by Robin Paige
And the Irish maid who had been hanged at Newgate for bludgeoning her mistress.
32
But answer came there none.
—SIR WALTER SCOTT The Bridal of Triermain
It was raining in a drizzly, halfhearted fashion when Charles got back on his horse after leaving Mrs. Farnsworth’s house on Keenan Street. If the lady had any answers, she had not imparted them to him. But perhaps there was another way to get to the bottom of the affair. He rode toward the village of Dedham, three miles to the north of Marsden Manor, along the River Stour.
Charles remembered Dedham quite well from the days of his youth. It was a market town for the hamlet of East Bergholt, where he had spent summers that he still recalled with joy and wonder, visiting his grandparents and wandering the wooded hills and sweet, shallow vales. Dedham lay on the south side of the river, whose lush green banks sloped into deep water, verges fringed with willow and hawthorn and populated by choirs of songbirds. Barges moved slowly westward on the river from the harbor at Manningtree, through locks at Flatford and Dedham and Stratford St. Mary.
Dedham’s High Street ran east and west along one side of a small square. On the northeast corner stood The Marlborough Head, a half-timbered building of respectable vintage that had served as a wool market in the fifteenth century, an apothecary in the seventeenth century, and finally, after 1704 and the Battle of Blenheim, as an inn, named for the first Duke of Marlborough. It had from time to time offered the young Charles a place to warm himself and eat a hot pork pie while waiting for his grandfather to complete his business. Across High Street stood the brick Grammar School, a fine Georgian building with a calm facade and stately demeanor. And on the corner opposite stood the pride of the village, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, its tower foursquare and of commanding height, founded on the wealth of the woolen industry and raised before King Henry’s bold interference in the divine order of things. The walls were faced with stone from Caen and local knapped flint had been used to construct the tower. The buttresses were outlined heavily by large quoins of dressed stone, and in the plinth of the tower was an arrangement of quatrefoiled shields, alternating with crowns. It was altogether an impressive church, the corner-stone of village life.
The vicarage was much less picturesquely impressive, designed not to celebrate the spirit but to answer the needs of the body for shelter and comfort. It stood beside the church, a solid, tidy brick residence with a slate roof, a respectable number of chimney pots, and green shutters. A carriage waited in the street, the mackintoshed driver hunched over his reins, clearly unhappy about the wet. As Charles rode up, a woman in a fur hat came out of the front door, her mouth set, her face marked by evident distress. She climbed into the carriage and drove off.
In the front hallway, Charles’s damp coat was taken by the solicitous housekeeper and he was shown into a small, dark parlor warmed by a brisk fire. A few moments later, Vicar Talbot appeared, a troubled look on his lined face and his lion’s mane of white hair disheveled, as if his pastoral shoulders still bore the burden left behind by his just-departed parishioner. The vicar was followed by the housekeeper with the tea tray, and the next few moments were spent in the business of pouring and passing. By the time Charles was settled in his overstuffed chair by the fire, teacup and muffin plate on the table beside, the vicar’s ruffled hair and troubled expression seemed somewhat soothed.
“Well, Sir Charles,” he said, relaxing into his chintz chair opposite. “What brings you out on such a dismal day?”
“A question or two,” Charles said, “concerning the man whose body was found in the Colchester digs.”
The vicar raised an eyebrow. “Ah, yes,” he said, filling his pipe with tobacco. “And what has been discovered thus far about the unfortunate gentleman?”
“Very little,” Charles admitted. “We have a nationality—French—and a name—Monsieur Armand—although whether either are precisely correct is difficult to say.”
“We?” the vicar asked. “That is, you and—”
“The police, of course,” Charles said. “Inspector Wainwright refuses to bring the Yard into a matter that clearly requires more resources than he has. I am doing what I can, which I fear is deuced little.”
“To be sure,” the vicar replied. He sipped his tea. “Nothing else has been discovered?”
“The carriage he hired, in which I found a fingerprint. Unfortunately, the victim has already been buried, so I cannot discover whether it is his fingerprint or belongs to someone else. If a suspect is found, I shall certainly attempt to take his prints and look for a match. And something else,” he added casually. “A bit of feather. Pavo christatus.”
The vicar glanced up sharply, then went back to his pipe. Watching, Charles thought he saw an intensification of the troubled look the old man had worn when he came in the room. “Found the carriage, did you?” he remarked, propping his feet on the chintz-covered stool in front of him. “That took a bit of luck.” He smiled. “Or deft detecting.”
Charles nodded. “The peacock feather, I have been told, is the insignia of the Order of the Golden Dawn.”
The vicar puffed calmly on his pipe. “Quite so,” he replied. “But peacock feathers have been the rage for some years now. Everybody has them. Even I.” He gestured at a ceramic vase of dried grass fronds and peacock feathers in the corner.
“Of course,” Charles said thoughtfully. “Still, it is a clue, and there are bloody few of them in this affair.” He paused. “You are a member of the Order, if I understood you correctly the other evening.”
“I ... am.” His reply was slow, almost reluctant.
Charles gave the other man an inquiring glance. When they talked previously, the vicar had seemed impressed with the Order, had even recommended it. Had something occurred to change his view? He spoke quietly. “I wonder, sir, if you would oblige me by telling me something of it.”
The vicar made a small grimace and shifted in his chair. “What do you want to know?”
“Something of its history, perhaps.”
“Well, then,” the vicar said, as if resigned. “I first heard of it six years ago, at a meeting of the Metropolitan College of the Society of Rosicrucians. Wynn Westcott spoke of it. He is a coroner of London—then and now, a man of utterly impeccable repute.” He shook his head slightly. There was in his face a kind of regretful disappointment, as if he were speaking of someone about whom he had held a mistakenly elevated opinion and could scarcely believe that he had been in error.
He came back to himself and began to speak again. “Dr. Westcott invited me to a meeting of the temple—the Isis-Urania Temple, it was called, newly established in London. I was delighted to be asked to enter as a Neophyte.” A tone of wry irony colored his words. “A neophyte, indeed. I fear I had much to learn, although I thought at the time I knew quite a lot.”
“Neophyte is a rank of entry?”
“Yes. The members progress through various ranks, as do the Freemasons. With the proper study and the passing of certain tests, I advanced through the grades of the Outer Order—Neophyte, Zelator, Theoricus, Practicus, and Philosophus—and thence to the Second Order, where I now stand at the Sixth Grade, as an Adeptus Major.”
“It sounds as if there is much effort involved in this work,” Charles remarked.
“I have always been interested in the magical arts, and count the time as study of little consequence.” The vicar’s mouth set in a firm, fixed line, and bitterness crept into his tone. “I have prided myself on my commitment to scientific inquiry into the occult, not out of superstitious credulousness, but on the firm foundation of objective science. To learn now that I may have been—” He bit off his sentence.
“May have been what, sir?”
The vicar straightened. “I think, Sir Charles, that I have said as much as I am able—more, perhaps, than I should have done. The Golden Dawn is, after all, a secret society, and its practices must remain confidential.”
Charles took
a different tack. “How long has Mrs. Farns-worth been a member of the Order?”
The vicar’s gaze went back to the fire. “Ah, yes. Mrs. Farnsworth.” He puffed on his pipe and a wreath of smoke rose over his head. “I first encountered the lady in the Isis-Urania Temple. An actress, then Florence Faber. Have you met?”
“This morning,” Charles said. “I called on her.”
The vicar nodded. “Her stage career, it appears, came to something of an abrupt conclusion. She apparently refused to honor a contract, which angered the play’s producers. Subsequently, a larger difficulty arose over a substantial sum of money she is said to have ... borrowed.” He paused. “I have not inquired into the details, you understand, but I gather that there were accusations on both sides, and that the matter was concluded without litigation only on the condition that her departure from the London stage be a permanent one.”
“In other words,” Charles said, “she has been black-listed.”
“So it would seem. She married an admirer—a Colchester merchant who was said to have made a substantial fortune in railroad stock. But he died shortly after the honeymoon, leaving her to discover—with some understandable shock, I daresay—that the expected fortune had melted into a sea of debts. She only just managed to keep the house on Keenan Street from going on the auctioneer’s block.”
“How does she support herself?”
“By the contributions of the wealthier members of the temple. They are glad to give generously toward the establishment of the Order in Colchester. Mrs. Farnsworth has been energetic in seeing to its expansion, and the membership here now exceeds that in Edinburgh, Bradford, and Paris, combined. She is also supported because she is a friend of Westcott’s,” he added. There was a touch of acid in his tone. “In the view of the members, Westcott is a god.”
“She does not plan to return to acting, then.”
“On the contrary, she does, although not at the present in London. Some friends of hers and Westcott’s—again, wealthy members of the temple—are working toward that end. She will play Rosalind in As You Like It, when the Grand Theatre opens early next year.”
“You mentioned Paris,” Charles said reflectively. “There is a Parisian temple, operated by someone named Mathers, I believe.”
The vicar pulled rapidly on his pipe. “Mathers. Indeed. Mathers.”
“Is he connected with the Order here in England?”
“He was,” the vicar said. The pulling became so agitated that it turned into a spate of coughing. “Fancies himself an occultist,” the vicar choked out. “Involved with the kabbalah, astrology, the tarot. An eccentric with an exaggerated sense of his own importance, in my opinion. And a trouble-maker.”
“But no immediate connection with the British Order?”
The vicar’s knuckles whitened around his pipe stem. The thought of Mathers seemed to waken some deep emotion in him, anger, perhaps even fear. “None, Sir Charles, that I am at liberty to discuss at this time.” He pushed himself to the edge of the chair. “I have only partially answered your questions, and I am distressed to thrust you out once more into the wet. But I fear that my Sunday sermon is still in a state of disrepair and requires my active attentions. Do you mind?”
“Of course not,” Charles said, setting his cup on the table. “But before you go, perhaps...” He opened his portfolio. “Can you tell me if you recognize this man?”
The vicar took the photograph. “This is the murdered man?” he asked. A tic appeared at the corner of his right eye. “Yes,” Charles said.
The vicar handed back the photograph and stood, not meeting Charles’s eye. “I am afraid I cannot help you,” he said.
Charles rose as well, hearing the evasion in the clergyman’s words. There might be answers here, but for the moment Vicar Talbot was keeping them to himself.
33
“What secrets are hidden behind the tapestry of dark?”
—MRS. BLEDSOME “The Aunt’s Revenge,” 1886
It was nearly eight when Kate heard the carriage return. A few minutes later, she heard Aunt Sabrina’s slow step on the stair, and the closing of her bedroom door. Thinking that her aunt was surely tired and hungry, Kate put on her shoes and went out into the passage. Outside Aunt Sabrina’s door, she tapped gently. When she heard a blurred sound she took to be an assent, she opened the door and went in.
Aunt Sabrina was sitting at her dressing table with her back to the door, her head in her hands. She did not look up or turn around.
“You must be tired, Aunt Sabrina,” Kate said gently. She needn’t tell her now about the altercation in the kitchen, or Tom Potter; the tale had to be told, but it could wait until she was rested. “Would you like me to fix you a bit of hot supper? I could bring it up on a tray.”
Aunt Sabrina raised her head and looked at Kate in the dressing table mirror. Her face was gray and old-looking and her eyes were darkly hollowed, but she managed a small smile. “You needn’t bother, dear,” she said. “I am not hungry.”
Kate stared at her aunt’s reflection in shocked silence. What had happened during her meeting with Mrs. Famsworth—if that was where she had gone—to turn her skin the color of putty?
Aunt Sabrina turned around. “My dear Kathryn,” she said, and then stopped. For a moment she hesitated, as if deciding whether she should speak and how much she should say. Then she seemed to come to some painful resolution and began again, her voice faltering a little.
“Kathryn, I know you are concerned for my well-being, and I very much wish that I could share with you what has transpired today. But I cannot.” The lines around her mouth were deeply drawn and the crepey skin below her eyes was smudged with weariness.
“I understand,” Kate said, genuinely touched by her aunt’s obvious dilemma. She turned to go, but Aunt Sabrina gestured, seeming to want to speak. Kate waited.
“There is one thing more,” she said at last. “Please do not distress yourself about your aunt Jaggers, Kathryn. Whatever I must do, I shall do, and quickly.” Her voice took on a brittle metallic ring and her eyes, steely now, met Kate’s directly. “You will not be sent away. And if something should happen to me, I have seen to it that your future here at Bishop’s Keep is secure.”
“Thank you, Aunt,” Kate said. But she was frightened by the tone of her aunt’s voice. What did Aunt Sabrina fear that she would have to do to restrain Aunt Jaggers?
But it was not a question Kate could ask, and when she sought her aunt’s eyes again, they were hooded and remote. Kate sensed that she had come at last to some decision, to a choice that brought with it both a desperate regret and a profound pain, so pervasive and wounding that Kate could only guess at its depth and dimension.
Aunt Sabrina turned around again. “Now please allow me to be alone,” she said. “I have a great deal to consider.” Her shoulders slumped and her voice dropped, so that Kate almost did not hear her next words. “I fear that my future has been greatly altered—and not just mine, but that of persons for whom I care.”
The distance between them was only a few steps. Kate ached to cross it and put her arms around her aunt. But she could not. Whatever was troubling Aunt Sabrina was something she had decided to bear alone. With a murmured “Sleep well” she left. She had the disquieting sense that she was closing the door on a tragedy.
Back in her room, Kate considered whether she should go to bed. But if she did, she would only lie restlessly awake. So she gathered up her papers and went downstairs to the library, where she lighted the oil lamp beside the shrouded Remington. It was after eight o’clock and the old house was silent, the servants in their quarters, Aunt Jaggers in her west wing suite, Aunt Sabrina in her room. It was a good time to type the chapter she had just completed, and to revise and expand it as she went.
Caught up in her work, Kate spent far more time than she had expected. According to the loudly ticking grandfather clock in the corner, it was close to eleven when she finished the last page to her satisfaction. She po
ked up the dying fire, added coal, and sat beside it in the tall wing chair to read what she had written. Then, seeing that the lamp was about to run out of oil, she turned it out and sat for a few minutes longer in the dark, watching the last flickers of the fire, letting her mind go to the questions that seemed most central to her life at Bishop’s Keep.
What was the source of the enmity between Aunt Sabrina and Aunt Jaggers? But, of course, that was an unanswerable question, for it was impossible to know what secrets were buried in the intimacies of sisters. The complex tapestry of the present was woven out of threads of the past, of old loves, old hates, old sins, even old slights. The thing that seemed most trivial, most innocent in intention, was often most deeply felt and long remembered.
But the question still remained, as tantalizing as a book in some foreign tongue. What ancient silence did Aunt Jaggers threaten to break? What secret did she know that Aunt Sabrina feared to have revealed—so greatly feared that she allowed Aunt Jaggers to violate moral principles that she held dear? How did this matter concern the vicar, who seemed like an entirely pleasant and harmless old man? And how did Aunt Sabrina intend—if that was her intention—to break her sister’s hold over her? Kate shifted in the wing chair, drawing her stockinged feet up under her. And what had happened during the afternoon and evening to bring Aunt Sabrina home looking like death warmed over?
Kate pondered the question for a long time, while the fire burned down and the room grew colder. They were questions like those she often created in her story-making, but they had a real-life urgency that she never experienced in her writing. And they were unanswerable precisely because she did not have control over what real people did or thought or believed, as she did over the characters in her novels. It was easy enough for her hero to solve the crime that she put before him, complete with clues that invited his deduction. Not so easy for her to understand the intricacies of a plot she had not contrived, or the hearts of people whose secrets were hidden from her, and perhaps even from themselves.