Rutland Place tp-5 Page 8

  Caroline's face tightened a little and she drew in her breath, knowing the meaning.

  "Oh, didn't you know? She went to the Lagardes'. I was at the Charringtons' a little later and someone mentioned it-I don't remember who now."

  "Thank you," he said gently. "Perhaps that explains what happened. Poor woman. And poor man. Please don't speak of it to anyone else. It would be a decency to let it pass unknown-if possible."

  "Of course." She took a step toward him. "Thank you, Thomas."

  4

  Charlotte was not nearly so gentle with Caroline as Pitt had been, largely because she was afraid, and the feeling was so raw and urgent inside her it overruled the caution with which her mind would otherwise have softened her words. Old memories came flooding back as if the shock and the disillusion had come yesterday. The need to protect was stronger now, though, be shy;cause she could see everything so much more sharply, and this time she was on the outside, not numbed by her own emotions as she had been then.

  "Mama, I think we cannot reasonably place any hope in the idea that Mina took poison by accident," she said frankly as she sat in Caroline's withdrawing room the following day. She had called as soon as she could after hearing the news from Pitt. Gossip would fly very quickly; mistakes might be made at a single encounter.

  "It would be very tragic to think the poor woman was wretched enough to take her own life," she went on, "and even worse to believe someone else hated her enough to commit murder, but closing our eyes to it will not remove the truth."

  "I have already told Thomas the very little I know," Caroline said unhappily. "I even made some rather wild guesses that I wish now I had not. I have probably been extremely unjust."

  "And rather less than honest," Charlotte added harshly. "You told him nothing about Monsieur Alaric's picture being in your stolen locket."

  Caroline froze, her fingers locked as if she had a sudden spasm; only her eyes were hot, scalding Charlotte with contempt.

  "And did you?" Caroline said slowly.

  Charlotte saw the anger in her, but she was too concerned with the danger to spare time for hurt.

  "Of course not!" She dismissed the question without bother shy;ing to defend herself. "But that does not alter the fact that if you lost such a thing, maybe someone else did too!"

  "And if they did, what has that to do with Mina's death?" Caroline was still stiff with chill.

  "Oh, don't be so silly!" Charlotte exploded with exasperation. Why was Caroline being so obtuse? "If Mina were the thief, then she might have been murdered to recover the stolen article, whatever it is! And if she were the victim, maybe it was some shy;thing that mattered to her so much, was so dangerous for her, that she would rather die than face having it known!"

  There was silence. A pan was dropped in the scullery, and the dim echo of it penetrated the room. Very slowly the hard anger died out of Caroline's face as she understood. Charlotte watched her without speaking.

  "What could there be that was worse than death?" Caroline said at last.

  "That is what we need to find out." Charlotte finally relaxed her body enough to sit properly in her chair and lean against the back. "Thomas can find facts, but it may take you or me to understand them. After all, you cannot expect the police to know the feelings of someone like Mina. Something that would seem trivial to them might have been overwhelming to her."

  It was not necessary to explain all the differences of class, sex, and the whole framework of customs and values that lay between Pitt and Mina. Both Charlotte and Caroline understood that all the sensitivity or imagination he was capable of would not guide him to see with Mina's eyes or recognize what it was that had accomplished her death.

  "I wish I didn't have to know," Caroline said wearily, look shy;ing away from Charlotte. "I would so much rather bury her in peace. I have no curiosity. I can abide a mystery perfectly well. I have learned that one is not very often happier for having found all the answers."

  Charlotte knew that at least half her mother's feeling sprang from a desire for privacy herself, the need to keep her own secrets. So much of the pleasure of a flirtation was that other people should see your conquest, and this realization added to her fear. Caroline must be very enchanted with Paul Alaric if she was content for the relationship to be unobserved. That meant it was far more than a game; there was something in it that Caroline wanted very much, something more than admiration alone.

  "You cannot afford not to know!" Charlotte said sharply, wanting to shock her mother into fear acute enough to bring her to some sense. "If Mina were the thief, then she may still have your locket! When her possessions are sorted out, Alstoq will find it-or Thomas will!"

  This had all the jarring effect she intended. Caroline's face tightened into a mask. She swallowed with difficulty.

  "If, Thomas finds it-" she began; and then the enormity of it hit her. "Oh, dear heaven! He might think I killed Mina! Charlotte-he couldn't think that-could he?"

  The danger was too real for soft words and lies.

  "I don't suppose Thomas himself would think so," she an shy;swered quietly. "But other police might. There must have been some reason why Mina died, so we had better find it first, before the locket turns up and anyone else has the chance to think anything at all."

  "But what?" Caroline shut her eyes in desperation, searching blindly for some explanation in the darkness of her mind. "We don't even know if it was suicide or murder! I did tell Thomas about Tormod Lagarde."

  "What about him?" Thomas had not mentioned Tormod or any possible connection.

  "That Mina might have been in love with him," Caroline replied. "She definitely had an admiration for him. It could have been more than we thought. And she did go to the Lagardes' house just before she died. Perhaps she had some kind of interview with him and he rejected her in a way that she could not bear?"

  The idea of a married woman finding the end of such a relationship cause for suicide disturbed Charlotte. It was frighten shy;ing and pathetic in a way that repelled her, especially since she could not put Caroline and Paul Alaric from her mind. But then she did not know how disagreeable or empty the Spencer-Browns' marriage might have been. She had no right to judge. So many marriages were "appropriate"-and even those born of love could sour. She reproved herself for making too hasty a judgment, an act she despised in others.

  "I suppose Eloise Lagarde might know," Charlotte said thoughtfully. "We shall have to be very tactful in inquiring. No one would wish to believe they might have been the cause, however unintentionally, of someone else's taking her own life. And Eloise is bound to protect her brother.''

  The hope faded from Caroline's face. "Yes. They are very close. I suppose it comes from having only each other when their parents died so young."

  "There are several other possibilities," Charlotte continued. "Someone has been stealing. Perhaps they took from Mina some lover's keepsake from Tormod, and the fear that it might become public was unbearable to her. Perhaps they even went to her and threatened to give it to Alston if she did not give them money-or whatever else they wished." Her imagination went on to thoughts that might drive a person into thinking of death. "Perhaps it was another man who desired her. And that was the price of his silence."

  "Charlotte!" Caroline sat bolt upright. "What a truly appall shy;ing mind you have, girl! You would never have been capable of such thoughts when you lived in my house!"

  Charlotte had on her tongue a few pointed words about Caroline, Paul Alaric, and the question of morality, but she refrained from speaking them.

  "Some truly appalling things happen, Mama," she said instead. "And I am a few years older than I was then."

  "And you also appear to have forgotten a great deal about the sort of people we are. No man in Rutland Place would stoop to such a thing!"

  "Not so openly, perhaps," Charlotte said quietly. She had her own ideas about what was done but would be called by a pleasanter name. "But he doesn't have to be one of you. Why not a footman
-or even a bootboy? Can you answer for them so surely?"

  "Oh, dear God! You can't be serious!"

  "Why not? Might not that have been enough to make Mina, or any other woman, think of suicide? Might you not?"

  "I-" Caroline stared at her. She let out her breath very slowly, as if she had given up some fight. "I don't know. I should think it is one of those things that would be so dreadful you could not know how you would feel unless it happened to you." She moved her eyes to look down at the floor. "Poor Mina. She so hated anything in the least unseemly. Something like that would have-shriveled her to the heart!"

  "We don't know that that was what happened, Mama."'Char shy;lotte leaned forward and touched her. "There are other things it could have been. Perhaps Mina was the thief, and she could not face the shame of being discovered."

  "Mina? Oh, surely-" Caroline began, then stopped, suspi shy;cion fighting incredulity in her face.

  "Someone is," Charlotte pointed out soberly. "And consider shy;ing where the articles were stolen from, it doesn't appear that any one servant could have taken them. But someone like Mina could!"

  "But she lost something herself," Caroline argued. "A snuffbox."

  "You mean she said she did," Charlotte corrected. "And it was her husband's, not hers. Surely the most intelligent way to direct suspicion from oneself would be to take something of your own as well? It does not take a great deal of brains to work that out."

  "I suppose not. And you think this person who is watching knew about it?"

  "It is a possibility."

  Caroline shook her head. "I find it terribly hard to believe."

  "Do you find any of it easy? Yesterday Mina was alive."

  "I know! It's all so ugly and useless and stupid. Sometimes it seems impossible to believe how so much can change irrevo shy;cably in a few hours."

  Charlotte tried another line of thought. "Do you still have the sensation of being watched?"

  Caroline looked startled. "I've no idea! I haven't even consid shy;ered it. What does a Peeping Tom matter now, compared with Mina's death?"

  "It might have something to do with it. I'm just trying to think of everything I can."

  "Well, none of it seems worth anyone dying over." Caroline stood up. "I think it is time we took luncheon. I asked for it to be ready at quarter to one, and it is past that now."

  Charlotte followed her obediently and they repaired to the breakfast room where the small table was set and the parlormaid ready to serve.

  After the maid had gone, Charlotte began her soup, at the same time trying to recall some of the conversation that had taken place when she had met Mina a week ago. Mina had made a number of remarks about Ottilie Charrington and her death, possibly even implying that there was something mysterious about it. It was an ugly idea, but once it was in Charlotte's mind it had to be explored.

  "Mama, Mina had lived here for some time, had she not?"

  "Yes, several years." Caroline was surprised. "Why?"

  "Then she probably knew everyone fairly well. Quite well enough that if she were the thief, and took something important, she might well understand its meaning, don't you think?"

  "Such as what?"

  "I don't know. Ottilie Charrington's death? She said a lot about it when she was here-almost as if she suspected there could be a secret, something the family would rather were not known."

  Caroline put her soup spoon back in the bowl. "You mean that it was not natural?"

  Charlotte frowned uncertainly. "Not anything quite so awful as that. But perhaps she was not as respectable as Mr. Charrington, at least, would have liked. Mina said she was very high-spirited, and definitely implied she was also indiscreet. Maybe there would have been some sort of scandal if she had not died when she did?"

  Caroline started to eat again, breaking a piece of bread.

  "What an unpleasant thought, but I suppose you are right," she said. "Mina did drop several hints that there was a lot more to know about Ottilie than most people realized. I never asked her, because I am so fond of Ambrosine I did not wish to encourage talk. But Mina did make me a little curious about Theodora as well, now that I come to remember."

  Charlotte was puzzled. "Who is Theodora?"

  "Theodora von Schenck, Amaryllis Denbigh's sister. She's a widow with two children. I don't know her very well, but I confess to liking her considerably."

  Charlotte found it hard to imagine liking anyone related to Amaryllis. "Indeed," she said, unaware how skeptical she sounded. '

  Caroline smiled dryly. "They are not at all alike. For a start, Theodora does not appear to have any desire to marry again, even though she has very little means, as far as anyone knows. And, of course, people do know! In fact, when she came here a few years ago, she had nothing but the house, which she inher shy;ited from her parents. Now she has a new coat with a collar and trim right down to the ground I would swear is sable! I remem shy;ber when she got it that Mina remarked about it. I am ashamed of myself, but I cannot help wondering how she came by it!"

  "A lover?" Charlotte suggested the obvious.

  "Then she is incredibly discreet!"

  "It doesn't seem very discreet to wear a sable collar out of the blue, with no explanation!" Charlotte protested. "She can hardly be naive enough to imagine it would pass unnoticed! I would wager every woman in Rutland Place could price the garments of every other woman to within a guinea! And probably name the dressmaker who made them and the month in which they were cut!"

  "Oh, Charlotte! That's unfair! We are not so-so ill-disposed or so trivial-minded as you seem to think!"

  "Not ill-disposed, Mama, but practical, and with an excellent eye to value."

  "I suppose so." Caroline finished the last of her soup, and the maid reappeared to serve the next dish. The two women began to eat slowly. It was a delicate fish, and extremely well cooked; at any other occasion Charlotte would have enjoyed it.

  "Theodora obviously has more money now than she used to," Caroline went on reluctantly. "Mina once suggested that she did something quite appalling to earn it, but I was sure at the time that she was only being facetious. She had rather poor taste sometimes." She looked up. "Charlotte, do you think perhaps it could have been true and Mina knew something about it?"

  "Perhaps." Charlotte weighed the idea. "Or perhaps on the other hand Mina was-merely being spiteful-or saying something for the sake of making an effect. The stupidest stories get started that way sometimes."

  "But Mina wasn't like that," Caroline argued. "She very seldom talked about other people, except as everybody does. She was much more inclined to listen."

  "Then it begins to look as if it was something to do with Tormod," Charlotte reasoned. "Or some other man we don't know of yet. Or perhaps something to do with Alston that we do not know. Or else simply that she was the thief."

  "Suicide?" Caroline pushed her plate away. "What a dread shy;ful thing it is that another human being, another woman you thought of as much like yourself, only a few houses away, could be so wretched as to take her own life rather than live another day-and you know nothing about it at all. You go about your own trivial little affairs, thinking of menus and seeing that the linen is repaired, and whom to call upon, exactly as if there were nothing else to do."

  Charlotte put her hand across the table to touch Caroline.

  "I don't suppose you could have done anything even if you had known," she said quietly. "She gave no clue at all that she was so desperately unhappy-and one cannot intrude into everyone's business to inquire. Grief is sometimes more easily borne for being private, and a humiliation is the last thing one wishes to share. The kindest thing one can do is to affect not to have noticed."

  "I suppose you're right. But I still feel guilty. There must have been something I could have done."

  "Well, there isn't anything now, except speak well of her."

  Caroline sighed. "I sent a letter to Alston, of course, but I feel it is too early to call upon him yet. He is bound to be
very shocked. But poor Eloise is unwell also. I thought we might call there this afternoon and express our sympathy. She has taken the whole thing very badly. I think perhaps she is even more delicate than I had realized."

  It was not a prospect Charlotte looked forward to, but she could see it was quite plainly a duty. And if the Lagardes had been the last people, apart from Mina's own servants, to see her alive, then perhaps something could be learned.

  Charlotte was stunned when she walked behind Caroline into the Lagarde withdrawing room. Eloise looked so different from the woman she had seen the week before that for a moment she almost expected a new introduction. Eloise's face was almost colorless, and she moved so slowly she might have been fum shy;bling in her sleep. She forced herself to smile, but it was a small gesture. Death was in the Place, and the formality of the usual pretended delight was not expected now.

  "How kind of you to call," she said quietly, first to Caroline, then to Charlotte. "Please do sit, and make yourselves comfortable. It still seems to be quite cold." She had on a heavy shawl over her dress and kept it closed around her.

  Charlotte sat down in a chair across the room, as far as she could get with courtesy from the fire that roared up the chimney as if it had been midwinter. It was a pleasant spring day outside, bright though not yet warm.

  Caroline appeared to be at a loss for words. Perhaps her own anxieties were too pressing for her to organize her thoughts into polite remarks. Charlotte rushed in with speech before Eloise should become aware of it.

  "I'm afraid summer is always longer in coming than one hopes," she said meaninglessly. "One fancies because the day shy;light hours are longer that the sun will be warmer, and it so seldom is."

  "Yes," Eloise said, looking at the square of blue through the window. "Yes, it is easy to be deceived. It looks so bright, but one doesn't know till one is in it quite how cold it is."