Midnight at Marble Arch (7 page)

“Thank you,” Charlotte accepted with a little nod of her head. Minnie Maude had replaced Gracie, the maid the Pitts had had since their marriage. Gracie herself had at last married Sergeant Tellman and set up her own house, of which she was immensely proud. Her place would be impossible to fill, but Minnie Maude was gradually making the role her own. Now a wide smile split her face for a moment before she recalled her decorum again, dropped a curtsy, and withdrew, closing the door behind her.

Charlotte looked at Vespasia.

Vespasia regarded the sandwiches. “Excellent,” she murmured. “Minnie Maude is coming on very well.” She took one and put it on her plate while Charlotte poured the tea.

“What do you fear has happened to Angeles Castelbranco?” Charlotte asked a few moments later.

“The marriage was an arranged one, naturally,” Vespasia replied. “The de Freitas family is wealthy and highly respected. For Angeles it is a good match. Tiago is six or seven years older than her and, as far as I hear, nothing ill is known of him.”

“How much is that worth?” Charlotte asked skeptically, surprised how protective she felt of a girl she had seen only once. Did that mean she was bound to become overprotective of Jemima as well? She could remember her mother being so, and she had hated it.

Vespasia was watching her with wry amusement and perhaps also with recollections of her own daughters. “A good deal,” she replied. “Plus Isaura Castelbranco was young once, and I am sure has not forgotten the romance she dreamed of for herself; I doubt she would arrange for her daughter to marry someone unworthy.”

“Then why are you worried?” Charlotte asked, suddenly grave again. “What is it you fear?”

Vespasia was silent for several moments. She sipped her tea and ate another of Minnie Maude’s cucumber sandwiches.

Charlotte waited, recalling the party at the Spanish Embassy and the look in Angeles’s face. Had it truly been as fearful as she pictured it now, or was she putting her own feelings onto it?

“What is it you think has happened?” she asked more urgently.

“I don’t know,” Vespasia admitted. “It is a big thing indeed to break an engagement in a family like that. If she does not give a powerful reason, then other reasons will be suggested, largely unflattering in nature. It has been said, so far, that it is she who broke it off, but sometimes a young man will allow that, as a gallantry, when in fact it is he who has done so.”

Charlotte was startled. “What are you saying? That she has … has lost her virginity? She’s sixteen, not a thirty-year-old courtesan. How could you suggest such a thing?”

“I didn’t,” Vespasia pointed out gently. “You did. Which perfectly makes my point. People will look for reasons, and if they are not given them they will create their own. Breaking a betrothal is not something one does lightly.”

Charlotte looked down at the carpet. “She’s so young. And she looked so vulnerable at that party. The room was crowded with people, and yet she was alone.”

Vespasia finished her tea and set the cup down. “I hope I am mistaken.” She rose to her feet. “Shall we leave?”

F
OR SOME TIME AT
the party Charlotte accompanied Vespasia as they met friends or acquaintances and exchanged the usual polite remarks. She had wanted to come, to be in the swirl of conversation, feeling the exhilaration of meeting new people, but after half an hour or so she realized how little she truly knew, could know, of the men and women around her; their clothes, their manners, and their speech covered up far more of the truth than they revealed.

Looking at a woman in a bright dress, she wondered if it was exuberance that prompted her to wear it or bravado hiding some uncertainty, fear, or grief. And the woman in the plain-cut, subdued shade
of blue—was that modesty, a supreme confidence that needed no display, or simply the only gown she had not already worn in this same company? So much could be interpreted half a dozen different ways.

It was about ten minutes later that Charlotte encountered Isaura Castelbranco and with pleasure found an opportunity to engage her in conversation. It seemed very easy to ask what region of Portugal she grew up in and to hear a description of the beautiful valley that had been her home until her marriage.

“Port wine?” Charlotte said with an interest she did not have to feign. “I often wondered how they make it because it is quite different from anything else, even sherry.”

“It is wine from the grapes in the Douro Valley,” Isaura replied, enthusiasm lighting her eyes. “But that is not really what makes it special. It is fortified with a brandy spirit, and aged in barrels of a particular wood. It takes a great deal of skill, and some of the process is kept secret.”

She smiled and there was pride in it. “We have made it for centuries, and the arts are passed down the generations within a family. Not that mine is one of them,” she added hastily. “We just lived in the region. My husband’s family is, however. His father and brothers were disappointed when he studied politics and chose the diplomatic service, but I think he has never regretted it. Although, of course, we still feel that tug of nostalgia when we go back to the vineyards, the sun on the vines, the labor of picking, the excitement of the first taste of the vintage.

“As a girl I used to daydream about the gentlemen whose tables it would be passed around. I pictured who they would be, what great events of state might be discussed with a glass of port in one hand.” She laughed a little self-consciously. “I would think of daring adventures planned, explorations, discoveries recounted, theories put forward on a hundred new ideas, reforms to change the laws of nations. Silly, maybe, but …”

“Not silly at all!” Charlotte said quietly. “Much better than half the daydreams I had, I promise you. It is something to be proud of.”

Isaura laughed. “Some of my in-laws’ port was in the glasses of
great Portuguese navigators, traders in exotic silks and spices, but much of it was also on English dining tables after the ladies had withdrawn. In my mind every great Englishman drank port, while he planned to settle America or Australia, find the Northwest Passage to the Pacific, discover how the circulation of blood works, or write about the origin of species.” She flushed slightly at her own audacity.

“I think you have a marvelous imagination,” Charlotte said warmly. “I shall never look at a good bottle of port again without my own being inspired. Thank you for enriching me so happily.”

Before Isaura could respond, they were joined by three ladies in highly fashionable gowns and hats that drew the attention, and certainly the envy, of every woman who caught even a glimpse of them. With regret, Charlotte reverted to the conversation of gossip and trivia.

“Marvelous,” one woman enthused. “You can’t imagine how it looked, my dear. I’ll never forget it …”

“Do you suppose she’ll marry him?” another asked with intense curiosity. “What a match that would be!”

“I shudder to think.” A third gave the slightest indication with a twitch of one elegant shoulder. “Anyway, I’m quite sure she has her eye on Sir Pelham Forsbrook.”

Charlotte’s attention was caught by that last name. He was the father of Neville Forsbrook, who had so cruelly taunted Angeles. She glanced sideways at Isaura and saw the distress in her face before she could conceal it with a feigned smile of interest.

“Is Sir Pelham thinking of marrying again?” Charlotte asked, with no idea of the circumstances, except that, with a son he owned to, he had to have been married once.

“
She
is thinking of it, my dear,” the first woman said with a smile very slightly condescending. “Pelham is worth a fortune. All kinds of investments in Africa, I believe. Probably gold, I should think. Didn’t they find masses of it in Johannesburg last year? And he’s a very charming man, sort of dark and interesting, a powerful face.”

One of the others giggled slightly. “I do believe you are attracted to him yourself, Marguerite.”

“Nonsense!” Marguerite said a trifle too quickly. “Eleanor was a
friend of mine. I wouldn’t dream of it. Such a tragedy. I haven’t got it out of my mind yet.”

Charlotte made a mental note to ask Vespasia what had happened to Eleanor, who was presumably Forsbrook’s late wife. For the moment, she turned to Isaura and said how delighted she had been to meet her again, and excused herself from the conversation.

She was still wondering about the Forsbrook family when she noticed a group of young women, perhaps seventeen or eighteen years old, laughing and talking together. They were all pretty, with the unlined features and the blemishless complexions of the young, but one of the girls in particular caught Charlotte’s attention.

Her hair and eyes were both startlingly dark and quite beautiful against the peach tones of her high-necked gown. Also, she had an air of intensity that instantly made her stand out; she seemed far more serious than the others, with a look of being occupied in some private concern. Charlotte watched her for several moments as one of the other girls spoke to her and she had to ask for the words to be repeated before she replied. Even then her answer was vague, drawing a taunt, and then giggles from two of the others.

There was something familiar in her unease, and then Charlotte realized that she was Angeles Castelbranco. Her dress was utterly different from the ball gown she had worn at the embassy, but the resemblance to her mother should have been sufficient for Charlotte to recognize her again, even at a slight distance and from an angle.

There was more laughter. A young man passed close to them and smiled. Discreetly he regarded all of them but clearly it was Angeles who took his eye. Beside her the others looked pallid, even ordinary, though today her dress was extremely modest and she made no attempt to hold his glance.

The young man smiled at her.

She gave a very slight smile back at him, then immediately lowered her eyes.

He hesitated, uncertain whether he dared speak to her when she had given him no encouragement.

One of the other girls smiled at him. He inclined his head in a small bow, then walked on. Two of the girls giggled.

Angeles looked unhappy, even uncomfortable. She excused herself and moved away toward where Isaura was still involved in conversation.

Charlotte found Vespasia again. Together they strolled over toward a magnificent bed of mixed flowers, bright with pink and blue spires of lupin and dozens of gaudy oriental poppies in a profusion of scarlets, crimsons, and peaches.

Charlotte described to Vespasia how she had seen Angeles act, the other girls and the young man.

“And it troubles you?” Vespasia asked quietly.

“I’m not sure why,” Charlotte admitted. “She looked so ill at ease, as if she had a deep unhappiness she was trying to overcome, but could not. I suppose I have forgotten what it was like to be sixteen. It is an alarmingly long time ago. But I think I was awkward, rather than unhappy.”

“You were not engaged to be married,” Vespasia pointed out.

“No, but I would’ve liked to have been!” Charlotte said ruefully. “I thought about it nearly all the time. I looked at every young man, wondering if he could be the one, and how it would happen, and whether I could learn to love him or not.” She recalled with embarrassment some of the wilder thoughts that had passed through her mind then.

“Of course,” Vespasia agreed. “We all did. The grand romances of the imagination were …” she smiled at her own memories, “… like reflections in the water—bright, a little distorted and gone with the next ripple of wind.” Then her amusement vanished. “Did you sense something more seriously wrong with her?”

“Perhaps not. It was an arranged marriage, you said earlier? Sixteen is very young to feel that your fate is already decided, and by someone other than yourself.”

“It is a common practice,” Vespasia pointed out. “And I daresay our parents’ choice for us was no more reckless than our own would
have been. I remember falling in love at least half a dozen times with men it would have been disastrous for me to have married.”

Charlotte drew in her breath to ask if the choice Vespasia had made in the end had been so much better. Then she realized how appallingly intrusive that would be. From the little she knew of Vespasia’s life, her marriage had been tolerable, but not a great deal more than that. The great love she had known had been elsewhere, brief and ending in all but memory when she returned from Italy to England. What Vespasia had felt Charlotte did not know and did not wish to. There are many things that should remain private.

Charlotte watched a bumblebee meander lazily through the blossoms.

“I thought I would die when Dominic Corde married my elder sister, Sarah,” she said candidly, turning the conversation back to her own feelings. “I cherished an impossible infatuation with him for years. I don’t think he ever knew, thank heaven.”

“Perhaps Angeles Castelbranco likes someone rather better than she liked her fiancé, and finds it difficult to reconcile herself to keeping her promise,” Vespasia said, smiling a little in the sun and watching the same bee as it settled in the heart of a scarlet poppy. “Life can tend to lurch from one wild emotion to another at that age. Of course, with a lot of laughter, excitement, and soaring hopes in between. I don’t think I could bear all that anguish again.”

Charlotte looked at her quickly. Vespasia was still beautiful, but—in spite of her poise, her wit, and all her accomplishments—perhaps she was also still vulnerable. Certainly she was very much alone. Charlotte had never thought of it before, but it struck her now with the force of a blow. Had Vespasia ever known the safety of heart that Charlotte took so much for granted?

She changed the subject quickly, before her face betrayed her thoughts.

“Perhaps we are being too fanciful about Angeles,” she remarked. “I expect there is no grand passion for someone else and no betrayal by her fiancé with another woman. I am more bored with Society than I had remembered, and I can see that the devil has made more work for
idle minds than he ever does for idle hands. Sometimes I wish Thomas were back in the regular police instead of in Special Branch, where all his cases are secret. I can’t help anymore because he can’t even tell me what they are about.”