Defend and Betray Page 6

  “Miss Latterly, ma’am,” the maid said quietly, then withdrew.

  Edith rose to her feet, her face eager.

  “Hester! Did you see him? What did he say? Will he do it?”

  Hester found herself smiling briefly, although there was little enough humor in what she had to report.

  “Yes I saw him, but of course he cannot accept any case until he is requested by the solicitor of the person in question. Are you sure Peverell will be agreeable to Mr. Rathbone acting for Alexandra?”

  “Oh yes—but it won’t be easy, at least I fear not. Peverell may be the only one who is willing to fight on Alex’s behalf. But if Peverell asks Mr. Rathbone, will he take the case? You did tell him she had confessed, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Thank heaven. Hester, I really am most grateful to you for this, you know. Come and sit down.” She moved back to the chairs and curled up in one and waved to the other, where Hester sat down and tucked her skirts comfortably. “Then what happens? He will go and see Alex, of course, but what if she just goes on saying she did it?”

  “He will employ an investigator to enquire into it,” Hester replied, trying to sound more certain than she felt.

  “What can he do, if she won’t tell him?”

  “I don’t know—but he’s better than most police. Why did she do it, Edith? I mean, what does she say?”

  Edith bit her lip. “That’s the worst part of it. Apparently she said it was out of jealousy over Thaddeus and Louisa.”

  “Oh—I …” Hester was momentarily thrown into confusion.

  “I know.” Edith looked wretched. “It is very sordid, isn’t it? And unpleasantly believable, if you know Alex. She is unconventional enough for something so wild and so foolish to enter her mind. Except that I really don’t believe she ever loved Thaddeus with that sort of intensity, and I am quite sure she did not lately.”

  For a moment she looked embarrassed at such candor, then her emotions at the urgency and tragedy of it took over again. “Please, Hester, do not allow your natural repugnance for such behavior to prevent you from doing what you can to help her. I don’t believe she killed him at all. I think it was far more probably Sabella—God forgive her—or perhaps I should say God help her. I think she may honestly be out of her mind.” Her face tightened into a somber unhappiness. “And Alex taking the guilt for her will not help anyone. They will hang an innocent person, and Sabella in her lucid hours will suffer even more—don’t you see that?”

  “Yes of course I see it,” Hester agreed, although in honesty she thought it not at all improbable that Alexandra Carlyon might well have killed her husband exactly as she had confessed. But it would be cruel, and serve no purpose, to say so to Edith now, when she was convinced of Alexandra’s innocence, or passionately wished to be. “Have you any idea why Alexandra would feel there was some cause for jealousy over the general and Mrs. Furnival?”

  Edith’s eyes were bright with mockery and pain.

  “You have not yet met Louisa Furnival, or you would not bother to ask. She is the sort of woman anyone might be jealous of.” Her expressive face was filled with dislike, mockery, and something which could almost have been a kind of admiration. “She has a way of walking, an air to her, a smile that makes you think she has something that you have not. Even if she had done nothing whatsoever, and your husband found no interest in her at all, it would be easy to imagine he had, simply because of her manner.”

  “That does not sound very hopeful.”

  “Except that I would be amazed if Thaddeus ever gave her more than a passing glance. He really was not in the least a flirt, even with Louisa. He was …” She lifted her shoulders very slightly in a gesture of helplessness. “He was very much the soldier, a man’s man. He was always polite to women, of course, but I don’t think he was ever fearfully comfortable with us. He didn’t really know what to talk about. Naturally he had learned, as any well-bred man does, but it was learned, if you know what I mean.” She looked at Hester questioningly. “He was brilliant at action, brave, decisive, and nearly always right in his judgment; and he knew how to express himself to his men, and to new young men interested in the army. He used to come alight then; I’ve watched his eyes and seen how much he cared.”

  She sighed. “He always assumed women weren’t interested, and that’s not true. I would have been—but it hardly matters now, I suppose. What I’m trying to say is that one doesn’t flirt with conversation about military strategy and the relative merits of one gun over another, least of all with someone like Louisa. And even if he did, one does not commit murder over such a thing, it is …” Her face puckered, and for a moment Hester wondered with sudden hurt what Oswald Sobell had been like, and what pain Edith might have suffered in their brief marriage, what wounds of jealousy she herself had known. Then the urgency of the present reasserted itself and she returned to the subject of Alexandra.

  “I imagine it is probably better that the truth should be learned, whatever it is,” she said aloud to Edith. “And I suppose it is possible the murderer is not either Alexandra or Sabella, but someone else. Perhaps if Louisa Furnival is a flirt, and was casting eyes at Thaddeus, her own husband might have imagined there was more to it than there was, and might finally have succumbed to jealousy himself.”

  Edith put her hands up and covered her face, leaning forward across her knees.

  “I hate this!” she said fiercely. “Everyone involved is either family or a friend of sorts. And it has to have been one of them.”

  “It is wretched,” Hester agreed. “That is one of the things I learned in the other crimes I have seen investigated: you come to know the people, their dreams and their griefs, their wounds—and whoever it is, it hurts you. You cannot island yourself from it and make it ‘them,’ and not ‘us.’ ”

  Edith removed her hands and looked up, surprise in her face, her mouth open to argue; then slowly the emotion subsided and she accepted that Hester meant exacdy what she said.

  “How very hard.” She let her breath out slowly. “Somehow I always took it for granted there would be a barrier between me and whoever did such a thing—I mean usually. There would be a whole class of people whose hurt I could exclude …”

  “Only with a sort of dishonesty.” Hester rose to her feet and walked over to the high window above the garden. It was a sash window open at top and bottom, and the perfume of wallflowers in the sun drifted up. “I forgot to tell you last time, with all the news of the tragedy, but I have been enquiring into what sort of occupation you might find, and I think the most interesting and agreeable thing you could do would be as a librarian.” She watched a gardener walk across the grass with a tray of seedlings. “Or researcher for someone who wishes to write a treatise, or a monograph or some such thing. It would pay you a small amount insufficient to support you, but it would take you away from Carlyon House during the days.”

  “Not nursing?” There was a note of disappointment in Edith’s voice, in spite of her effort to conceal it, and a painful self-consciousness. Hester realized with a sudden stab of embarrassment that Edith admired her and that what she really sought was to do the same thing Hester did, but had been reluctant to say so.

  With her face suddenly hot she struggled for a reply that would be honest and not clumsy. It would not be kind to equivocate.

  “No. It is very hard to find a private position, even if you have the training for it. It is far better to use the skills you have.” She did not face her; it was better Edith did not see her sudden understanding. “There are some really very interesting people who need librarians or researchers, or someone to write up their work for them. You could find someone who writes on a subject in which you might become most interested yourself.”

  “Such as what?” There was no lightness in Edith’s voice.

  “Anything?” Hester turned to face her and forced a cheerfulness into her expression. “Archaeology … history … exploration.” She stopped as she
saw a sudden spark of real excitement in Edith’s eyes. She smiled with overwhelming relief and a surge of unreasonable happiness. “Why not? Women have begun to think of going to most marvelous places—Egypt, the Magreb, Africa even.”

  “Africa! Yes …” Edith said almost under her breath, her confidence returned, the wound vanished in hope. “Yes. After all this is over I will. Thank you, Hester—thank you so much!”

  She got no further because the sitting room door opened and Damaris came in. Today she looked utterly different. Gone was the contradictory but distinctly feminine air of the previous occasion. This time she was in riding habit and looked vigorous and boyish, like a handsome youth, faintly Mediterranean, and Hester knew the instant their eyes met that the effect was wholly intentional, and that Damaris enjoyed it.

  Hester smiled. She had dared in reality for further than Damaris into such forbidden masculine fields, seen real violence, warfare and chivalry, the honest friendship where there was no barrier between men and women, where speech was not forever dictated by social ritual rather than true thoughts and feelings, where people worked side by side for a desperate common cause and only courage and skill mattered. Very little of such social rebellion could shake her, let alone offend.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Erskine,” she said cheerfully. “I am delighted to see you looking so well, in such trying circumstances.”

  Damaris’s face broke into a wide grin. She closed the door behind her and leaned against the handle.

  “Edith said you were going to see a lawyer friend of yours who is totally brilliant—is that true?”

  This time Hester was caught off guard. She had not thought Damaris was aware of Edith’s request.

  “Ah—yes.” There was no point in prevarication. “Do you think Mr. Erskine will mind?”

  “Oh no, not at all. But I cannot answer for Mama. You had better come in to luncheon and tell us about it.”

  Hester looked desperately at Edith, hoping she would rescue her from having to go. She had expected simply to tell Edith about Rathbone and then leave her to inform Peverell Erskine; the rest of the family would find out from him. Now it seemed she was going to have to face them all over the luncheon table.

  But Edith was apparently unaware of her feelings. She stood up quickly and moved towards the door.

  “Yes of course. Is Pev here?”

  “Yes—now would be a perfect time.” Damaris turned around and pulled the door open. “We need to act as soon as we can.” She smiled brilliantly at Hester. “It really is most kind of you.”

  The dining room was heavily and ornately furnished, and with a full dinner service in the new, fashionable turquoise, heavily patterned and gilded. Felicia was already seated and Randolf occupied his place at the head of the table. He looked larger and more imposing than he had lounging in the armchair at afternoon tea. His face was heavy, and set in lines of stubborn, weary immobility. Hester tried to imagine him as a young man, and what it might have been like to be in love with him. Was he dashing in uniform? Might there have been a trace of humor or wit in his face then? The years change people; there were disappointments, dreams that crumbled. And she was seeing him at the worst possible time. His only son had just been murdered, and almost certainly by a member of his own family.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Carlyon, Colonel Carlyon,” she said, swallowing hard, and trying at least temporarily to put out of her mind the confrontation which must come when Oliver Rathbone was mentioned.

  “Good afternoon, Miss Latterly,” Felicia said with her eyebrows arched in as much surprise as was possible with civility. “How agreeable of you to join us. To what occasion do we owe the pleasure of a second visit in so short a time?”

  Randolf muttered something inaudible. He seemed to have forgotten her name, and had nothing to say beyond an acknowledgment of her presence.

  Peverell looked as benign and agreeable as before, but he smiled at her without speaking.

  Felicia was very obviously waiting. Apparently it was not merely a rhetorical question; she wished an answer.

  Damaris strode over to her place at the table and sat down with something of a swagger, ignoring the frown which shadowed her mother’s face.

  “She came to see Peverell,” she answered with a slight smile.

  Felicia’s irritation deepened.

  “At luncheon?” Her voice held a chill incredulity. “Surely if it were Peverell she wished to see she would have made an appointment with him in his offices, like anyone else. She would hardly wish to conduct her private business in our company, and over a meal. You must be mistaken, Damaris. Or is this your idea of humor? If it is, it is most misplaced, and I must require you to apologize, and not do such a thing again.”

  “Not humorous at all, Mama,” she said with instant sobriety. “It is in order to help Alex, so it is entirely appropriate that it should be discussed here, with us present. After all, it does concern the whole family, in a way.”

  “Indeed?” Felicia kept her eyes on Damaris’s face. “And what can Miss Latterly possibly do to help Alexandra? It is our tragedy that Alexandra would seem to have lost her sanity.” The skin across her cheekbones tightened as if she were expecting a blow. “Even the best doctors have no cure for such things—and not even God can undo what has already happened.”

  “But we don’t know what has happened, Mama,” Damaris pointed out.

  “We know that Alexandra confessed that she murdered Thaddeus,” Felicia said icily, concealing from them all whatever wells of pain lay beneath the bare words. “You should not have asked Miss Latterly for her help; there is nothing whatsoever that she, or anyone else, can do about the tragedy. We are quite able to find our own doctors who will take care of her disposition to a suitable place of confinement, for her own good, and that of society.” She turned to Hester for the first time since the subject had been raised. “Do you care to take soup, Miss Latterly?”

  “Thank you.” Hester could think of nothing else to say, no excuse or explanation to offer for herself. The whole affair was even worse than she had foreseen. She should have declined the invitation and excused herself. She could have told Edith all she needed to know quite simply and left the rest to Peverell. But it was too late now.

  Felicia nodded to the maid and the tureen was brought in and the soup served in silence.

  After taking several sips Randolf turned to Hester.

  “Well—if it is not a doctor you are counseling us about, Miss Latterly, perhaps we had better know what it is.”

  Felicia looked at him sharply, but he chose to ignore her.

  Hester would like to have told him it was between her and Peverell, but she did not dare. No words came to her that could have been even remotely civil. She looked back at his rather baleful stare and felt acutely uncomfortable.

  There was silence around the table. No one came to her rescue, as if their courage had suddenly deserted them also.

  “I—” She took a deep breath and began again. “I have the acquaintance of a most excellent barrister who has previously fought and won seemingly impossible cases. I thought—I thought Mr. Erskine might wish to consider his services for Mrs. Carlyon.”

  Felicia’s nostrils flared and a spark of cold anger lit her face.

  “Thank you, Miss Latterly, but as I think I have already pointed out, a barrister is not required. My daughter-in-law has already confessed to the crime; there is no case to be argued. It is only a matter of arranging for her to be put away as discreetly as possible in the place best suited to care for her in her state.”

  “She may not be guilty, Mama,” Edith said tentatively, the force and enthusiasm gone out of her voice.

  “Then why would she admit to it, Edith?” Felicia asked without bothering to look at her.

  Edith’s face tightened. “To protect Sabella. Alex isn’t insane, we all know that. But Sabella may well be …”

  “Nonsense!” Felicia said sharply. “She was a trifle emotional after her child was bor
n. It happens from time to time. It passes.” She broke a little brown bread on the plate to her left, her fingers powerful. “Women have been known to kill their children sometimes, in such fits of melancholia, but not their fathers. You should not offer opinions in matters you know nothing about.”

  “She hated Thaddeus!” Edith persisted, two spots of color in her cheeks, and it came to Hester sharply that the reference to Edith’s ignorance of childbirth had been a deliberate cruelty.

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Felicia said to her sharply. “She was unruly and very self-willed. Alexandra should have been much firmer with her. But that is hardly the same thing as being homicidal.”

  Peverell smiled charmingly. “It really doesn’t matter, Mama-in-law, because Alexandra will give me whatever instructions she wishes, and I shall be obliged to act accordingly. After she has thought about it awhile, and realized that it will not simply be a matter of being shut away in some agreeable nursing establishment, but of being hanged …” He ignored Felicia’s indrawn breath and wince of distaste at the grossness of his choice of words. “… then she may change her plea and wish to be defended.” He took another sip from his spoon. “And of course I shall have to put all the alternatives before her.”

  Felicia’s face darkened. “For goodness sake, Peverell, are you not competent to get the matter taken care of decently and with some discretion?” she said with exasperated contempt. “Poor Alexandra’s mind has snapped. She has taken leave of her wits and allowed her jealous fancies to provoke her into a moment of insane rage. It can help no one to expose her to public ridicule and hatred. It is the most absurd of crimes. What would happen if every woman who imagined her husband paid more attention to another woman than he should—which must be half London!—were to resort to murder? Society would fall apart, and everything that goes with it.” She took a deep breath and began again, more gently, as if explaining to a child. “Can you not put it to her, when you see her, that even if she has no feeling left for herself, or for us, that she must consider her family, especially her son, who is a child? Think what the scandal will do to him! If she makes public this jealousy of hers, and goodness knows there was no ground for it except in her poor mad brain, then she will ruin Cassian’s future and at the very least be a source of embarrassment to her daughters.”