Mr. Gabriel Crowther was not known for his sociability. Indeed, when the Royal Society invited him to address them it had been more out of respect than in expectation that he would accept. But he had accepted. It was Mr. Crowther who had, in September of this year and after careful correspondence, found and recommended Dr. Trevelyan’s establishment as a suitable place for James Westerman to be confined. It was Mr. Crowther who had written to Graves to advise him of the matter, and his letter that had prompted the family’s warm invitation to Harriet and her family to treat their establishment as their home while James was resident in Highgate. Mr. Crowther had rarely done so much for any other human being. The reward for his unusual activity was to discover in a distressingly short time that he missed the society of the ladies of Caveley, so when the invitation from the Royal Society at Somerset House arrived he drew up a list of reasons why it would be advantageous to spend time in London, and ordered his housekeeper to make the necessary preparations.
His welcome in Berkeley Square had been warm, and he was forced to admit he had been glad to see them all. However, he had not lost his habits of silence and isolation completely. A noisy table of young people could still feel something of a trial. Lady Susan was giving her guardian an account of her day that included a cruelly accurate impersonation of her Italian master. Miss Rachel Trench, Harriet’s younger sister, was trying hard to interest her sibling with an account of some wallpapers she had seen, which she thought might be suitable for the salon in their country house of Caveley. Graves was torn between listening to Susan and preventing his jugged hare from escaping over the edge of his plate. The candles blazed and the footmen went to and fro setting down dishes or taking them away, and Stephen and Lord Sussex were competing to entertain the table with their story of a dead rat in the cellar and their plans for the corpse in various schemes to terrify the maids.
At the head of the table, the personification of calm good grace, sat Mrs. Beatrice Service. Her dress was modest and neat, and her gray curls were pinned up neatly under a white cap. Her eyes suggested she found the world an amusing and pleasant place in general. When Owen Graves had taken on the task of constructing a proper household in which these two ennobled orphans, Lord Sussex and Lady Susan, might grow, he naturally turned to those who had already shown themselves to be their friends in their time of poverty and obscurity. Mrs. Service was such a one. She had lived in the street where the children were born, and had known both their parents. A poor widow, albeit a gentleman’s daughter, she had passed her days quietly starving and trying not to cause any difficulty for anyone in the process. Now she lived with Jonathan, Susan and their guardian as friend and companion in Berkeley Square. She had a box at the opera, good food when she wanted it, and thought herself a very lucky woman.
There was an element of the governess about Mrs. Service’s role, though Susan had masters who visited the house to instruct her in music and, despite her early reluctance, French and Italian, but there was never any question among the household as to her status. Mrs. Service was counselor to Graves; she held the keys to the store cupboards; the housekeeper came to her for directions; and she acted as a sort of honorary grandmother to the children. She was by nature retiring, but her principles were sound and held with conviction, so if she ever had cause to speak to Susan about the propriety of her behavior, her words carried great force, and were attended to. Just now, she gave the Earl of Sussex a mild look and the speeches about the rat came to an abrupt halt. In the little silvered moment of silence that followed she asked Mr. Crowther how he had occupied his day.
“Mrs. Westerman and myself have been recruited to investigate a murder, Mrs. Service,” he replied.
The silver silence became something harder, and the room seemed to still. Graves put his fork down and said, “Susan, Jonathan. I am afraid Mr. Fitzraven, the gentleman from the His Majesty’s Theatre, has been killed.”
The children were silent a moment, till Jonathan, looking up at Crowther under his pale lashes, asked in a small voice, “Was he stabbed, sir?”
Crowther watched him carefully as he replied, “No, Lord Sussex. He was strangled and thrown into the river.”
Lord Sussex nodded. He had, Crowther surmised, been thinking of his own father’s death; it seemed his sister’s thoughts followed a similar trajectory.
Susan looked up at her guardian. “Graves, did he have any children? He never mentioned any.”
Graves reached out his hand to touch her hair. “No, my love. He was alone in the world. That is why Mr. Crowther and Mrs. Westerman must try to give him some justice.”
The argument, Crowther thought, sounded a little weak. He and Harriet had already agreed that Mr. Palmer’s role in the case should not be known to anyone else in the household. It would seem to involve unnecessary risk to all concerned. However, noticing as he did now the tightening of the muscles around Miss Rachel Trench’s jaw, he wished his conscience would let him be more frank. He then became aware that Lady Susan Thornleigh was looking at him with wide and thoughtful eyes.
“You are going to find out who killed Mr. Fitzraven, then? I am glad.” Her glance returning to the plate in front of her; the little girl chased some morsel of meat through its gravy with her fork like a god idly steering ships onto rocks or toward treasure. “Though he was never very nice to me till I became rich. Then he smiled much too much. Before then he used to just ignore us and try and impress Father with talk of the opera. Isn’t it foolish to like someone just because someone else has died and left them money and things?”
He nodded. “Yes, my dear. Very foolish.”
Rachel stood up rather suddenly. “I had thought you in better spirits this evening, Harriet. I hope this new adventure is not the reason for that. Forgive me, Mrs. Service, I have a sudden headache. I fear you must excuse me.”
Mrs. Service nodded to her pleasantly. Harriet rested her forehead on her fingertips and closed her eyes. Graves merely looked serious.
“Mr. Crowther, I think you have not tried the salmon,” Mrs. Service said. “Let me help you to some.”
As she was so employed she continued, “Mr. Graves, Susan and I were planning on attending the opening night of the season at the Italian Opera. It is tomorrow, you know. I hope Miss Trench will join us. Will you come with us also, as part of your. . investigations?”
Mr. Crowther looked at the pink flesh of the fish in front of him, the buttered pastry flaking around it, and found his appetite, always light, was gone.
“I believe we will be at His Majesty’s rather before that, Mrs. Service. And of course, Mrs. Westerman and I would not wish to expose you or the children to any scenes that might be awkward, or unpleasant.”
“Of course not,” Harriet echoed rather wearily.
Mrs. Service smiled and beckoned the footman behind her to remove her plate.
PART II
1
SATURDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 1781, LONDON
Jocasta sniffed and adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. The fire was going well enough now to drive out any shred of the London fog from the room; her breakfast had been eaten and tidied away and Boyo had had the fat of the chop. She should have been happy as a cat in a blanket, but there was an itching at the back of her neck. She looked down at Boyo. He scratched behind his ears and then licked his mouth with a smack.
“Don’t you be looking at me like that, Boyo.” Jocasta sniffed again and put up her chin. “There’s some as can’t be told and that’s all of it.”
Boyo sneezed.
“I know, I know. There’s trouble there and it’s a big thick sort of trouble, and that sort of trouble spills. But why should we go looking for it? Best way to avoid getting caught in it is to step away, not step toward. Just because every time you see a big pile of muck you go jumping into it doesn’t mean I have to do the same.”
The fire cracked in the grate. Boyo whined a little. Jocasta narrowed her eyes.
“Boyo! You are as foolish a dog as I ever knew. A goo
d dog should look after his mistress, not encourage her into all sorts of worry. The cards are saying one thing’s done, and another is following sure as Tuesday follows after Monday night, so what would you have me do!”
She was looking fierce at the little dog now, though it didn’t seem to bother him greatly. He sat down smartly and scratched behind his ears again.
“Yes, I could talk to her again. See if she’ll listen, but she won’t. No woman with a mouth that shape or an eye that blue ever listened to anyone other than the man she’s tied to. You know it. Only three months married. No, she won’t listen till she’s run through six.”
Boyo made no answer. “And in November. Who knows how much of the day we might have to wait in the cold? And it’ll be dark early. And you’ll be keening to be back indoors again within the hour. I know it sure as I know Mrs. Peterson waters the milk and Granger sells meat that could walk out of the shop itself.” She paused, then stood suddenly and raised a finger at the terrier. He jumped up and began to dance in little circles on the hearth rug.
“Well, on your own head be it, lad. Trouble and more trouble and we must go ferreting it out as if it’s all fun and skittles. I give you a fire and fat, but will you stay still and like it? Not a chance, not a hope of it this side of Judgment.”
She tied the shawl fiercely in a great knot and put her hand to the latch. Boyo tilted his head to one side and waited. With a sigh she pulled it open.
“Well. Awez then!”
“What is it, Mrs. Westerman?”
“I don’t believe I spoke, Crowther.”
“Sometimes your silences are speaking.”
The carriage was carrying them briskly along Piccadilly and Harriet had been admiring the passing mansions with her chin in her hand. It was possible that she might have sighed.
“I still do not feel we can share Mr. Palmer’s secrets with anyone at Berkeley Square,” she said.
“I quite agree.”
“Yet I cannot help thinking, did you not sense there was something of a mood of unhappiness at the table when you spoke about Fitzraven and our agreement to help Justice Pither?”
He smiled at seeing the spark in her eye. “Perhaps a little. One could characterize it as an affectionate concern, perhaps.”
Harriet arched her eyebrows. “Yes, I suppose one might, Crowther. But that is not what troubles my conscience the most. I feel I must confess it is likely that had Mr. Palmer not called, had the note arrived from Mr. Pither without introduction, I should probably have found myself in that outhouse and driving with you to His Majesty’s this morning in any case.”
“I see, madam. You feel you are become the monstrous and unfeminine ghoul some have already made you out to be, and you feel Miss Trench does not approve?”
“My sister made it perfectly plain to the whole house that she does not approve, yet I feel neither monstrous nor less a woman than I was two years ago.” She turned toward him and folded her arms. “I will do what seems right to me, but I have to allow that Rachel has a better sense of social niceties than I do, just as her sense of music is superior to mine. I make myself appear foolish at times, and that reflects on my family.”
“Miss Trench has wished you to have something other to think of than your husband’s illness, madam.”
Harriet smiled a little unhappily. “Yes, Crowther, but I think she would rather I was diverted by her plans for redecorating the salon at Caveley than by whatever corpses we find strewn in our way.”
“She must accept the sister she has, Mrs. Westerman. I can only hope she does not raise your temper by suggesting you should behave in any other fashion. I have noticed you are at your most sharp when you suspect you are in the wrong.”
“I shall put it down to your influence, and you shall shoulder her disapproval for me.”
“I would if I were able, madam, but I fear Miss Trench will not be diverted. She is quite as stubborn as yourself in her way.”
This time Harriet certainly did sigh.
When at last they exited the carriage in the middle of Hay Market, Harriet looked up at the simple frontage of His Majesty’s Theatre with curiosity. She was no great admirer of the opera herself, though she had found it pleasant enough the few times she had attended such performances on the continent. She knew, however, that many of the most fashionable and most influential men and women in England proclaimed the opera a marvel and cast themselves into this place like the devotees of some new religion scrambling for a seat near an altar. The king and his family were indeed often entertained here, as were many hundreds of his subjects in the course of a season. On Saturdays and Wednesdays from November until Easter they would tumble in from their carriages with high expectations and strong opinions. They paid their twenty guineas for a box for the season, then came to look at each other and admire the diversions the management gave them in dance and song. Indeed, as well as confirming one’s idea of oneself as a creature of elegant tastes, the operas often provided great spectacle. One might see gods and ancient warriors here, beasts and men flying through the air, armies of chariots crossing the stage, storms and summer days re-created on its grand platform. It was as if all places in the world and all history were gathered roughly up, set to music and squeezed into the theater behind this simple frontage to be poured down the throats of the crowd like the pap fed to infants.
When Harriet woke from her thoughts, she saw that Crowther was reading a notice pinned neatly to the wall by the closed theater gates. He felt her attention on him, and read aloud: “‘The owners of His Majesty’s Theatre are pleased to announce the first performance of a new opera with music by several eminent composers, under the direction of Mr. Bywater. Julius Rex will be performed tonight, seventeenth November 1781. Primo Umo, Sengor Manzerotti, Prima Donna Mademoiselle Marin.’ There are also several other names.”
He stooped forward a little to better read the printing. “Ah, they will be providing three ballets between the acts, also. And the scenery is new painted.” Looking up at the theater, he went on, “What a costly business we make of entertaining ourselves. Well, Mrs. Westerman, shall we go in and deliver the sad news of the demise of Fitzraven to the management here? Though from what Graves has said, I’d be surprised to notice much genuine grief.”
His eyes scanned the frontage, the firmly bolted outer doors through which the pleasure seekers of London would pour during the evening. “The front door does not look very likely an entrance. Let us find another way into this Temple of Art, madam. One often learns so much more by approaching a place from an unexpected direction.”
2
Harriet and Crowther were lucky in the moment and direction they chose. Final preparations for the evening’s performance meant that the stage doors had been propped open to allow the traffic of various servants of the place to fetch and carry from the little yard. It was a pleasingly busy scene. Men and women came and went full of the whistles and calls of their professions. A woman in plain wool with her hands on her hips seemed to be in heated negotiations with a boy carrying a string of unplucked pheasants. Harriet and Crowther had to step back smartly to avoid collision with a man who carried what seemed to be the head of some antique Colossus through the outer gates at breakneck speed, then in the next moment their eyes were caught by a woman so engulfed by the quantity of flowers she was carrying, they seemed to be watching the progress of an ornamental border with legs. They followed her as she ducked into the building itself, scattering rose petals and scraps of foliage as she went, and found themselves in a high, wide corridor that seemed too long and deep to be accommodated behind that ordinary-looking frontage. There were a number of doors open along its length, and their attention was caught by a shout behind the one nearest to them. The voice was deep, angry and powerful.
“No! Not at all! Fool! Have you never seen a tree! Do you never step back from your work and consider? The panel must be done again. I will not be disgraced by you tonight, and if we get wet paint on the costumes, Bartholomew w
ill scream to the heavens. Get a fire in here.”
Crowther pushed the door wide with the flat of his hand, and Harriet moved into the doorway beside him. The room was very large, and light even on such a dull day. The smell of paint was almost overpowering. Crowther’s eyes smarted a little from the fumes as he looked upward.
The room was double the height he expected. The most exacting hostess would have been pleased to hold a ball for fifty people in such a space, but the place was almost bare of furniture, and the walls only rough plaster. It was not empty, however. A number of large painted canvas panels were strung from the high ceiling by a combination of ropes anchored on capstan, pully and cleats. Crowther’s eyes skipped through them, catching at their overlapping edges shreds of various views and interiors. A flower garden, some part of a city street, some gray stonework on canvas that suggested a temple of antiquity, a forest, ruins of some castle. They hung at various heights, and were in various states of repair. It was like looking into the memories of an old and romantic traveler, flashes of time and place and mood, layered and confused.
On the long wall opposite them, Harriet saw panels of sky and sea, and leaned up against them a ship, its prow standing some eight feet above the stone floor. No, not a ship, rather the flat ghost of a ship, rudely, roughly cut off twenty feet along its length; and not wood, but the simulation of wood on a canvas frame. Along its edge were painted wavelets so delicately done, she could almost hear the sounds of the ocean, and thought she could taste the familiar tang of salt on her lips.
In the center of the space available stood a high stool. On it sat, or rather crouched, the figure of an extremely tall man dressed uniformly in deep brown. His hair was the same shade of chestnut as his clothes, and unpowdered. He sat with his black shoes hooked over the bar halfway up the height of his seat. It seemed to almost fold his body in two, like a penknife blade, just open. Poised with his hands on his knees, all his attention was focused on the far end of the room.
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