Brunswick Gardens

by Anne Perry

  “Yes. Would you like a cup of tea? It’s still hot.”

  “Yes, please.” She sat down, leaving him to fetch another cup and pour it for her. She started to read the letter nearest to her, frowning as she did.

  He put the tea beside her but she was too absorbed to notice. She picked up a second letter, and a third, and a fourth and fifth. He watched her face and saw incredulity and amazement deepen into a fierce concentration as she read faster and faster.

  “Your tea’s getting cold,” he observed.

  “Mm …” she replied absently.

  “Extraordinary, aren’t they?” he went on.

  “Mm …”

  “Can you think why he would write such things?” he asked.

  “What?” She looked up for the first time. She put her hand out absently for the cup and sipped from it. She pulled a face. “It’s cold!”

  “I told you.”

  “What?”

  “I told you it was getting cold.”

  “Oh. Did you?”

  He stood up patiently, took the cup from her and poured the tepid tea down the sink, then took the kettle and topped up the teapot, left it a moment, then poured her a fresh cup.

  “Thank you.” She smiled and took it.

  “Waited on hand and foot,” he murmured, sitting down again and refilling his own cup.

  “Thomas …” She was thinking deeply. She had not even heard what he had said. She was placing the letters in pairs.

  “Letter and answer?” he asked. “They do seem to go in twos, don’t they?”

  “No …” she said with rising intensity in her voice. “No, they’re not letters and answers. Look at them! Look at them carefully. Look at the way this one begins.” She started to read.

  “ ‘You who are dearest to me, how can I express to you the loneliness I feel when we are separated? The distance between us is immeasurable, and yet thoughts may fly across it, and I can reach you in heart and mind—’ ”

  “I know what it says,” he interrupted. “It’s nonsense. The distance between them was nothing at all, a different room in the same house, at the most.”

  She dismissed him with an impatient little jerk of her head. “And look at this: ‘My own beloved, my hunger for you is inexpressible. When we are apart I drown in a void of loneliness, engulfed in the night. Infinity yawns between us. And yet I have but to think of you and neither heaven nor hell could bar my way. The void disappears and you are with me.’ ” She stopped, staring at him. “Well, don’t you see?”

  “No,” he admitted. “It is still absurd, just more dramatically put. All her letters are more intense than his, and phrased a great deal more graphically. I told you that before.”

  “No!” she said urgently, leaning forward over the table. “I mean, it is almost exactly the same thought—just more passionately worded! They all fall into pairs, Thomas. Idea for idea. Even in the same order.”

  He put down his cup. “What are you saying?”

  “I don’t think they’re love letters at all—I mean, not in the sense that they wrote them to each other,” she answered eagerly. “They were both students of ancient literature: he only of theological things, but she of all sorts. I think these are two different translations of the same originals.”

  “What?”

  “The rather drier ones are his, in his hand.” She pointed to them. “The more graphic, more passionate ones are hers. She saw the sexual connotations in them, or put it there herself; he was much more metaphorical or spiritual. I’d lay a wager with you that if we search the house, probably the study, we’ll find the original Latin or Greek or Hebrew, or whatever, of these letters.” Again she waved her hand at them, touching her cup with the sleeve of her gown. “They were probably written by some early saint who fell away, or was drawn into temptation by some wretched woman, no doubt branded an eternal sinner for her ability to draw the said saint away from the path of sanctity. But whoever he was, we’ll find one original from which each pair of these is taken.” She pushed them across to him, her face shining with certainty.

  He took them slowly and placed them side by side, comparing the passages as she pointed to them. She was right. All through they were essentially the same ideas expressed in different ways, or by two personalities who were utterly unlike in all their perceptions, their emotions, their use of words, every way in which they saw the world both without and within.

  “Yes …” he said with rapidly growing assurance also. “Yes … they are! Ramsay and Unity were never in love. These are only one more issue over which they couldn’t agree. He saw them as declarations of divine love; she saw them as passionate love between a man and a woman, and interpreted them as such. He kept them all because they were part of whatever it was he was working on.”

  She smiled back at him. “Exactly. It makes infinitely more sense. The idea of Ramsay being the father of her child can be forgotten completely.” She made a sweeping movement with her hand and nearly knocked the milk jug onto the floor.

  Pitt moved it to a safer place.

  “Which leaves Mallory,” she said with a frown. “And he swears he did not leave the conservatory, and yet that he didn’t see Unity, either. And we know she went in there while he was there, because of the stain on her shoe.”

  “And he didn’t leave the conservatory during that time,” he agreed, “because there was no stain on his shoes.”

  “You checked?”

  “Of course I checked. So did Tellman.”

  “So she went in … and he didn’t leave … so he lied. Why? If he could prove he didn’t leave the conservatory, what difference does it make if she went in and spoke to him or not?”

  “None,” he conceded. He drank his tea. Actually, he was getting hungry. “I’ll make some toast.” He stood up.

  “You’ll burn it,” she observed, standing also. “Perhaps I should make breakfast? Would you like eggs?”

  “Yes, please.” He sat down again quickly, smiling.

  She gave him a look of swift understanding of exactly what he had done, but was quite happy to cook, after directing him to stoke the fire again.

  It was about half an hour later when they were enjoying bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade and a fresh pot of tea that she returned to the subject.

  “It doesn’t make a great deal of sense as it is,” she said with her mouth full. “But if we could find the originals of those letters, we could at least be sure there was no affair between Ramsay and Unity. Apart from coming closer to the truth, don’t you think in honor we should do that? Her family must be heartbroken. Mrs. Parmenter must feel utterly betrayed. I couldn’t bear it if I thought you could write letters like that to someone else.”

  He nearly swallowed his bacon whole.

  She burst into laughter. “All right, they are not quite your way of putting things,” she agreed.

  “Not quite …” He gulped with difficulty.

  “But we should go and look,” she urged, reaching for the teapot.

  “Yes, I’ll have Tellman do it tomorrow.”

  “Tellman! He wouldn’t know a clerical love letter if it landed on his breakfast table in front of him.”

  “Not very likely,” he said dryly.

  “I think we should go. Today would be a good time.”

  “It’s Sunday!” he protested.

  “I know that. There will probably be no one at home.”

  “There’ll be everybody at home!”

  “No, there won’t. They are a church family. They’ll all be at the Sunday service. There’ll probably be a memorial for Ramsay. They’ll be bound to be there.”

  He hesitated. He wanted to spend the day quietly at home with his wife and children. On the other hand, if they could find the letters it would prove that Ramsay was innocent at least of that. Which would not help a great deal.

  But the longer he thought of it, the more he was driven to seek the truth immediately. He could put it off until tomorrow and do it when the whole fam
ily was at home. It would be more open and more distressing for them then. And he would have no pleasure today because his mind would be still on Ramsay Parmenter until the question was answered.

  “Yes … I suppose so,” he agreed, finishing the last of his bacon and stretching across for the toast and marmalade. “We might as well do it now as wait until tomorrow.”

  Charlotte never even contemplated the possibility of being left in Keppel Street while Pitt went to Brunswick Gardens. He could not conduct a satisfactory search without her. The matter did not arise.

  They reached the front door at a quarter to eleven, an excellent time to find everyone away from home, either already at church or on their way. Emsley let them in, registering only the faintest surprise at seeing Charlotte.

  “Good morning, Emsley,” Pitt said with a brief smile. “It came to me at the breakfast table this morning how certain letters which seemed to implicate Mr. Parmenter in unfortunate conduct might actually have a very different, and quite innocent, explanation.”

  “Indeed, sir?” Emsley’s face brightened.

  “Yes. It was Mrs. Pitt who prompted the idea. It is something with which she is familiar, so I brought her with me in order to recognize it the more certainly. If I may go into Mr. Parmenter’s study, I shall search through his papers for the original. That will prove the matter.”

  “Yes, yes, of course, sir!” Emsley said eagerly. “I am afraid the family are all at church, Mr. Pitt. It is a memorial service for Mr. Parmenter, and likely to take some little while. I’m sorry, sir. May I offer you any refreshment?” He turned to Charlotte. “Ma’am?”

  She smiled at him charmingly. “No, thank you. But I think we should begin with the matter at hand. If we can conclude it before anyone returns, it would be the most heartening news we could offer them.”

  “Indeed, ma’am. I do hope so!” Emsley backed towards the stairs even as he spoke, eager to have them on their way, and bowed slightly, excusing himself.

  Pitt started up and Charlotte followed him, glancing at the extraordinary hall with its mosaic floor and rich colored tiles on the wall along the first stage, and the Corinthian pillars supporting the landing. It really was most unusual. The huge potted palm at the bottom beneath the upper newel seemed almost ordinary by comparison. It was directly beneath where Unity would have stood when she was pushed. Charlotte hesitated as Pitt strode across the landing towards the study. She would follow him in a moment.

  She turned and looked down the stairs at the hallway. It was beautiful, but she could not imagine it as home. What a seething passion there must have been in this house to cause so violent an eruption and two deaths … what love—and hate.

  Pitt and Dominic between them had told her much of Unity, and she was fairly sure that she would not have liked her. But there were certain aspects of her character that Charlotte admired, and she understood something of Unity’s frustration, the arrogance and the condescension which had made her strike back. The injustice was intolerable.

  But she had aborted Dominic’s child. That Charlotte could never understand, when Dominic was there and prepared to marry her. It was not done from fear, desperation, or the feeling of having been betrayed.

  What of the child she had been carrying when she died? Had she intended to abort this one also? She was at least three months into the pregnancy. She must have been well aware of her condition. Charlotte remembered her own pregnancies—first with Jemima, then with Daniel. She had been sick only a little, but the giddiness and the nausea had been too pronounced ever to doubt or to ignore. At first she had not put on any weight, but by the third month there was a pronounced thickening around her waist, and other alterations of a more intimate nature.

  Pitt came back out of the study door, looking for her.

  She went up the last step and across the landing.

  “Sorry,” she apologized hastily, following him in and closing the door.

  He looked at her. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes, I was just thinking … about Unity, how she felt.”

  He touched her very gently, holding her arm for a moment, meeting her eyes, then went back to the bookcases, where he had already started searching for the originals of the letters.

  She began with the lower shelves and flipped through one book after another, setting each aside as it proved irrelevant.

  “I’m going to look in the library,” she said after about fifteen minutes. “If she was working down there, it could be there rather than here.”

  “Good idea,” he agreed. “I’ll finish all these and the ones behind the desk.”

  But when she was outside, another thought seized her, and glancing around to make sure no one was in sight, she slipped along the corridor towards the bedrooms. She tried the first one, and guessed it was Tryphena’s from the book by Mary Wollstonecraft on the bedside table. The furniture was mainly in pinks, which somehow suited Tryphena’s soft coloring.

  The next room was far larger and extremely feminine, even though the colors were bolder and it had an exotic and very modern air, rather like the main reception room of the house. This was Vita’s taste—touches of the Arabic, the Turkish, and even a Chinese lacquered box by the window.

  She stepped in and closed the door, her heart beating high in her chest. There was no earthly excuse if she were caught here. Please heaven the maids were all at the service!

  She tiptoed across to the dressing table, glanced at the jars of lavender water, attar of roses, the hairbrushes and combs. Then she opened the top drawer. There were several little pillboxes, some gilded and enameled, one of carved soapstone, one of ivory. She unscrewed the first. Half a dozen pills. They could have been anything. She undid the second. A pair of gold cuff links with initials engraved on them—D.C. Dominic Corde!

  She replaced the top with hands trembling a little. She searched further. She found a handkerchief with a D embroidered on it. There was a pearl-faced collar stud, a small penknife, a single glove, a note for a sermon written on the back of a menu but in Dominic’s writing. She knew it from years ago. It had not changed.

  She closed the drawer with both hands shaking so visibly she had to sit still and breathe deeply for several moments before she could compose herself sufficiently to stand up and cross back to the door. She could feel her face burning with memory. Ten years ago she had been obsessed with Dominic, so in love with him she could repeat everything he said to her days afterwards. When he came into the room she was almost tongue-tied with emotion. She knew every gesture of his hands, every glance or expression of his face. She followed where he had walked, touched the things he had touched, as if they held some imprint of him even after he had gone. She collected small things that he had lost or no longer wanted—a handkerchief, a sixpence, a pen he had thrown away.

  She did not need any deductions to know exactly what Vita had done, and why.

  She opened the door slowly and looked around. There was no one. She slipped out and closed the door, going back to the head of the stairs again. Apart from Tryphena, Vita was the only one who could not possibly have pushed Unity. Had Dominic any idea how Vita felt about him?

  Anyone else might think it beyond belief that he could not. But Charlotte knew absolutely that he had had no idea how she herself had felt. She recalled vividly his horror and incredulity when he had learned.

  Once was possible … but was that ignorance possible twice? Had he known and been … What? Flattered, frightened, embarrassed? Or was it Unity who had seen it and threatened to make it public, to tell Ramsay?

  She stood at the top of the stairs again and looked down. The house was silent. Emsley would be waiting somewhere not very far away, in case Pitt called, probably wherever the bells rang, which would be in the servants’ hall and the butler’s pantry. There might be a kitchen maid somewhere, preparing a cold midday meal. There seemed to be no one else, except Pitt in the study.

  Unity had quarreled with Ramsay, as had happened so often before. She
had stormed out, come along the corridor and across the landing to go downstairs. She had stood there, where Charlotte was now. Perhaps she had shouted one more thing back towards Ramsay, then turned again to go downstairs. She would have held on to the banister rail probably. What if she had slipped?

  But there was nothing to slip on or to trip over.

  What if she had broken a heel?

  But she hadn’t. Her shoes had been perfect, except for the stain from the conservatory floor.

  Could she have been dizzy? She was three months with child. Dizzy enough to fall downstairs?

  Not very likely.

  Charlotte leaned a little over the banister rail and looked down. The potted palm was directly below her. She found it rather an ugly thing. She did not like palms inside the house. They always looked a trifle dusty, and this particular one was full of spikes where old fronds had been cut off. There were probably spiders in it, and dead flies. Disgusting! But how could anyone clean such a thing?

  There was something caught in it now! Something about an inch and a half square, and pale. Heaven only knew what that could be!

  She went down the stairs slowly, tiptoeing again without knowing why. She peered at the palm from a closer vantage point. The object was wedged between the main trunk and one of the shorn-off spikes. It was cube shaped, or almost.

  She moved a little to try to see it from a different angle. The top of it looked like raw wood. But when she bent down to peer through the banisters, the side caught the light, as if it were satin. What on earth could it be?

  She went all the way down and squeezed behind the huge brass pot and put her hand in among the fronds, gritting her teeth against the risk of spiders. She had to fumble for several moments before her fingers found the object and pulled it out. It was the heel of a woman’s shoe.

  How long had it been there?

  Since Unity broke it in falling? Perhaps she had been a little dizzy, turned too quickly, broke the heel and then, losing her balance, called out instinctively, even as she pitched down, a cry of terror as she realized what was happening?

  But when she was found her shoe had not been broken!