A Christmas Hope Page 9

  “It’s not to do with time, Squeaky,” she said. “It’s to do with separating the best people from the second best.”

  “Best?” he retorted indignantly. “In whose eyes?”

  “Their own, of course. Do you think they even know there is anybody else?” She smiled as she said it, but there was a hard, sad honesty underneath the humor.

  He stared at her. “You’re an odd one, Mrs. B. Lot more to you than meets the eye, an’ that’s the truth.”

  “I think I had better see Alphonsine again,” she said. “What will you do?”

  “Balance the bleedin’ books,” Squeaky said tartly. “Then maybe I’ll go and look some more for Tregarron.” Suddenly he was deeply serious. “If I find him, do you think I should tell him to get the hell out of England? They’ll hang him, you know.”

  “Yes, of course I do.” She heard her own voice tight and hard in her throat. “I don’t know the answer. If he goes, he’ll never face trial, so in other people’s eyes he’ll always be guilty. It’ll mean he can’t ever come home again. That would matter more to him than to some men.”

  Squeaky raised his eyebrows.

  “I’ve read some of his poetry,” she said abruptly. “And that’s another thing. His life as a poet, and his reputation, matter to him.”

  “Well. If I tell ’im to stay, you’d better be right,” he said grimly. “There isn’t going to be no second shots at it!”

  “I know. If you do find him, speak to him honestly.” She took a deep breath. “And we should face the possibility that he really did kill her, even if he didn’t mean to.”

  He grunted. “Judge ain’t going to make no distinction,” he pointed out. “If he were Cecil Crostwick, for instance, the judge might say it was all an unfortunate accident, and we’ll treat it like a brawl that went wrong. But the powers that be’ll make damn sure with Dai Tregarron that they swing him by the neck. He in’t one of them. In fact, he’s rather gone out of his way, one time and another, to make a point of that.”

  “I know. You might remind him of that, too, if you do find him.”

  Squeaky shrugged and picked up the teapot to see if there was anything left in it. He put it down again, disappointed. “Not much chance of it. If he’s any sense, he’ll be in Timbuktu by now.” He frowned. “I s’pose I get to go back out again!”

  “We also need to find a connection between Briggs and Foxley or Crostwick,” she pointed out.

  He glared at her and sighed heavily, but stood up again and pulled his coat back onto his shoulders.

  Again it required a little engineering and quite a lot of duplicity from Claudine to arrange to meet with Alphonsine alone.

  She regretted it, but time was short. If Claudine was right about the boys being guilty, then Alphonsine might suffer dearly in the years to come through her marriage to Ernest. And Dai Tregarron might pay with his life.

  Was she fueled by a need for justice, righteous indignation, or just plain, ordinary anger? She did not yet have an answer for that question.

  The place she expected to encounter Alphonsine was an exhibition of archaeological pieces recently found in Asia Minor. She was beginning to think all her elaborate plotting was for nothing when she finally saw the young woman standing alone in front of a display of glass jewelry, seeming to be deep in thought.

  Claudine knew she was intruding. It made her hesitate a moment and then carry on regardless. An afternoon’s unwelcome clumsiness was little enough compared with the misery that would follow if she was right, and did nothing.

  “How pleasant to see you, Miss Gifford,” Claudine said warmly, even though she kept her voice low. “This display gives one a whole new perception of the period, doesn’t it?”

  Alphonsine was startled, and she did not have the presence of mind to keep her dismay from her face.

  Claudine decided for complete candor, then. “I am aware that I am interrupting you when you would prefer to be alone,” she admitted. “If the matter could have waited, I assure you, I would have left you in peace. My interest in history is not so obsessive as to compel me to share it with someone. I am much more concerned with the recent past, and the near future.”

  Alphonsine scrambled to be courteous. “I don’t think I understand you, Mrs. Burroughs. But it is most pleasant to see you. If I looked otherwise, it was merely because I was startled out of my reverie.”

  “You are very generous,” Claudine responded. “But I can see that you are troubled and wish to be left in peace. Unfortunately, time and events will not wait for us.”

  Alphonsine pretended for a moment that she did not understand. Then, meeting Claudine’s eyes, she knew that the struggle was destined to fail.

  “Earlier you seemed confident that Mr. Halversgate did not have anything to do with the death of Winnie Briggs. That it was simply a case of being at the wrong place at the crucial time,” Claudine began.

  “Yes, yes, that’s quite right,” Alphonsine agreed quickly. “He tried to help, but as we all know, it was too late by then.” She looked away.

  Claudine thought of the lies Alphonsine had purportedly connived at in order to spend more time with Ernest.

  “You care for him very much …,” she said aloud.

  Alphonsine looked confused. For a moment her face betrayed the absurdity of the idea, then she masked it quickly.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  “No one has been very clear as to how it began,” Claudine went on. She kept her voice low and quite casual, as if she were actually discussing the old, rather dented beads in front of them, which might have been worn by a woman three thousand years ago, under a hot Middle Eastern sun. And here were they, two English women with fair skins wrapped up against the English winter, staring at them and talking about anger, fear, and murder.

  “How little changes,” she said aloud.

  Alphonsine turned toward her, the question in her face.

  “The necklace,” Claudine replied, glancing at the beads. “I wonder what she was like, the woman who wore those. Who gave them to her? More important, I wonder if he loved her.” Claudine voiced her thoughts. She had never been beautiful—she had known that from the start—but she would like to have been loved, above all things. She would have to settle for being liked, perhaps for being trusted, respected. Best of all would have been to have had the courage to stand up for herself and fight for what she believed in.

  Alphonsine was looking at the beads again. “I wonder if she was happy.”

  Claudine heard the pain in her voice—or perhaps “wistfulness” would be a more accurate word—and knew with sudden clarity that Alphonsine’s stolen time was not spent with Ernest Halversgate. She was reveling in her freedom, while she still had it. Maybe she had come here to be alone, to indulge in her dreams while she could, before they were marred by an inner sense of having betrayed herself.

  Claudine tried to put her own feelings aside. “There are many kinds of happiness, some of them within our reach, regardless of circumstances,” she said. “How much of the truth do you know of that evening, Alphonsine? Was it really Dai Tregarron who beat Winnie Briggs? Or was it a more general fight that simply got out of hand?”

  Alphonsine looked away. “Why do you think I know?”

  “Because of what you have already told me,” Claudine replied. “You are afraid that if Ernest Halversgate is called to testify, he will say something that shouldn’t be said. I don’t know whether that is because he will tell some truth that is inconsistent with what has been told to the police, or if you are afraid that he will lie, and very possibly be caught in that lie, becoming a suspect himself.” She saw the fear crystallize in Alphonsine’s eyes. “Or else that he will not be caught,” she added, “but will cause the blame to fall on someone else, and in so doing see an innocent man hanged, and the rest of your own lives are then destroyed from within. And they will be. Never doubt that.”

  Alphonsine’s eyes brimmed with tears.

  “You have th
e chance to act now,” Claudine said gently. “Perhaps you are wise enough to imagine what the future will be, whereas the young men concerned are not. They are afraid. That is easy to understand. So are you. It is there, very easy to read in your eyes. If they have neither the courage nor the honor to act for themselves, then you must do it for Tregarron. If you don’t, and he is hanged wrongly, do you not think you will be haunted by his face and theirs, and imagine a rope around your own neck every time you lie alone in the dark, for the rest of your life?”

  Alphonsine said nothing for a long time. Then at last she spoke.

  “It was all fairly good-natured to begin with,” she said quietly. “Then they got a bit insistent, demanding that Winnie … do more and more. She refused. It got a bit rough. I don’t remember who it was. There’s no good pushing me because I didn’t see. She slapped him. He lost his temper. Then it got really rough. Someone hit her, and she fell against Ernest. I saw that.”

  “They were all on the terrace?” Claudine interrupted, trying to visualize it in her mind.

  “Yes. Tregarron was a bit apart from the others, a bit farther away. They were moving about, pushing and shoving, you know?”

  “I can picture it. Then what happened?”

  “Ernest … Ernest was angry. I think someone must’ve broken a glass and spilled their drink over him.”

  “You smelled it … afterward?” Claudine interrupted quickly.

  Alphonsine turned away again. “Yes.”

  “Then what?”

  “I … I didn’t see clearly. There was more pushing and a few blows. Someone shoved Winnie very hard, and she fell down completely. She was angry then, and when she got up she lashed back at someone. I only saw her arm swing. And there was blood. I mean, I don’t know who she struck. But whoever it was, he struck back very hard. That was when I saw Dai Tregarron lunge forward at him and punch him, but he missed his face and caught his shoulder. The two of them fought, just a few blows. Tregarron staggered against the pillar. I think it was then that they realized Winnie was on the ground, and she wasn’t moving.”

  “Who had hit her, Alphonsine?”

  “I don’t know. Except it wasn’t Mr. Tregarron. Then he was bent over trying to get his breath, leaning against the pillar, when he saw she was on the ground, just lying there. He tried to help her. That was when you came in.”

  Claudine stared at her, stunned, her mind racing.

  “I swear, that is the truth,” Alphonsine said urgently.

  “Part of it, anyway,” Claudine agreed. “You don’t know who it was who hit Winnie Briggs hard enough to kill her, when she fell and her head struck the ground. But you do know it wasn’t Dai Tregarron. You know that if they catch him they will try him for murder, and if they find him guilty—and without your story there is no reason why they wouldn’t—then they will hang him?”

  Alphonsine gulped air and nearly choked. “Yes …” It was a whisper. “But I can’t prove it, and they will only say that I’m lying. I—I can’t prove it … I really can’t!”

  “You were there!” Claudine protested.

  Alphonsine stared at her. Claudine thought back to the night: the terrace, Winnie lying on the stones, her face white, not moving. She remembered Dai Tregarron’s black head bent as he tried to revive her, and Cecil Crostwick, Creighton Foxley, and Ernest Halversgate standing pale and shivering nearby. She did not remember seeing Alphonsine anywhere.

  And yet Alphonsine had just described the incident in some detail, exactly as if she had seen it: confusion, anger, stupidity, and a fatal mistake.

  “Where were you?” Claudine asked quietly.

  “I … I was in the morning room. It looks out onto the terrace.”

  “I see. Thank you.” Claudine smiled. “I’m sorry to have been so persistent.”

  Alphonsine relaxed a little and looked away. “It’s all right. I understand.”

  Claudine took her leave and caught a hansom toward her home again. She relaxed against the cushion, tired and relieved, thinking over what Alphonsine had said. Her testimony, however reluctantly given, would show Tregarron’s innocence. Should she have asked the girl what she had been doing in the morning room, or was that irrelevant? Speaking to someone? Avoiding someone! Staring out of the window at the terrace? And why had she been so slow to come forward? Because it implicated Halversgate; that was the obvious answer. Then Claudine had a cold thought: perhaps because it was less than the whole truth, after all?

  With a weariness that reached her very bones, Claudine leaned forward and very unwillingly instructed the driver to take her to the Giffords’ house. At this time of the day, it was quite possible no one would be at home. It should not be too difficult to gain a few moments alone in the morning room. The servants would merely think her very eccentric. Perhaps they did anyway. It was not an excuse to avoid doing what she must.

  Half an hour later she returned to the exhibition. She walked all the way through it until she came to the tearoom and found Alphonsine sitting at one of the small tables with a friend. She glanced up and saw Claudine. Her hand froze in the air, her cup halfway to her lips.

  Claudine stopped, still gazing at Alphonsine.

  Alphonsine lowered her cup and rose to her feet. She said something to her friend then walked over toward Claudine.

  “Please … not here …,” she pleaded earnestly. Her eyes were wide, filled with fear.

  “You were not in the morning room,” Claudine said very quietly. “If what you said you saw is the truth—and I believe it is—then you must have been much farther around the terrace. You must’ve been in the house next door. That was how you saw what happened, but only partially. And that was why none of them saw you.”

  Alphonsine was very pale. She was trembling.

  At last the pieces fell into place, and Claudine understood.

  “This is why you do not wish to marry Ernest Halversgate, isn’t it?” she asked. “It has to be. There is someone else.”

  The tears slid down Alphonsine’s cheeks. “My father won’t ever permit it. He wouldn’t even consider it.”

  “I assume he is unsuitable?” Claudine understood perfectly. They belonged to the same world. If it was a young man with no prospects, or perhaps a youngest son, he would be unacceptable, neighbor or not. Claudine had once dreamed a similar dream and then given it up to obey her father’s wishes. She had no idea whether it would ever have worked well, or even at all. At her father’s insistence, the young man had never given her the chance to accept, or himself the chance to be refused.

  She had not remembered it so vividly for years. Now she understood far better than Alphonsine could imagine.

  “It’s hard, I know,” she said gently. “But what happiness is there for you if you do not tell the truth about this? You can convince your parents, or the police, that you do not know what happened. But can you lie to yourself? You could avoid going to Tregarron’s trial, quite easily. In fact, it would be more difficult for you to go than not to. But is that who you wish to be?”

  “I can’t tell them!” Alphonsine said desperately. “It was an—an assignation! If he knew of it, Ernest would never have me! I didn’t …” She blushed scarlet.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Claudine agreed. “But you saw this young man alone, romantically, when you were supposed to be in your own house and engaged, at least in understanding, to Ernest. I do appreciate your situation. He is somewhat straitlaced, to put it kindly.”

  Alphonsine swallowed hard. “Very kindly. He bores me till I could weep!”

  Claudine smiled at her with intense gentleness. “My dear, I do understand. Believe me, I do. But if they arrest Mr. Tregarron and charge him with murder, then you must speak. You have no choice.”

  “Please …”

  “I will say nothing, unless I have to,” Claudine promised. “But I will not let them blame an innocent man, or let go one who is guilty.”

  “I don’t know which one of them is guilty! I really don’t!
”

  “I know. But maybe we will be able to find out or prove it some other way.”

  “Do you think so?” Hope flared in Alphonsine’s eyes.

  “No,” Claudine said honestly, “I don’t.”

  Wallace Burroughs was in a good mood that evening over dinner. They had barely begun the soup when he told her the reason.

  “The police have caught Tregarron,” he said, smiling at her over the gleaming silver cruet sets and the sparkle of glasses.

  Claudine put her soupspoon back down in the plate. Her hand was shaking so much that he would have noticed.

  “Really?” Her mouth was dry. The word sounded forced. “That was very efficient of them.” She swallowed. “Where?”

  “In Dover. Trying to escape, I suppose. I’m glad you’re taking it so sensibly,” he observed. “I was afraid you might be upset.”

  He seemed to be waiting for her to say something.

  “Were you?” she replied. “I think it was inevitable, wasn’t it?”

  “Of course, since he left too late. He could have gone earlier. People like him always think they’re invulnerable.”

  “People like him?” she questioned then instantly wished she had not. It would only provoke a quarrel. She did not want to hear his opinion of Tregarron, and she had just been stupid enough to invite it.

  “Drunkards,” he replied. “Lechers, men who imagine that whatever talent they possess puts them above the laws that apply to ordinary people. Well, he’ll discover he’s wrong. Thank heaven it happened before Christmas, and it won’t cloud the whole season for us. You should be glad it’s over with.”

  “It isn’t ‘over with,’ ” she argued instantly. “They’ll have to try him. We can’t execute people just because we don’t approve of them, or because they drink too much. Fortunately for a great many in our aristocratic class, drinking to excess is not a crime at all, let alone a capital one.”