Penelope’s first awareness that something was badly wrong was when she approached the Earl’s great mansion and found that the pavement and the road had been thickly strewn with straw to muffle the wheels of the passing carriages.
Someone must be ill! Surely not the Earl.
Then with a lurch at her heart she saw that a grim lozenge-shaped board had been hammered up over the drawing room window.
A hatchment!
Death!
Standing still, with her feet in the straw, Penelope stared up at the board, trying to make out the coat of arms on the hatchment. Then she slowly dragged her way up the steps and rapped on the knocker.
Rourke, the Earl’s butler, answered the door, and Penelope’s frightened eyes flew to the black band on his arm.
“Roger,” she whispered. “What has happened to Roger?”
“It is not my master,” said Rourke coldly, his usually pleasant face like a mask. “My young lord, the Viscount Clairmont, is dead, Miss Vesey.”
“What happened?” asked Penelope, trying to suppress a guilty feeling of relief.
“A seizure of the heart, miss,” said Rourke. “And now if you will excuse me …”
“But Roger … where is Roger?” cried Penelope. “I must go to him.”
She made to cross the hall, but Rourke barred her way.
“I am very sorry, miss,” he said, “but I have instructions from the Earl that you are not to be admitted.”
Penelope stared at him, wide-eyed, and then raised a trembling hand to her mouth. “Roger? Not see me?” she said faintly. “You must be mistaken.”
“No, miss,” replied the butler with an impassive face. “My instructions are very clear.”
He politely held the street door wide open and inclined his head.
He then stood on the doorstep and watched as the slight figure of Penelope was swallowed up in the darkness of the empty square.
“Rourke!” The butler turned at the sound of his master’s voice and, shutting the street door, walked towards the drawing room.
The Earl sat slumped in a George Smith armchair in front of the fire, his long fingers grasping the brass sphinxes on the armrests so tightly that his knuckles showed white.
“That was Miss Vesey,” he said in a flat voice.
“What did she want?”
The butler cleared his throat. “Miss Vesey did not know of the death of Lord Charles, my lord. When I told her—as … er … per instructions—that my young lord had been taken of a seizure, she asked to see you, my lord. I informed her of your lordship’s instructions, and Miss Vesey left.”
“Who was with her?” demanded the Earl harshly.
“That great, fat, white spider, Augusta Harvey?”
“No, my lord. Miss Vesey was not even accompanied by a maid.”
The Earl stared for some moments into the empty fireplace and, as Rourke was about to retire, he turned in his chair and faced the butler squarely. Rourke was taken aback by the bitterness in his set, white face. “I trust you have obeyed my instructions,” said the Earl. “Only you and I, the undertaker and the doctor, Rourke, know of how Charles took his life—and only you and I know of the letter he left. I would not like you to forget …”
“Indeed, my lord,” said Rourke, “I am in no danger of ever forgetting.”
And indeed the butler thought that scene would be burned into his brain until the day he died. He could still see the shattered mess that had been Lord Charles slumped over the desk, and the Earl standing over him, reading a letter. The Earl had looked up as Rourke had entered the room and had silently handed him the letter. Rourke had been in his father’s employ and had known the Earl since he was a baby.
The handwriting had been very shaky but the reason Charles had taken his own life had been all too clear. “My dear Roger,” he had written. “I have been working as a Bonapartiste spy. Augusta Harvey found out, but said she would not tell anyone, provided I made sure you married her niece, Penelope. Augusta and Penelope planned to enter the social world via a good marriage. But Augusta will never let me go. This is the only way I can escape her and escape bringing disgrace on our name. Forgive me, Roger.” Here the writing had trailed away in a pathetic line of blots.
In a cold, metallic voice the Earl had rapped out his instructions. The manner of Charles’s death must be kept a secret—and Penelope Vesey must never again be allowed to cross the threshold. Rourke had been appalled at the idea of Augusta getting off Scot-free, but the Earl had pointed out that to drag Augusta through the courts would only bring shame on Charles’s memory. “I am sure Charles did not pass on any information worth anything,” he had said. “He was always dropping in on Horseguards to visit old Witherspoon and Witherspoon knows no secrets at all but is excellent at making them up while he is in his cups.”
The Earl however had vowed to call on a certain Comte de Chernier, only to find that the Comte had mysteriously disappeared.
Now he wearily turned over in his mind the final arrangements for Charles’s funeral. The doctor, long in service to the family, had been persuaded to give a certificate of death from natural causes. The Earl would convey Charles’s body to Wyndham Court in the morning where it would be placed in the family vault. But before he departed, he had a letter to write, a letter that should shatter the social-climbing ambitions of Miss Harvey and her niece.
Rourke quietly left the room, softly closing the double doors while the Earl sat like a statue, remembering Penelope’s laughter and the feel of her young body in his arms. He realised with a shock that when she had sung that song, “The Harlot’s Progress,” on the first night they had met, she had not been trying to antagonise him but merely revealing herself in her true colors. She has the body of a virgin but the soul of a harlot, he thought savagely. The very thought of her filled him with complete and utter disgust.
He moved wearily over to a kneehole Chippendale writing table at the window and began to sharpen a quill. “My dear Penelope,” he began …
Penelope put down the letter the following day with trembling fingers and then picked it up again, although she already knew each bitter and acid word by heart.
“My dear Penelope,” she read. “Although I enjoyed our pastoral idyll, I feel, on reflection, that we should not suit. Our social backgrounds are too far apart and, although I much enjoyed your favors, my dear, I would much perfer a lady as my Countess. Please send a notice of the termination of our engagement to the Gazette. I am sure it would be too embarrassing for both of us should we meet again. To that end, I have told my butler to refuse you admittance. You will realise I have your best wishes at heart. I remain Yr. Most Humble and Devoted Servant, Roger, Earl of Hestleton.”
Augusta bustled into the room and looked sharply at Penelope’s white face and then at the letter in her hands.
“What is it?” she demanded.
Penelope silently handed her the letter. Augusta read it closely and then gave a harsh laugh. “Pay no attention. His brother is dead, did you know?”
Penelope nodded.
“Well then. He’s feeling bitter, that’s all. He’ll come around. There’s something havey-cavey about young Charles’s death, though. My footman had it from Hestleton’s footman that there was the sound of a shot from the study and nobody’s been allowed to see the body.” Her protruding eyes narrowed as she looked at the letter again.
“He says here he enjoyed your favors. What favors?” she rapped.
Penelope dropped her eyes. She would never, ever tell anyone what had really happened or her life would indeed be ruined—if it could possibly be ruined more than it was already.
“As an engaged couple,” she whispered, “we naturally were very affectionate.”
“How affectionate?” demanded Augusta, coming to stand over her trembling niece.
“A few kisses, that is all,” whispered Penelope.
“You fool,” sneered Augusta. “You should have got him into bed and kept him there. Well, we must play his little gam
e. I’ll send a notice, cancelling the engagement. But, harkee, I’m not going to waste all the blunt I laid out on a wardrobe for you, miss. I thought to send you packing if ever you failed to nab the Earl. But I’m not doing so badly on my own with Euphemia Stride to monitor me. Though why a body isn’t allowed to open her own mouth, I can’t say. Euphie says if I just sit still and say nothing, ‘tis better. So, now we come to you.
“I had hoped, you see, that you would marry the Earl and, who knows, you may yet. In fact, that was why I asked you to London. I would then have used the Earl to get invited to all the best houses.”
She rattled on, unaware of Penelope’s stricken face. “Don’t worry. I ain’t going to send you packing … yet. It so happens that Lord Barrington was saying to Miss Stride only the other day that you was ‘a demned fine-looking gel’ and it occurs to me, we might go further and fare worse than to have my Lord Barrington as your beau.”
“But Lord Barrington is married, he’s about sixty, and he has a terrible reputation as a roué,” gasped Penelope.
“His wife is ailing,” said Augusta cynically, “and Barrington is invited everywhere.”
Penelope shook her head in bewilderment. She could not quite believe her eyes as she stared at her aunt. It was as if the painted Augusta had stepped down from her picture frame.
“Let me see if I understand you, Aunt,” said Penelope slowly. “For some reason, you do not seem to find Roger’s rejection of me strange …”
“Get it into your head that the engagement’s at an end,” said Augusta brutally. “That kind of aristocrat don’t like common blood being injected into their families, God rot ‘em. But as I said, he may come round yet, but I don’t aim to put any money on it. You’ve still got a roof over your head and clothes on your back so what more’s bothering you?”
“I thought you cared for me,” said Penelope in a low voice. “Now you tell me that you are simply using me to further your social ambitions and want me to consort with an elderly, married roué.”
“You don’t mince your words, do you?” smiled Augusta. “So I’ll let you have it in plain language. I only care for what your pretty face can get us in the way of a title. I would tell you not to cancel the engagement and sue the Earl for breach of promise but that will get us nowhere. Not with that high and mighty Lord’s connections. And while we’re waiting around to see what he’ll do, Lord Barrington may escape. Be reasonable. You don’t have to work for a living and there’s plenty more fish in the sea. I’ll have you married yet. If you don’t like it, you can get out!”
Penelope thought desperately, fighting against the waves of shock that engulfed her; first the Earl’s letter, now this. But she was sure Roger had made a mistake about her, had heard some malicious gossip. He could not have murmured all those words of love or have made all those plans for their future life together unless he were sincere. Made cunning by desperation, and determined to stay in London until she could at least see Roger again, Penelope schooled her face as she raised her eyes to her aunt.
“I will do what you say, Aunt,” she said in a trembling voice. “Only, do not expect me to see Lord Barrington immediately. I am very upset over Roger.”
“You’ll get over it,” said Augusta cynically. “And who knows, I may be a Countess before you.”
Penelope stared at her aunt in amazement. “Are you considering marrying, Aunt?”
Augusta bit her fat lip. How easy it was to let secrets slip. But she could not resist saying, “Just you wait and see, my girl. Just you wait and see.”
Penelope picked up the letter and her sewing and left the room. She could not stand to be in her aunt’s presence a minute longer. She had forgiven Augusta her many vulgarities and rudenesses, believing that Augusta was underneath kind and generous and had only the welfare of her niece at heart. Had she not been so determined to meet the Earl again, face-to-face, Penelope would have left the house that minute.
Augusta watched the girl as she left the room and noticed Penelope’s white face and the droop of her shoulders.
I hope she doesn’t mope too long, thought Augusta. She’ll spoil all those marketable good looks if she goes on pining.
She turned her mind to the mystery of Charles’s death. The Comte de Chernier had left London as soon as he had heard the news and had gone into hiding in a villa in Barnet where he was known as Mr. Cobbett. He had told Augusta that he did not for one minute believe Charles had had a seizure, but that he had probably taken his own life and left a note. Why, Charles had been threatening just such a thing the day before his death! “The Earl can’t do much to you,” the Comte had said to her, “But I wouldn’t put it past the Earl to come looking for me with a brace of pistols if Charles told him anything about me! Try to find out what you can about Charles’s death.”
Augusta reflected that it would be just like a snivelling weakling like Charles to commit suicide. He had certainly behaved like a madman at her portrait party. Augusta had found nothing amiss with her portrait and was very proud of it indeed, and a very surprised Mr. Liwoski had received his fee instead of the scene he expected. He had not meant to paint such a monster, but Augusta had not given him any time to lie with paintbrush and so he had portrayed simply what he had seen.
Augusta looked fondly up at her portrait above the fireplace as she waited for the return of her footman, Snyle. She had given Snyle a quantity of money and instructions to buy Rourke, the Earl’s butler, as many drinks as possible and to find out the secret of Viscount Clairmont’s death. Snyle had informed her that today was the butler’s day off, the Earl having taken only his valet with him to the country and that although Rourke was as closemouthed as an oyster, he had a weakness for drink which he only indulged in his free time.
It was now late afternoon, and Snyle had been gone since midday.
At last Augusta saw the powdered head of her footman passing the drawing room window. In a few moments Snyle sidled into the room. He was a thin tall man with a pockmarked face and eyes as cunning as Augusta’s own.
“I got what you wanted, mum,” he said triumphantly.
“Out with it!” commanded Augusta.
Snyle had indeed been successful in lubricating the Earl’s butler to the maudlin point where the butler had drunkenly muttered out the secret of Charles’s death. Augusta listened with her eyes gleaming. It gave her a delicious feeling of power. But her enjoyment fled as her eyes met the malicious eyes of the servant.
“What are you staring at me like that for?” she snapped.
“There was a note, mum,” said Snyle running a pale tongue over his lips. “Lord Charles said in it how he was a Bonapartiste spy and how you’d been blackmailing him to get the Earl to marry Miss Vesey.”
“And so?” queried Augusta with sudden amiability, but thinking, So that is why the Earl terminated the engagement!
“And so, mum, to put it bluntly—it’s going to cost you a packet to get me to keep my mouth shut.”
Augusta slapped her knee and gave a jolly laugh. “If you ain’t a one, Snyle,” she said with great good humor, and, fumbling for something in her large reticule, she got to her feet. “Well, you’re as bad as me, no doubt of that. We may as well have a drink to seal the bargain.”
She picked up a decanter from the side table and stood with her back to him. “Not that I suppose you’ll appreciate this. It’s a good vintage.”
She poured a glass and Snyle took it from her. This was all going easier than he had thought. His fortune was made. He took a great draft of wine, his eyes bulged hideously, and then his feet performed a mad dance on the floor. His back arched and his face turned purple. He clawed at his cravat and then fell lifeless to the floor.
Lucky I had that poison handy, said Augusta to herself. And to think that Euphie Stride gave it to me to put down rats!
She dragged the footman over to a corner behind a sofa and then, pulling a holland cover out of a cupboard, she threw it over the servant’s body and then rang the bel
l.
When her butler appeared, she told that surprised man that she wanted the house to herself for the evening and that all the servants could go to Hyde Park again to see the peace celebrations which were still going on.
She then sat, after he had left, watching the pale light deepening to blue on the narrow street outside, listening for the sounds of the servants leaving by the area steps.
In the little music room across the hallway, Penelope was playing a jaunty song from Mozart’s opera, The Magic Flute, but singing the words so sadly that she might as well have been playing a dirge.
A bustling, a rap of heels, and shouts of laughter moving up the area steps and then diminishing along the street told Augusta that all the servants had finally left. She got to her feet and moved quickly across the dark hallway to the music room. The key was in the door outside and Augusta softly turned it and locked the door.
Then she returned to the drawing room and, with surprising strength, hefted the body of Snyle up onto her back. She crossed the hallway with her macabre burden. The flickering light from the parish lamp in the street outside threw the shadow of Augusta with the servant on her back dancing up the stairs, like some great humpbacked monster. Augusta paused with her head on one side as Penelope began to sing again.
“Only friendship’s harmony,” Penelope sang sadly,
“Softens every sorrow.
We without this sympathy,
Ne’er could face tomorrow!”
“Pretty,” thought Augusta, momentarily diverted. “Very pretty.”
She made her way to the cellar door and kicked it open. She dropped her bundle at the top of the cellar stairs and went to fetch a branch of candles.
Still leaving the dead servant at the top of the stairs, Augusta went down into the cellar and looked around until she found what she wanted. She then climbed up the cellar stairs, collected the body, and lumbered back down with it. She dropped her burden again and pried open the top of a cask of canary. With a great heave she got the body of Snyle back on her shoulders and then slowly slid it into the barrel, moving quickly back as a wave of wine slopped over the side. Then she hammered the lid back down and marked the barrel with a red cross.
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