Funeral in Blue (16 page)

Then Sarah would have awakened from her stupor and staggered through just in time to witness what had happened and would have begun screaming, or even flown at him. He would have gone after her to silence her . . . and the same swift movement, more deliberate this time.

No! It was nonsense! She must go to Kristian’s house and find a letter of Elissa’s, compare the writing. That would end it. It could not be Charles! He had not the physical skill, the decisiveness, even the strength . . .

That was damning! So condescending. She did not know that side of him at all. She had no idea how deep his passions might run under his self-controlled exterior. That calm banker’s face might hide anything.

After all, who looking at her with the saucepan in front of her could imagine the places she had been to, the violence and death she had seen, or the decisions she had made and carried through, the courage or the pain, or anything else?

Monk spoke to her gently, and she nodded without having heard. If Imogen had driven Charles to that, would she now at least stand by him if Runcorn started questioning, probing, and the net tightened around him? What if he were arrested, even tried? Would she leave the gambling and stand strong and loyal beside him? Or would she crumble—weak, frightened, essentially selfish? If she did that, Hester might not find it within her ever to forgive Imogen. And that was a bitter and terrible thought. Not to forgive is a kind of death.

And yet if Imogen could not now be loyal, place Charles before her own fears, it would hurt him beyond his ability to survive, perhaps beyond his desire to. And if that was weak, too, so much the more must Imogen be strong.

That was illogical, perhaps unfair, but it was what she felt as she looked at the congealed mess in the saucepan and started to consider what to do with it.

Callandra stood in the middle of her garden looking at the last of the roses, the petals carrying that peculiar warmth of tone that only late flowers possess, as if they knew their beauty would be short. There were a dozen tasks that needed doing, and the gardener overlooked half of them if she did not tell him specifically. There were dead flower heads to take off, Michaelmas daisies to tie up before the weight of the flowers bent them too far and they broke. The buddleia needed pruning, it was far too big; and there were windfall apples to pick up before they rotted.

She could not be bothered with any of them. She had come out with gloves and a knife, and a trug to carry the dead heads, thinking she wanted to throw herself into the effort of a physical job. Now that she was there she could not concentrate. Her mind was leaping from one thing to another, and always around and around the same black center. About the only thing she was fit for was weeding. She bent down and started to pull, first one, then another, ignoring the trug and leaving the weeds in little piles to be picked up later.

She had acknowledged to herself some time ago that she loved Kristian Beck, even if it would never lead to anything but the profoundest friendship. She would not marry again. Francis Bellingham had asked her. She liked him deeply, and he could have offered her a life of companionship, loyalty and a very considerable freedom to pursue the causes she believed in. He was intelligent, honorable and not in the least unattractive. If she had met him a few years ago she would have accepted his offer.

What she felt for him was affection, kindness, respect, but no more. If she had married him, as many of her friends had expected her to, then she would have had to cut Kristian from her dreams, and that she was not prepared to do. Perhaps she was not even able to do it. She could not commit the dishonor of marrying one man while loving another, not at her age, when there was no need. She had more than sufficient money to care for herself, the social position of a titled widow, work for charity to fill her time, friends she valued. She was perfectly aware of her own foolishness.

Her fingers stopped moving in the cold earth as she remembered what Hester had told her yesterday afternoon. She had known immediately that it was bad news of some kind. She had seen too many doctors with just that expression, the mixture of resolution and pity, the stiff shoulders and pale face, the softness in the eyes.

At the moment it could only concern Kristian. She had not needed to ask what it was about. She was already prepared to hear that he could not prove his innocence. She had always known, from very early in their acquaintance, that there was a loneliness in his life. She sensed it as she felt the deep, hidden pain in her own. She had never asked about his wife and he had not spoken of her. She had not consciously even tried to visualize her, but gradually, unwittingly, she had drawn in her mind a rather ordinary woman with a bitter face, critical of small things, always expecting something she was not given. How could anyone else have failed to offer a man like Kristian all the love she could?

Then Hester had said she was younger, and not just beautiful, but with that haunting quality that stays in the mind, bringing back the eyes, the lips, the turn of the head at unexpected moments, as if the person never entirely left you.

That had been so hard to accept. What manner of woman was she? Why had she not brought happiness? The answer that forced itself upon her was that Kristian loved her but she did not return his feeling. It was comfort for which he turned to Callandra, for the solace of being loved.

And yet going back over every moment they had shared, even in the impersonal times of sitting in management meetings in the hospital, or arguing with Fermin Thorpe, who was enough to try the patience of a saint, she had been certain there was a warmth between them that had dignity to it, and honesty. Kristian was not a man to descend to using someone else merely to make up for a lack in his own life.

Without realizing it, she had stopped weeding.

Then Hester had told her that Elissa Beck was a compulsive gambler, so addicted to the excitement of the game that she had thrown away all she owned, and almost all Kristian owned as well. She had poured out money, pawned or sold her possessions, until finally even the furniture had gone, debts were piled up, the house was cold and dark, and ruin was on the doorstep.

She could not even imagine the fear and the shame that Kristian must have felt, although she did nothing but try to. Elissa’s death must have been a bitter loss to him, a part of his life torn away. And yet it had to have been a relief as well. The bleeding out of money was ended; like a patient whose hemorrhage has at last been staunched, he could begin to rebuild his strength.

She closed her hand on a weed and yanked it out, throwing it at the trug and seeing it fly far beyond.

She had worked beside Kristian, caring for the sick, fighting for reform and improvement. She had seen his compassion, knew he had driven himself beyond exhaustion. She could not believe he would have killed Elissa, still less have added to the crime by killing another woman whose only offense was to have seen him.

But everyone has limits to his endurance, his patience or his threshold of pain. You cannot always say what grief or loss, what outrage, will carry anyone over the precipice. It may catch you completely by surprise, desperation erupting and overwhelming you before you know how close it was. She had felt that dark edge of panic brushing her. She did not imagine Kristian was immune. That would be naive and rob him of reality.

But she could not help him if she did not know the truth, whatever it was. Half blind to it, believing what she wanted rather than what was, she could do more harm than good.

Had Fuller Pendreigh known of Elissa’s gambling and paid her debts when Kristian could not? Or was it possible she owed more than she could meet and had found some desperate way of her own of raising the money? Could that somehow have led to her murder? She had been beautiful, imaginative and never lacked physical courage. She would not be the first woman to sell herself when it seemed the only resort.

Had Pendreigh’s wealth cushioned her or not?

She rose to her feet, leaving the weeds where they were, and went up the lawn to the French door and inside. She dropped the trug and the secateurs on the step and peeled off her gloves. Inside, she took off her shoes and went straight up the stairs to her bedroom.

She was already washed and in fresh underlinen when she finally called her maid to help her lace up her stays and fasten the small buttons of the bodice. Her hair was another matter. No one had ever been able to make that look elegant for more than fifteen minutes, but the maid, an even-tempered woman of endless patience, did her best.

An hour after making the decision, Callandra sat in her carriage on the way to visit Fuller Pendreigh. She would wait for him as long as necessary, or travel into the City if that was where he was, but she would see him.

He was not at Ebury Street, but he was expected very shortly, and she was shown to a most pleasant conservatory. Had she had less on her mind, she would have enjoyed recognizing the various exotic plants and trying to decide where their native habitat might be.

She was looking at a large yellow flower, without really seeing it, when she heard footsteps across the hall, the low murmuring of voices, and the moment after, Pendreigh was in the doorway, regarding her with slight puzzlement. She saw the signs of strain in his face. There was little color to his skin and a shadow about his cheeks almost as if he had not shaved, although actually he was immaculate. It was exhaustion which tightened his lips and hollowed the flesh.

“Lady Callandra?” It was a question not as to her identity, rather a confusion as to what she was doing waiting there, in the middle of the afternoon, and without having sent any letter or card to say that she was calling. They knew each other only by repute. She had worked tirelessly for reform of the way injured and ill soldiers were treated. Her husband had been an army surgeon, and she learned from him of the problems which could be overcome with foresight and intelligence. She had certainly made sufficient complaints, pleas and arguments, and had written to all manner of people for her name to be known. She was intimidated by no one, nor did flattery have any effect upon her.

Pendreigh, she had heard, had campaigned for the reform of the laws pertaining to property. That was largely why he had come from Liverpool to London, and of course to Parliament. It sounded a thing in which she would be little interested. To her mind, human pain had always far outweighed the disposition of wealth.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Pendreigh,” she replied, recollecting herself and unconsciously using the enormous charm she possessed, and was quite unaware of because it lay in her warmth and simplicity of manner. “I apologize for calling upon you without writing first, but sometimes events move too rapidly to allow for such courtesy, and I confess I am deeply concerned.”

Only for an instant did he wonder why, then knowledge of it was plain in his eyes. He came further into the room. His expression softened a little, but it obviously cost him an effort of will. “Of course. It would be absurd to wait upon convention at such a time. Would you prefer to speak here or in the withdrawing room? Have you taken tea?”

“Not yet,” she replied. She did not care whether she had tea or not, but he might be tired and thirsty, and feel more comfortable if he offered hospitality. It gave one something to do with one’s hands, time to think of a reply to an unforeseen or difficult question, and an excuse to look away without rudeness. “That would be most agreeable, thank you.”

A flicker of relief crossed his face, and he led her back across the hall to the withdrawing room, instructing the maid to bring tea for them both.

On the day of the funeral she had barely noticed the room. Now, empty of people and with the black crepe of the occasion removed except around the pictures, she saw the magnificence of it. It faced south, and there were long windows to the front, which meant that the unusually large amount of blue in curtains and furniture did not make it cold, rather it gave it a depth and a sense of calm that warmer tones would not.

He caught her admiration and smiled, but he made no comment.

She did not wish to open the subject of Elissa until the maid had brought the tea and gone. Until then she would prefer to speak of something of mutual interest but no emotional heat. She remained standing and looked at the very fine portraits on the wall. One in particular caught her eye. It was of a woman with a handsome face and magnificent hair the shade of warm, dry sand, paler even than corn. The style of her gown was of some twenty years ago, and she looked to be in her middle or late thirties. The resemblance was so marked that she assumed it was Pendreigh’s sister, or at the most distant, a cousin.

“My sister, Amelia,” he said quietly from a few feet behind her. There was a sorrow in his voice she could not miss. She did not know whether he had meant to conceal it or allowed it to be heard because the wound was still raw and it comforted him to share something of it.

“She has a remarkable face,” she said sincerely. “Rather more than beautiful.”

“She was,” he replied. “She had extraordinary courage, and . . .” He stopped for a moment, as if to compose himself. “Generosity of spirit,” he finished.

The use of the past tense and the emotion in his voice required she pursue the subject, but with the greatest delicacy. “She looks no more than thirty-five,” she said, leaving it open for him to say whatever he pleased, or to pass on to something else, perhaps the next picture.

“Thirty-eight, actually,” he answered her. “It was the year before she died.”

“I’m so sorry.” It would be tactless to ask what had happened. It could be any of a score of illnesses, without even considering accident.

“Poverty!” His voice was so harsh it actually distorted the word so that for a moment she was not sure if she had heard him correctly. She turned to face him, and the pain and the anger she saw in him startled her. It was as fresh as if it had only just happened, and yet from the picture, it must have been a quarter of a century ago.