“Of course all the world and his wife will be there,” Emily warned as they sat almost stationary, moving forward barely a step or two at a time in the press of traffic. “It is necessary to come this early if one hopes to arrive at a civilized time and not inconvenience everyone and make a spectacle of oneself by taking one’s seat after the music has begun. And of course that is hopelessly vulgar, because it is the cheapest way of making everyone look at you.” She settled a little more comfortably. “Never mind. It is an excellent opportunity to catch up on events. I have not seen you for simply ages, Thomas.” She smiled with vivid humor which she did not bother to suppress. “You hardly look like yourself. It is most difficult to tell how you are.”
“I am sitting very carefully so as not to rumple my shirt, crease my jacket or lose my cuffs up my arms,” he replied with a grin. “But I am greatly obliged-and looking forward to the evening.”
“And are you pursuing some interesting case?” she went on. “I gather not, because Charlotte has said nothing about it. I doubt even Lord Anstiss’s tales could hold her interest against a really good case-or mine either.”
“The murder of a usurer,” he replied with a wry expression. “And I don’t yet know whether it is going to be ‘good’ or not.”
“A usurer?” Her voice reflected her disappointment. The carriage moved another twenty yards forward and stopped again. Somewhere ahead of them a footman shouted angrily, but it made no difference; they stayed precisely where they were. “That does not sound very promising.”
“I know they provide a service of sorts.” Jack pulled a face. “But I loathe them-most of them bleed their clients dry. I’m sorry, but I have some sympathy with whoever killed him.”
“He was also a blackmailer,” Pitt added.
“A lot of sympathy,” Jack amended.
“I too,” Pitt confessed. “But he blackmailed some interesting people-or it appears from his books that he did.”
“Oh?” Emily sat up a little straighter, her attention sparked. “Such as whom?”
Pitt looked at her without apology. “That is presently confidential, and the matter is one of indiscretion in one case, and poor judgment of character in another, which led to a tragedy, but there is no crime involved in either. There are others I have yet to investigate.”
Emily was quick and subtle to read his face in the light from the neighboring carriage lamps.
“And you are hating it. Are they people you admire?”
He shrugged ruefully. He had forgotten how very astute she was, not quite as brave as Charlotte or as passionate, but a better judge of others, and a far better actress when it came to presenting exactly the right expression and gesture to govern a situation. Emily was supremely practical.
“People I know,” he replied. “It will feel like a kind of betrayal, and I do not want to know their weaknesses, even if they turn out to be innocent of murder.”
Emily flashed him a quick smile of understanding.
“Of course not.”
Pitt fidgeted with his collar yet again. “Since I have nothing to contribute, let us speak of your affairs. Tell me something of Lord Anstiss. I hear he is a great patron of the arts and a political and social benefactor. He is certainly very entertaining. Is there no Lady Anstiss?”
“She died many years ago,” Emily answered. Then she leaned forward confidentially. “I believe it was very tragic.”
At that moment their carriage moved several steps forward, stopped abruptly, rocking a little on its springs, then went another fifty yards before stopping again.
“Oh?” Pitt did not attempt to keep the interest out of his voice.
It was all the invitation Emily required.
“She died by accident. It was dreadful; she went out onto her balcony at night, and slipped over the edge. She must have been leaning out, although one cannot imagine for what reason.” She shivered a little at the thought. “There was speculation that she might have had a good deal too much wine at dinner. It is not easy to fall over the edge of a balcony if one is stone cold sober.”
“What was she like?” Pitt asked, screwing up his face. “What kind of woman?”
“Beautiful,” Emily answered without hesitation. “The most beautiful woman in London, so they said, perhaps in England.”
“Her nature?” Pitt pressed. “Was she spoiled? Many great beauties are.”
Charlotte hid her smile, but did not interrupt.
The carriage jerked and moved forward yet again.
“Really the traffic is getting so bad,” Jack said sharply. “I wonder if it can go on like this much longer, or we shall all be reduced to walking!”
“People have been saying that for years,” Emily replied soothingly. “But we still manage.” She turned back to Pitt. “I suppose she may well have been spoiled, but I haven’t heard it. No, that’s not true: Lord Anstiss himself did say something that was not quite that, but one has to make allowances for his own emotions, and his grief. He did say all manner of people loved her and she had a charm that made everyone her slave. I think it was his own way of admitting that no one ever denied her anything, which is the same as being spoiled, isn’t it?”
“It sounds like it,” Pitt agreed.
“Except Great-Aunt Vespasia,” Emily went on. “She said she only met her a few times, but she liked her, and Aunt Vespasia loathes spoiled people.” She grinned broadly. “And from a woman who was one of the greatest beauties herself, and ruled London society with a glance of steel in her day, it is an opinion that merits much respect.”
The carriage moved forward again, this time considerably, and Jack leaned out of the window.
“I think we are nearly there,” he said with satisfaction.
And indeed within a few minutes they were alighting. Emily on Jack’s arm, Charlotte on Pitt’s, they mounted the steps and went into the foyer, which was glittering with lights, swirling with satins, laces and velvets, and patched and dotted with the slender black of men’s dress jackets and white gleam of shirt fronts, the blaze of jewels at throats and ears and in hair. Everywhere the babble of sound rose and mounted in pitch.
Charlotte felt a thrill of excitement. She gazed around at the beautifully decorated walls, the sweeping stairs, the chandeliers; in fact she leaned so far backwards staring up that it was well she was on Pitt’s arm or she might have overbalanced. It was all so vivid, so pulsing with life and anticipation. Everyone was talking, moving; the air was filled with the rustle of skirts and chatter of voices.
She leaned closer to Pitt and squeezed his arm, and he tightened his hold. There was no need for words, and for once she could think of none that would fill the occasion.
As they were moving up the stairs towards their box she glanced down and saw quite clearly Lord Byam’s dark head. It was quite distinctive in its smooth, handsome shape, and in the sprinkling of silver at the temples. He carried it at an angle not quite like anyone else, and when he glanced around to acknowledge an acquaintance she saw his marvelous eyes. Next to him Eleanor Byam was elegant, but without the remarkable individuality he possessed. She seemed somehow more subdued and not quite as effortlessly graceful. Neither of them looked up, nor in all likelihood would they have remembered her if they had.
At the top of the stairs she turned for one last look down at the foyer and saw a man’s head. He had thick hair, too long, like Pitt’s, but as richly toned as dying leaves, and she wondered if it were the odd young man who at Emily’s ball had seemed so obsessed with the injustices he saw, or thought he saw, in international finance.
Upstairs they had no difficulty in getting to Emily’s box. She had kept it ever since her marriage to George Ashworth, and still retained it now both for necessary entertainments, such as this, and for pleasure, because she genuinely liked the music as well as the occasion.
Vespasia and Lord Anstiss were there ahead of them. Anstiss rose as they came in and held Emily’s chair for her to seat herself at the front where she could see most easily. Charlotte was offered the chair in the center with Aunt Vespasia to her right. As soon as the gentlemen were seated also, Vespasia handed Charlotte her opera glasses to indulge in the beginning of the evening’s entertainment, which was to gaze at the occupants of the other boxes, observe who they were, who they were with, how they looked, what they wore, and above all who called upon them and how they deported themselves.
It was several minutes before she recognized anyone she knew. This was not to be wondered at since she had very seldom been to the opera before. It had not been an occasion her mother had considered likely to produce results in attracting a suitor fitting its expense. However, Pitt had taken her once or twice as a great treat to see
