Midnight at Marble Arch (30 page)

Flora and Sabine Munro nodded agreement.

Charlotte’s smile became a little more fixed. She was not about to back down. “And then I hear that this army of about five hundred well-armed men actually crossed over into the Transvaal and marched on Johannesburg,” she went on. “And were met by the Boers, whose city it is, and thoroughly thrashed.” The moment she had said it, she wished she had used less emotive words, but it was too late.

“Heroes do not have to win in order to be heroes,” Arabella said with a flash of anger reddening her face.

“Of course not,” Charlotte said quickly, before anyone else could attack or defend her. “It is hardly heroic to fight if you cannot lose. Any jackanapes can do that. It was unquestionably brave. The question I hear raised is as to whether it was wise or not. In fact, I suppose, as to whether it was right.”

“Right?” Arabella said indignantly.

“Morally right,” Charlotte elaborated patiently. “We invaded Boer land.”

“For heaven’s sake, do you want the Boers to rule South Africa?” Arabella asked, aghast at the idea.

“Not at all,” Charlotte answered levelly. There was no backing out now. “But the fact that I want a thing does not automatically make it right—or wrong.”

Marie Grosvenor now returned to the fray. “It is a matter of loyalty,” she said stiffly. “Loyalty is always right.” It was a statement and she expected no dissent.

“Is it?” Charlotte looked from one to the other of them, all sitting in gorgeous silks and delicate embroidered muslins in the dappled shade. “So if we are loyal to opposing sides, we can all be equally right?”

“Charlotte,” Emily said quietly.

“We are all equally right, then,” Charlotte continued, ignoring her. “It is just that the Boers, being loyal to their own homes and fighting for their own lands, were better at it than we were, so they beat us?”

“We were fighting for the Queen and Empire,” Arabella said stiffly. “Are you not British, that you don’t understand that?”

“I am British.” Charlotte kept her voice level. “But that doesn’t mean I am always right.”

“Indeed you are not!” Sabine agreed heatedly.

“If always being right is a quality intrinsic to being British, then none of us are British,” Charlotte added. “Even Dr. Jameson. We can all make mistakes, especially when we are frightened … or when there is a great deal of money involved.”

“It has nothing to do with money!” Sabine was openly angry now. “That is a dreadful thing to say.”

“Of course it has to do with money,” Flora put in. “Those who invested in this raid stand to lose a fortune, if the verdict goes against Dr. Jameson.”

“So you think he’s guilty?” Marie accused.

“I think he could be found guilty,” Flora corrected. “That is not always the same thing. Has he ever denied he led the raid?”

“Of course not!” Arabella snapped. “He’s no coward!”

“I wonder how much of it is his money?” Emily said, and the instant
afterward clearly regretted it. She scrambled to make amends. “I suppose he risked everything?”

There was a moment’s silence while each one of them weighed what they thought, and what they judged wise to say.

“I don’t know what will happen,” Charlotte said thoughtfully. “Trials sometimes disclose evidence no one had foreseen, and make the verdict quite unexpected. I have heard that Mr. Churchill said the trial may lead to war. Is that not so?” She looked at Emily.

Emily shot her a look like daggers. “So I am told,” she conceded grudgingly. “And Mr. Chamberlain of the Colonial Office is caught in a most embarrassing situation because he can neither deny knowledge of the raid nor admit to it.”

“I daresay the British South Africa Company will have to pay a great deal of compensation to the Transvaal,” Charlotte added, hoping she had her facts correct. “It will depend, of course, on who has staked fortunes in that.” She had overheard this and did not really know for certain, but it seemed a reasonable thought.

Flora and Sabine looked at each other, both now clearly anxious.

“A great deal?” Arabella said with an edge to her voice. “What do you mean by that?”

It occurred to Charlotte that the “great deal” to be made or lost in such ventures might include the fortunes of those in this quiet London garden. She had meant to discomfort their unthinking arrogance, not seriously frighten them.

“There is gold in the Transvaal, and diamonds,” she replied. “Where there are fortunes to be made, there are fortunes to be lost as well. The raid failed. It was a big gamble, and we have no idea yet what the end may be. Perhaps you are right and, to take the chance with such high stakes, Dr. Jameson is a hero.”

There were several moments of silence. No one was comfortable. The peace and satisfaction of the party had been shattered by a sudden and very chilling reality.

“There won’t be war,” Sabine said dismissively, waving her hand with its heavy emerald ring. “Mr. Churchill is talking nonsense, as
usual. He will say anything to draw attention to himself. All kinds of people have invested in Africa. They won’t allow a war to break out. If you knew a little more about real money, finance, and investment, you wouldn’t even say such a thing.”

Charlotte decided to let it go. “Perhaps not,” she agreed. “And undeniably, Mr. Rhodes is usually very successful. No one needs to win every skirmish to win a war.”

“It’s not a war,” Arabella said waspishly. “It was an attempt to—” She realized she was not sure what she meant and stopped abruptly. “Mr. Churchill is a buffoon,” she finished, glaring at Charlotte.

At last Emily was stung to defend her own position. “I cannot allow you to say that unchallenged.” She spoke quietly and with a smile, but there was a degree of steel in her voice. “He is not always right—I know of no one who is—but at times he is remarkably perceptive, and a voice of warning that should be heeded. The Jameson Raid was a fiasco, and Mr. Chamberlain has had to order Sir Hercules Robinson, the Governor-General of the Cape Colony, to repudiate it.”

“He wouldn’t have if it had succeeded,” Marie pointed out.

“Of course not.” Emily made a slight gesture of conciliation.

“If.” Charlotte smiled also. “If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. Unfortunately, they aren’t. Perhaps that is what heroes are about, which is why one nation’s heroes are another nation’s enemies.”

“Well, I am British, and I shall honor our heroes.” Arabella fixed Charlotte with a glare. “You must choose whatever you will.”

Charlotte kept her smile, although she felt it false. “I shall wait until I know more about it. At the moment I confess my ignorance.”

“That is an excellent decision, all things considered,” Arabella snapped.

In spite of herself, Charlotte laughed, which was the last thing Arabella expected. Her argument was derailed.

Emily stepped in quickly. “Perhaps we should attend the trial and at least become somewhat informed about the affair?” she suggested.

“Half of London will be there,” Marie said, nodding her head.

“I daresay the other half will be at the other miserable trial,” Flora
remarked with a shudder. “I think I prefer not to know anything about that one. I should have nightmares.”

“I’m sure you have no need,” Marie said comfortingly. “You are in no danger whatever.”

For a moment Charlotte was not certain what they were referring to.

“Another news item about which you know nothing?” Arabella inquired with a slight smirk, seeing Charlotte’s blank expression. “Why, Catherine Quixwood was having an affair with a younger man, and he assaulted and then murdered her. All dreadfully sordid. No doubt they will hang him.”

Charlotte felt her fury return like a tidal wave, all but taking her breath away. Any consideration of Emily’s party was swept aside.

“No, I had no idea,” she said with cloying sweetness. “But then, I do not interest myself very much in other people’s more … intimate lives. As you so correctly say, it is all dreadfully sordid.” She enunciated each word with distaste. “I merely know of Catherine Quixwood as a woman who had great charm. That was all I wished to know.”

Flora stifled a giggle. Charlotte realized with sudden perception that she also disliked Arabella, but could not afford to let it be known. Now she remembered the sense of freedom she had felt at being no longer involved in Society, the loss of its glamour far outweighed by the opposing gain of autonomy.

Emily rushed into the thick silence to rescue what she could of her party.

“I feel so sorry for poor Rawdon Quixwood,” she said, looking from one to the other of them, except Charlotte. “He must be suffering appallingly. I can’t even imagine it.”

“What a terrible thing,” Marie agreed. “Is there anything more painful than total, devastating disillusion? Poor man. He must be distracted with grief.”

“Disillusion?” Charlotte heard her voice become hard-edged with incredulity. “His wife was raped and beaten half to death, then in her unbearable pain she dosed herself too heavily with laudanum, and died of that. I should imagine
that
is the cause of his devastating grief. Not any disillusion.”

“My dear Mrs …. Pitt?” Arabella hesitated as if she were not certain as to exactly who Charlotte might be. “Decent women do not get raped. Perhaps you did not read in the newspapers that she let the man in herself? I ask you, what respectable woman dismisses the servants for the night, then lets a younger man into the house and entertains him alone, while her husband is out?”

Charlotte raised her eyebrows. “Oh, was he younger? You clearly read different articles of the newspapers than I do. Or perhaps different newspapers altogether.”

Arabella’s face flared red. It was an insult she could not ignore. Ladies with the slightest pretension to gentility did not read sensational papers. “It is common knowledge!” she snapped.

“Very common,” Charlotte said under her breath. Only Flora, sitting closest to her, heard it. She affected a fit of sneezing to stifle her laughter. Sabine handed her a glass of water.

“Standards are slipping all over the place,” Marie remarked, perhaps to fill the silence. “That poor Portuguese girl committed suicide as well. Heaven only knows why.”

Sabine looked at her in surprise. “Well, everyone says she fell in love with Neville Forsbrook, and when he didn’t want her, she completely lost her senses and threw herself out of the window. Far too highly strung, these younger girls. And to blame young Forsbrook is awful. His poor father; first he lost his wife, now this wretched scandal. Not that it’s in the remotest way his fault, of course.”

“Yes, his wife,” Flora said. “She died—”

“She died in an accident,” Emily interrupted.

“Nobody imagined she was having an affair,” Arabella added. “It was a tragic accident in a coach.”

“An ordinary hansom, I believe,” Sabine corrected her. “Late at night. The road was wet and something made the horse bolt. Poor cabby was killed as well. Dreadful.”

“Such a terrible thing to happen,” Charlotte said with as much sincerity as she could manage through her anger. She remembered Vespasia telling her of the tragedy. She hadn’t known Eleanor Forsbrook, but she would not have wished her any harm. Her son’s brutality
would surely have caused her as much grief as it would any other woman. “Perhaps we should treasure our own safety with a little more gratitude.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Arabella said coldly.

Flora looked at her with a bright smile. “I do. You are perfectly right, Mrs. Pitt. We take our happiness and our safety far too much for granted. I am alive and well. It is a beautiful day and I am in a lovely garden, among friends. I shall enjoy it to its fullest.” She looked at Charlotte, meeting her eyes directly. “Thank you for a most timely reminder. I’m so glad you came this afternoon.”

There was another moment of startled silence, then Emily picked up a dish of tiny cakes and passed them round. She bit her lip to stop herself from smiling, and carefully looked away from Charlotte’s eyes.

P
ITT STOOD IN HIS
office facing Rafael Castelbranco. He had dreaded this moment since he had heard the date set for Alban Hythe’s trial. The Portuguese ambassador was white-faced, except for the bruised shadows around his eyes and the hectic spots of color high on his cheeks. If Pitt had not known his story, he would have thought he was drunk.

“This man raped a married woman with whom he was having an affair. You arrested him and you are now bringing him to trial,” Castelbranco said, his voice wavering, catching in his throat as if he could barely force the words out. “If he is found guilty, you will hang him, and her family will have at least a sense of justice. Yet you
know
who raped my child, and you can do nothing? Is this how your justice works?”

He made it sound absurd, outrageous, as if it were a deliberate action against him. He was trembling with the savagery of his emotions.

“Rafael,” Pitt said gently, “I do not know who raped Angeles. I had believed it was Neville Forsbrook, but the husband of Catherine Quixwood, the married woman who was raped, says that he was in the company of young Forsbrook at the time we believe Angeles was attacked. Also, although I do not doubt that it did happen, we have no
proof. In Mrs. Quixwood’s case her beaten body was found on the floor of her own house. There was no place for doubt as to what happened, only as to who the man was.”

Castelbranco gulped. “It was Forsbrook. Angeles told her mother so.”

Pitt knew better than to argue. Castelbranco believed his daughter. He had to: every loyalty in him demanded it.

“If I could prove it, I would charge Forsbrook and bring him to trial,” Pitt said with absolute honesty. “But if I charge him and can’t bring it to trial, then public sympathy will be with him. If I can rake up enough evidence to try him, and fail to convict—which needs evidence beyond a reasonable doubt—then I will have made all the details public and given him the opportunity to say whatever he pleases about Angeles, blacken her reputation with whatever he wants to invent. No one can claim innocence or purity for every minute of his or her life—you and I both know that. And an accused man has the right to defend himself.”