Half Moon Street (4 page)

He would point his mind to what he should ask the river police about tides and where the boat must have started in order to finish at Horseferry Stairs by dawn.

He reported his findings to Pitt in the late afternoon, at Pitt’s home in Keppel Street. It was warm and clean, but it seemed very empty without the women in the kitchen or busying about upstairs. There were no children’s voices; no light, quick feet; no one singing. He even missed Gracie’s orders, telling him to watch his boots, not to bump anything or make a mess.

He sat across the kitchen table from Pitt, sipping at his tea and feeling strangely empty.

“Well?” Pitt prompted.

“Not very helpful, actually,” Tellman answered. There was no homemade cake, only a tin of bought biscuits. It was not nearly the same. “Low water was at three minutes past five at London Bridge, and it gets later the higher you go up the river. Like it would be near quarter past six up at Battersea.”

“And high tide?” Pitt asked.

“Quarter past eleven last night at London Bridge.”

“And an hour and ten minutes later at Battersea . . .”

“No . . . that’s the thing, only twenty minutes, more like twentyfive to midnight.”

“And the rate of flow? How far would the punt have drifted?”

“That’s the other thing,” Tellman explained. “The ebb tide takes six and three quarter hours, near enough. The flood tide takes only five and a quarter. He reckoned the punt could go as much as two and a half miles an hour, but on the other hand, on ebb tide there are mud shoals and sandbanks it could get stuck on . . .”

“But it didn’t,” Pitt pointed out. “If it had, it wouldn’t have come off till the flood again.”

“Or it could have got caught up by passing barges in the dark, or anything else,” Tellman went on. “Caught on the piles of a bridge and then loosed again if something bumped into it . . . a dozen things. All they can say for sure is that it most likely came from upriver, because no one’d carry that extra weight against the tide, and there’s no place likely anyone’d keep a boat like that, which is a private sort of pleasure boat, downriver from Horseferry Stairs. It’s all city, docks and the like.”

Pitt remained silent for several minutes, thinking it over.

“I see,” he said at length. “So time and tide don’t really help at all. It could have been as far as eleven or twelve miles, at the outside, and as close as one mile, or wherever the nearest house is with an edge on the water. Or even nearer, if anyone kept that punt moored in the open. It’ll just be a matter of questioning.”

“It would help to find out who he is,” Tellman pointed out. “I still think it could be that French fellow and they’re embarrassed to say so. I’d disown him if any Englishman did that in France!”

Pitt looked at him with a faint smile. “I found a friend of his who thought he had gone to Dover, on the way to Paris. I’d like to know if that’s true.”

“Across the Channel?” Tellman said with mixed feelings. He was not very keen on the idea of foreign travel, but on the other hand it would be quite an adventure to go in a packet boat or a steamer over to Calais, and then perhaps even to Paris itself. That would be something to tell Gracie! “I’d better find out if he did,” he said hopefully. “If he isn’t the body, he might be the one who killed him.”

“If it isn’t he, there’s no reason to suppose he has anything to do with it,” Pitt pointed out. “But you are right, we need to know whose body it is. We’ve got nothing else.”

Tellman stood up. “So I’ll go to Dover, sir. Shipping company ought to know whether he went over to France or not. I’ll go and find out.”

CHAPTER TWO

The last post arrived just as Tellman left, and Pitt felt a surge of excitement as he recognized Charlotte’s handwriting on a thick envelope addressed to him. He ignored the others and went back to the kitchen, tearing hers open and pulling out the sheets of notepaper as he went. He sat down at the table and read:

My dearest Thomas,

Paris is marvelous. What a beautiful city! I miss you, but I am enjoying myself. There is simply so much to see, to listen to, to learn. I have never been in a place so buzzing with life and ideas. Even the posters on the walls are by real artists, and quite different from anything in London. They have such a flair they invite interest straightaway—even if it might not be of a kind one would be willing to own.

The streets, or should I say “boulevards,” for they are all relatively new and very wide and grand, are lined with oceans of trees. Light dances on fountains in all directions. “Or blew the silver down-baths of her dreams, to sow futurity with seeds of thought and count the passage of her festive hours.” Elizabeth Barrett Browning said it so well.

Jack plans to take us to the theatre, but one hardly knows where to begin. There are over twenty in the city, so we are told, and of course that does not include the opera. I should love to see Sarah Bernhardt in something—anything at all. I hear she has even done Hamlet! Or intends to.

Our host and hostess here are very charming and do everything to make us welcome. But I do miss my own house. Here they have no idea how to make a decent cup of tea, and chocolate first thing in the morning is horrible!

There is great talk about a young man who is on trial for murder. He swears he was elsewhere at the time, and could prove it, if only the friend he was with would come forward. No one believes him. But the thing which is interesting is that he says he was at the Moulin Rouge. That is a famous, or perhaps notorious, dance hall. I asked Madame about it, but she seemed rather scandalized, so I did no pursue the matter. Jack says they dance the cancan there, and the girls wear no underclothes. A very strange artist called Henri Toulouse-Lautrec paints wonderful posters for it. I saw one when we were out on the street yesterday. It was rather vulgar, but so full of life I had to look. I felt as if I could hear the music just by seeing it.

Tomorrow we go to see M. Eiffel’s tower, which is enormous. I believe there is a water closet at the very top, whose windows would have the very best view in Paris—could one see out of them!

I miss you all, and realize how much I love you, because you are not here with me. When I come home I shall be so devoted, obedient and charming—for at least a week!

Yours always,
Charlotte

Pitt sat with the paper in his hand, smiling. Reading her words, written enthusiastically, scrawled across the page, was almost like hearing her voice. Again he was reminded how right he had been to let her go gracefully rather than grudgingly. It was only for three weeks. Every day of it dragged, but it would come to an end. He realized with a start that the time was flying by on wings and he needed to prepare to go out to the theatre with Caroline. He folded up Charlotte’s letter and slid it back into the envelope, put it in his jacket pocket and went upstairs to wash and change into the only evening suit he possessed. It was something he had been obliged to purchase when going to stay, on police duty, at Emily’s country home.

He worked hard at looking tidy and sufficiently respectable not to embarrass his mother-in-law. He was fond of Caroline quite apart from their family relationship. He admired her courage in seizing her happiness with Joshua regardless of the social risks involved. Charlotte had done the same in marrying him, and he did not delude himself that the costs were not real.

He surveyed himself in the glass. The reflection he saw was not entirely satisfactory. His face was intelligent and individual rather than handsome. No matter what he did with his hair it was always unruly. Of course a good barber could have cut several inches off it and helped a lot, but short hair made him uncomfortable, and he somehow never remembered to make time. His shirt collar was straight, for a change, if a little high, and its dazzling white was becoming to him. It would have to do.

He walked briskly to Bedford Square and caught a cab to the theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. The street was milling with people, the somber black and white of gentlemen, the brilliant colors of women, the glitter of jewels. Laughter mixed with the sound of hooves and the rattle of harness as carriages fought for room to move. The gaslight was bright and the theatre front had huge posters advertising the performance, the actress’s name above the title of the play. Neither meant anything to Pitt, but he could not help being infected by the excitement. It was sharp and brittle in the air, like moonlight on a frosty night.

Everyone was surging forward, all pressing to get inside, to see and to be seen, call to people they knew, take their seats, anticipate the drama.

Pitt found Caroline and Joshua in the foyer. They saw him, perhaps because of his height, before he saw them. He heard Joshua’s voice, clear and carrying, with the perfect diction of an actor.

“Thomas! Over to your left, by the pillar.”

Pitt turned and saw him immediately. Joshua Fielding had the sort of face perfectly designed for conveying emotion: mobile features, heavy-lidded, dark eyes, a mouth quick to humor or as easily to tragedy. Now he was simply pleased to see a friend.

Beside him, Caroline looked remarkably well. She had the same warm coloring as Charlotte, hair with auburn lights in it touched with gray, the proud carriage of her head. Time had dealt kindly with her, but the mark of pain was there for anyone perceptive enough to see. She had not been unscathed by life, as Pitt knew very well.

He greeted them with real pleasure and then followed them up the steps and around the long, curving corridor to the box Joshua had reserved. It had an excellent view of the stage, quite uninterrupted by other people’s heads, and they were at a broad angle so they could see everyone except in the wings on their own side.

Joshua held a chair for Caroline, then both men seated themselves.

Pitt told them of Charlotte’s letter, omitting the part about the young man’s trial and the question of visiting places like the Moulin Rouge.

“I hope she is not going to come home with radical ideas,” Caroline said with a smile.

“The whole world is changing,” Joshua replied. “Ideas are in flux all the time. New generations want different things from life and expect happiness in new ways.”

Caroline turned toward him, looking puzzled. “Why do you say that?” she asked. “You made odd remarks at breakfast also.”

“I am wondering if I should have told you more about tonight’s play. Perhaps I should. It is very . . . avant-garde.” He looked a little rueful, his face gentle and apologetic in the shadows from the box curtains and the glare of the chandeliers.

“It’s not by Mr. Ibsen, is it?” Caroline asked uncertainly.

Joshua smiled widely. “No, my dear, but it’s just as controversial. Cecily Antrim would not play in something by an unknown author unless it was fairly radical and espoused views she shared.” There was a warmth in his voice as he spoke and a humor in his eyes.

Pitt thought Caroline looked uncertain, but before either of them could pursue the subject their attention was caught by people they knew in one of the boxes opposite.

Pitt settled back in his seat and watched the color and excitement around him, the fashionable women parading, heads high, more conscious of each other than of any of the men. It was not romance which motivated them, but rivalry. He thought of Charlotte in Paris, and imagined how well she would have read them and understood the finer nuances he could only observe. He would try to describe it to her when she came back, if she stopped talking long enough to listen.

The lights dimmed and a hush fell over the auditorium. Everyone straightened up and looked towards the stage.

The curtain rose on a domestic scene in a beautiful withdrawing room. There were half a dozen people present, but the spotlight caught only one of them. The rest seemed drab compared with the almost luminous quality she possessed. She was unusually tall and extremely slender, but there was a grace in her even when motionless. Her fair hair caught the light, and the strong, clean bones of her face were ageless.

She spoke, and the drama began.

Pitt had expected to be entertained, perhaps as much by the occasion as by the play. That was not what happened. He found himself drawn in from the moment he saw Cecily Antrim. There was an emotional vitality in her which conveyed loneliness and a devastating sense of need, so that he ached for her. He became unaware of his own surroundings. For him reality was the withdrawing room on the stage. The people playing out their lives were of intense importance.

The character of Cecily Antrim was married to an older man, upright, honest, but incapable of passion. He loved her, within his own limits, and he was loyal and possessive. Certainly he did not ignore her, and it would have been beyond his comprehension to betray her. Yet he was slowly killing something inside her which, as they watched, was beginning to fight for life.

There was another man, younger, with more fire and imagination, more hunger of the soul. From the time they met their mutual attraction was inevitable. That issue was not what the playwright wished to explore, nor what would occupy the vast majority of the audience. The question was what would each of the characters do about it. The husband, the wife, the young man, his fiancée, her parents, all had fears and beliefs which governed their reactions, inhibitions which distorted the truth they might otherwise have spoken, expectations taught them by their lives and their society. Above all, was there any avenue of escape for the wife, who could not institute divorce, though the husband could have had he wanted?

As Pitt watched he found himself reconsidering his own assumptions about men and women, what each expected of the other and of the happiness marriage might afford—or deny. He had expected passion and fulfillment, and he had found it. Of course there were times of loneliness, misunderstanding, exasperation, but on the whole he could only feel a deep and abiding happiness. But how many others felt the same? Was it something one had the right to expect?

More urgently and far more painfully, had any man the right to expect a woman to conceal and endure his inadequacies as the character on stage demanded of his wife? The audience was intensely aware of her loneliness, of the weight of his inability which was crushing her, but no one else was, except the young lover, and he understood only a part of it. The flame that burned within her was too great for him also. In the end one feared he would be charred by it.

The wife had duties towards the husband, physical duties on the rare occasions he wished, duties of obedience, tact, domestic responsibility, and the need always to behave with discretion and decorum.

Legally he had no such duties toward her—what about morally? Unquestionably he had to provide her with a home, to be sober and honest and to take his pleasures, whatever they might be, with a corresponding discretion. But had he a duty of physical passion? Or was the need for it unbecoming in a decent woman? If he had given her children, should that be enough?

Cecily Antrim, in every movement of her body, inflection of her voice, showed that it was not enough. She was dying of an inner loneliness which consumed her being. Was she unreasonable, overdemanding, selfish, even indecent? Or was she only voicing what a million other silent women might feel?

It was a disquieting thought. As the curtains drew closed and the lights blazed up again, Pitt turned to look at Caroline.

Caroline herself was as deeply disturbed by the first act of the play as Pitt had been, but in different ways. It was not the questions of hunger and loyalty which disturbed her most, at least it was not the answer to them; it was the fact that they should be raised at all. Such matters were intensely private. They were the thoughts one had alone, in darker moments of confusion and self-doubt, and dismissed when common sense prevailed.

She did not even look across at Joshua, embarrassed to meet his eyes. Nor did she wish to look at Pitt. In showing her emotions so nakedly on the stage, Cecily Antrim had, in a very real sense, stripped the decent clothes of modesty and silence from all women. Caroline could not forgive her easily for that.

“Brilliant!” Joshua’s voice came softly beside her. “I’ve never seen anyone else who could combine such a delicacy of touch with such power of feeling. Don’t you think so?”

Caroline felt the movement as he looked towards her.

“She is extraordinary,” she answered with honesty. She never doubted for an instant that he was referring to Cecily Antrim. No one in the entire theatre would have needed assurance on that. She hoped her voice had not sounded as cool as she felt. He had made no secret of how profoundly he admired Cecily. Caroline wondered now if the regard was personal as well as professional. It brushed by her with a coldness she preferred to dismiss.

“I knew you would love her,” Joshua went on. “She has a moral courage which is almost unique. Nothing deters her from fighting for her beliefs.”

Caroline made herself smile. She refused to ask what those beliefs were. After watching the first act of the play, she greatly preferred not to know.

“You are quite right,” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could manage. She was no actress at all. “I always admire courage . . . more than almost any other quality . . . except perhaps kindness.”

Joshua’s reply was cut short by a knock at the door of the box. He stood up to reply, and a moment later a man in his late forties came in, tall and slim with a mild, rather austere face. The woman beside him was almost beautiful. Her features were regular, her eyes wide, deep-set and very blue. There was perhaps a lack of humor in her which robbed her of the final magic.