Farrier's Lane (10 page)

“No, not at all,” Charlotte replied thoughtfully. “In fact she was about the darkest woman I have ever seen who was still English. But she could make you feel she was the most beautiful woman in the world when she wanted to. She really had a presence. Everyone else looked pallid and washed out beside her. She seemed to burn inside, as if other people were half alive—but not ostentatious, if you know what I mean?”

“No, ma’am,” Gracie admitted. “Oss what?”

“Oh—outwardly showy.”

“Oh.” Gracie climbed down, her skirts and apron in a bunch, and went to the tap to wash her cloth. “I can’t imagine a woman like that—but I’d like to. She sounds real exciting.”
She wrung out the cloth with small, thin, very strong hands, and clambered back up onto the dresser. “Why was it you didn’t enjoy the drama, then, ma’am?”

“Because there was a murder in the next box,” Charlotte replied, tipping out more flour onto the sultanas.

Gracie stopped in midair, one hand on the top shelf, the other brandishing a sauceboat. She turned very slowly, her sharp little face alight with excitement.

“A murder? Really? Are you joshing me, ma’am?”

“Oh no,” Charlotte said seriously. “Not at all. A very eminent judge was killed. Actually I exaggerated a little; it wasn’t the next box, it was about four boxes away. He was poisoned.”

Gracie screwed up her face, ever practical of mind. “How can you poison anyone in a theater? I mean on purpose—I ate some eels once wot made me sick—but nobody did it intentional, like.”

“In his whiskey flask,” Charlotte explained, kneading out the last lump from the sultanas and putting them all into the colander ready to wash them under the tap in order to remove the grit before she searched them for odd stalks.

“Oh dear—poor gentleman.” Gracie resumed wiping the shelves. “Was it ’orrible?”

Charlotte took the colander to the sink.

“No, not really. He just sort of sank into a coma.” Charlotte turned on the tap and flushed the water through the fruit. “I was sorrier for his wife, poor soul.”

“She weren’t the one wot done it?” Gracie asked dubiously.

“I don’t know. He was a judge of the appeal court, and he had started to look into a case he dealt with several years ago—a very dreadful murder. The man who was hanged for it was the brother of the actress I told you about.”

“Cor!” Gracie was now totally absorbed. She put the sauceboat back on the wrong shelf, without its dish. “Cor!” she said again, pushing her cloth into her apron pocket and standing quite still on the dresser, her head almost to the
airing rail just below the ceiling. “Was it a case the master was on?”

“No—not then.” Charlotte turned the tap off and took the fruit back to the kitchen table, tipped it out onto a soft cloth and patted it dry, then began to look for stalks. “But he will go into it all now, I expect.”

“Why’d they kill the judge, then?” Gracie was suddenly puzzled. “If ’e were goin’ ter look inter the case again, in’t that what she’d want? Oh! O’ course! You mean whoever really did the murder was scared as ’e’d find out it were them. Cor—it could be anybody, couldn’t it? Were it very ’orrible?”

“Yes, very. Much too horrible to tell you about. You’ll have bad dreams.”

“Garn,” Gracie said cheerfully. “Won’t be worse ’n I already ’eard!”

“Possibly not,” Charlotte agreed ruefully. “It was the Farriers’ Lane murder.”

“I never ’eard o’ that.” Gracie looked disappointed.

“You wouldn’t,” Charlotte agreed. “It was five years ago. You were only twelve then.”

“That were before I could read,” Gracie agreed with considerable pride. Reading was a real accomplishment, and placed her considerably above her contemporaries and previous social equals. Charlotte had taken time in which they should both have been employed in domestic chores in order to teach her, but the reward had been enormous, even if she was quite sure Gracie spent much of her reading time with penny dreadfuls.

“The master’s goin’ ter investigate it?” Gracie interrupted her thoughts. “Actresses and judges. ’e’s gettin’ ever so important, in’t ’e?”

“Yes,” Charlotte agreed with a smile. Gracie was so proud of Pitt her face shone when she mentioned his name. Charlotte had more than once overheard her speaking to tradesmen, telling them precisely who she worked for, whose house this was, and that they had better mind their p’s and q’s and provide only the very best!

Gracie began wiping the lower shelves of the dresser and
replacing the dishes and pans. Twice she stopped to hitch up her skirt. She was so small that skirts were always a bit too long for her, and she had not taken this one up sufficiently. Charlotte spread out the fruit on a baking tray and put it into the warm oven, which was well damped down to keep it from getting any hotter for the time being.

“Of course it may have been his wife,” Charlotte said, referring back to the murder of Stafford. “Or her lover.” She went to the pantry and took out the butter to wash away the salt, then wrap it in muslin and squeeze out any water or buttermilk.

Gracie hesitated for a moment, working out whether Charlotte meant the original murder in Farriers’ Lane or the death two nights ago in the theater. She made the right choice.

“Oh.” She was disappointed. It seemed too simple, not adequate to test Pitt’s skills. It offered no adventure, and certainly nothing in which she herself could help. She swallowed. “I thought as you was a little worried, ma’am. I s’pose I got it wrong.”

Charlotte felt a pang of guilt. She was touched by a considerable anxiety, just in case it had been something to do with Joshua Fielding. If it were the Blaine/Godman case, then he was implicated, and that would distress Caroline, the more so since she had actually met him.

“I shouldn’t like it to be the actor,” she explained. “My mother found him most pleasing, and when she met him …” She tailed off. How would she explain to the maid that her mother was enamored of a stage actor at least thirteen or fourteen years her junior? Of course it was only a superficial feeling, but still capable of causing hurt.

“Oh, I see,” Gracie said cheerfully. She had heard how gentlemen felt about the Jersey Lily, and some of the music hall queens. “Like as she’d go to the stage door, if she was a man.” She began to sieve the flour to remove the lumps. She would leave the grating of the orange peel and nutmeg to Charlotte. That required a certain amount of judgment. “Well, maybe it weren’t ’im.”

“I don’t think it was the judge’s wife,” Charlotte said slowly.

“What are you going to do about it, ma’am?” Gracie said with no hesitation at all, no possibility in her mind that Charlotte would do nothing.

Charlotte thought for several minutes, her mind racing over the snatches she had pieced together in the theater, and the little Pitt had told her. Why did she not think it was Juniper? And was her judgment of any value? She had been wrong before, several times.

Gracie sieved the flour a second time.

“I suppose we should solve the murder in Farriers’ Lane,” Charlotte said expansively at last.

Gracie did not for an instant question her mistress’s competence to do such a thing. Her loyalty was absolute.

“That’s a good idea,” she approved. “Then they couldn’t say it were ’im. Wot ’appened?”

Charlotte summarized it concisely and not entirely accurately. “A young gentleman, who was married, was paying court to the actress Tamar Macaulay. After a performance someone followed him and murdered him in Farriers’ Lane, and nailed him up to a door, like a crucifixion. They said it was her brother, because he thought the young gentleman was betraying her. They hanged him, but she has always believed he was innocent.”

Gracie was too interested to look for any other job. She sieved the flour yet again, her eyes wide and never leaving Charlotte’s face.

“ ’Oo does she think as did it?”

“I don’t know,” Charlotte admitted with surprise. “I don’t know if anyone asked her.”

“Does she think it was this—wot’s ’is name?”

“Joshua Fielding? No—no, they are great friends.”

“Then I’ll wager ’e didn’t,” Gracie said firmly. “We got to show ’em as ’e’s innocent, ma’am.”

Charlotte heard the “we,” and smiled inside herself, but said nothing aloud.

“A good idea. I’ll have to think where to begin.”

“Well, Mrs. Radley can’t ’elp us this time,” Gracie said thoughtfully. “Seein’ as she’s orf in the country.”

It was true. Emily, Charlotte’s sister and usual companion in such matters, was in the later stages of expecting her second child, and she and her husband, Jack, had taken a holiday in the west country away from the social bustle of London until after the birth. Charlotte received letters regularly and wrote back less often. Emily had so much more time, and was finding the hours heavy on her hands. She had more than ample means, inherited from her first husband, whereas Charlotte had extensive housework and the care of her own two children to keep her busy. Of course there was Gracie’s help all the time, and a woman to do the heavy scrubbing three days a week, and the heavy linen was sent out; but Emily had a full staff of at least twenty servants, indoor and out.

“Well,” Gracie went on cheerfully, “seein’ as she can’t, maybe your mam’d like to? Since she’s smitten like, she’d care—wouldn’t she?”

Charlotte tried to be tactful, not something at which she was naturally gifted.

“I don’t think so. She doesn’t approve, you know?”

“But if she likes ’im?” Gracie was puzzled.

“Will you pass me the fruit and open the damper in the oven?” Charlotte requested, beginning to mix her ingredients at last in the large yellow earthenware bowl.

Gracie obeyed, ignoring the oven cloth and using her apron as usual.

For a quarter of an hour they worked diligently till the cake was in tins and beginning to bake. Gracie put on the kettle and they were about to make tea when there was a ring at the front doorbell.

“If that’s that greengrocer’s boy come to the front again,” Gracie said tartly, “I’ll give ’im a flea in ’is ear ’e’ll not forget in an ’urry!” And so saying she tightened her apron, patted her hair and then scampered along the corridor to answer the bell.

She was back in less than a minute.

“It’s yer mam. I mean it’s Mrs. Ellison.”

And indeed Caroline was only a step behind her, dressed in a jacket of swirling green with fur at the collar, a beautifully swathed skirt, and a glorious hat dipped over her left brow and laden with feathers. Her cheeks were flushed, but there was anxiety in her eyes. She seemed oblivious of Charlotte’s old blue stuff dress with sleeves rolled up, and a white apron hiding the front. She also ignored the kitchen, the sink full of bowls and spoons, and even the delicious smell of cooking coming from the oven.

“Mama!” Charlotte greeted her with pleasure and surprise. “You look wonderful! How are you? What brings you here at this hour?”

“Oh—” Charlotte waved a gloved hand airily. “Ah—well—” Then her face creased with concern and she abandoned the effort. “I wondered—” She stopped again.

Without being asked Gracie reached down the tea caddy and started to lay out the cups.

Charlotte waited. She knew from Caroline’s search for words that it was nothing to do with Emily. Had there been a family illness or difficulty of any sort she would have looked troubled, but there would have been no inarticulacy in her manner.

“Are you all right, after the tragedy in the theater?” Caroline began again. This time she looked at Charlotte, but there was no concentration in her face. She seemed to be seeing beyond her, to something imagined.

“Yes, thank you,” Charlotte replied warily. “Are you?”

“Of course! I mean—well—it was most distressing, naturally.” Caroline at last sat down on one of the wooden chairs at the table. Gracie placed the steaming teapot and two cups on a tray and brought them over, with milk and sugar.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said tactfully. “But if you please, I’d better be going to change the linen.”

“Yes, of course,” Charlotte agreed with gratitude. “That would be a very good idea.”

As soon as Gracie had gone Caroline frowned again, staring at Charlotte with puckered brows as she poured the tea.

“Does Thomas know yet if …” she began tentatively, “… if the poor man was murdered?”

“Yes,” Charlotte replied, having some inkling at last of what was disturbing her mother so much. “I am afraid he was. He was poisoned with opium in his flask, as Judge Livesey feared. I’m sorry you should have been involved in it, Mama, even so indirectly. But any number of perfectly respectable people were at the theater. There is no need to fear anyone will think ill of you.”

“Oh, I’m not!” Caroline said with genuine surprise. “I was …” She looked down, a very faint blush in her cheeks. “I was concerned in case it should be either Mr. Fielding or Miss Macaulay who would be suspected. Do you—do you think Thomas believes they may be guilty?”

Charlotte was at a loss to answer. Of course it was not only possible but probable that Pitt would suspect both of them, and without question he would suspect Joshua Fielding, which was what she realized Caroline really had in mind. She remembered Fielding’s wry, charming face and wondered what emotions lay behind it, and just how skilled an actor he might be. What might his words conceal about Aaron Godman, or the reason Mr. Justice Stafford had come to see him the day of his death?

Caroline was staring at her, her eyes intent, darkening with anxiety.

With a painful searching of memory Charlotte remembered how she had woven so many dreams in her youth, and made a mantle of them with which she had clothed her brother-in-law, Dominic Corde. It was so easy to imagine that a handsome face was filled with passion, sensitivity, dreams to match your own, and then invest the person with abilities he never possessed, or wished to—and in so doing to be blind to the real person.

Was Caroline doing the same to a stage actor she had watched wear other men’s thoughts with such artistry that she had lost the distinction between the world of the mind and the world of reality?

“Yes. I’m afraid he will have to,” she said aloud. “It can only be someone he saw that day who had the opportunity
to put poison in the flask, and if he was indeed investigating the old murder, then that is an excellent reason why someone might wish him dead. How could Thomas ignore that?”