Bethlehem Road Page 13

  “It was then, about three years ago, that Africa Dowell took us in.” She looked round and saw Pitt’s face, perhaps detecting in him confusion and a certain impatience. It was indeed a sad story, but she had in no way touched upon Vyvyan Etheridge, nor had she any reason to blame him for any part of it.

  “I supported electoral reform,” Florence said wryly. “I even went so far as to endorse Miss Helen Taylor’s attempt to stand for Parliament. I freely expressed my feelings on the subject of women’s rights—that we should be able to vote and to hold office, to make decisions, both as to our money and our children, even to have access to that knowledge which would enable us to choose what number of children we had, rather than spend all our adult years bearing one child after another until exhausted in body and heart, and destitute in pocket.”

  Her voice grew harsher, and the humiliation and bitterness lay like an open wound, still lacerated, still pouring blood.

  “My husband heard of it and pressed the courts that I was an unfit person to have custody of my daughter. I pleaded my cause to Vyvyan Etheridge. He said he saw well that my political views were no part of my fitness as a mother, and I should not be deprived of my child because of them.

  “I did not know at that time that my husband had friends of such influence as he might bring to bear on Mr. Etheridge. He used them, he spoke man to man, and Mr. Etheridge sent word to me that he regretted he had misunderstood my case, and on closer investigation he agreed with my husband that I was an unstable woman, of a hysterical and ill-informed nature, and my daughter would be better with her father. That same day they came and took her from me, and I have not seen her since.” She hesitated a moment, mastering herself with difficulty, forcing the memory out of her mind, and when she continued her voice was flat, almost dead. “Am I sorry Vyvyan Etheridge is dead? I am not! I am sorry only that it was quick and that he probably did not even know who had killed him, or why. He was a coward and a betrayer. He knew I was neither a hysterical person nor light-minded. I loved my daughter more than any other person on earth, and she loved me and trusted me. I could have cared for her above all other interests or causes, and I would have taught her to have courage, dignity, and honor. I would have taught her she was loved, and how to love others. And what will her father teach her? That she is fit for nothing but to listen and to obey, never to feel all her passion, to think or to dream, never to stand up for what she believes is right or good... .” Her voice faltered with the extremity of her loss and the waste of a child’s life, the daughter she had borne and loved, tearing at her heart. It was several long minutes before she could speak again.

  “Etheridge knew that, but he bowed to pressure from other men, from the people who might make it uncomfortable for him if he supported me. It was easier not to fight, and so he allowed them to take my child and give her to her autocratic and loveless father. I am not even permitted to see her.” Her face was a mask of such anguish Pitt felt it was intrusive even to look at her. The tears ran down her cheeks, and she wept without a grimace; it had a kind of terrible beauty, simply from the power of her passion.

  At last Africa knelt down and gently took her hand. She did not hold Florence Ivory in her arms; perhaps the time for that had already been and gone. Instead she looked across the flowered muslin of Florence’s skirt at Pitt.

  “Such men deserve to die,” she said very quietly and gravely. “But Florence did not kill him, nor did I. If that is what you came hoping to discover, then your journey has been wasted.”

  Pitt knew he should press them now as to where they had been at the times Hamilton and Etheridge had been killed, but he could not bring himself to ask it. He assumed they would swear that they had been here at home in their beds. Where else would a decent woman be at close to midnight? And there was no proving it.

  “I hope to find out who did murder both Mr. Etheridge and Sir Lockwood Hamilton, Miss Dowell, but I do not hope it is you. In fact I hope you can show me that it was not.”

  “The door is behind you, Mr. Pitt,” Africa replied. “Please have the courtesy to leave us.”

  Pitt arrived home at dusk, and as soon as he was in the door he tried to put the case from his mind. Daniel had had his supper and was ready for bed, it was merely a matter of hugging him good night before Charlotte took him upstairs. But Jemima, being two years older, had privileges and obligations commensurate with her seniority. They were alone in the parlor by the fire. She bent and picked up all the pieces of her jigsaw puzzle, muttering to herself as she did so. Pitt knew immediately that the mess had been left largely by Daniel, and that she was feeling weightily virtuous clearing it up. He watched her small figure, careful to hide his smile, and when she turned round with immeasurable satisfaction at the end, he was perfectly grave. He did not comment: discipline was Charlotte’s preserve while the children were still so young. He preferred to treat his daughter as a very small friend whom he loved with an intensity and a sweetness that still caught him unaware at times, tightening his throat and quickening his heart.

  “I’ve finished,” she said solemnly.

  “Yes, I see,” he replied.

  She came over to him and climbed onto his knee as matter-of-factly as she would into a chair, turned herself round, and sat down. Her soft little face was very serious. Her eyes were gray and her brows a finer, child’s echo of Charlotte’s. He seldom noticed that her hair had the curl and texture of his, only that it was the rich color of her mother’s.

  “Tell me a story, Papa,” she requested, although from the way in which she had settled herself and the certainty in her voice, perhaps it was a command.

  “What about?”

  “Anything.”

  He was tired and his imagination exhausted by struggling with the murders of Etheridge and Hamilton. “Shall I read to you?” he suggested hopefully.

  She looked at him with reproach. “Papa, I can read to myself! Tell me about great ladies—princesses!”

  “I don’t know anything about princesses.”

  “Oh.” Disappointment filled her eyes.

  “Well,” he amended hastily, “only about one.”

  She brightened. Obviously one would do.

  “Once upon a time there was a princess ...” And he told her what he could remember of the great Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII, who despite much danger and many tribulations finally became monarch of all England. He got so involved in it he did not notice Charlotte standing in the doorway.

  Finally, having recalled all he could, he looked at Jemima’s rapt face.

  “What next?” she prompted.

  “That’s all I know,” he admitted.

  Her eyes widened in wonder. “Was she real, Papa?”

  “Oh yes, as real as you are.”

  She was very impressed. “Oh!”

  Charlotte came in. “And it’s really bedtime,” she said.

  Jemima put her arms round Pitt’s neck and kissed him. “Thank you, Papa. Good night.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  Charlotte met his eyes for a moment, smiling. Then she picked up Jemima and carried her out of the room, and as Pitt watched them go, he suddenly thought again of Florence Ivory and the child she had loved, and had had taken from her.

  Would any judge consider Charlotte a “suitable” person? She had married beneath her, regularly meddled in the detection of crimes, had gone careering round music halls and mortuaries, had disguised herself as a missing courtesan, and had driven after a murderess in a carriage chase that had ended up in a fight on a bawdy house floor. And certainly she had campaigned in her own way for reform!

  He could not think clearly of what he might feel if any law could visit him and take away his children if his social circumstances were deemed inadequate. The pain of it drenched even his imagination.

  And the thought that inevitably followed it was that he could well believe Florence Ivory might have hated Etheridge enough to cut his throat, and Africa Dowell with her, had she know
n and loved the child too, and seen the grief. It was a conclusion he could not escape, deeply as he wanted to.

  He said nothing of it to Charlotte that night, but in the morning when the post came, he noticed the letter in Emily’s hand with its Venetian postmark and knew it would be full of news, excitement, and romance. Emily might have debated whether to talk of all the glamor she was enjoying or to temper it, in view of the fact that Charlotte would never see such things, but knowing Emily, he believed she would not patronize Charlotte with such an evasion. And he guessed the mixture of happiness and envy, and the sense of being left out, that Charlotte would feel.

  She would say nothing, he knew that. She had not shown him the first letter, nor would she show him this one, because she wanted him to think she cared only that Emily was happy, not about all the things Emily had, and indeed in her heart that was what mattered to her.

  He chose this moment to tell her of his involvement in the Westminster murders, both to take her mind from Emily’s new and glittering world and to ease a certain loneliness he felt in not so far having shared with her his feelings, his frustration, confusion, and deep awareness of pain.

  He sat at the breakfast table eating toast and Charlotte’s sharp, pungent marmalade.

  “Yesterday I spoke to a woman who may have cut the throats of two men on Westminster Bridge,” he said with his mouth full.

  Charlotte stopped with her cup halfway to her mouth. “You didn’t tell me you were working on that case!” she exclaimed.

  He smiled. “There hasn’t been much opportunity, what with Emily’s wedding. Then I suppose I became involved in the routine, rather sad questions. It doesn’t concern anyone you know.”

  She pulled a little half apologetic face, realizing his unsaid need to speak of something that had puzzled or grieved him. He read her expression, the understanding between them wry and sweet.

  “A woman?” she said with raised brows. “Could it really have been a woman? Or do you mean she paid someone else?”

  “This woman, I think, could have done it herself. She has the passion, and believes she has cause—”

  “Has she?” Charlotte interrupted quickly.

  “Perhaps.” He took another bit of the toast and it crumbled in his hand. He picked up the pieces and finished them before taking another slice. Charlotte waited impatiently. “I think you would feel she had,” he said, and he outlined for her all that had happened so far, enlarging his opinions of Florence Ivory and Africa Dowell, finding depth and subtlety in them as he searched for the precise words he wanted.

  She listened almost without interruption, only mentioning briefly that Florence Ivory’s name had been spoken in the public meeting, but since she had learned nothing of her, except that she was an object of pity or contempt, she did not elaborate, and when he finished there was no time to discuss it. He was already late, but he felt lighter-footed and easier of heart, though nothing had changed, no new insight had flashed on his inner mind.

  But as he walked along the damp street towards the thoroughfare where he could get a hansom to Westminster, he did wish he could take her just once to someplace exciting and different, give her one glamorous memory to rival Emily’s. But stretch his imagination as he might, he could see no way of affording it.

  When he was gone Charlotte sat for several minutes thinking of Florence Ivory, her loss and her anger, before she pushed the matter aside and opened the letter. It was headed Venice and read:

  My dearest Charlotte,

  What a journey! So long—and noisy. There was a Madame Charles from Paris who talked all the way and had a laugh like a terrified horse. I never want to hear her voice again! I was so tired and dirty when I got here I was ready to cry. It was dark, and I simply fell into a carriage and was taken to our hotel, where all I wanted was to wash off some of the soot and grime before climbing into bed to sleep for a week.

  Then in the morning, what magic! I opened my eyes to see light rippling across an exquisite ceiling and to hear, beauty of beauties, the sound of a man’s voice singing, lyrical as an angel, drifting across the morning air outside, almost echoing!

  I jumped up, mindless of my nightgown or my hair in a tangle, not caring in the slightest how I looked or what Jack would think of me, and ran to the great window, at least two feet deep, and leaned out.

  Water! Charlotte, there was water everywhere! Green and like a mirror, lapping right up to the walls. I could have leaned out and dropped no more than ten feet into it! It was the light reflected from its wind-dappled surface that I had seen on the ceiling.

  The man who sang was standing up as graceful as a reed in the stern of a boat that drifted along, moved by a long pole or oar, I’m not certain which. His body swayed as he moved, and he was singing from pure joy at the loveliness of the day. Jack tells me he does it for money from tourists, but I refuse to believe him. I should have sung for joy, had I been afloat on that canal in the sparkling morning.

  Opposite us there is a palace of marble—honestly! I have been for a ride in one of the boats, which are called gondolas, and have been right across the lagoon to the Church of Santa Maria della Salute. Charlotte, you never even in your dreams saw anything so utterly beautiful! It seems to float on the very surface of the sea like a vision. Everything is pale marble, blue air and water, and gold sunlight. The quality of the light is different here, there is a clarity to it—it is a different color, somehow.

  I love the sound of the Italian language, there is a music in it to my ear. I prefer it to the French, although I understand scarcely a word of either.

  But the smell! Oh dear—that is something quite different, and very trying. But I swear I shall not let it destroy one moment of my pleasure. I think I am noticing it less as I become accustomed to it.

  It has also taken me a little time to become used to the food, and I am terribly tired of the same clothes all the time, but I can pack and carry only so much. And the laundry service is far from what I might wish!

  I have bought several paintings already, one for you, one for Thomas, and one for Mama, and two for myself, because I want to remember this for ever and ever.

  I do miss you, in spite of everything I am seeing and even though Jack is so sweet and full of conversation. Since I do not know where I am going to be, or when, or how long letters will take to reach me, I cannot send you an address so that you may write to me. I shall just have to look forward to seeing you when I get home again, and then you must tell me everything. I am longing to hear what you have done, and thought, and felt—and learned?

  Give my love to Thomas and the children. I have written separately to Mama and Edward, of course. And don’t get into any adventures without me,

  Your loving sister,

  Emily

  Charlotte folded the letter and slipped it back into its envelope. She would put it in her work basket; that was one place Pitt would not find it. She would tell him that Emily was having a wonderful time, of course, but it would only hurt him to read of all the things Emily and Jack were able to see, and he and Charlotte were not. She could not pretend to him she was not envious, that she did not want to see Venice, the beauty and history and romance of it: he would not believe her if she did.

  Better just to tell him Emily was enjoying herself. He would suppose she did not show him the letter because it contained some secret between sisters, perhaps even some details of personal life. After all, Emily was on her honeymoon.

  She got up from the kitchen table and put the letter in her apron pocket and began organizing the day. It was spring; she would do some fierce cleaning and renew everything possible. She already had an idea for new curtains on the landing.

  Pitt went to the House of Commons in the Palace of Westminster and sought permission to go to Etheridge’s office and examine what papers were there, in search of letters and documents that might have to do with William or Florence Ivory. He would also inquire whether there was an office in Etheridge’s constituency whic
h might have notes or correspondence on the matter.

  A junior official in a stiff winged collar and gold-rimmed pince-nez looked at him dubiously.

  “I don’t recall the name. What was it concerning? Mr. Etheridge had many constituents appeal for his time or intervention in matters of all natures.”

  “The custody of a child.”

  “There is an ordinary law which deals with such matters.” The clerk looked over the top of his pince-nez. “I imagine Mr. Etheridge will have replied to Mr. or Mrs. Ivory informing them of the fact, and that will be all the record we have, if indeed we have that. Space is limited; we cannot store trivial correspondence forever.”

  “The custody of a child is not trivial!” Pitt said with barely controlled rage. “If you cannot find the correspondence, then I’ll send in men and they can go through every piece of paper there is until either we find it or we know that it is not here. Then we will look in Lincolnshire.”

  The man flushed faintly pink, but it was irritation, not embarrassment.

  “Really Inspector, I think you forget yourself! You have no mandate to search all Mr. Etheridge’s papers.”

  “Then find me the ones referring to William and Florence Ivory,” Pitt snapped. “I imagine you have concluded for yourself that it may have to do with murder.”

  The man’s lips tightened and he swung round and marched away along the corridor, with Pitt at his heels. They came to the office Etheridge had shared with another member of Parliament, and the official muttered a few words under his breath to a more junior clerk. Standing at a cabinet full of files, the clerk looked with some alarm at Pitt.

  “Ivory?” he looked confused. “I don’t recall anything. What date was it?”

  Pitt realized he did not know; he had not asked. It was a stupid omission, but too late to rectify now.