window, they shared a quiet, bitter feeling of defeat.
The evening after was no better, but at least there were domestic chores to be done, and that was more satisfying than idleness. Gracie was going through cupboards, tidying them, and Charlotte was mending pillowcases when a little after nine o’clock the doorbell rang.
Gracie was standing on a stool with her arms full of washing, so Charlotte went to answer it herself.
On the step stood a slender man, very smartly dressed in tailoring that would have astounded Pitt. He had a lean, clever face, deeply lined, and with eyes so dark they looked black in the light of the street lamp. His shock of dark hair was liberally sprinkled with gray.
“Mrs. Pitt.” He said it more as an introduction than a question.
“Yes,” she acknowledged cautiously. She was certainly not going to allow a stranger into the house. Nor, in fact, would it be a good idea to tell him that Pitt was away. “What may I do for you?” she added.
He smiled slightly. It was self-deprecating, and yet he was obviously full of confidence. It was a mannerism of possibly unconscious charm.
“How do you do. My name is Victor Narraway. In your husband’s absence in Alexandria, where I regret I was obliged to send him, I wished to call upon you and ascertain that you are safe and well… and that you remain so.”
“Have you some doubt, Mr. Narraway?” She was startled at his identity, and there was a flutter of fear in her that he knew something of Pitt which she did not. And for him to have come, it had to be something ugly. She had heard nothing from Pitt yet, but it was far too early. The post would take days. She tried to steady herself. “Why have you called, Mr. Narraway? Please be candid.”
“Exactly as I said, Mrs. Pitt,” he replied. “May I come in?”
She stood back in tacit invitation and he stepped up and past her, glancing momentarily at the delicate plasterwork on the ceiling of the hall. Then as she closed the door, he went where she indicated into the parlor.
She followed him and turned up the lamps. She hoped he was not going to be there long enough for it to matter that she had not lit the fire. She faced him almost challengingly, her heart pounding. “Have you heard something about Thomas?”
“No, Mrs. Pitt,” he said immediately. “I apologize if I gave you that impression. As far as I know, he is safe and in good health. Were he not, I would have heard to the contrary. It is your safety I am concerned about.”
He was very polite but she detected a shadow of condescension in his tone. Was it because Narraway was a gentleman, and Pitt was a gamekeeper’s son, in spite of his perfect diction? There was always something in the manner, the bearing, which marked the confidence that was not gained but inborn.
Charlotte was not aristocracy, as Vespasia was, but she was very definitely of good family. She looked at him with a cool arrogance which Vespasia might not have disowned. Her old dress with its darned cuffs was irrelevant.
“Indeed? That is very gracious of you, Mr. Narraway, but quite unnecessary. Thomas left everything in order before he went, and all arrangements are working as they should.” She was referring to the financial ones regarding his pay, but it would be crude to say so.
Narraway smiled very slightly, merely a softening of the lips. “I had not imagined otherwise,” he assured her. “But then perhaps you did not tell him of your intention to investigate the apparent disappearance of one of Ferdinand Garrick’s servants.”
She was caught completely off guard. She scrambled for an answer that would keep him at a distance and close him out of intruding into her thoughts.
“Apparent?” she asked, her eyes very wide. “That sounds as if you know more of it than I. So you have been investigating it also? I am very pleased. Indeed, I am delighted. The case requires more resources than I can bring to it.”
Now it was his turn to look startled, but he masked it so quickly she almost failed to see it.
“I don’t think you understand the danger you may be in if you proceed any further,” he said carefully, his dark eyes fixed on hers, as if to make certain she grasped his seriousness.
Without taking a second to think, she smiled at him dazzlingly. “Then you had better enlighten me, Mr. Narraway. What danger is it? Who is likely to hurt me, and how? Obviously you know, or you would not have taken time from your own case to come to tell me… at this hour.”
He was disconcerted. Again it was there only for an instant, but she saw it with sharp satisfaction. He had expected her to be cowed, humbled by censure, and instead she had turned his words back on him.
He sidestepped her challenge. “You are afraid something unpleasant has happened to Martin Garvie?” he asked.
She refused to be defensive. “Yes,” she said frankly. “Mr. Ferdinand Garrick says that his son and Martin have gone to the south of France, but if that is true, then why in three weeks did Martin not write to his sister and tell her so?” She was not going to let Narraway know that Tellman had also tried and failed to find any record of their having sailed, or even a witness to their taking a train. Tellman could not afford to attract the notice of his new superior, still less his criticism, and she did not trust Narraway not to use information in any way that suited his own immediate purpose.
“Do you fear an accident?” he asked.
He was playing with her, and she knew it.
“Of what sort?” She raised her eyebrows. “I cannot think of one that would cause the danger to me that you suggest.”
He relaxed and smiled. “Touche,” he said softly. “But I am perfectly serious, Mrs. Pitt. I am aware that you have concerned yourself with this young man’s apparent disappearance, and that he is, or was, manservant to Stephen Garrick. The Garrick family is of some power in society-and in government circles. Ferdinand Garrick had a fine military career, ended with a good command-lieutenant general, before he retired. Rigid, loyal to the empire to the last inch, God, Queen, and country.”
Charlotte was perplexed. She stood in the middle of the room looking at Narraway while he relaxed a fraction more with every second. If Garrick were as upright and honorable as Narraway said, the “muscular Christian” Vespasia knew, then simply he would not be party to any abuse of a servant, let alone the kind of danger she and Gracie had come to fear.
Narraway saw her hesitation. “But he is a man of little mercy if he feels he is being criticized,” he went on. “He would not like his affairs questioned, by anyone. Like many proud men, he is also intensely private.”
She lifted her chin a little. “And what could he do, Mr. Narraway? Ruin my reputation in society? I do not have one. My husband is an officer in Special Branch, a man the authorities use but pretend does not exist. When he was superintendent of Bow Street, I might have entertained social aspirations, but hardly now.”
He colored very faintly. “I know that, Mrs. Pitt. Many people do great things and are publicly unappreciated, possibly even unthanked. The only comfort is that if you are not praised for your successes, at least you may not be blamed for your failures.” His face shadowed, fierce emotion suppressed under a tight control. “And we all have them.”
There was such a heaviness in his voice, carefully as he disguised it, that she knew he was speaking of himself, and something painfully learned, not observed from others. It was not belief that moved him but knowledge.
“I am concerned for you, Mrs. Pitt,” he went on. “Of course he will not change your value in the eyes of your friends, but he can wield a cruel influence on all your family, if he wishes to, or feels himself vulnerable.” He was watching her closely. She found his look gripping-almost as if he physically held her.
“Do you think some harm has come to Martin Garvie?” she asked him. “Please speak honestly, whether I can do anything to help or not. Lies, however comfortable, will not improve my behavior, I promise you.”
There was a quickening in his eyes, a spark of humor in spite of the other emotions crowding close. “I have no idea. I cannot think of any reason why it should. How much do you know about him?”
“Very little. But his sister, Matilda, has known him all her life, and she is the one who is afraid,” she answered.
“Or hurt?” he said with very slightly raised eyebrows. “Could it be that they are growing further apart, and she finds that difficult? She is lonely, and the ties are closer for her than for him; she will believe anything, even danger from which she must rescue him, easier to accommodate than the knowledge that in fact he does not need her?”
