The Willing Game

by Issy Brooke

  She wondered how much money Price needed. He was utterly foolish to begin paying the blackmailer. It would all have to come out, sooner or later. Her heart ached for Phoebe. Marianne vowed that she would be there to protect her, as much as she could.

  She smoothed out the scrap of paper which displayed Mr Bartholomew’s address. It was not too hard to get to his house. She tapped it with her fingers as if she were thinking about the job.

  But she had already made up her mind.

  She’d accept.

  A crash came from the laboratory and she jumped to her feet. Seven different unpleasant scenarios crowded her mind, but when she wrenched the connecting door open, she was met by the eighth possibility – her father, in a state of delirious distress, trying to prise the lid off a bottle of something green.

  “How did you even get hold of absinthe?” she said sternly as she strode across the room and snatched it from his grasp. “If I tell Mrs Crouch, she will cane you like a child. Come along. To bed. Now!”

  Six

  Marianne found Phoebe in her morning room the next day, languidly avoiding answering letters. She had a stack of them on her writing bureau, sent by people who wanted her support in their philanthropic endeavours; they came from people who sought her patronage; from people who just wanted to introduce themselves in the hope that they might be admitted to her social circle. Instead of attending to them, she was gazing out of the window at the morning sun lighting the wide lawns yellow and green. It was to be a pleasant and warm day.

  “I think we need more roses,” Phoebe said. “I fancy them all in shades of pink, with marvellous scents. I told Fletcher but he said something about soil and stamped off to the pineapple house.”

  “He would know. Gardeners know everything.”

  She smiled as they both had the same remembrance. When they were young girls, sharing long holidays together, they had often played outside when they could sneak away from the adults. But Phoebe was a year older than Marianne, and had been much stronger. One day, the gardener at the old house had seen Marianne well and truly beaten, and decided to show Marianne how to best her cousin in a fight. She had done so, and they had not fought since. “Phoebe, listen. I am going to see Mr Bartholomew.”

  “Oh no! You mustn’t! Yet how thrilling. Tell me why.” Phoebe’s ennui disappeared in an instant.

  “I have no other work,” Marianne said. “I am wholly without business at the moment.”

  “Well, you do not need to work. You have everything you require in life.”

  “I do need to work. It is not just for the money. A successful case brings in more work, and it is my name, my reputation. I need to win something to offset my recent failure, after all.” Marianne walked over to the window and gazed out at the lawns.

  Out of Phoebe’s window, at Phoebe’s lawns. One day, Marianne vowed that she would have enough money to run her own household. But such ambition was not spoken of, and though she thought that Phoebe would not blame her for such longings, she didn’t want to insult the generosity of her cousin.

  “When are you going?” Phoebe asked. “I should tell you not to. But you will go, won’t you? How I wish I were as free as you. I wonder if...” She tailed off, but her eyes were bright.

  “I shall call on him this afternoon. He has given me his address.”

  “I know where he lives anyway – well, Price does; he invited him, after all.”

  That sparked something. “How long have they known one another?”

  “I do not know. Price does not speak of business, and I do not listen if he does, which he doesn’t, so I have no need to ignore him. I am an excellent wife,” she added with a grin.

  “Whose idea was it to invite him?”

  “Price, of course. He said that Mr Bartholomew was only lately returned to England and due to his long absence, he knew nobody.”

  “This is more and more suspicious. Mr Bartholomew hinted at something that had happened abroad.”

  “I shall come with you, then,” Phoebe declared impulsively. “I do not care that I should not. You can go alone, of course, but it would be better, would it not, if you were accompanied? I will not tell Emilia or Fry. They will only fret.”

  “Please do come, if you think that you can. It is not a visit I should care to make alone, in truth.”

  AND YET NOW SHE WAS alone, after all.

  Just before lunch, one of the children had fallen ill, and Phoebe was unwillingly dragged into an altercation between the governess and a nurse. There were accusations, tears, and a great deal of fuss about carbolic acid. Marianne waited for Phoebe to extricate herself but Phoebe told her that now the governess was threatening to leave her situation, and a whole new mess of secrets amongst the servants was unravelling: “The children’s nurse has been carrying on with the stable boy – can you imagine! – and both must be threatened with dismissal. I shan’t, of course, but the threat must be real and immediate. We can call on Mr Bartholomew tomorrow.”

  Marianne decided she had to leave the house rather than be drawn into the tedious drama. She’d known about the stable boy and the maid for a long time, anyway. And the stable boy was a far better choice than the nurse’s previous liaison, which was one of the carpenters engaged to do some work in the stables. Marianne had stepped in, and the carpenter had been dismissed for another trivial matter; Phoebe had known nothing of the goings-on but it was she who garnered the praise for her astute management.

  Such was the usual way of things.

  Marianne decided this was not her fight, today, and she prepared to slip away, intending to walk briskly to the railway station.

  As she went silently down the stairs, she came across Mr Barrington standing at the front door, looking out over the gravel path. He had his hands on his hips, making him look like a squat teapot from behind.

  “Is everything in order, Mr Barrington?” she asked as she approached.

  He jumped and turned, and scratched his head. “I do apologise, miss. I hope I have done right.” He had a card in his hands and he looked down at it with puzzlement and a little embarrassment. “I am afraid I panicked. What with the burglary and everything, miss, it does set one on edge.”

  “I am sure you have done right. You always do. Did someone call?”

  “Someone most unfavourable-looking, to my mind, miss. It is not the hours for one to call, so he is not quite of your class, I should say.”

  “My class? Someone called for me? Was it Mr Bartholomew?”

  “No, miss, a Mr Monahan, and he was insistent that he left his card for you.”

  She held her hand out and he passed it over with reluctance. It had the man’s name and an address.

  “You did very right,” she reassured Mr Barrington. “He should not call here at all. If you see him again, feel free to dismiss him just as you have done today. Thank you.”

  He was crumpled in relief. “Thank you, miss. I should not like to have bothered Mrs Claverdon.”

  “Of course not.”

  He closed the door after her and she slipped the card into her bag as she walked down the drive towards the railway station. She tried to think about Edgar Bartholomew, and the business with Price Claverdon and the blackmail, but her mind kept returning to the unpleasant persistence of Jack Monahan.

  Why had he suddenly started to harass her? What else was happening? She began to form an unwelcome connection between Monahan and her cousin-in-law.

  It was not beyond the realms of possibility that Jack Monahan was the blackmailer. She nodded to herself. That made a kind of sense. Though why Monahan now pursued her was a mystery.

  She vowed to unravel it. She stamped into the ticket office and turned her mind, instead, to the journey.

  She did not need to travel all the way into London. With the aid of one of the huge railway manuals, she managed to plot a route that took her part-way into London and then out again on another branch line, just one stop, so she was still technically in the capital city. She ador
ed the creeping network of lines across the country. Sometimes she fancied she would spend a year of her life just travelling the railways.

  Except that she had to look after her father.

  But he would not always be around.

  She stopped that selfish and unworthy thought before it went too far, and turned her attention to her surroundings as she descended from the carriage and made her way towards the Bartholomews’ address.

  The Bartholomews lived in a large fine house on the very edge of London, yet it was handily close to all amenities by dint of the railway. It was built of impressive white stone and hedged all around with severe black railings. It was reached by a long driveway past a lodge, and was surrounded by trees. She stood on the main road, which was relatively busy, and populated by small shops, houses and a church.

  She could call in now. It was a socially acceptable time to do so, and the butler or housekeeper would politely inform her if the day was wrong or her visit inconvenient. She would be received in a ground floor public room and she could easily request to keep the door open. Mr Bartholomew himself had asked for her to visit him. She considered herself one of the new breed of women – indeed, a New Woman – and though she had never actually worn rational dress in public (in spite of the newspaper illustration’s suggestion) she refused to be stuck in the restrictive mores of yesterday’s society. She had a degree. She had a business. She had a life of her very own.

  She also had a burning curiosity.

  Her mind was made up. She’d call at the house.

  Before she could talk herself out of it, she ran lightly up the steps to ring the bell of the house. It was modern all over, on the outside, but when the front door was swung open, she was greeted by a very cold and unwelcome bare hallway.

  And it was Mr Bartholomew the son himself who opened the door.

  His eyes widened at first but he smiled in grateful welcome. “Ah! Miss Starr. I am so pleased. Do come in. Are you alone?”

  She entered with one glance behind. “I think so.”

  “I mean, did your cousin not come with you?”

  “No, she was detained with domestic duties.”

  “What did you think I meant? You seem startled. Did you encounter trouble on your journey?”

  “It is nothing. A passing fancy. Does your father not engage many staff?”

  “Many? He has none! Not a single one resides here. A woman comes in to do for him, daily, but otherwise he is quite the hermit.”

  “And is he at home today?”

  “He is neither at home – to visitors – nor at home at all. He is away for the day and I do not know what he does or where he is. I have not seen him since last night’s dinner, and he grew abusive and threw a glass of brandy at me. A full glass,” he added.

  “What a waste.”

  “Indeed. Please, let us step into the drawing room.”

  She hesitated. The bare hall echoed with her voice. There were no tables, no pictures, no portraits, no clocks, nothing at all – the house was as if it were up for auction, stripped of all comforts. She thought of the clutter of Woodfurlong with something almost like affection. “There are no servants at all here? I am quite alone with you?” She had intended on keeping the door open but what was the point of that, if there were no staff within earshot?

  He sighed. “We could step down to the lodge where there is a man and a boy. I rather think you are safer here. Wait one moment – I have an idea.” He spun around and ran lightly up the stairs.

  She wanted to open doors and peek into rooms while he was gone, but her footsteps would have revealed her snooping, echoing around the empty hall. So she waited, close to the front door. When he returned he had smoothed down his hair and thrown a cravat around his neck, though it did not match his jacket at all. In his hand he held a small revolver, and she reacted instantly – she plunged her hand into her bag and pulled out her own weapon, a ladies’ pistol, and levelled it calmly at his face. Her hand barely shook at all. She counted her breaths to keep herself out of panic.

  This was not one of the gardener’s tricks from her childhood. Her own father had given it to her when she left for college. “I know what the men at Cambridge are like,” he had said darkly. “I was one. And I ought to have been shot.”

  Mr Bartholomew gasped at the sight of the pistol in Marianne’s hands and then laughed with incredulity. The revolver in his own hand was hanging loosely by his side. He had made no move to raise it. He let it now dangle from one finger. “Miss Starr, I can assure you that I brought this to give to you so that you might feel more protected against me. But I see that you are already so provisioned.”

  “Of course. I would not have come here at all, alone, without some care for my safety.”

  “Then why are you so concerned about being alone with me at all? You could blast my head off at any moment.”

  “Oh, it is not my physical safety that worries me; not armed as I am, with this. But you must know that every moment a woman moves, in the street or indeed in her own home, she is threatened by the potential of harm from strangers and friends and family alike. No, I did not wish to be caught here utterly alone, for the sake of my reputation. Bodily injuries heal but once a woman is fallen, she is never going to rise again.”

  He spluttered. “I would argue that your reputation is already somewhat grey.”

  She lowered her pistol. That was true. “Yet you still want my help. Enough of all this. I am here, and that is that. Put your gun to one side. I shall keep mine close by. Is the drawing room more comfortably furnished?”

  He stepped back and put his revolver on a lower step of the stairs. “Not particularly, but there are, at least, some chairs.”

  He led her into the large room. The windows were huge and bare and lacked any curtains or drapes. There were a few scattered and mismatched armchairs, and one chaise longue. A folding table stood by the dead fire. It was the dreariest room she had ever stood in.

  She settled on the least-dusty chair. “You must tell me everything,” she said. “And I shall need part payment upfront.”

  Mr Bartholomew dragged a chair closer to her and sat down. He spoke in a hasty rush. “My father is called Edgar Bartholomew and he inherited a great deal of money as a young man. He has always been wealthy and has invested wisely. My mother and he ... did not make a great marriage. She fled from him when I was small, though he did not pursue her. I think he was content to be rid of her. He paid for my education and I spent long lonely terms at school. In the holidays, at first I went to my mother but she lived in a succession of small rented rooms, and eventually I simply stayed at school with a handful of other sorry boys whose families were in India or Africa.”

  “That sounds like a hard upbringing. And your father did not call for you at all?”

  “He did not. Were he not paying for the fees, I should have imagined that he had washed his hands of me completely. I had no letters and no communications. In the strange gap between school and university, I came here to see him, many years ago. I felt that I was a man, then – looking back, I was not! – and that I ought to confront him as a man does.”

  “And?”

  “And he was not here. The house was shuttered up. The man in the lodge said that my father was never here. He could not remember the last time he came.”

  “Where was he?”

  “London, I was told. But I did not find him. It turns out that my father is a very secretive and closed-off man. He shunned society although society did not shun him – I mean to say, he did not seem to be alone except through his own choice. He was mentioned often in the company of one friend, a man called Wade Walker. And that was all.”

  “An American? Wade?”

  “I don’t think so but yes, it is a strange name. When I asked what they did together – business, friendship – I was given all manner of answers, but mostly people shrugged and said that they ‘talked rot and imagined fancies’ or words to that effect.”

  “I must ask a
most delicate question. Did any hint of ... scandal attach to these two men?”

  “Absolutely not!” he cried in anger, but quickly mastered himself. He said more gently, “I understand. It is a question that I asked myself. No, they were simply close friends, and no salon door was closed to them in London – they did not socialise much, but they were welcome wherever they might have chosen to go. As I said, he shunned society but it was open to him should he have wished to move among it.”

  “I see. Where is Wade Walker now? Have you ever met him?”

  “I have not. I went to university and then abroad, so this friendship was over a decade ago. I can get no word of him in the city. And now we come to the present day. I came home just above a fortnight ago, and sought out my mother, of course. I have not found her. I was informed that she was dead, found soaked in gin in some rookery, and thrown into a pauper’s grave.”

  “You must find her! Oh, I am so sorry for your loss. Surely she ought to have a decent burial?”

  “I shall. I have been combing the city for her resting place, though now I am into some low dives, and progress is slow. Now you know why I have a gun. It is not just for protection against lady-scientists.”

  “Indeed so; very wise.”

  “When I could not find word of her immediately, I decided to look up my father. I asked around and found his club, and they informed me that he had recently moved back here, to this house.”

  “How recently?”

  “A week before I arrived back.”

  “Three weeks ago, then,” she said. “Did he know that you were returning? His move back to this house might not be a coincidence.”

  “He didn’t know – or at least, I had not told him I was coming, but it was not a secret.”

  “Why did you return?”

  “I was tired of being abroad.” His effusive manner had changed and his answer was now strangely terse.

  “Really?” she asked, watching him closely. “You have been living abroad almost as long as you have been in Britain. And you mentioned something to me at the dinner party. What happened?”