Half Moon Street (28 page)

“She didn’t want to be disturbed, ma’am!”

“I shall tell her you said so,” Caroline assured her. “Please don’t worry.” And without arguing the point any further, she went along the landing to the old lady’s room and knocked briskly on the door.

There was no answer.

She knocked again, then opened it and went in.

Mrs. Ellison was sitting propped up against the pillows, her gray-white hair spread around her, her face pale, with dark shadows under her eyes, making the sockets look enormous.

“I did not give you permission to come in,” she said tartly. “Please have the decency to leave. Do I not even have the privilege of being alone in the house?”

“No, you don’t.” Caroline closed the door behind her and walked over to the bed. “I came to tell you that I spoke with Joshua yesterday evening . . .”

Mariah stared at her, misery draining her face of all life.

Caroline wanted to be furious with her, but pity overtook justified anger and every shred of the satisfaction in revenge that she had expected.

“I told him you had written the latter to Samuel. . . .”

Mariah winced as if Caroline had struck her. She seemed to grow smaller, huddled into herself.

“But I did not tell him why,” Caroline went on. “I said it was something that had hurt you greatly, and he did not ask what it was.”

There was total silence in the room. Slowly Mrs. Ellison let out her breath and her shoulders sagged. “He didn’t . . .” she whispered with disbelief.

“No.”

Again there was silence. Caroline searched for words to tell her that the wound would heal, the damage was not irreparable after all, but perhaps it was unnecessary.

Mrs. Ellison started to say something, then stopped. Her eyes did not move from Caroline’s face. She was grateful, it was there somewhere in the depths, but to put it into words would make it real, a solid thing between them, and she was not ready to yield that yet.

Caroline smiled briefly, then stood up and left.

She did not see the old lady again that day.

In the evening, when Joshua had left for the theatre after a very brief supper, the maid announced Inspector Pitt, and Caroline was delighted to see him. The pleasure of having Joshua at home during parts of the day was paid for in far too many lonely evenings.

“Thomas! Come in,” she said with pleasure. “How are you? My dear, you look awfully tired. Sit down.” She gestured to the big armchair near the fire. “Have you eaten?” She was very aware that with Charlotte in Paris he too was alone. He looked even more crumpled than usual and had a forlorn air about him. It was not until he had done as he was bidden and the gaslight caught his face more closely that she realized he was also deeply unhappy.

“Thomas, what it is? What has happened?”

He gave a very small smile, rueful and a trifle self-conscious.

“Can I be so easily read?”

It had been a day of honesty. “Yes.”

He relaxed into the chair, letting the warmth seep into him.

“I suppose it’s Joshua I really wanted to speak to. I should have realized he wouldn’t be here at this hour.” He stopped.

She could see he wanted to talk about something. Whatever it was that had distressed him, he needed to speak of it, and Charlotte was not there.

“I can tell Joshua when he comes home,” she said almost casually. “What is it about? The theatre, I presume. Is it to do with the murder of the photographer?”

“Yes. It is really not something to discuss with a woman.”

“Whyever not? Are you embarrassed?”

“No.” He hesitated. “Well . . .”

She thought bitterly of what her mother-in-law had told her. Whatever Pitt had to say, it could hardly be more obscene than that, or more intimately degrading.

“Thomas, I do not need to be protected from life. If you are afraid I cannot keep a confidence, then—”

“That is not it at all!” he protested, running his hand through his hair and leaving it even more rumpled. “It is simply . . . intensely unpleasant.”

“I can see that much in your face. Do you believe that Cathcart’s murder has something to do with the theatre?”

“I think it may. He certainly knew Cecily Antrim . . . very well.”

“You mean they were lovers?” She was amused at his delicacy.

“Not necessarily. That would hardly matter.” He stretched out his legs a little more comfortably. His face was contorted. It was obviously still difficult for him to say to her what it was that filled his mind. She thought of herself this morning trying to find words to tell Samuel about Mrs. Ellison, and she waited.

The fire flickered pleasantly in the grate. There was no other noise in the room except the clock.

“I found photographs of Cecily Antrim in a postcard shop,” he said at last. “We didn’t tell the newspapers how Cathcart was found, except that it was in a boat.” He avoided her eyes and there was a faint color in his cheeks. “Actually, he was wearing a green velvet dress . . . pretty badly torn . . . and he was manacled by the wrists and ankles . . . into a sort of obscene parody of Millais’s painting of Ophelia. Flowers thrown around . . . artificial ones.” He stopped.

She controlled her amazement with difficulty, and an idiotic desire to laugh.

“What has that to do with Cecily Antrim?”

“There were several obscene or blasphemous pictures of her in the shop,” he replied. “One of them was almost exactly like that. It couldn’t be a coincidence. It was the same dress, the same garlands of flowers. It looked to be even the same boat. He was killed, and then placed in exactly that pose. Whoever did it had to have seen the photograph.”

A cold prickle ran through her. “You think she was involved?” She thought how it would hurt Joshua. He admired her so much, her courage, her passion, her integrity. How could such a woman lend herself to pornography? It could not be for something as paltry as more money. Surely it had to be a willingness in the mind?

Pitt was looking at her, watching her face, her eyes, the hands now closed tightly in her lap.

“Were there a lot of these pictures?” she asked. “I mean, could they have been sold to many people or used for blackmail?”

“Some of the activities portrayed were . . . illegal.” He did not elaborate, but she guessed his meaning.

“The shop’s owner gave me a list of his customers,” he went on. “But there is nothing to say it is a complete list. We’ll investigate it.” His face was sad and tired in the gaslight. “Some of them will be dealers who sell them on. God knows where they’ll end.”

She felt tired herself, a little beaten by the cruelty and the squalor that she had quite suddenly encountered, invading her warm, bright world with dirt she could not dismiss. Most of all it was in the old lady’s wounds, so deep they had become woven into her nature. But this that Pitt told her of was part of the same thing, the same sickness of the mind and heart that took pleasure in pain.

“The trouble is,” Pitt went on quietly, “they could end up in anyone’s hands—young people, boys keen to learn a little about women . . . knowing nothing . . .”

Caroline could see in his eyes that he was thinking of himself long ago, remembering his own first stirrings of curiosity and excitement, and crippling ignorance. How appalling it would be for a boy to see something like the brutality Mrs. Ellison had described, or the pictures Cecily Antrim had posed for. Young men would grow up seeing women like that . . . willingly chained—just as young Lewis Marchand would have thought of her, twisted and repellent in her desire for pain, her acceptance of humiliation.

Was that blush in his face for anything he had conjured out of
Hamlet
, the taunting of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s text . . . or from Delbert Cathcart’s photograph? She had no moral choice but to go to the Marchands and warn them. The misery that could follow did not allow her the luxury of evading it, however embarrassing it might be.

“You must stop it, if you can,” she said aloud. “Thomas, you really must!”

“I know,” he replied. “We’ve taken all the pictures, of course. But that won’t prevent him from buying more. You can’t ever prevent it. A man with a camera can photograph anything he pleases. A man with a pencil or a paintbrush can draw whatever he likes.” His voice was dark, his lips delicate with revulsion. “Almost all we can do is see he doesn’t display them publicly. Unless the people photographed are abused, then of course we could act on that.” There was no lift in his voice, and she knew he felt beaten.

She thought of Daniel and Jemima, their innocent faces still looking at the world with no idea of cruelty, no knowledge of the ravages of physical appetite or how it could become so depraved that it consumed all honor or pity, or in the end even preservation of self.

She thought of Edmund Ellison, and Mariah in her youth, terrified, crouching in the dark, waiting for the pain which would come, if not tonight, then tomorrow or the next night, and the next, as long as he was alive.

If anyone had done that to one of her own daughters she would have killed him. If someone did it to Jemima, or Daniel, she would now, and answer even to God, without regret.

She did not know what connection the pictures had to the act, whether they prompted it, excused it, excited it—or replaced it. She was confused and tired, and uncertain how to help. She was sure only that, above all things, she needed to help.

She sat in the silence with Pitt. There was no sound in the room but the fire and the clock, and neither of them felt compelled to break the understanding with words that were unnecessary. It was a long time before they at last spoke of Charlotte in Paris, her ecstatic account of her visit to the Latin Quarter, breakfast at Saint-Germain, poets in pink shirts and another day of a leisurely walk under the horse chestnut trees along the Champs-Élysées.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The old lady did not come down to breakfast the following morning either. Caroline lost her taste for toast and preserves, even though the apricots were delicious.

Joshua looked up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

She had told him nothing so far. He was absorbed in his own work. She knew by now how exhausting the first few nights of a new play were. Everyone worried how it would be received, how the audience would react, what the critics would say, whether the theatre bookings would remain good, even what others in the profession would think. And if all those things went well, then they worried about their own performances, and always about health, most especially the voice. A sore throat, which was merely unpleasant to most people, to an actor was ruinous. His voice was the instrument of his art.

At first she had found it difficult to understand and know how to help. She had experienced nothing like it in her life with Edward. Now she knew at least when to remain silent, when encouragement was appropriate and when it was not, and what to say that was intelligent. It was the one area in which Joshua had no patience with less than honesty. He could not bear to think he was being patronized. It was at those moments she caught a rare glimpse not only of his temper but of his vulnerability.

“Thomas was here yesterday evening. Of course he is missing Charlotte . . . and the case he is on is giving him concern.”

“Doesn’t it always?” He took another slice of toast. “What good would he be if it didn’t worry him? I’m sorry about Cathcart, he was a brilliant photographer. I suppose Thomas is no nearer finding out what happened?”

How much of the truth did he want to know? Not all of it—not until he had to.

“I don’t think so. You didn’t know him, did you?”

He was surprised. “Cathcart? No. Just by repute. But I know his work. Everyone does . . . well, I suppose people in the theatre do more than most.” He looked at her narrowly. “Why?”

She was not as good at deceiving him as she intended. He sensed she was telling him less than she knew, though he did not know what it was. She hated the feeling of concealment, the barrier she was creating between them, but to have told him would be a small selfishness, exposing him to unhappiness just for her own peace of mind. And he had already been hurt so deeply by Samuel Ellison, even if it was healed now.

She made her smile more spontaneous, more direct.

“Poor Thomas is trying hard to learn about him because it seems such a personal crime, a matter of hate or ridicule. If you know anything about him other than reputation it might help.” That sounded reasonable, like herself.

He smiled back and resumed his breakfast.

She made her excuses and went upstairs. The matter of Lewis Marchand had to be addressed, but not until that afternoon. Mrs. Ellison should be seen now.

As yesterday, she was still in bed.

“I am not receiving visitors,” she said coldly when Caroline went in.

“I am not a visitor,” Caroline replied, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I live here.”

The old lady glared at her. “Are you reminding me that I have no home?” she enquired. “That I am dependent upon the charity of relations in order to have a roof over my head?”

“That would be quite unnecessary,” Caroline answered her levelly. “You have complained about it often enough I could hardly imagine you were unaware—or had ever forgotten.”

“It’s not something one forgets,” Mrs. Ellison retorted. “One is never allowed to, in a dozen subtle ways. You will learn that one day for yourself, when you are old and alone and everyone else of your generation is dead.”

“Since I have married a man young enough to be my son, as you never tire of telling me, I shall be unlikely to outlive him at all, let alone by long,” Caroline pointed out.

The old lady stared at her, her eyes narrow, her mouth tight shut in a thin, miserable line. She had been bested at her own game, and it thoroughly disconcerted her. She was not sure how to retaliate.

Caroline sighed. “If you are still not well enough to get up, I shall send for the doctor. We can tell him whatever you please, but whether he believes you is another matter. It is not good for you to lie there. Your system will become sluggish.”

“I am perfectly able to get up! I don’t want to!” Mrs. Ellison glared at her, daring her to argue.

“What has wanting got to do with it?” Caroline asked. “The longer you delay it, the more difficult it will be. Do you wish to cause speculation?”

The old lady raised her eyebrows. “What is there to speculate about? Who cares what I do or do not do?”

Caroline did not speak. All sorts of thoughts crowded her mind, how close the old lady had come to destroying the happiness she held so precious. She still cringed inside at the memory of her own misery and the fear which had darkened everything inside her.

“Please go away. I am exhausted and I prefer to be alone.” Her face was set in a mask of loneliness and despair, shutting out Caroline and everyone else. “You don’t understand. You have not the faintest idea. The least you can afford me is the privacy of suffering without being stared at. I do not want you here. Have the decency to go.”

Caroline hesitated. She could feel the other woman’s pain as if it were a living thing in the room, but beyond her power to touch. She longed to reach out and give it some comfort, some beginning of healing, but she did not know how to. For the first time she realized how deep it was. The scars were woven through Mariah Ellison’s life, not only for the humiliation itself but for how she had dealt with it over the years. It was not just what Edmund had done to her but what she had done to herself. She had hated herself for so long she did not know how to stop.

“Get out of my room!” the old lady said between her teeth.

Caroline looked at her, lying hunched up in the bed, her gnarled hands gripping the covers, her face blind with misery, the tears running down her cheeks. Caroline was helpless to do anything about it, even to reach out to her, because the barrier between them had been built over the years, reinforced with a thousand daily cuts and abrasions until the scars were impenetrable.

She turned and went out, closing the door behind her, startled to find that the tears were thick in her throat also.

She went to call on the Marchands as early as it was decent to do so, perhaps even a little earlier. Mrs. Marchand was surprised to see her but appeared to be delighted. They sat in the heavy, comfortable withdrawing room for several minutes, making idle conversation, before Mrs. Marchand became aware that Caroline had some purpose in coming other than to find a pleasant way to fill an otherwise empty afternoon. She stopped in the middle of a sentence about some small event and what people had said about a particular soiree.

Caroline was aware that she had not been listening. Now that she was faced with putting into words what she feared, it was much harder than she had imagined. She looked at Mrs. Marchand’s wide blue eyes, her direct, almost challenging stare and her pretty features. She was so sure of her world, of its conventions and its rules. She had conscientiously taught them to her son. Caroline was certain it had never crossed her imagination that he would venture outside its values. She cared almost as passionately as her husband about censorship so the innocent would not be tainted. She would have put fig leaves on all the great classical statues, and blushed to look at the Venus de Milo in the presence of men. She would have seen in it not naked perfection but the indecent display of a woman’s breasts.

“Are you quite well, my dear?” Mrs. Marchand asked with concern, leaning forward a little, her brow furrowed. “You look a trifle pale.” Of course, what she meant was “You are not listening, what is disturbing you so much you have forgotten your usual manners?”

There would never be a better opening. She must take it.

“To tell you the truth, I have been worried lately on a number of matters,” she began awkwardly. “I am so sorry my attention wandered. I had no wish of being so . . . discourteous.”

“Oh, not at all,” Mrs. Marchand disclaimed immediately. “Can I help, even if it is only to listen? Sometimes a trouble shared seems a little lighter.”

Caroline looked at her earnest face and saw only kindness in it. This was going to be worse than she had expected. Mrs. Marchand was so vulnerable. It occurred to her to invent something, evading the link altogether. Perhaps she was quite wrong. Maybe Lewis’s remarks about Ophelia, the look she had seen in his eyes, was only her own imagination, fueled by Mrs. Ellison’s story and what Pitt had told her.

But what if it were not? What if Lewis had Cathcart’s photographs, lots of them, images which could twist his dreams and cause untold pain in the future—to him, and to some young girl as unknowing as Mariah Ellison had been half a century ago?

“My son-in-law is a policeman, as you know . . .” She ignored the slight flicker of distaste and plunged on. “He is working on a matter at the moment to do with a photographic club . . .” That was a ridiculous euphemism! She swallowed and plunged on. “From something Lewis said when I was here the other day, I believe he may have stumbled on a piece of information which could help. May I have your permission to speak with him?”

“Lewis?” Mrs. Marchand was incredulous. “How on earth could he? He is only sixteen! If he had seen anything . . . wrong . . . he would have told me, or his father.”

“He could not know it was wrong,” Caroline said hastily. “It is merely information. I am not even sure if I am correct. But if I am, then it would greatly serve justice if he would tell me. I don’t believe it would be necessary for him to do more than that. Please, may I speak with him . . . confidentially, if that is possible?”

Mrs. Marchand looked uncertain.

Caroline nearly spoke again, then changed her mind. To press too hard might awaken suspicion. She waited.

“Well . . . yes, of course,” Mrs. Marchand said, blinking several times. “I’m sure my husband would wish Lewis to be of any help he can. We all would. A photographic club? I did not know he was interested in photography.”

“I don’t know that he is,” Caroline answered quickly. “It is just that I think he may have seen a particular photograph, and he could tell me where, and I would tell Thomas without mentioning how I learned.”

“Oh. I see.” Mrs. Marchand rose to her feet. “Well, he is upstairs with his tutor. I am sure we could interrupt them for something so important.” She rang the bell for the maid, and Lewis was sent for.

He arrived within minutes, having been going over some of the more abstruse irregular Latin verbs, from which he was delighted to be distracted. He went quite willingly with Caroline into the library and faced her with interest. Anything she had to say, however tedious or pedestrian, had to be better than the eccentricities of the past tense of words he would never in his life have any cause to use. It had been explained to him many times that it was not the practicality but the mental discipline of the exercise which benefited him, but he remained unconvinced.

“Yes, Mrs. Fielding?” he said politely.

“Please sit down, Lewis,” she replied, sitting herself in the worn, leather armchair in front of the fireplace. “It is kind of you to spare me your time. I would not have interrupted you were it not an issue of great importance.”

“Of course, Mrs. Fielding.” He sat opposite her. “Whatever I can do.”

She wished now that she had had sons as well as daughters. She had no acquaintance with sixteen-year-old boys. Her own brothers had been older than she, and their adolescence had been an impenetrable mystery to her. But there was no retreat now, except complete failure . . . cowardice. She could hardly send Pitt to do this, although he would certainly have been better at it. He was not the one who had heard Lewis’s remarks about Ophelia or seen the look in his eyes.

She must somehow continue to be direct enough to allow no misunderstanding, and yet spare him as much embarrassment as possible. She had no desire to humiliate him, and no need to. It might even destroy the very purpose for which she had come. Looking into his earnest young face, polite, not really interested, smooth-cheeked still, guileless, she had no words ready that would be subtle.

“Lewis, I did not tell your mother the whole truth; that is up to you, if you wish. The matter my son-in-law is investigating is very serious indeed . . . it is murder.”

“Is it?” He was not shocked or alarmed. There was a quick flare of interest in his blue eyes. But then he almost certainly had no conception of what that word meant in reality. He would know the facts, not the loss, the horror, the fear that it brought, the sense of pervading darkness.

“I’m afraid so.”

He straightened up a little, and his voice lifted. “What can I do to help, Mrs. Fielding?”

She felt a twinge of guilt for what she was about to do, and also the certainty that she must destroy in him the illusion of adventure that filled him at the present.

“When I was here a few days ago and we were speaking, you made a remark from which I now believe you might know something of use,” she said.

He nodded to indicate he was listening.

“In order for you to help,” she went on, “I need to tell you something about this crime . . . something which is not known to anyone except the police and the person who committed the murder . . . and to me, because I was told by the police. It is confidential, do you understand?”

He nodded more eagerly. “Yes, yes, of course I do. I won’t tell anyone, I swear.”

“Thank you. I am afraid this is very distressing. . . .”

“That’s all right!” he assured her, taking a deep breath and sitting very stiffly. “Please don’t worry about it.”

She wanted to smile, but it would have been too easily misunderstood. He was so very young, and unaware.

“The murdered man was struck on the head,” she began solemnly, watching his face. “Then he was dressed in a green velvet gown . . . a woman’s gown . . .” She saw him flinch and a look of incomprehension fill his eyes. “Then he was laid in a small, flat-bottomed boat, a punt, and his wrists and ankles were chained to the boat.”