyes were wide with surprise. ‘And they looked so happy to be in the fresh air. Daniel said I mustn’t think they have emotions like us but they really did look happy.’ It was as though she felt it important they believed this. Gradually she had become much calmer, as though she had once again
found that inner strength she had talked about earlier.
‘So you went to the Zoological Gardens just now? Did you expect to see him there?’ Her tone suggested this would have been a vain hope.
‘Not really but they have tea rooms and I thought I could get some refreshment and work out what I should do. Even though I took cabs, I was exhausted from all the travel and carrying my bag, and everything seemed so hopeless.’ She looked like a child who had been dragged around beyond its strength. ‘I thought that perhaps Mrs Rokeby had been so scandalised by my letter she had decided not to open her house to me after all.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I tried not to think that Daniel might also have regretted encouraging me.’ Then she looked straight at her sister. ‘But I knew I could not return to Joshua. So finally the only place I could think to go was to Aunt Lydia’s. I didn’t realise that Uncle Felix was ill. I am so sorry.’ She sounded hopelessly sad.
A capacious Gladstone bag stood by the entrance door to the living room. Ursula thought of the fragile-looking Alice trailing around London with it. No wonder she was exhausted. The radiance the girl had displayed in the menagerie had vanished; she was drained of colour, a waif.
No one wanted more tea and Ursula went to sit down by the window table but a movement outside caught her eye. Thomas Jackman was unobtrusively descending the basement steps of a house across the square.
Ursula shrank back against the window curtains. Once again the man had placed her in an invidious position. She had thwarted him at the menagerie. If only he hadn’t revealed his chauvinistic attitudes, his belief in male superiority.
Alice Peters was a woman being forced to remain in an unhappy marriage. Should she continue to support her own sex or must she allow her former comrade to fulfil his contract?
‘What am I to do, Rachel?’ asked Alice.
Mrs Trenchard rose. ‘You must return to your husband, that is what you must do.’ She seemed to recover some of the authority she had shown at the tea party. ‘I am very sorry, child. It is not a marriage I would have wished on you but you agreed to it and now you must follow your duty. If you cannot do that, I suggest you go to an hotel. I cannot help you.’
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