A Broken Vessel (5 page)

“Aren’t you getting a bit fanciful?” said MacGregor.

“I don’t think so. You can tell all that from looking at the letter. We know she hadn’t an India rubber, because she had to cross out her mistakes. And she had nothing to sharpen her pencil, so the point got duller as she wrote, till she had to bear down quite hard to make an impression. She used a tallow candle and held the paper very close to it—you can see where the tallow dripped on it, here, and here.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

“Well, it’s devilish disturbing. I don’t think I can simply let it drop. At the very least, I should like to see what’s at Number 9, Stark Street. That might throw light on what sort of trouble this woman is in.”

“You say you’ve identified one of those three men. You could sound him about it.”

“I could, but at present there’s only a one-in-three chance that Sally got the letter from him. And the woman who wrote it is so intent on secrecy that I don’t like to let anyone know about her plight if I can avoid it. Perhaps I can return the letter to her discreetly, or find out what she wants done with it. If she isn’t at that address anymore, or I’m not able to get near her, that will be time enough to approach Charles Avondale.”

“What sort of fellow is he?”

“He’s the comely and charming scion of a very comely and charming family. His sister Lady Gayheart is a famous beauty; so was her mother before her. His elder brother, the heir to the Carbury title, is rather a lumpish sort. I believe he’s away in Scotland just now on a shooting trip. I’m surprised Avondale is still in town. Perhaps he’s another victim of the Braxton disaster.”

“The what?”

“Didn’t I mention that to you? It’s the reason I’m in town at this unfashionable time of year. Lord Braxton, who has several daughters to marry off, was planning a large country house party, and a good part of society’s
corps élite
was invited. But then one of the daughters ran off to France to marry an undesirable suitor, and Lord Braxton is in such a temper, he called off the whole affair and shut himself up in his castle in Shropshire. So a good many of us who thought we had an engagement for October are thrown on our own scant resources. Avondale may be one of the casualties.”

“Sounds like a lot of flummery to me. If you and your set did something useful, instead of flitting from one entertainment to another like will-o’-the-wisps, you wouldn’t be bored all the time.”

Julian looked thoughtfully at the letter. “Perhaps I shall do something useful now.”

CHAPTER
4

N
ext morning, Ada Grantham sat by her drawing-room fireplace, sorting yarn. The weather was so mild, she needed no fire, which was a mercy, since Mama badly needed to save coal. Ada even had the window open, letting in the clatter of carriages up and down Green Street, and the singsong cries of the street-sellers making their rounds.

She hardly noticed the sound of a carriage pulling up outside the house. But she could not miss her little brother James’s ecstatic cry: “It’s Charles!”

Ada put down her work and sat very still for a moment. Then she rose and went to the window, standing to the side so that she could look out without being seen. Her cousin, the Honourable Charles Avondale, was just springing down from the driver’s seat of his smart cabriolet. His tiger—the little groom who rode at the back of the carriage—stood holding the horse’s head.

James came running out of the house. Mama followed with Emma and Lydia, aged fifteen and thirteen. They were all dressed to go out. Mama, who was a martyr to colds, was wrapped in a rather worn pelisse, with an immense poke bonnet stuck atop her cap.

Charles came forward, took Mrs. Grantham’s hands, and kissed her cheek. “Good morning, Aunt Dot! I’m glad to see you out and about. Do I take it your cold is better?”

“Oh, rather, yes, but I’m afraid it won’t be long till the next one. How is your mother?” Mrs. Grantham and Charles’s mother, Lady Carbury, were sisters.

Charles chatted about his parents, who were at their house in the country. Emma and Lydia hung back awkwardly, shy of their magnificent cousin, but Charles talked to them with such ease and grace that their stiffness soon melted away.

James jumped up and down. “Oh, Charles, will you take me up in your carriage?”

“Now, James—” Mrs. Grantham began.

“Please, Mama, I want to go for a ride with Charles. Can’t I go shopping for trousers some other day?”

“You mustn’t say that word in front of ladies, James, it’s vulgar. Say ‘inexpressibles.’”

“Oh, very well, mayn’t I go shopping for inexpressibles some other day?”

“Better go today, old man, and have it over,” Charles advised. “I’ll take you round the park next time I come.” He paused, then asked offhandedly, “Is Ada at home?”

“I—I’m not certain—” Mrs. Grantham faltered.

“Why, Mama, you know she’s in the drawing room,” said James.

“Splendid!” cried Charles. “I’ll just go up and say good morning to her, shall I? You needn’t walk in with me; I don’t want to keep you. Shall I have Jake fetch you a hack?” He indicated the tiger.

“Oh, no, we’ll walk, it isn’t far. Well, good day, Charles.” Mama looked at him doubtfully, then shepherded her children off down the street, James craning his neck to look wistfully back at Charles and the cabriolet.

Ada hastened from the window back to her seat and took up her work again. Brisk footsteps sounded on the stairs. The next moment, Charles appeared in the doorway. “Hullo, angel.”

“Hullo, devil.” She looked up, smiling.

He came in and perched on the arm of the sofa, his hands thrust into his trouser pockets, his coat-tails flung over his arms. “What are you doing?”

“Sorting yarn for darning. Somehow the colours have all got into a tangle.”

“Must you sort it? Why not let it all run together like a rainbow?”

“Do you want us to look like a pantomime troupe?”

“Why not? I think you’d all look monstrous fetching in stockings all different colours, like harlequins.” He swung his heel against the sofa for a short time, then looked up. “Your suitor’s back in London. I saw him today at my club.”

“You mean Major Thorndike?”

“Why,” he said gaily, “is there another one?”

Try as she might, she could not keep the question out of her eyes:
I don’t know, Charles—is there?

He got up abruptly, took a turn about the room, then stood at the window with his back to her. “Look here, I don’t mean to pry. But I’m the nearest thing you have to a father or older brother. I can’t but take an interest—want to know if everything’s all right. What I mean to say is—do you mean to take the fellow?”

She put down the yarn she was sorting and clasped her hands. “If Major Thorndike offers for me,” she said steadily, “I’ve made up my mind to accept him.”

“Do you think he will?”

“I’m almost certain. He’s been writing to me all the while he’s been on duty in Ireland. His most recent letter was very clear about his intentions. Of course, he’s not a man to do anything suddenly, without careful thought. He takes a long time coming to a decision, but stands by it firmly once it’s been made.”

“A regular rock of Gibraltar, in fact. Well, I’m sure I wish you happy. I’m told he bends at the knees, though I’ve never seen it. And he smiles at least once a year, at Christmas, between eleven o’clock and noon.”

“I know he hasn’t much humour.” She smiled ruefully. “I shan’t be marrying him for that.”

“Don’t tell me you’re marrying him for love, because I’ve known you since you were on leading-strings, and you couldn’t love an old stick like that.”

“I don’t love him. But I respect him. He’s honourable and good. He’ll make a fine husband and father.”

Charles winced.

“Please, Charles, try to understand. I’m the oldest of six children. Mama’s annuity barely keeps us in coal and candles. Today she’s had to take the children shopping for clothes, and we were up half the night thinking how we should pay for them. Mama’s worried that Edward will have to leave university, because we can’t afford to keep him there any longer, and there are Richard and James and the girls to provide for. How can I refuse a man who has so much money, and who I know would be generous with it and help us all? If Major Thorndike were a wicked man, or repulsive to me, I wouldn’t think of accepting him. But I can’t refuse him simply because he isn’t—isn’t everything I should dream of in a husband.”

“But why be in such a hurry to settle yourself? There are plenty of fellows in London with a little money, and a character that’s up to the mark.”

“I can’t refuse him in the hope that a better man might come along. This may be my only chance to marry well. I’m twenty-two years old, and I haven’t a dowry, and I know I’m not a beauty.”

“You’re well enough,” was all he said. But his eyes conveyed much more.

She felt a rush of hurt and frustration. Why was he putting them both through this? “Charles, I hear your brother is shooting in Scotland. Why don’t you go and join him? It might be easier—”

“Don’t talk to me of Scotland—that gloomy, mist-ridden, barbarous, nightmare of a place! I’d rather be in hell!”

She blinked at him in amazement.

“Oh, confound it, I’m sorry, Ada! I didn’t mean to pitch into you like that. I shouldn’t have come here today, God knows it was pointless, I just couldn’t help it—”

“Come here, Charles,” she said gently.

He pulled up a chair beside hers and sat down, hunched forward, arms resting on his knees. His dark gold hair curled softly on the nape of his neck. Ada longed to stroke it ever so gently. Her throat tightened. Her heart seemed to swell in her breast.

She drew a long breath. “I think perhaps you feel guilty, Charles, on account of my having to marry Major Thorndike. You mustn’t, you know. Just because you and I paired off as children, that doesn’t mean I expect we should do so, now we’re grown up. It never occurred to me that—that—” She tried again. “I know you’re a younger son. There’s only so much your father can do for you, what with the estate being entailed to your brother. If you’re to go on living in the style you do now, you have to marry money. I’ve always understood that—”

“No!” He clasped his head distractedly. “Oh, God, you don’t understand at all—”

“What?” she pleaded. “What don’t I understand?”

He froze, his eyes wary, shuttered against her. “I’d better go. I’m not doing any good here. If you need me, just dash off a note. I’ll come like a shot.”

“I know. Thank you. But I don’t think you ought to come again—not for a while, not till—everything’s settled. It worries Mama. She doesn’t know what you mean by it. And you’re right—it doesn’t do any good.”

He stood looking down at her. For one terrible moment, she thought he might kiss her goodbye. There was only so much she could bear. Her self-control was strong, but not invincible. How could it be? He was Charles, who had taught her to dance, to ride, to play piquet. Charles, with his boyish charm and his grown-up vices, his bursts of generosity and his core of selfishness. She knew him better than she knew herself. After all, she had been in love with him all her life.

He did not kiss her. He said, “Well, goodbye,” thrust his hands in his pockets, and walked out, as if he did not much care where he went or what became of him.

She was glad he was gone, yet, perversely, she went to the window to catch a last glimpse of him. He was just coming out of the house. His tiger, who had been ogling a maidservant across the street, ran back to the cabriolet. It was raining lightly, so he lifted the small folding hood over the driver’s seat. Then he stepped back, staring.

There were three large slashes in the leather hood. They formed a big, bold letter
R
.

“How the plague did that get there?” Charles exclaimed.

“I dunno, sir. Knocks me acock, it does!”

“Hell and damnation!” Charles sputtered. “Is this how you look after my property? By God, I ought to thrash you within an inch of your life—”

Two respectable-looking elderly ladies were coming along the pavement. Charles choked down his rage and muttered something to the tiger, who let down the hood again. Charles leaped into the driver’s seat, the tiger clambered up behind him, and the cabriolet dashed off in a cloud of dust.

Ada turned away from the window, knitting her brows. She was not surprised Charles was so angry. He hated to find a dent or a scratch on his swift little sporting carriage. She supposed one of his friends must be playing a prank on him. Still, it was very odd. Who would do something so destructive? And why the letter
R
?

CHAPTER
5

O
n the morning after Sally arrived, Julian was up bright and early by his standards—which is to say that he was shaved, dressed, and breakfasted before noon. Dipper summoned a hackney coach from the nearest stand, and he set off for No. 9, Stark Street, to find out what was at the address in the unknown woman’s letter.

Stark Street was a cul-de-sac in a drearily respectable neighbourhood, south of the Foundling Hospital and east of Russell Square. Julian got out of his hackney coach at the corner, so that he could walk down the street and have a look around. He passed several nondescript houses, a chandler’s shop, a stationer’s, and a shabby-genteel boarding house with a sign in the window announcing that one of the lodgers taught French and another gave lessons on the pianoforte. The next house was No. 9.