Bethlehem Road (31 page)

Jasper sat next to them in silence, fingering through his hymnal.

There was something of a stir as a well-known Cabinet figure arrived, representing the Prime Minister; after all this was a famous and shocking death. If Her Majesty’s Government and their police force could not solve the crime and apprehend the criminal, they could at least be seen to pay all due respects.

Micah Drummond came in much more quietly and sat in the last pew, watching, although he had given up hope of learning anything of value. Neither Charlotte nor Vespasia saw Pitt standing at the very back, looking like one of the ushers, except for the pool of water collecting about his feet from his wet coat; but Charlotte knew he would be there.

At the far side among several other members of Parliament Charlotte saw the humorous, wing-browed face of Somerset Carlisle. She met his eyes for a moment before he saw Vespasia and inclined his head with the suggestion of a smile.

Then the Carfaxes arrived. James, in black, was remarkably elegant but paler than usual; his eyes downcast, he did not seek the glance of anyone else. His confidence in his charm seemed lacking, his old ease had fled. On his arm Helen walked calmly, and there was a peace in her face that added to her dignity. She drew her hand from James’s arm before he had released it and sat with composure in the pew immediately to Charlotte’s right.

Lady Mary came last. She looked magnificent, even regal. Her dress was highly fashionable; dark slate blue overlaid with black fleur-de-lis and stitched with jet beads across the throat and bosom, the sleeves garnered. A black hat adorned her head at a rakish angle, dashing and precarious. As she drew level with Charlotte, her eyes darted along the row, caught by Zenobia’s gorgeous hat, her gown—and she froze, all the color draining from her already pallid face. Her black-gloved hand clenched on her black umbrella handle.

Behind her an usher murmured, “Excuse me, my lady,” urging her to take her place. Shaking with fury, there was nothing she could do but obey.

Zenobia dived into her reticule for a handkerchief and failed to find one. Vespasia, who had seen Lady Mary arrive, handed her one with an unconcealed smile, and Zenobia proceeded to have a stifled fit of coughing—or laughter.

The organ was playing somber music in a minor key. Finally the widow came in, veiled and in unrelieved black, followed by her children, looking small and forlorn. A governess in black followed and knelt in the pew behind.

The sermon began. The familiar pattern of music and intoned prayer and responses, accompanied the monotonous, hollow voice of the vicar going through the ritual of acknowledging grief and giving it dignified and formal expression. Charlotte paid little attention to the words or the order, instead watching the Carfaxes as discreetly as she could from behind her prayer book.

Lady Mary stared in front of her with a fixed expression, studiously avoiding looking to her left at Zenobia. If she could have taken off her hat she would have, but that was impossible in church; even to alter its angle would be observed now and would only draw attention to the whole business.

Beside her James took part dutifully, rising when everyone else did, kneeling with his head bowed for prayer, sitting solemnly with his eyes on the vicar when he began the address. But the rather drawn look on his face, the strain and slow absorption of shock were not accounted for by grief. Nothing at all had suggested he knew Cuthbert Sheridan, and according to Zenobia a few days earlier he had certainly been in as good spirits as was decent after his father-in-law’s death. In fact, he had seemed to her to exude a sort of confidence, a certainty of pleasures to come.

Charlotte mechanically sang the hymn, her mind far from the words, and continued to watch James Carfax. The zest had gone out of him: in the last few days he had suffered a genuine loss.

The vicar was beginning his eulogy; Pitt would be listening to see if there was anything in it of the slightest use in the investigation, which was extremely unlikely. Charlotte turned her attention to Helen Carfax.

The vicar’s voice rose and fell in a regular rhythm, sinking at the end of every sentence; curious how that made him sound so insincere, so devoid of all feeling. But it was the expected form and gave the proceedings a certain familiarity, which she supposed was uplifting to those who came for comfort.

Helen sat upright, her shoulders square, facing directly forward. During the entire service she had participated with something that looked like the very first germ of enthusiasm. There was a resolution in her quite unlike the distress and anxiety Zenobia and Pitt had described. And yet as Charlotte watched her gloved hands holding the hymn book in her lap, her pale cheeks, and the slight movement of her lips, she was quite certain that any relief Helen felt was only that of having reached some decision, not of having had her fear dissolve or turn out to be a shadow with no substance. Charlotte realized it was courage she was witnessing, not joy.

Had Helen somehow ascertained that her husband had had no part in her father’s death? Or had the whole burden upon her been simply the pain of knowing that he did not love her with the depth and the commitment she longed for, which indeed he was incapable of doing. And now that she had faced the truth, tempered by the knowledge that it was a weakness in him, not in her, she had ceased to try to procure it by forfeiting her self-esteem, her dignity, and her own ideas of right. Perhaps it was a wholeness within herself she had recovered.

Three times during the service Charlotte saw James speak to her, and on each occasion she answered him civilly, in a whisper; but she turned to him not so much like a woman desperately in love, but rather with the patience of a mother towards a pestering child who is at the age when such things are to be expected. Now it was James who was surprised and confused. He was used to being the object of her suit, not the suitor, and the change was sharply unpleasant.

Charlotte smiled and thought with sweetness of Pitt standing at the back in his wet coat, watching and waiting, and in her mind she stood beside him, imagining her hand in his.

After the last hymn and the final amen, many rose to leave. Only the widow and the closest mourners followed the pallbearers and the coffin to the graveside.

It was a grim performance; nothing of the music and pageantry of the church, not a dealing with the spirit and the words of resurrection, but the tidying away of the mortal remains, the box with its unseen corpse, and the cold spring earth.

Here emotions might show raw, there might be in some face or some gesture a betrayal of the passions that moved the hearts beneath the black silk and bombazine, the barathea and broadcloth.

The sunlight was sharp outside, brilliant on the stone face of the church walls and the thick green grass sprouting around the gravestones. Old names were carved on them, and memories. Charlotte wondered if any of them had been murdered. It would hardly be written in the marble.

It was wet underfoot, and the clouds above were gray-bellied. The wind was chill, and any moment it might rain again. The pallbearers kept their even measured tread, balancing the load between them, the breeze tugging at the fluttering crepe on their black hats. They kept their faces downward, eyes to the earth, more probably from fear lest they slip than an abundance of piety.

Charlotte followed decently far behind the widow, managing to fall in step beside Amethyst Hamilton. Charlotte smiled briefly in recognition—this was not the place to renew an acquaintance with words—and kept close to her as she followed her brothers towards the great oblong hole in the earth with its fresh, dark sides falling away into an unseen bottom.

They gathered on three sides while the pallbearers lowered the coffin, and the grim ritual was played out, the wind whipping skirts and pulling at streamers of black crepe. Women held up black-gloved hands to secure their hats. Lady Mary and Zenobia put up their arms at exactly the same moment, and the two huge brims were pitched at even wilder angles. Someone tittered nervously and changed it into a theatrical cough. Lady Mary glared round for the culprit in vain. She skewered the ferrule of her umbrella into the ground with a vicious prod and stood with her chin high, looking straight ahead of her.

Charlotte watched Jasper Royce and his wife. She was well-dressed but unremarkably so and appeared to be there as a matter of duty. Jasper was a softer, less emphatic version of his brother. He had the same sweeping forehead but without the striking widow’s peak. His brows were good, but straighter and less powerful; his mouth was more mobile, the lower lip a little fuller. He was not as individual, not nearly as striking, and yet, Charlotte thought, perhaps an easier man with whom to spend any degree of time.

Now he was bored; his glance wandered idly over the faces opposite him on the far side of the grave, and none seemed to catch his interest. He might have been thinking of dinner or the next day’s patients, of anything but the purpose for which they were come.

Sir Garnet, on the other hand, was alert; in fact he seemed to be studying the others present quite as diligently as Charlotte herself, and she had to be careful he did not catch her eye and mark her observation of him. To stare at him as steadily as she was doing, if caught, would seem extraordinary and require an explanation.

He watched quietly as the coffin was lowered into the grave and the first drops of rain spattered on the hats and skirts of the ladies and the bare heads of the men, and umbrellas were twitched nervously, and left alone. Only one person broke his poise sufficiently to look up at the sky.

The vicar’s voice grew a trifle more rapid.

Garnet Royce was tense; there were lines of strain in his face more deeply etched than there had been after Lockwood Hamilton’s death. He shifted uneasily, watching, glancing about as if every movement might be of some importance, as though searching might yield him an answer he needed so badly that the pursuit of it dominated his mind.

Was there some factor he knew of that Charlotte did not? Or was it merely that his intelligence made him fully aware of the magnitude of these horrors, more so than the other mourners, who were come from personal grief, or a sympathy born of a similar loss? But what about the other members of Parliament? Did they not know that the newspapers were clamoring for an arrest, that people wrote letters demanding a solution, more police, a restoration of law in the streets and safety for the decent citizen going about his duty or his pleasures? There was talk of treason and sedition, criticism of the government, of the aristocracy, even of the Queen! There were very real fears of revolution and anarchy! The throne itself was in jeopardy, if the worst rumors were to be believed.

Perhaps Royce could see what others only imagined?

Or did he guess at a conspiracy of a private nature, a secret agreement to murder for profit, or whatever three quite separate motives might drive three people to ally with each other to make all the crimes look like the work of one fearful maniac.

Then was Amethyst after all at the heart of at least her husband’s death, either as the perpetrator, or the cause?

It was over at last, and they were walking back towards the vestry. The rain came harder, the glittering shafts silver where the light caught them. It was unseemly to hurry. Lady Mary Carfax put up her umbrella, swinging it fiercely round and swiping at Zenobia’s skirt with the sharp ferrule. It caught in a ruffle and tore a piece of silk away.

“I do beg your pardon,” Lady Mary said with a tight smile of triumph.

“Not at all,” Zenobia replied inclining her head. “I can recommend a good maker of spectacles, if you—”

“I can see perfectly well, thank you!” Lady Mary snapped.

“Then perhaps a cane?” Zenobia smiled. “To help your balance?”

Lady Mary trod sharply in a puddle, splashing them both, and swept on to speak to the Cabinet Minister’s wife.

Everyone was hastening towards the shelter of the church, heads down, skirts held up off the wet grass. The men bent their backs and tried to move as fast as was consistent with any dignity at all.

Charlotte realized with irritation that she had dropped her handkerchief, which she had taken out and held to her eyes from time to time so that she might observe Garnet Royce undetected. It was one of the few lace-edged ones she had left and far too precious to lose simply for the sake of keeping dry. She excused herself from Aunt Vespasia and turned to retrace her steps back round the corner of the church and along the track towards the grave.

She had just rounded the corner and was coming up behind a large rococo gravestone when she saw two figures standing facing each other as if they had met unexpectedly the instant before. The man was Barclay Hamilton, his skin ashen and wet with rain, his hair plastered to his head. In the harsh daylight the pain in him was startlingly clear; he looked like a man suffering a long illness.

The woman was Amethyst. She blushed darkly, then the blood fled from her face and left her as white as he. She moved her hands almost as if to ward him off, a futile, fluttering gesture that died before it became anything. She did not look at him.

“I ... I felt I ought to come,” she said weakly.

“Of course,” he agreed. “It is a respect one owes.”

“Yes, I—” She bit her lip and stared at the middle button of his coat. “I don’t suppose it helps, but I ...”

“It might.” He watched her face, absorbing every fleeting expression, staring as if he would mark it indelibly in his mind. “Perhaps in time she may feel ... that it was good that people came.”

“Yes.” She made no move to leave. “I—I think I am glad people came to—to—” She was very close to weeping. The tears stood out in her eyes, and she swallowed hard. “To Lockwood’s funeral.” She took a deep breath and at last raised her face to meet his eyes. “I loved him, you know.”

“Of course I know,” he said so gently it was little more than a whisper. “Did you think I ever doubted it?”

“No.” She gulped helplessly as emotion and years of pent-up pain overtook her. “No!” And her body shook with sobs.