A young man was sitting with his feet on the book rack and his nose between his knees. As Estée entered he looked up, and continued to stare at her. His long legs unfolded themselves and he stood up hastily, knocking a missal and several hymn books onto the floor.
‘Miss Taverner, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise…’ His voice trailed off abruptly. He was about eighteen or nineteen, Estée guessed, on the tall side, with a pale complexion and black rumpled hair that was rather too long. It was the second time in half an hour that somebody had spoken to her in English, and his clear, educated tone left no doubt that this time she was in the company of a native speaker.
‘Oh.’ The young man looked at Estée’s clothes and something approaching comprehension flitted across his features. ‘You’re—you’re not Miss Taverner, are you?’
‘I beg your pardon,’ said Estée. ‘I don’t know what you mean, but you have obviously mistaken me for somebody else. Excuse me, please.’ She turned and started to walk away with watery dignity. The young man kicked up the kneeler and clattered along the pew toward her.
‘No! Don’t go. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, I did mistake you for someone, but I’m sorry I was rude. I only wanted to help. You looked—upset.’
‘Upset,’ said Estée. Her voice caught, edged in hysteria. ‘Well. I suppose I have a right to be upset, considering what’s happened. My father’s just been burned to death.’
The young man’s face blenched. ‘Burned to death? Dear God, surely you should be—’
‘With my family? I’d be happy to oblige, only I don’t have any,’ said Estée. ‘I don’t know anybody in Starberg except my landlady, and the pawnbroker. Not a very helpful set of acquaintances.’
The young man stood for a moment, absorbing this information. ‘Pardon me,’ he said humbly. ‘I realise I’m probably interfering, but you are in a terrible state, and you honestly shouldn’t be wandering around alone. You’re obviously not Ostermarkan. If you don’t have family in Starberg, why don’t you apply to the British Legation for assistance?’
‘I already have,’ said Estée. ‘I saw a very unhelpful young man who was extremely rude to me. I would prefer not to meet him again.’
‘Mr Sinclair?’
‘You know him?’
‘A little.’
‘Then you should know why I don’t think his employers would help me.’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said the young man. ‘The legation has an obligation to assist. Half the work of any foreign mission involves digging its own nationals out of holes. According to the rules, you are what is called a DBS—a Distressed British Subject. You are an orphan and a minor. The legation has a responsibility to find your nearest relatives and return you to them, even if they’re back in England.’
‘You know an awful lot about this,’ said Estée suspiciously. ‘Do you work there yourself?’
‘Not precisely,’ said the young man. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t introduced myself properly. Stephen Melhuish, from Horsham, in Surrey. My Uncle George is in charge of the British Legation.’
CHAPTER FIVE
Richard, Margrave Greitz, newly-appointed Procurator of the Queen’s Guard, stood on the dining room hearthrug of his official residence inspecting the carpet. The house was in mourning, and with the late procurator’s clothes still in his wardrobe, and his mail on the study desk, most of the servants considered the margrave’s visit to be indecently premature. Nevertheless, the house was his with the position, and it had been impossible for them to refuse him entry. Greitz had waited nearly fifteen years for this appointment. Now that he had achieved what he wanted, he had every intention of doing exactly as he wished.
The procurator had rolled back the edge of the hearthrug and was looking with displeasure at the stain on the Aubusson carpet underneath. He was of middling height and slim build, with brown eyes and dark hair brushed back in a sweep across his forehead. He did not look like an Ostermarkan, but his family had always been known to be dark and so his colouring was forgiven him. His pedigree on his father’s side could be traced back seventeen generations, and the occasional bar sinister did not lessen the weight that was carried by so ancient a title. At forty-one, he was generally considered an extremely handsome man.
‘What a pity about the bloodstain,’ Greitz remarked to the woman beside him. ‘If he had fallen a little to the right, it would have gone on the hearth instead of on the carpet. I wonder why the wretched woman had to shoot him? I’m sure I never put the idea into her head. Magic can sometimes be so imprecise.’
‘Poor thing,’ said Esther Trier. ‘She must have loved him very much.’ She sat on a gilt chair and folded her hands in her lap. ‘You know I don’t presume to criticise you, Richard. I have supported you in your plans all this time, and never protested. All the same, I do think you could have gone about this business in a better way.’
‘Have I offended you?’ said Greitz, amused. ‘I’m very sorry for you, my dear, but you have known for quite some time that Nordernay had to go.’
‘I know,’ said Esther, ‘and I didn’t say you offended me, Richard. Only some of your methods, sometimes.’ She was silent for a moment. Greitz, who knew her background, and who understood her principles almost better than she did herself, did not reply. The thread of conversation died by tacit agreement. When Esther spoke again, it was on a completely different subject. ‘It is a lovely house, Richard. Of course, I will not expect to live here, but I like to think of you having something suited to your position. Your estate in Osterfall is so far away, you know, and I have never liked you living alone at the barracks. At least here I will be able to visit. And our daughter, too—when everything is finally put right.’
‘Ah,’ said Greitz. ‘I wondered when you would get around to that.’
Esther coloured. ‘Am I so obvious?’
‘Only to me, my dear. I know how much it has been on your mind. Don’t worry. It shouldn’t be much longer, now.’
‘I hope not,’ she said, in a troubled voice. ‘Richard, it’s so difficult, knowing she’s here in Starberg and not being able to contact her. Do you know, I saw the other one on Saturday night? She was in a box at the opera, with Melhuish’s party. I think he must have done it deliberately. He knows I always go on Saturday.’
‘Well, Mr Melhuish won’t be bothering us any longer,’ said Greitz. ‘And that, my dear, should be a relief to both of us. He was becoming a tremendous nuisance. I won’t deny he was helpful at times, but the price of his help has lately been very dear.’
‘She was wearing the star locket when I saw her,’ said Esther. ‘I hadn’t expected that. I don’t like to think of her wearing it around like that—so casually. It was such a strange feeling to see her, Richard. Do you know, I honestly thought I’d be able to tell which one she was? When I first saw Sophia’s girl—when she came off the train from Marseilles—I was sure it must be her. But now I’ve seen both of them, I honestly can’t tell.’
Greitz took her hands and drew her gently out of the chair. ‘Well, we’ll soon find out,’ he said, and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Everything is in place now. Nordernay’s death has started it. It will all be over soon, I promise you.’
‘I hope so,’ said Esther. ‘For I do not think I will be able to bear waiting very much longer.’
Stephen Melhuish sat on the piano stool, watching the rain fall on the streets of the New City. The curtains were drawn back and admitted a grey wintry light that was comfortingly in tune with his own spirits. Normally at this hour he would be doing his practice, for his uncle usually went down to the legation at about ten o’clock, and he liked to get in two or three hours while the apartment was unoccupied. This morning, however, he was not alone. In any case, he was having something of a crisis regarding his music. His concerns had been building gradually since he had left England, and though he had tried hard to dismiss them, in the last week he had finally faced up to reality. The plain fact was that the plans he had been making for hi
s future since the age of thirteen were simply not going to work. There was a long list of reasons why not, some to do with his family, some with himself. In essence, at this most critical juncture in his life, he was just not good enough to achieve what he wanted to do. The truly depressing thing was that, at the same time, he was good enough to recognise it.
It had been a stressful and awful week, and on Saturday morning he had finally bowed to the inevitable. His plans to study music were an irresponsible waste of time. He had a widowed mother and a sister to support, and he needed to find a job, not fantasise about being a pianist. The fact that he had made the first truly pragmatic decision in his whole life did not make Stephen feel any less savage towards the world at large, or any less sorry for himself. He had spent enough time helping out at the legation chancery in the afternoons to realise what menial clerical work entailed, and the thought of disappearing into some nameless office once he returned to England, or taking a position as a hack teacher in a third-rate school, was almost more than he could bear. Then, on Saturday night, everything had started to unravel, and his own self-indulgent preoccupations seemed suddenly less imperative.
It had begun with the frightful opera party his uncle had arranged to welcome the Taverners to Starberg and had ended with his uncle’s disappearance. On their return to their apartment, George Melhuish had scarcely paused to change before turning around and going out again. Stephen was used to his Uncle George’s habits and ordinarily the fact that he had not returned by morning would not have been cause for immediate alarm. Several times since Stephen’s arrival in Starberg, his uncle had vanished without notice, only to turn up again a day or two later, without explanation, and only a little the worse for wear. Stephen did not care to enquire too closely into where his uncle went, or what he did, though he thought he could guess some of it. But this time, some inner voice seemed to be telling him that something was different. When he had sat in the cathedral and anxiously prayed for his uncle’s safe return, it was as if the prayer had floated up into the vaulted ceiling and fallen back again, lifeless, into his lap. And it was at that precise moment, as he had sat in a sort of panic at the unexpected response and wondering what on earth he could do next, that Estella Merton’s tear-stained face had appeared at the end of the pew where he was sitting, and the whole bottom had fallen out of the comfortable sack of his life.
He was still falling, even now.
Stephen had never considered he might fall in love. He had always supposed it must be pleasant to do so, for that was the way it seemed in books. In real life, however, the few girls he’d met had never interested him. They were generally silly and giggly, most of them were not particularly attractive, and none of them seemed to understand the consuming maggot in his brain which made him want to play the piano for hour upon hour of every waking day. For some unknown reason, Estella Merton had punctured the envelope of his selfabsorption with an aim as true as it was exquisitely painful. Stephen had no idea whether she was interested in music. He was quite sure she was too preoccupied with her own grief to be interested in him. But from the moment he had set eyes on her, she had claimed almost every waking thought, until this morning he was sick and trembling with anticipation and doubt.
In the adjacent bedroom where he usually slept, Stephen could hear the sound of water splashing from the ewer into the washstand basin. Estée had spent the night in the apartment, which was against all rules of decent behaviour. All he could say in his defence was that by the time they had settled her debts and fetched her belongings from Castle Street, it had been almost dark and Stephen could think of nowhere else to take her. He was not sufficiently well-acquainted with any of the junior secretaries’ wives to ask for help, and part of him had still been hoping that his uncle would return to make the necessary arrangements. Unfortunately, George Melhuish was still missing, and so Stephen had fed Estée bread and butter and weak tea for supper and moved his own things out of the spare room so she could go to bed. He knew she had not slept well, for several times during the night he had heard her cry. He did not know what he was going to do with her. All he really knew was that he could not let her go until his uncle reappeared, or he had unravelled the mystery of her appearance. In the meantime, she might make some friendly gesture, might even come to regard him as something more than a purveyor of weak tea and toast…
The passage door opened. Stephen sprang to his feet, leaving the piano stool spinning.
‘Good morning—Estée.’ They had somehow jumped beyond Miss Merton and Mr Melhuish in between the tears and the tea last night, and he had no intention of reverting to more formal modes of address. Estée looked very pale as she returned his greeting. Her eyes were dry, though, and when Stephen offered her breakfast she readily accepted. The apartment did not have its own cooking facilities, so he had ordered fresh bread rolls and pastries to be sent up earlier from the common kitchen, and as he made the tea and poured it into the cups, they managed to engage in some desultory conversation about the rain.
It’s almost like being married, thought Stephen. Sitting here, eating breakfast like this, with her on the other side of the table—
‘You know, I really wish you wouldn’t stare at me like that,’ said Estée abruptly. ‘It’s making me feel most uncomfortable.’
Stephen flushed. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise.’
‘Please don’t be offended,’ said Estée. ‘You were doing it last night as well, and I was brought up to speak my mind. I can’t help my appearance. I know I look just like that girl from the legation, but it doesn’t make it any easier for me, having you constantly goggling at me, as if I’m some kind of freak.’
‘I didn’t mean to goggle. That is,’ said Stephen, taking refuge in a lie, ‘it really is a most uncanny resemblance. You’ll forgive me for saying so, but I can see why Francis Sinclair got such a shock.’
‘Well, I can understand it, too,’ said Estée. ‘I had a shock myself. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, knowing there’s someone out there who looks exactly like myself. If I hadn’t seen her, I would hardly believe it. All the same, I can’t help it, any more than I can explain it. You obviously know her. What’s she like?’
‘Miss Taverner? To be honest, I don’t really know her that well,’ said Stephen. ‘I’ve only met her twice. She was a guest of my uncle at the opera on Saturday night. Her name’s Sarah; they call her Sally. Her father has just been transferred here from the mission in Washington. She’s an only child, seems very self-assured. I don’t think she likes me much.’
‘How can she dislike you if you don’t know her?’
Stephen shrugged. ‘I don’t bow and scrape like Francis Sinclair, and I was rude about the opera on Saturday night. Chiefly I think it’s because of my uncle. There seems to be some bad blood between him and her parents.’
‘Bad blood? Why?’
‘I don’t know, exactly. If I had to take a guess, I’d say that it’s something to do with jealousy over promotions. Fifteen years ago, Mr Taverner was a junior secretary here. My uncle was an attachée, like Francis Sinclair—that’s the most junior diplomatic position. Now he’s the British Minister. It can’t be easy for Mr Taverner to be subordinate to him. He obviously dislikes him; I can see that it would rankle.’
‘Like you and Mr Sinclair?’
‘Not precisely. I don’t like Francis Sinclair, and he doesn’t like me, but there’s a difference. You see, I’m not officially working here. My uncle invited me out here for a visit when I finished school, to see if I liked the work. Francis Sinclair probably sees me as a threat because of that, but it’s never gone any further. If my uncle found me a permanent place, it would probably be different.’
‘Are you going to stay, then?’
Stephen shook his head. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion I’m not enough of a toady for it. I’m going back to England in the New Year to look for a job in the civil service.’
Estée, the artist’s daughter, wrinkled her nose. ‘How
dull. I thought you wanted to be a musician.’
‘I do,’ said Stephen. ‘Quite badly. But my mother doesn’t have the money and I’m honestly not that good. Besides, there are limits to how much I can impose on Uncle George—’ He broke off. There were other reasons, too, why he was reluctant to keep on taking his uncle’s money, but they were suspicions merely, and it would be wrong to go into them now. Fortunately, before the conversation could become awkward, there was a knock at the apartment door. Stephen pushed back his chair and went into the narrow hallway to open it.
As if their conversation had conjured him up, it was none other than Francis Sinclair.
‘Melhuish. Has your uncle turned up yet?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Any word at all? Old Taverner’s about climbing the walls next door. You know there’s been an announcement about the new procurator? We need your uncle back before—’ Francis paused in mid-sentence, and Stephen became aware that something behind him had caught Francis’s attention. He glanced back and saw that Estée had, not unreasonably, followed him out into the hall. An expression of pure shock passed momentarily across Francis’s face. It was almost worth it, thought Stephen, to see him so horribly discomposed.
Francis bowed. ‘Miss Taverner! I’m sorry—I didn’t realise you were here.’
Estée did not reply. Something in her expression, though, must have alerted Francis to the truth. There was a slight stiffening in his shoulders and Stephen saw his face become suddenly wary. ‘You’re not Miss Taverner, are you? Melhuish. What’s happening here?’
‘Nothing is happening at all,’ said Stephen, nettled in spite of himself. ‘If you want to speak to me, you’d better come inside.’
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