A Christmas Hope Read online

  “Gentlemen know how to hold their drink,” he said tartly.

  “Oh, Wallace, don’t be absurd!” she said with something close to a guffaw. “We just pretend we haven’t noticed when they can’t. I’ve picked up my skirts and walked around enough ‘gentlemen’ lying in the gutter not to have many illusions left.”

  He glared at her. “They may not stay upright on their feet, but they do not murder harlots on the terrace, Claudine. There is a difference.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “A difference between the terrace and some back alley? A geographical one. It seems to be a distinction rather than a difference. I’m sure the harlot would rather prefer not to be attacked at all. The location of it probably matters very little to her.”

  “Claudine, your language has become very coarse lately. I don’t care for the effect on you that working at the clinic seems to be having. Perhaps it would be better if you were to desist for a while. A year or two, maybe.”

  She did not retreat as usual, even though she knew she was losing, and would continue to do so. She looked at him inquiringly. “Is ‘harlot’ an unfortunate word? I learned it from you, Wallace. You used it just now, at the dinner table. I assure you I did not hear it at the clinic. It is not a term we use there. It is unnecessarily insulting.”

  His face burned hot, but with anger rather than embarrassment. “Well, did you learn your insolence there? I assure you that you did not get that from me,” he snapped back, mimicking her tone.

  “Of course not,” she agreed. “You have no one to be insolent toward. Just as your employees dare not be insolent to you, out of fear of losing their positions, you are not insolent to your superiors, or you would lose yours.”

  He pushed his soup plate away from him, empty. He had not stopped eating while speaking to her. “They will try Tregarron in the New Year,” he said, ignoring her statement. “I imagine he will be hanged before the end of January. Damn good thing, too. He is a bad influence all round.”

  “I agree with you.” She pushed her plate away also, although it was barely touched. “He seems to have had a profound effect on Creighton Foxley and on Cecil Crostwick. How sad that they will have to find harlots on their own now. Oh, I’m sorry. You don’t like that word. I’m not sure I can think of another that quite fits the circumstances.”

  “Was there wine in the soup?” he said patronizingly.

  “I have no idea. Do you wish for some?”

  “It seems you have had more than enough. Did you already know that Tregarron had been arrested?”

  “No. I had no idea. And I have had no wine at all. Would you be kind enough to ring the bell for the butler? I have eaten sufficiently. Perhaps he would bring the next course.”

  From there, the evening became worse, as she had known it would.

  “They won’t try Tregarron over Christmas, but they’ll likely do it straight afterward. If only to get it out of the way.” Squeaky sat across from her at his desk in the clinic, gritting his teeth. It was now five days before Christmas. The weather was still mild. There was no frost in the air, no ice on the ground. “I wish the stupid sod had left the country.” He gave a grunt of annoyance. “I should’ve found him. Got him to go. I’m no bloody use at all—I’ve lost my touch. That’s respectability for you!”

  His voice was so full of self-disgust that Claudine was momentarily sorry for him. “You learned quite a bit about his life,” she pointed out.

  He gave a bitter look. “That he wasn’t seen hitting women. What good is that? You never thought he was guilty anyway.”

  “I didn’t think so because I didn’t want to,” she said with rather more honesty than she had intended. She had not meant him to know that. “Now I know because of a pattern of behavior you have traced.”

  “Yeah? And what difference does that make? Who’s going to believe the likes of you or me?”

  Claudine was taken aback by the idea that her word was of no more credibility than that of an ex–brothel keeper, but Squeaky was probably right.

  “Then we have to get Alphonsine to testify,” she said firmly. She did not know what Squeaky would make of what she was about to tell him. “But it will be difficult, because she’ll have to say where she was.”

  “What do you mean?” he demanded.

  “She saw the whole thing. She knows that it wasn’t Dai Tregarron who hit Winnie Briggs—but she doesn’t know which of the young men it was.”

  He blinked. “How’s that?”

  “From where she was standing, she could see Tregarron; he was farther down the terrace, and when Winnie was hit, when he realized it had become ugly, he moved to stop it. But she was already down before he could do anything.”

  Squeaky was silent as he weighed her words. “You’re certain?” he said finally.

  “Yes, I am,” Claudine assured him.

  Squeaky nodded slowly. “That’s a big step forward,” he conceded with respect. “Now can we get her to admit that to the police? To say it in court, if it comes to that?”

  “That might be difficult. You see, Alphonsine couldn’t distinguish the other young men clearly, and none of them could see her, because she was across the terrace behind the windows of another house,” she explained. “The lights on the terrace made them visible to her.”

  “Was she standing in the dark, then?”

  “Yes. It … it was an assignation. She wasn’t alone.”

  Squeaky turned that over in his mind for several moments. “Couldn’t she just say that she was alone?”

  Claudine looked at him witheringly. “Doing what?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Why on earth would she be standing alone in the dark in a neighbor’s house, staring out of the window at the terrace of her own house?” she said with as much patience as she could manage, which was very little indeed. Her voice sounded thin and tense.

  He took the point and did not bother to say so. “And what would happen if she just plain told the truth?” he asked.

  “It would jeopardize her engagement to Ernest Halversgate, because he would know that at the very best she did not love him, and at worst that she was actually involved with someone else. Knowing about it would be bad enough, but everyone else knowing would be unendurable. The arrangement would be ended.”

  “Didn’t you say it hadn’t even begun yet?” Squeaky looked at her sideways.

  “Not formally,” she agreed. “Informally, it is as if it were carved in stone.”

  “So he’ll break it off—because she’s betrayed him?” The ways of society still annoyed him. “Doesn’t he love her?”

  “I doubt it. But she will inherit a great deal of money, in due course.”

  “Well that’s better than love. If he’s got any bloody brains at all, he’ll forgive her, from a great height, and keep the engagement,” Squeaky said with conviction. “By the way—not that it matters, I suppose—but who does she love? Or would she rather not have either of them?”

  “I think she would rather have the other one, but he has no money,” Claudine replied.

  “Is he any good?” He looked at her curiously.

  “I don’t know. Perhaps I should find out. But it will all depend upon her father anyway.”

  “Are you sure she’s telling the truth?” He squinted at her a little sideways.

  She was surprised. “Do you doubt it?”

  “Well, she’s kind of cornered, ain’t she?” he pointed out. “Her father’s got her into this arrangement, which she doesn’t like, but she can’t see her way out of it. Now suddenly she’s got the chance to play a real blinder by saying she was with another man an’ she saw this fight clearly enough to say Dai Tregarron wasn’t guilty. And on her conscience she has to come forward and say so, even though it’ll make her unwanted fiancé unwant her a great deal more. He’ll break it off, and there’ll be nothing she can do about it. Maybe she’ll find that the only man who’ll have her now is the one she wants anyway.”


  Claudine stared at him in growing horror.

  “Better than that,” Squeaky went on, “she can even realize, right at the last minute when she’s been persuaded enough, that it were actually her fiancé that hit poor Winnie Briggs, and much as she hates doing it, honor forces her to testify to it.”

  It was a hideous scenario, and one that had not even occurred to Claudine. She struggled against it, trying to find even one reason why it could not be true. She failed. It could be exactly as Squeaky suggested.

  In fact, the more she thought of it, the more she realized that Ernest Halversgate was going to be in trouble regardless, because he had clearly told the police that Winnie’s assailant was Dai Tregarron. He had lied, either because he himself was actually involved or because he was prepared to send an innocent man to the gallows to save one of his guilty friends. That was, morally at least, also a kind of murder.

  Squeaky was watching her, seeing in her face the thoughts reflected as they unfolded.

  “Sorry,” he said with a sudden gentleness. Then he looked away quickly.

  Another, even worse thought occurred to her. What if, with her persistence, Claudine had unintentionally pushed Alphonsine into lying in the first place? Maybe Dai Tregarron was guilty, and by going on and on, insisting that there must be some other solution, she had maneuvered Alphonsine into this edifice of lies from which none of them would escape? What had her meddling done?

  Wallace was right: She should have let the law take its course and kept well out of it. She had no skill, no knowledge, and very little sense. Suddenly, she was consumed with shame.

  Squeaky was still watching her.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked. It had clearly not occurred to him that she might do nothing.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  “Well, you can’t just sit there!” he exclaimed. “You done this—you’d better undo it.”

  She glared at him. She knew the truth; she did not need a semi-reformed brothel keeper, of all people, to tell her such things. Then she saw the concern in his face, which he probably had no idea he was betraying so openly; it caught her unawares, and she was quite painfully moved by it. He actually cared. It was an odd friendship—awkward, grown slowly from beginnings of mutual contempt—but it was real nonetheless.

  She would not embarrass him by acknowledging it.

  “I will go and face Alphonsine,” she answered, “and persuade her to admit the truth, whatever that is. Perhaps we can even get this other young man to testify …”

  The shadow cleared from Squeaky’s face. “Well, you’d better get on then, hadn’t you!” he said gruffly. “I got things to do, even if you haven’t. I s’pose you haven’t forgotten, but just in case you have, it’s nearly Christmas.”

  Alphonsine did not seem surprised to see Claudine again. She arrived on what was ostensibly a Christmas call of general well-wishing, but both knew why she was truly there. They sat together in the morning room, as neither of them wished to be interrupted by others who might call. It was also a time of day when Oona would be out making her own visits.

  “You will know that Mr. Tregarron has been arrested.” Claudine did not waste time or stretch the tension unnecessarily by making light conversation about subjects neither of them cared about.

  “Yes, my mother mentioned it,” Alphonsine replied, looking down at the carpet. “I admit, I wondered if she knew anything about my … my knowledge of the incident. She brought it up most particularly.”

  “I daresay, she is anxious since the tragedy happened here at your house, and she can hardly be uninterested in the outcome,” Claudine suggested.

  “He’ll be found guilty, and hanged,” Alphonsine whispered. “You told me that. Unless I tell the police, and perhaps the court, that I saw what really happened and it was not Mr. Tregarron.” She looked at Claudine like someone drowning and already beyond reach of the shore.

  “I’m afraid that as far as I can see, that is the truth,” Claudine replied. “I wish I could think of an alternative, and I have tried.”

  “My father will be furious.” Alphonsine still struggled. “He has been friends with the Halversgates for years.”

  “Yes, so I believe.” Claudine made no allowances because of that fact. “I imagine he would not have liked you to marry into a family he did not know, and trust.” She hoped Alphonsine would pick up the argument, if in fact she believed it could have been Ernest who struck Winnie. She searched Alphonsine’s face to see if there was the duplicity in it that Squeaky had imagined possible. She saw nothing but desperation for an escape, and rising panic.

  “He’ll despise me,” Alphonsine whispered.

  “Your father or Ernest?” Claudine asked her. It was important that she did not misunderstand.

  “Both …,” Alphonsine replied.

  “Perhaps. But you surely know that above whatever may happen, your father loves you. And while Ernest may not love you, you might also consider that he was there on the terrace at the time. He knows it was not Dai Tregarron who killed Winnie, and yet he is willing to allow him to be tried and hanged for the crime. Is that because he is guilty himself and wants to escape the consequences? Or does he wish to protect one of his friends, friends who seem to matter more to him than honor or justice? Or is he afraid that if he speaks the truth, then there will be some price for him to pay in popularity? Does he fear for his safety, that if he speaks the truth, his friends will attack him and make him suffer for it in more personal and immediate ways? No matter which it is, does that seem like a man your father would wish you to marry and into whose hands he would place your future?”

  “No! No, of course not.” Alphonsine gave a bleak little smile. “But there are two things you have forgotten. One is that I was in the house next door with John before I knew of Ernest’s weakness.” She winced. And clearly not for the first time. “The other is that quite possibly no one will believe me, anyway. Creighton, Cecil, and Ernest will all say it was Tregarron in order to save themselves. And it is what everyone else will want to believe. It removes the matter from any of our hands. And can’t you see what they will say of me? Isn’t it obvious?”

  Indeed it was obvious, and Claudine had already considered it. She knew what she was asking of Alphonsine. She would almost certainly lose the marriage prospect ahead of her. She would also gain the enmity of the Halversgates, not to mention the Foxleys and the Crostwicks, whose sons’ reputations she would drag into question. All of them had lied, but they would fight very hard to prove that it was Alphonsine who was the liar. They would paint her to be a loose and immoral young woman whose virtue was far from what she had claimed for it.

  Silence would be so much easier. Everybody would approve of her. She would have a safe and prosperous marriage, her parents would be well satisfied, social events would proceed as before with nothing but an unpleasant incident clouding a few days before the Christmas celebrations wiped it away.

  They would not even know what Alphonsine had done for them, because the young men did not know she had witnessed the tragedy.

  Even Dai Tregarron would not know that she could perhaps have saved him. He would not blame her.

  Claudine herself would find it easier, in a way, to keep quiet. It would be more comfortable. Otherwise the young men’s families would hate her, too, perhaps blame her the more, thinking her older and better able to foresee the grief Alphonsine’s testimony would bring upon all of them. Wallace would be revoltingly self-satisfied. She could hear his voice in her head: “I told you Tregarron was guilty! Why couldn’t you see it, like everyone else?”

  Claudine looked again at the girl’s face, the pain and the indecision in it, the increasing understanding of what speaking out would cost her. And she saw also a growing appreciation of what her silence would cost. Perhaps she glimpsed the long years ahead, of looking at Ernest Halversgate and knowing what he had done, that he would lie for his own comfort and see someone else hang for it.

  Would s
he ever feel safe again? Might she let slip one day that she had seen what had happened? What then?

  “Alphonsine,” Claudine said gently, “I cannot tell you what you must do, but I can warn you as clearly as I am able to of what the price will be, whatever course you take.”

  Alphonsine looked at her, fear in her eyes, waiting.

  “If you are certain of what you saw, I think you have no choice but to tell it now,” Claudine said. “Or be prepared to live with your silence, and whatever consequences might follow it, for the rest of your life. You will presumably marry Ernest Halversgate, knowing that he also knows the truth and that he chose to remain silent. You had better be very sure that you never tell him you also know. As it stands, he will have to testify under oath. No one will ask you to testify because they do not know you saw anything. Can you live with that silence, and do you trust the man you love, and who you were with, to keep that silence also? He knows you saw what happened. Possibly he saw it also. What manner of man is he?”

  Alphonsine took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “He is an honest man,” she whispered. “He will tell the truth. And he would despise me if I said nothing. The thought of that hurts more than I can bear. I have decided. Will you come with me?”

  “Of course. Whom shall we see first?”

  “John. His name is John Barton.”

  It was not quite so easy to arrange a meeting between Alphonsine and John Barton, with Claudine present. It required a degree of subterfuge and rather a lot of hansom cab rides to one place and then another. Claudine did not dare take her own carriage. If Wallace were to ask the coachman where he had been all day that the horses were in such a lather, the reply would cause a good deal more trouble. Fortunately, she had funds to afford cab fares for both herself and Alphonsine.

  Thus it was that late that evening they met with John Barton. He had excused himself from a dinner with his friends on the pretext of urgent business, the nature of which was private.