Rutland Place tp-5 Read online

  Tormod was still casual, his voice light. He smiled at her with a little twist of regret.

  "I suppose not, if one knew for sure who it was and had proof that it had occurred," he said. "But we haven't. All we would do is rouse suspicion, and perhaps quite unjustly. Better to let the matter lie. Once one begins an inquiry into evil, one can start a train of events that is very difficult to stop. A silver-plated buttonhook is hardly worth all the anger and fear, and the doubts, that inquiry would raise."

  "I think you are quite right," Charlotte said quickly. "After all, a case of something missing-one has no idea where-is very different from actually knowing beyond question that a particular person has stolen it."

  "How wise of you." Tormod flashed her a rapid smile. "Justice is not always best served by shouting 'thief.' "

  Before Caroline could defend her view, the maid announced another caller.

  "Mrs. Denbigh, ma'am," she said to Eloise. "Shall I say that you will receive her?"

  Eloise's face tightened almost imperceptibly. In another light, farther from the window, the change in her expression might not have been visible at all.

  "Yes, of course, Beryl, please do."

  Amaryllis Denbigh was the sort of woman Charlotte felt quite uncomfortable with. She came into the room with assurance, carrying with her an air of always having been successful, always valued. She was not beautiful, but there was an appeal in her face of wide eyes and slightly too round, curved lips, the innocence of an adolescent who does not yet understand her own potential for excitement and hunger. She had an abundance of fair, wavy hair that was dressed just casually enough not to look unnatural. It required a very skilled maid to achieve such an effect. Her dress was undeniably expensive-not in the least ostentatious, but Charlotte knew how much it cost to have a dressmaker cut it so cleverly that the bust looked just that much fuller, the waist those few inches smaller.

  Introductions were formal and very complete. Amaryllis weighed Charlotte to an exactness, and dismissed her. She turned to Tormod.

  "Shall you be coming to Mrs. Wallace's soiree on Thursday? I do so hope so. I have heard the pianist she has invited is quite excellent. I'm sure you would enjoy it. And Eloise too, of course," she added as an afterthought, a politeness without conviction.

  Charlotte noted the tone in her voice and drew conclusions of her own.

  "I think we will," Tormod replied. He turned to Eloise. "You have nothing else prepared, have you, dear?"

  "No, not at all. If this pianist is good, it will be a great pleasure. I only hope they do not all make such a noise we cannot hear him."

  "My dear, you cannot expect conversation to cease just to listen to a pianist-not at a soiree," Amaryllis said gently. "After all, it is primarily a social event, and the music is merely a diversion, a pleasantness. And of course it gives people some shy;thing to talk about without having to think too hard for a suitable subject. Some people are so awkward, you know." She smiled at Charlotte. "Do you not think so, Mrs. Pitt?"

  "Indeed, I am sure of it," Charlotte agreed frankly. "Some cannot think of anything suitable to say at all, while others speak far too much and at all the wrong times. I greatly like a person who knows how to be silent comfortably, especially when there is good music playing."

  Amaryllis' face tightened. She ignored the implication.

  "Do you play, Mrs. Pitt?" she asked.

  "No," Charlotte answered blandly. "I regret I do not. Do you?"

  Amaryllis regarded her chillingly.

  "I paint," she replied. "I prefer it. So much less intrusive, I think. One can look or not, as one chooses. Oh"-she widened her eyes and bit her lip-"I'm so sorry, Eloise. I had forgotten that you play. I did not mean you, of course! You have never played at anyone's soiree!"

  "No, I think I should be very nervous," Eloise said. "Although it would be an honor to be asked. But I rather think I should be irritated if everyone talked so much that no one else could listen." She spoke with some feeling. "Music should be respected, not treated like street sounds, or wallpaper, no more than a sort of background. Then one becomes bored with it, without ever having appreciated its beauty."

  Amaryllis laughed, a high, pretty sound that irked Charlotte unreasonably-perhaps because she would have liked to have such a laugh, and knew she did not.

  "How philosophical you are!" Amaryllis said brightly. "I warn you, my dear, if you start saying things like that at a soiree, you will become most unpopular. People will not know what to make of you!" /

  Charlotte gave her mother a sharp nudge on the ankle, and as Caroline bent to touch the place, thinking something had fallen on her, Charlotte pretended to assume she was preparing to leave.

  "May I help you, Mama?" she offered, then rose and gave Caroline her arm.

  Caroline glanced at her. "I am not yet in need of assistance, Charlotte," she said crisply. But although the idea of sitting down again, out of contrariness, lingered quite clearly in her eyes, after a moment she excused herself politely, and a few minutes later they were both outside in the street again.

  "I dislike Mrs. Denbigh," Charlotte said with feeling. "Very much!"

  "That was obvious." Caroline pulled her collar up. Then she smiled. "Actually, so do I. It is completely unfair, because I have no idea why, but I find her most irritating."

  "She has set her cap at Tormod Lagarde," Charlotte remarked by way of partial explanation. "And she is being very bold about it." I

  "Do you think so?"!

  "Of course she is! Don't tell me you had not noticed!"

  "Of course I have noticed!" Caroline shivered. "But I have I seen a great many more women set their caps at men than you have, my dear, and I had not thought Amaryllis was particularly clumsy. In fact, I think she is really quite patient."

  "I still do not care for her!"

  "That is because you like Eloise and you cannot think what will happen to her if Tormod marries, since Amaryllis obviously is not fond of her. Perhaps Eloise herself will marry, and that will solve the problem."

  "Then it would be a great deal cleverer of Amaryllis to find a suitable young man for Eloise than to sit there disparaging her, wouldn't it! It should not be hard-she is perfectly charming. What is the matter, Mama? You keep hunching your shoulders as if you were in a draft, but it is quite sheltered here."

  "Is there anyone behind us?"

  Charlotte turned. "No. Why? Were you expecting someoneT'

  "No! No-I–I just have the feeling that someone is watching US: For goodness' sake, don't stare like that, Charlotte. You will have people think we are watching them, trying to see in through their curtains!"

  "What people?" Charlotte forced herself to smile in an effort to hide her anxiety for Caroline. "There isn't anyone," she said reasonably.

  "Don't be silly!" Caroline snapped. "There is always someone-a butler or a maid drawing curtains, or a footman at a door.''

  "Then it is hardly anything to matter." Charlotte dismissed it with words, but in her mind she did not find it so easy. The sensation of being watched-not casually observed by someone about another duty, but deliberately and systematically watched- was extremely unpleasant. Surely Caroline was imagining it? Why should anyone do such a thing? What possible reason would there be?

  Caroline had quickened her pace, and now she did so again. They were walking so rapidly Charlotte's skirts whipped round her ankles, and she was afraid that if she did not look where she was going she would trip over one of the paving stones and fall headlong.

  Caroline whirled around the gatepost and up the steps to her own front door. She was there before the footman had seen them to open it, and was obliged to wait. She shifted from foot to foot, and once actually turned to stare back into the road.

  "Mama, has someone accosted you in the street?" Charlotte asked, touching her arm.

  "No, of course not! It's just-" She shook herself angrily. "I have the feeling that I am not alone, even when it would appear in every way that I am. There is someo
ne I cannot see but who I am perfectly sure can see me."

  The door opened and Caroline swept in, with Charlotte behind her.

  "Close the curtains please, Martin," she said to the footman.

  "All of them, ma'am?" His voice rose in surprise. It was still daylight for another two hours, and perfectly pleasant.

  "Yes, please! In all the rooms that we shall occupy." Caro shy;line removed her coat and hat and gave them to him; Charlotte did the same.

  In the withdrawing room Grandmama was sitting in front of the fire.

  "Well?" She surveyed them up and down. "Is there any news?"

  "Of what, Mama?" Caroline asked, turning toward the table.

  "Of anything, girl! How can I ask for news of something if I do not know what it is? If I already knew it, it would not be news to me, would it?"

  It was a fallacious argument, but Charlotte had long ago discovered the futility of pointing that out to her.

  "We called upon Mrs. Charrington and Miss Lagarde," she said. "I found them both quite delightful."

  "Mrs. Charrington Js eccentric." Grandmama's voice was tart, as if she had bitten into a green plum.

  "That pleased me." Charlotte was not going to be bested. "She was very civil, and after all that is the important thing."

  "And Miss Lagarde-was she civil too? She is far too shy for her own good. The girl seems incapable of flirting with any skill at all!" Grandmama snapped. "She'll never find herself a hus shy;band by wandering around looking fey, however pretty her face. Men don't marry just a face, you know!"

  "Which is as well for most of us." Charlotte was equally acerbic, looking at Grandmama's slightly hooked nose and heavy-lidded eyes.

  The old woman affected not to have understood her. She turned toward Caroline icily. "You had a caller while you were out."

  "Indeed?" Caroline was not particularly interested. It was quite usual for at least one person to visit during the afternoon, just as she and Charlotte had visited others; it was part of the ritual. "I expect they left a card and Maddock will bring it in presently."

  "Don't you even wish to know who it was?" Grandmama sniffed, staring at Caroline's back.

  "Not especially."

  "It was that Frenchman with his foreign manners. I forget his name." She chose not to remember because it was not English. "But he has the best tailor I have seen in thirty years."

  Caroline stiffened. There was absolute silence in the room, so thick one imagined one could hear carriage wheels two streets away.

  "Indeed?" Caroline said again, her voice unnaturally casual. There was a catch in it as if she were bursting to say more and forcing herself to wait so her words would not fall over each other. "Did he say anything?"

  "Of course he said something! Do you think he stood there like a fool?"

  Caroline kept her back to them. She took one of the daffodils out of the bowl, shortened its stalk, and replaced it.

  "Anything of interest?"

  "Who ever says anything of interest these days?" Grandmama answered miserably. "There aren't any heroes anymore. General Gordon has been murdered by those savages in Khartoum. Even Mr. Disraeli is dead-not that he was a hero, of course! Or a gentleman either, for that matter. But he was clever. Everyone with any breeding is gone."

  "Was Monsieur Alaric discourteous?" Charlotte asked in surprise. He had been so perfectly at ease in Paragon Walk, good manners innate in his nature, even if she had frequently seen humor disconcertingly close beneath.

  "No," Grandmama admitted grudgingly. "He was civil enough, but he is a foreigner. He cannot afford not to be civil. If he'd been born forty years earlier, I daresay he would have made something of himself in spite of that. There isn't even a decent war now 'where a man could go and prove his worth. At least there was the Crimea in Edward's time-not that he went!"

  "Crimea is in the Black Sea," Charlotte pointed out. "I don't see what it has to do with us."

  "You have no patriotism," Grandmama accused. "No sense of Empire! That's what is wrong with the young. You are not great!"

  "Did Monsieur Alaric leave any message?" Caroline turned around at last. Her face was flushed, but her voice was perfectly steady now.

  "Were you expecting one?" Grandmama squinted at her.

  Caroline breathed in and out again before replying.

  "Since I do not know why he called," she said, walking over to.the door, "I wondered if he left some word. I think I'll go and ask Maddock." And she slipped out, leaving Charlotte and the old lady alone.

  Charlotte hesitated. Should she ask the questions that were teeming in her head? The old woman's sight was poor; she had not seen Caroline's body, the rigid muscles, the slow, controlled turn of her head. Still her hearing was excellent when she chose to listen, and her mind was still as sharp and as worldly as it had ever been. But Charlotte realized that there was not anything Grandmama could tell her she had not already guessed for herself.

  "I think I will go and see if Mama can spare the carriage to take me home," she said after a moment or two. "Before dark."

  "As you please." Grandmama sniffed. "I don't really know what you came for-just to go calling, I suppose."

  "To see Mama," Charlotte answered.

  "Twice in one week?"

  Charlotte was not disposed to argue. "Goodbye, Grandrnama. It has been very nice to see you looking in such good health."

  The old lady snorted. "Full of yourself," she said dryly. "Never did know how to behave. Just as well you married beneath you. You'd never have done in Society."

  All the way home, rolling smoothly through the streets in her father's carriage, Charlotte was too consumed by her thoughts to take proper pleasure in how much more comfortable the carriage was than the omnibus.

  It was painfully apparent that Caroline's interest in Paul Alaric was not in the least casual. Charlotte could recall too many of the idiotic details of her own infatuation with her brother-in-law Dominic, before she had met Thomas, to be deceived by this. She knew just that affectation of indifference, the clenching of the stomach in spite of all one could do, the heart in the throat when his name was mentioned, when he smiled at her, when people spoke of them in the same breath. It was all incredibly silly now, and she burned with embarrassment at the memory.

  But she recognized the same feeling in others when she saw it; she had seen it before for Paul Alaric, more than once. She understood Caroline's stiff back, the overly casual voice, the pretense of disinterest.that was not strong enough to stop her from almost running to Maddock to find out if Alaric had left a message.

  It had to be Paul Alaric's picture in the locket. No wonder Caroline wanted it back! It was not some anonymous admirer from the past, but a face that might be recognized by any resident of Rutland Place, even the bootboys and the scullery maids.

  And there was no possible way she could explain it! There could be no reason but one why she should carry a locket with his picture.

  By the time Charlotte reached home, she had made up her mind to tell Pitt something about it and to ask his advice, simply because she could not bear the burden alone. She did not tell him whose picture was in the locket.

  "Do nothing," he said gravely. "With any luck, it has been lost in the street and has fallen down a gutter somewhere, or else it has been stolen by someone who has sold it or passed it on, and it will never be seen again in Rutland Place, or by anyone who has the faintest idea who it belonged to, or whose picture it is."

  "But what about Mama?" she said urgently. "She is obviously flattered and attracted by this man, and she doesn't intend to send him away."

  Pitt weighed his words carefully, watching her face. "Not for a little while, perhaps. But she will be discreet." He saw Char shy;lotte draw breath to argue, and he closed his hand over hers. "My dear, there is nothing you can do about it, and even if there were you have no right to interfere."

  "She's my mother!"

  "That makes you care-but it does not give you the right to step into her affai
rs, which you are only guessing at."

  "I saw her! Thomas, I'm perfectly capable of putting together what I saw this afternoon, the locket, and what will happen if Papa finds out!"

  "Then do what you can to make sure that he doesn't. Warn her to be careful, by all means, and to forget the locket, but don't do anything more. You will only make it worse."

  She stared back at him, into his light, clever eyes. This time he was wrong. He knew a lot about people in general, but.she knew more about women. Caroline needed more than a warning. She needed help. And whatever Pitt said, Charlotte would have to give it.

  She lowered her eyes. "I'll warn her-about pursuing the locket," she agreed.

  He understood her better than she knew. He would not press her into a position where she was obliged to lie. He sat back, resigned but unhappy.

  Pitt was too busy with his own duties to harass his mind with anxieties over Caroline. Previous cases had led him into associa shy;tion with people of similar positions in Society, but the circum shy;stances in which he had seen them had necessarily been unusual, and he was aware that these past associations gave him little real understanding of their beliefs or their values. He understood even less of what might be acceptable to them in their relationships, and what would cause irreparable harm.

  Pitt felt it was dangerous for Charlotte to get mixed up in the Rutland Place thefts, but he knew that most of his reaction sprang from his emotions rather than his reason: he was afraid she would be hurt. Now that she had moved from Cater Street and left her parents' home, she had absorbed new beliefs, albeit some of them unconsciously, and she had forgotten many as shy;sumptions that used to be as natural to her as they still were to her parents. She had changed, and he was afraid that she had not realized how much-or that she had expected them to have changed also. Her loyal, fiercely compassionate, but blind inter shy;ference could so easily bring pain to them all.

  But he did not know how to persuade her from it. She was too close to see.

  He was sitting at his brown wood desk at the police station looking at an unpromising list of stolen articles, his mind on Charlotte, when a sharp-nosed constable came in, his face pinched, eyes bright.