Pentecost Alley (14 page)

“Thank you,” Emily accepted. She would dislike intensely turning up at Augustus FitzJames’s breakfast table looking as if she had been up all night. And the cream muslin dress offered was certainly very attractive. It was a trifle young for her, but not unsophisticated with its swathed bodice and delicate embroidery.

She went downstairs with Tallulah, in order that her presence might be duly explained and she be properly introduced.

The dining room was large, formal and extremely attractive, but she had no time to do more than notice it momentarily. Her attention was taken entirely by the
three people who sat around the table. At the head of it was Augustus FitzJames, his long, powerful face set in lines of severity as he studied the morning newspaper. He had it folded in front of him, but he did not look up when the two young women came in until he realized that there was someone present he had not expected.

“Good morning, Papa,” Tallulah said cheerfully. “May I present Mrs. Radley? I invited her to stay the night with us because the hour was late and her husband had been obliged to take their carriage on an urgent call of government business.” She lied quite adroitly, as if she had considered the matter beforehand.

Augustus regarded Emily with a slight frown, then as he connected the name with a member of Parliament, he inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“Good morning, Mrs. Radley. I’m delighted we were able to offer you hospitality. Please join us for breakfast.” He glanced at the woman at the foot of the table. Her hair was perfectly coiffed, her morning gown immaculate, but her face was creased with tiny lines of anxiety. “My wife,” he said expressionlessly.

“How do you do, Mrs. FitzJames,” Emily said with a smile. “Thank you for your kindness in allowing me to stay here.” It was a formality, something to say in the stiff silence. Aloysia had been totally unaware of her presence.

“You are most welcome,” Aloysia said hastily. “I hope you slept well?”

“Very, thank you.” Emily sat on the chair indicated for her, while the maid set an extra place for Tallulah.

“My son,” Augustus continued, gesturing with his rather bony hands to the young man who sat opposite Emily.

“How do you do, Mr. FitzJames,” she responded, looking at him with a far greater interest than she could ever have had, had Tallulah not confided in her his disastrous connection with the murder in Whitechapel. She tried to smile brightly, noncommittally, as if she knew
nothing, but she could not help trying to read his face. He was handsome; he had a good nose, a wide mouth, and a broad, firm jaw. His hair was beautiful. It sprang back from his brow in thick, fair waves. It was the face of a man who would never be lost for female admiration. What uncontrolled appetite or unseen weakness had taken him to find a prostitute in Whitechapel, of all places? Looking at him across the family breakfast table, she thought how little of a person one sees in the inbred manners and the traditional dress, the neatly barbered hair.

“How do you do, Mrs. Radley,” he replied without interest. “Morning, Tallulah. Have a good evening?”

Tallulah sat down next to Emily and picked at a bowl of fruit, then set it aside and chose toast and apricot preserve instead.

“Yes, thank you,” she replied noncommittally. He was not asking with any interest.

Emily was offered smoked haddock or eggs and declined both. She too said toast would be sufficient. She must return home as soon as she decently could. It would be difficult enough to give a satisfactory explanation of her night’s absence as it was.

“Where did you go?” Augustus asked Tallulah. His tone was not peremptory, but there was an underlying assumption in it that he would be answered, and answered truthfully.

Tallulah did not look up from her plate.

“To Lady Swaffham’s for dinner. Did I not mention it?”

“Yes, you did,” he said grimly. “And you did not remain there until after two in the morning. I know Lady Swaffham better than that.”

They had not mentioned the time they came in. Presumably two was the time he had gone to bed himself, and he knew she was not home.

“I went on with Reggie Howard and Mrs. Radley to a literary discussion in Chelsea,” Tallulah replied, glancing up at her father.

“At two in the morning?” His eyebrows rose sarcastically. “I think, madam, that you mean a party at which certain young men who imagine themselves writers sit around striking poses and talking nonsense. Was Oscar Wilde there?”

“No.”

He looked at Emily to confirm or deny the statement.

“I don’t believe any of his set were there,” she said with complete honesty. Actually, she was not sure who his “set” were anyway, and she resented being put in the position of having to answer for Tallulah or make her a liar.

“I don’t care for young Howard,” Augustus continued, taking another slice of toast and pouring himself more tea. He did not look at his daughter. “You will not go out in his company again.”

Tallulah drew in her breath and her face hardened.

Augustus faced his wife.

“It is time you took her to more appropriate places, my dear. It is your job to find her a suitable match. This year, I think. It is past time you did so. As long as she does not jeopardize her reputation too far by wasting her time in loose company, then she is eminently eligible. Regardless of behavior, she will not remain so indefinitely.” He was still looking at Aloysia, not Tallulah, but Emily saw Tallulah’s cheeks flush with humiliation. “I will make a list of desirable families,” he concluded, and bit into his toast, his other hand reaching for his cup.

“Desirable to whom?” Tallulah said hotly.

He turned to her. There was not a shred of humor or light in his eyes.

“To me, of course. It is my responsibility to see that you are well provided for and that you make a success of your life. You have everything that is necessary, except self-discipline. You will now apply that, beginning today.”

Had she thought anyone was taking the slightest notice of her, Emily would have been embarrassed, but even
Finlay seemed absorbed in what his father was saying. Apparently such total command did not surprise any of them. She did not need to look at Tallulah’s downcast head to know that Augustus FitzJames’s list of acceptable suitors for his daughter’s hand would not include the “Jago” she had referred to. The virtue she was so sure he possessed would not endear him to a socially ambitious father.

Tallulah needed to do some very serious evaluating of her own desires, and some weighing of costs and rewards, if she were to have any chance of happiness.

Emily looked across at Finlay, still eating toast and marmalade and finishing his last cup of tea. Any sympathy he might have felt for his sister did not register in his face.

Without warning Augustus turned on him.

“And it is past time you found a suitable wife. You cannot take up an embassy post of any importance unless you have a wife capable of maintaining the position. She should have breeding, dignity, the capacity to hold intelligent conversation without forcing her own opinions into it, and sufficient charm to appeal, but not so much as to cause gossip and speculation. Wholesomeness is preferable to beauty. Naturally her reputation must be impeccable. That goes without saying. I can think of a dozen or more who would be suitable.”

“At the moment—” Finlay began, then stopped abruptly.

Augustus’s face froze. “I am quite aware that at the moment there are other matters to be cleared up.” His face was tight and hard, and he did not look at his son when he spoke. “I trust that that will not take more than a few days.”

“I should think not,” Finlay said unhappily, staring at his father as if willing him to look up and meet his eyes. “I had nothing to do with it! And if they have any competence at all, they will soon know that.” He said it as if it were a challenge, and he did not expect to be believed
without proving it, and yet Emily heard the sincerity sharp in his voice.

Tallulah ignored her unfinished toast, and her tea grew cold. She looked from her father to her mother, and back again.

“Of course they will,” Aloysia said meaninglessly. “It is unpleasant, but there is no need whatever to worry.”

Augustus regarded her with a world of contempt in his eyes and the tired lines around his mouth deepened.

“No one is worried, Aloysia. It is simply a matter of dealing with things so that nothing unpleasant does happen as a result of … incompetence, or other misfortune we cannot prevent.” He turned to Tallulah. “You, madam, will deport yourself in a manner which raises no eyebrows whatsoever and gives no malicious tongues the fuel with which to spread gossip. And you, sir”—he looked at Finlay—“will conduct yourself like a gentleman. You will confine your attentions to your duty and to such pleasures as are enjoyed by the sort of young lady you would wish to marry. You might escort your sister. There are soirées, exhibitions and other appropriate gatherings all over London.”

Finlay looked desperate.

“Otherwise,” Augustus continued, “this matter may not be as easily contained as you would wish.”

“I had nothing to do with it!” Finlay protested, a rising note of desperation in his voice.

“Possibly,” Augustus said dryly, continuing with his breakfast. The discussion was over. He did not need to say so in words; the finality in his voice was total. Argument with it would have been useless.

Tallulah and Emily finished the remains of their meal in silence, then excused themselves. As soon as they were in the hallway and out of earshot, Tallulah turned to Emily.

“I’m sorry,” she said with distress. “That must have been dreadful for you, because I’m sure you know what he was talking about. Of course they will clear it all up,
but it could take ages. And what if they never find out who it was?” Her voice sharpened as panic mounted inside her. “They never found the other Whitechapel murderer! He killed five women, and that was two years ago, and still no one has the faintest idea who he was. It could be anyone!”

“No it couldn’t,” Emily said steadily. She was speaking empty words, but she hoped Tallulah would not know it. “That other failure had very little to do with this.” She believed Pitt could find the truth, but probably all the truth, which even if Finlay were as innocent as he claimed, might include a few facts about him which were embarrassing or painful, or both. The trouble with an investigation was that all manner of things were discovered, perhaps irrelevant to the crime, private sins and shames which it was afterwards impossible to forget.

And when people were afraid they too often behaved badly. One might see them far more clearly than one ever wished. There was more to fear than simply a discovery of guilt.

“It is probably someone in her daily life,” she went on very steadily, thinking even as she was saying it that Augustus FitzJames was not certain of his son’s innocence. Emily knew from the edge in his voice, the way he overrode his wife’s comfortable words, that a needle of doubt had pricked him. Why? Why would a man have so little confidence in his own son as to allow such an awful possibility into his mind?

“Yes, of course it is,” Tallulah agreed. “I’m just upset because Papa is going to try to force me to marry some bore and become a bland, uninteresting wife sewing useless embroidery and painting watercolors no one wants to look at.”

“Thank you.” Emily smiled at her.

Tallulah blushed scarlet. “Oh God! I’m so sorry! What an unpardonable thing to say! I didn’t mean it like that!”

Emily blinked at the blasphemy, but said frankly, “Yes you did. And I don’t blame you. Plenty of women spend
their whole lives doing things they despise. I bore myself to tears sometimes. And I am married to a politician, and usually he is very interesting. I was bored last night because he has been so busy I have seen little of him lately, and I have done nothing to interest myself. I need a good issue to fight for.”

Gradually the color subsided in Tallulah’s cheeks, but she still looked mortified.

Emily took her by the arm and led her back up the stairs towards her temporary bedroom.

“I have a great-aunt by marriage,” she continued, “who is never bored a day in her life, because she is always concerned with something, usually battling some injustice or ignorance. She doesn’t take on anything easy, so everything tends to last.” She could have mentioned that she had a mother who had just married a Jewish actor seventeen years her junior, and a sister who had married beneath her, to a man in the police force, and brought drama into all their lives by becoming involved in the worst of his cases. But just at the moment that would be tactless, not to mention overwhelming.

“Does she?” Tallulah said with a flicker of interest. “Her husband doesn’t mind?”

“Actually he’s dead, and he doesn’t count,” Emily conceded. “If he were alive that would make it harder. What about this Jago that you mentioned?”

“Jago!” Tallulah laughed jerkily. “Can you see Papa allowing me to marry a parish priest in Whitechapel? I should end up with about two dresses to my name, one to wash, one to wear, and live in a drafty room with cold water and a roof that leaked. Socially I should cease to exist!”

“I thought priests had vicarages,” Emily argued, standing at the top of the stairs on the bright sunlit landing with its yellow carpet and potted palms. A housemaid in crisp lace-trimmed cap and apron walked across the hall below them, her heels clicking on the
parquet. There might be vicarages in Whitechapel, but they were still another world from this.

Tallulah bit her lip. “I know that. But I would have to give up so much. No more parties. No more beautiful gowns, witty conversations that last all night. No more trips to the theater and the opera. No more dinners and balls and coming home in the dawn. I wouldn’t even be warm enough half the time, or have enough to eat. I might have to do my own laundry!”

It was all perfectly true.

“Do you want to change Jago into something he isn’t?” Emily asked her.

“No!” Tallulah drew in her breath slowly. “No, I don’t. Of course not … I …” She stopped. She did not know what she meant. The decision was enormous.