“She couldn’t know about the likes o’ Albert Cole, ma’am,” Gracie said with surprise. “At ’is best ’e were an ordinary soldier, an’ from what Mr. Tellman says, ’e were a thief. Looks like ’e fell out wif ’is mate over wot they took, an’ ’e came orff worst. Mr. Pitt said as ’e looked like ’e bin in a fight.”
Charlotte felt considerably comforted by that thought. It did seem to make sense. However, it still left the uneasy knowledge that he had had the snuffbox.
“Mebbe more was took,” Gracie went on, as if sensing Charlotte’s thoughts. She stood by the sink with the dishcloth in her hand. “An’ the other feller ’as ’em. ’e just missed the box ’cos ’e were in an ’urry. P’raps the lamplighter were comin’, an’ ’e scarpered?”
“Yes, perhaps,” Charlotte agreed. She could not tell Gracie, or anyone, that Balantyne had given the box to the blackmailer. Did that make Cole the blackmailer, or not? Or his messenger? Or had he stolen it from the blackmailer … by an extraordinary chance? “I still think I shall go and see Lady Vespasia,” she stated. “I shall probably take luncheon out.”
Gracie looked at her keenly, but she made no remark other than to acknowledge that she had heard.
Charlotte went upstairs and took several minutes to select an appropriate gown. On past occasions when she had needed to look more glamorous or impressive than her own very limited wardrobe allowed, she had been given clothes by Aunt Vespasia: dresses and sometimes capes or hats which she no longer used. Vespasia’s maid had altered them to fit Charlotte’s rather fuller figure, and changed the style a little, usually bringing it both up-to-date and making it a trifle more practical and less formal than it had been when Vespasia had worn it. Vespasia had always loved clothes and had every intention of leading fashion, not following it.
The only problem was that Vespasia was in her eighties, a trifle thin; her hair was silver and her tastes extravagant, to go with her station in life. Charlotte was in her thirties and dark with a rich tint of chestnut in her hair, her skin a warm honey tone. Some adjustments needed to be made.
She chose a pale blue muslin. It had gorgeous sleeves, a very slight bustle gathered from an overskirt of green which took from it the delicacy which on her looked not sophisticated, as it had on Vespasia, but rather insipid. She had a pale blue hat, which complemented the gown. She was reasonably satisfied with the result, and left at a quarter to twelve. The only way to travel dressed like this was by hansom-unless, of course, one had one’s own carriage.
She arrived at Vespasia’s house shortly after noon, and was admitted by the maid, who by now knew her very well.
Vespasia was sitting in her favorite room, opening onto the garden. She was dressed in her favorite ivory lace gown with ropes of soft, gleaming pearls. The sunlight made a pool around her, and her black-and-white dog was lying on the floor beside her feet. It rose and greeted Charlotte with enthusiasm. Vespasia remained where she was, but her face lit with pleasure.
“How nice to see you, my dear. I was rather hoping you would come. I am bored to weeping with the season this year. There doesn’t seem to be anybody with the slightest flair for the unpredictable. Everyone says and does precisely what I expect them to.” She moved one shoulder in elegant dismissal. “They even wear what I expect. It is very fashionable, but of no interest whatever. It is frightening. I begin to fear I am growing old. I seem to know everything … and I hate it!” She raised her eyebrows. “What is the point in being alive if you are never taken completely by surprise, all your ideas scattered like leaves before a gale, and you have to pick them up and put them together again and find the picture is new and different? If you are not capable of passion or surprise, you really are dead.”
She surveyed Charlotte critically, but with affection.
“Well, you are wearing something I had not predicted. Where on earth did you get that gown?”
“It is one of yours, Aunt Vespasia.” Charlotte leaned over and kissed her delicately on the cheek.
Vespasia’s eyebrows rose even higher.
“Good heavens! Please be good enough not to tell anyone. I should be mortified.”
Charlotte did not know whether to be hurt or to laugh. She wanted to do both. “Is it really so awful?”
Vespasia waved her to stand back a little, and regarded the gown critically for several moments.
“The pale blue doesn’t suit me,” Charlotte explained. It was the addition of the green which seemed to be the focus of Vespasia’s displeasure.
“It would if you added cream,” Vespasia replied. “That green is far too heavy. You look as if you had fallen into the sea and come out covered in weed!”
“Oh! A sort of drowned look-like the Lady of Shalott?” Charlotte asked.
“Not quite as peaceful,” Vespasia said dryly. “Don’t tempt me to go further. Let me take that and find you something better.” She rose to her feet, leaning a little on her silver-topped cane, and led the way upstairs to her dressing room. Charlotte followed obediently.
It was while Vespasia was looking through various swathes and shawls and other accessories that she said quite casually, “I suppose you are concerned about that peculiarly unfortunate matter in Bedford Square? As I recall, you were fond of Brandon Balantyne.”
Charlotte found herself blushing quite hotly. That was not at all the way she would have phrased it. She looked at Vespasia’s elegant back as she fingered a piece of silvery cream silk and considered its suitability. If Charlotte were to argue over Vespasia’s choice of words she would only draw attention to her self-consciousness. She took a deep breath.
“I am upset about it, yes. I went to see him. Please don’t tell Thomas; he doesn’t know. I … I went on impulse, without thinking about it, except that I wanted him to have some … sense of friendship …” She faltered to a stop.
Vespasia turned around holding the cream silk. It was soft as gauze, faintly shimmering. “This will lighten it,” she said with decision. “This piece as a fichu, and this around the bustle and down the front. It will warm the whole effect. Of course you went to see him because you care for him, and you wanted him to know that that was not changed by this new circumstance.” Her face become more grave, touched with a gentleness. “How was he?” She looked very carefully at Charlotte, and her own perception of distress became deeper as she read Charlotte’s feelings. “Not well …”
“He is being blackmailed,” Charlotte replied, surprised how sharply it troubled her to say so, as if she were learning it for the first time herself. “Over something he did not do, but he cannot prove it.”
Vespasia remained without speaking for several moments, but it was transparent in her face that it was the silence of thought, not of indifference or a failure of understanding.
Charlotte had a sudden, chill feeling that Vespasia knew or guessed something which she herself did not. She waited with a tightening of her throat.
“For money?” Vespasia said, almost as if she did not expect an answer in the affirmative.
“Not for anything,” Charlotte replied. “Just … just to show that the blackmailer has the power, so far …”
“I see.” Vespasia draped the silk over Charlotte’s gown and tied it expertly. She fiddled with it, pulling it here and there, rearranging it, but her fingers moved absentmindedly. “There,” she said when she had finished. “Do you care for that more?”
Charlotte surveyed herself in the glass. It was a great deal better, but that was hardly important.
“Yes, thank you.” She turned. “Aunt Vespasia …”
But Vespasia was already walking away towards the landing and the stairs down. She held the banister to steady herself, something she would not have done a year or two before. Charlotte had an acute sense of her fragility, and painful knowledge of how much she loved her. She wanted to say so, but it might be overfamiliar; after all, they were not really related. And this was not the time.
At the bottom of the stairs in the hall, Vespasia started back towards the morning room, now full of sunlight.
“I have a friend,” she said thoughtfully. “Mr. Justice Dunraithe White.”
Charlotte caught up with her and they went into the pale, bright room. There were early white roses in the green bowl on the center table, and the sun through the leaves outside made shifting patterns on the carpet.
“Theloneus tells me he has made some very … odd … decisions lately, quite out of the character he has hitherto shown. He has delivered opinions which at the very kindest could be described as eccentric.” Theloneus Quade was also a judge, and a longtime admirer of Vespasia. Twenty years before he had been deeply in love with her, and would have married her had she accepted him, but she had felt the difference in their ages to be too great. He was still in love, but now it was also a deeper friendship.
