Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 04]

by Resurrection Row

  The old lady was momentarily silenced.

  “Godolphin Jones seems to be away at the moment, anyway,” Vespasia observed. “I am informed he is in France. It seems to be the obligatory thing for artists to do. One can hardly call oneself an artist in society if one has not been to France.”

  “Gone away?” Major Rodney sputtered in his drink and sneezed. “For how long? When is he due back?”

  Vespasia looked a trifle surprised. “I have no idea. You might try sending to his house if it is important to you, although from what my own servants say, they have no idea either. Being unreliable seems also to be part of the professional character.”

  “Oh, no!” Major Rodney said hastily, grabbing a game pastry and dropping it. “No, not at all! I was merely trying to be helpful!” He picked up the pasty again, and it fell apart on the tablecloth. Virgil Smith handed him a napkin and a plate, then helped him scoop it up with a knife.

  The old lady made a noise of disgust and turned to look the other way. “I suppose he is a competent artist?” she said loudly.

  “He fetches a very high price,” Miss Priscilla replied. “Very high, indeed. I saw the portrait of Gwendoline Cantlay, and she told me what she had paid for it. I must say, I thought it a great deal, even for a good likeness.”

  “And that is about all it is.” Carlisle’s mouth turned down. “A good likeness. It catches something of her character; it would be hard for a likeness not to, but it is not art. One would not wish for it unless one was fond of Gwendoline herself.”

  “Is that not the purpose of a portrait?” Miss Mary Ann inquired innocently.

  “A portrait, perhaps,” Carlisle agreed. “But not of a painting. A good painting should be a pleasure to anyone, whether they know the subject or not.”

  “Overrated,” the old lady nodded. “And overpaid. I shall not pay him that much. If Gwendoline Cantlay did, then she is a fool.”

  “Hester St. Jermyn paid something similar,” Miss Priscilla said with her mouth full. “And I do know dear Hubert paid a good deal for the picture Mr. Jones painted of us, didn’t you, dear?”

  Major Rodney colored painfully and treated her to a look of something close to loathing.

  “I’ve seen the one of Lady Cantlay.” Virgil Smith screwed up his face. “I wouldn’t buy it if it were on sale. It seems kind of—heavy—to me. Not like a lady should look.”

  “What do you know about such things?” the old lady snapped derisively. “Do you have ladies wherever it is you come from?”

  “No, ma’am, I don’t reckon you would call them ladies,” he said slowly. “But I’ve seen a few over here. I think Miss Verity is surely a lady and deserves a portrait that says so.”

  Verity blushed with pleasure and treated him to one of her rare smiles. Alicia found herself suddenly liking him very much, in spite of his manners and his plain face.

  “Thank you,” Verity said quietly. “I think I shall like to have a portrait done, in the summer, if Alicia does not mind?”

  “Of course not,” Alicia agreed. “I shall make inquiries to find someone.” She was aware of Virgil Smith looking at her. She was a handsome woman and she was used to admiration, but there was something more personal in his gaze, and she found it uncomfortable. She wanted to break the silence, and she rushed to find something to say. She turned to Vespasia. “Lady Cumming-Gould, can you recommend anyone who might paint Verity pleasingly? You must have been painted many times yourself.”

  Vespasia looked a trifle pleased. “Not lately, my dear. But I will ask among my acquaintances, if you wish. I am sure you can do better than Godolphin Jones. I believe he is very highly regarded by some, or so the price he fetches would indicate, but I agree with Mr. Smith; he is somewhat heavy-handed, a little fleshy.”

  The old lady glared at her, opened her mouth, met Vespasia’s unflinching stare, and closed it again. Her eyes swept over Virgil Smith as if he had been an unpleasant stain on the carpet.

  “Precisely,” Carlisle said with satisfaction. “There is an abundance of portrait painters about. Just because Godolphin lives in the Park, that is not a reason to patronize him, if you prefer someone else.”

  “Gwendoline Cantlay had two pictures done,” Miss Priscilla offered. “I cannot imagine why.”

  “Perhaps she likes them?” Miss Mary Ann suggested. “Some people must, or they would not pay so very much money.”

  “Art is very much a matter of taste, isn’t it?” Alicia looked from one to the other.

  The old lady snorted. “Naturally. Good taste—and bad taste! Only the vulgar, who know no better, judge anything as a matter of money.” Once more her eyes darted to Virgil Smith and away again. “Time is the thing—whatever has lasted, that is worth something! Old paintings, old houses, old blood.”

  Alicia felt embarrassed for him, as if she were both receiving the hurt herself, and at the same time responsible for it because the old lady was part of her family.

  “Pure survival alone is hardly a mark of virtue.” She surprised herself by speaking so vehemently and with something that could only be regarded as insolence by the old lady, but she wanted to contradict her so badly it was like a bursting in her head. “After all, disease survives!”

  Everyone was staring at her, the old lady with a look as if her footstool had risen up and smitten her.

  Somerset Carlisle was the first to react. “Bravo!” he said cheerfully. “An excellent argument, if somewhat eccentric! I’m not sure Godolphin would appreciate it, but it just about sums up the relationship between art, survival, and price.”

  “I don’t understand.” Miss Priscilla squinted painfully. “I don’t see the relationship at all.”

  “That is precisely what I mean,” he agreed. “There is none.”

  The old lady banged her stick on the ground. She had been aiming at Carlisle’s foot and missed. “Of course there is!” she snapped. “Money is the root of all evil! Bible says so. Do you argue with that?”

  “You misquote.” Carlisle was not daunted, and he did not move his feet. “What it says is that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil.’ Things are not evil; it is the passions they stir in people that may be.”

  “A piece of sophistry,” she said with disgust. “And this is not the place for it. Go to your club if you have a taste for that kind of conversation. This is a funeral breakfast. I would oblige you to remember that!”

  He bowed very slightly. “Indeed, ma’am, you have my sympathies.” He turned to Alicia and Verity. “And you also, of course.”

  Suddenly everyone remembered this was the third time they had attended such an affair, and Major Rodney excused himself rather loudly in the awkwardness that followed. He took his sisters by the arms and almost propelled them out into the hallway, where the footman had to be sent for to bring their coats.

  Vespasia and Carlisle followed; Virgil Smith hesitated a moment by Alicia.

  “If there is anything I can do, ma’am?” He looked uncomfortable, as if he wanted to say something and could not find the words.

  She was aware of the kindness in him, and it made her also feel a little clumsy. She thanked him more hastily than she meant to, and with a faint color in his face, he followed the others out.

  “I see your Mr. Corde didn’t come!” the old lady said spitefully. “Other fish to fry, maybe?”

  Alicia ignored her. She did not know why Dominic had sent no word, no flowers or letter of sympathy. It was something she did not want to think about.

  On the morning of the interment Dominic had been in two minds as to what to do. He had got up and dressed, intending to go, as a support to Alicia in a time which was bound to be extremely trying for her. Verity was too young and too vulnerable herself to afford much comfort, and he knew the old lady would, if anything, make matters worse. No one would find his attendance odd; it was a mark of respect. After all, he had been invited to the original funeral.

  Then as he stared at himself in the mirror, making the final
adjustment to his appearance, he remembered his visit to Charlotte. He had never been inside a house of working people before, not something on a level with a tradesman’s house, like Pitt’s. All things considered, it was odd how comfortable he had felt, and how little Charlotte had changed. Of course, it would have been different if he had stayed there long! But for that hour or so, the surroundings had been unimportant.

  But what Charlotte had said was a totally different matter. She had asked him if he thought Alicia capable of murdering her husband in all but as many words. Charlotte had always been frank to the point of tactlessness; he smiled even now to recall some of the more socially disastrous incidents.

  The image smiled back at him from the mirror.

  Of course, he denied it—Alicia would never even think of such a thing! Old Augustus had been a bore; he talked endlessly and fancied himself an expert on the building of railways, and since his family had made money in their construction perhaps he was. But it was hardly a subject to pontificate on interminably over the dinner table. Dominic had never met a woman yet who cared in the slightest about railway construction, and very few men!

  But that does not move to murder! Actually to kill someone, you have to care desperately over something, whether it is hate, fear, greed, or because they stand in the way between you and something you hunger for—he stopped, his hand frozen on his collar. He imagined being married to some sixty-year-old woman, twice his age, boring, pompous, with all her dreams in the past, looking forward to nothing more than a sinking into slow, verbose old age—a relationship without love. Perhaps one day, or one night, the need to escape would become unbearable, and if there were a bottle of medicine on the table, what would be simpler than to dose a little too much? How easy just to step it up a fraction each time, until you got the amount that was not massive but just precisely enough to kill?

  But Alicia could never have done that!

  He pictured her in his mind, her fair skin, the curve of her bosom, the way her eyes lit up when she laughed—or when she looked at him. Once or twice he had touched her more intimately than mere courtesy required, and he felt the quick response. There was a hunger underneath her modesty. There was something about her, perhaps a mannerism, a way of holding her head, that reminded him of Charlotte; he was not sure how. It was indefinable.

  And Charlotte cared enough to kill! That he was as sure of as his own reflection in the glass. Morality would stop her—but never indifference.

  Was it possible Alicia really had killed Augustus—and the old lady knew it? If that were so, then he was bound up in it, the catalyst for the motive.

  Slowly he undid the tie and took off the black coat. If that were so, and it could be—it was not completely impossible—then it would be better for everybody, especially Alicia, if he did not go today. The old lady would be waiting for it, waiting to make some stinging remark, even to accuse outright!

  He would send flowers—tomorrow; something white and appropriate. And then perhaps the day after he would call. No one would find that odd.

  He changed from the black trousers into a more usual morning gray.

  He did send the flowers the next morning and was appalled at the price. Still, as the icy wind outside reminded him, it was the first day of February, and there was hardly a thing in bloom. The sun was shining fitfully, and the puddles in the street were drying slowly. A barrow boy whistled behind a load of cabbages. Today funerals and thoughts of death seemed far away. Freedom was a precious thing, but every man’s gift, not something that needed fighting for. He walked briskly round to his club and was settled behind his newspaper when a voice interrupted his half thought, half sleep.

  “Good morning. Dominic Corde, isn’t it?”

  Dominic had no desire for conversation. Gentlemen did not talk to one in the morning; they knew better, most especially if one had a newspaper. He looked up slowly. It was Somerset Carlisle. He had met him only two or three times, but he was not a man one forgot.

  “Yes. Good morning, Mr. Carlisle,” he replied coolly. He was lifting his paper again when Carlisle sat down beside him and offered him his snuffbox. Dominic declined; snuff always made him cough. To sneeze was acceptable; lots of people sneezed when taking snuff, but to sit coughing with one’s eyes running was merely clumsy.

  “No, thank you.”

  Carlisle put the snuff away again without taking any himself.

  “Much pleasanter day, isn’t it,” he remarked.

  “Much,” Dominic agreed, still holding onto the paper.

  “Anything in the news?” Carlisle inquired. “What’s happening in Parliament?”

  “No idea.” Dominic had never thought of reading about Parliament. Government was necessary; any sane man knew that, but it was also intensely boring. “No idea at all.”

  Carlisle looked as nonplussed as courtesy would allow. “Thought you were a friend of Lord Fleetwood?”

  Dominic was flattered; friend was perhaps overstating it a little, but he had met him lately, and they had struck up an acquaintance. They both liked riding and driving a team. Dominic had perhaps less courage than Fleetwood, but far more natural skill.

  “Yes,” he identified guardedly, because he was not sure why Carlisle asked.

  Carlisle smiled, sitting back in the chair easily and stretching his legs. “Thought he’d have talked politics with you,” he said casually. “Could be quite a weight in the House, if he wished. Got a following of young bloods.”

  Dominic was surprised; they had never discussed anything more serious than good horses, and of course the occasional woman. But come to think of it, he had mentioned a number of friends who had hereditary titles; whether they ever attended was quite another thing. Half the peers in England went nowhere nearer the House of Lords than the closest club or party. But Fleetwood did have a large circle, and it was not an exaggeration to say that Dominic was now on the fringes of it.

  Carlisle was waiting.

  “No,” Dominic replied. “Horses, mostly. Don’t think he cares much about politics.”

  Carlisle’s face flickered only very slightly. “Dare say he doesn’t realize the potential.” He raised his hand and signaled to one of the club servants and, when the man arrived, looked back at Dominic. “Do join me for luncheon. They have a new chef who is quite excellent, and I haven’t tried his specialty yet.”

  Dominic had intended having a quiet meal a little later, but the man was pleasant enough, and he was a friend of Alicia’s. Also, of course, an invitation should never be turned down without sound reason.

  “Thank you,” he accepted.

  “Good.” Carlisle turned to the servant with a smile. “Come for us when the chef is ready, Blunstone. And get me some of that claret again, same as last time. The bordeaux was awful.”

  Blunstone bowed and departed with murmurs of agreement.

  Carlisle allowed Dominic to continue with his newspaper until luncheon was served; then they repaired to the dining room and were halfway through a richly stuffed and roasted goose garnished with vegetables, fruit, and delicate sauce when Carlisle spoke again.

  “What do you think of him?” he inquired, eyebrows raised.

  Dominic had lost the thread. “Fleetwood?” he asked.

  Carlisle smiled. “No, the chef.”

  “Oh, excellent.” Dominic had his mouth full and found it hard to reply gracefully. “Most excellent. I must dine here more often.”

  “Yes, it’s a very comfortable place,” Carlisle agreed, looking round at the wide room with its dark velvet curtains, Adam fireplaces on two sides with fires burning warmly in each. There were Gainesborough portraits on the blue walls.

  It was something of an understatement. It had taken Dominic three years to get himself elected as a member, and he disliked having his achievement taken so lightly.

  “Rather more than comfortable, I would have said.” His voice had a slight edge.

  “It’s all relative.” Carlisle took another forkful of goose. “I da
re say at Windsor they dine better.” He swallowed and took a sip of wine. “Then, on the other hand, there are thousands in the tenements and rookeries within a mile of here who find boiled rats a luxury—”

  Dominic choked on his goose and gagged. The room swum before him, and for a moment he thought he was going to disgrace himself by being sick at the table. It took him several seconds to compose himself, wipe his mouth with his napkin, and look up to meet Carlisle’s curious eyes. He could not think what to say to him. The man was preposterous.

  “Sorry,” Carlisle said lightly. “Shouldn’t spoil a good meal by talking politics.” He smiled.

  Dominic was completely unguarded. “P-politics?” he stammered.

  “Most distasteful,” Carlisle agreed. “Much pleasanter to talk about horseracing, or fashion. I see your friend Fleetwood has adopted that new cut of jacket. Rather flattering, don’t you think? I shall have to see if I can get my tailor to do something of the sort.”

  “What in hell are you talking about?” Dominic demanded. “You said ‘rats.’ I heard you!”

  “Perhaps I should have said ‘workhouses.’ ” Carlisle chose the words carefully. “Or pauper-children laws. So difficult to know what to do. Whole family in the workhouse, children in with the idle or vagrant, no education, work from waking to sleeping—but better than starvation, which is the alternative, or freezing to death. Have you seen the sort of people that get into the workhouses? Imagine how they affect a child of four or five years old. Seen the disease, the ventilation, the food?”

  Dominic remembered his own childhood: a nurse, recalled only hazily, mixed in his mind with his mother, a governess, then school—with long summer holidays; rice pudding, which he loathed, and afternoon teas with jam, especially raspberry jam. He remembered songs round the piano, making snowballs, playing cricket in the sun, stealing plums, breaking windows, and receiving canings for insolence.

  “That’s ridiculous!” he said sharply. “Workhouses are supposed to be temporary relief for those who cannot find legitimate work for themselves. It is a charitable charge on the parish.”