inarticulacy in her manner.
“Are you all right, after the tragedy in the theater?” Caroline began again. This time she looked at Charlotte, but there was no concentration in her face. She seemed to be seeing beyond her, to something imagined.
“Yes, thank you,” Charlotte replied warily. “Are you?”
“Of course! I mean—well—it was most distressing, naturally.” Caroline at last sat down on one of the wooden chairs at the table. Gracie placed the steaming teapot and two cups on a tray and brought them over, with milk and sugar.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” she said tactfully. “But if you please, I’d better be going to change the linen.”
“Yes, of course,” Charlotte agreed with gratitude. “That would be a very good idea.”
As soon as Gracie had gone Caroline frowned again, staring at Charlotte with puckered brows as she poured the tea.
“Does Thomas know yet if …” she began tentatively, “… if the poor man was murdered?”
“Yes,” Charlotte replied, having some inkling at last of what was disturbing her mother so much. “I am afraid he was. He was poisoned with opium in his flask, as Judge Livesey feared. I’m sorry you should have been involved in it, Mama, even so indirectly. But any number of perfectly respectable people were at the theater. There is no need to fear anyone will think ill of you.”
“Oh, I’m not!” Caroline said with genuine surprise. “I was …” She looked down, a very faint blush in her cheeks. “I was concerned in case it should be either Mr. Fielding or Miss Macaulay who would be suspected. Do you—do you think Thomas believes they may be guilty?”
Charlotte was at a loss to answer. Of course it was not only possible but probable that Pitt would suspect both of them, and without question he would suspect Joshua Fielding, which was what she realized Caroline really had in mind. She remembered Fielding’s wry, charming face and wondered what emotions lay behind it, and just how skilled an actor he might be. What might his words conceal about Aaron Godman, or the reason Mr. Justice Stafford had come to see him the day of his death?
Caroline was staring at her, her eyes intent, darkening with anxiety.
With a painful searching of memory Charlotte remembered how she had woven so many dreams in her youth, and made a mantle of them with which she had clothed her brother-in-law, Dominic Corde. It was so easy to imagine that a handsome face was filled with passion, sensitivity, dreams to match your own, and then invest the person with abilities he never possessed, or wished to—and in so doing to be blind to the real person.
Was Caroline doing the same to a stage actor she had watched wear other men’s thoughts with such artistry that she had lost the distinction between the world of the mind and the world of reality?
“Yes. I’m afraid he will have to,” she said aloud. “It can only be someone he saw that day who had the opportunity to put poison in the flask, and if he was indeed investigating the old murder, then that is an excellent reason why someone might wish him dead. How could Thomas ignore that?”
“I cannot believe that he did it!” Caroline said very quietly, a fierceness in her voice, an intense determination. “There is some other answer.” She looked up quickly, all the indecision and awkwardness vanished from her. “What can we do to help? What could we find out? Whom do we know?”
Charlotte was startled. Did Caroline realize she had spoken as if she herself intended to become involved? Was it a slip of the tongue?
“We?” Charlotte could not help smiling.
Caroline bit her lip. “Well—you, I suppose. I have no idea how to—detect …”
Charlotte could not decide whether her mother was trying to excuse herself from taking any part or was seeking to be reassured that she could, in fact, be of use. She looked both vulnerable and determined. There was a vitality to her, a most odd mixture of fear and exhilaration.
“Do you know anyone?” Caroline persisted.
“No,” Charlotte said quickly. “I never knew anyone; it is Emily who knows people. But we could attempt to make someone’s acquaintance, I suppose.”
“We must do something,” Caroline said vehemently. “If the wrong person was hanged once—then left to themselves the police may do the wrong thing again. Oh! I’m so sorry! I did not mean to imply Thomas. Of course it will be different with Thomas in charge. But all the same …”
Charlotte smiled broadly and picked up her rapidly cooling cup of tea.
“That is all right, Mama. You had better not say anything further—you are only digging yourself deeper. Thomas is not infallible—he would be the first to say so.” She sipped her tea. “And I would be the first to defend him to the death if anyone else said so. But I really know very little about this case, except what you know yourself. Apparently it was perfectly horrifying. Do you recall it? It was five years ago.”
“Certainly not. Your father was alive, and I never read the newspapers.”
“Oh. Well, I assume you did not know the Blaines, or anyone connected with them—and I am perfectly sure that when Papa was alive you did not know anyone on the stage.”
Caroline blushed deeply and sipped her tea.
“I don’t suppose Great-Aunt Vespasia did either,” Charlotte said, trying to smother the laughter out of her expression. “At least not lately. Actors, I mean.”
Caroline’s eyebrows shot up, missing the humor entirely. “Do you think Lady Cumming-Gould would have known actors? Oh, I think that most unlikely. She is very well bred indeed.”
“I know,” Charlotte conceded, straight-faced with difficulty. “Well, enough not to need to care what other people thought. She would have known anyone she wished—discreetly, perhaps. But that doesn’t help us. She is over eighty now. The actors she may have known are no use to us. They are probably dead. But she may just possibly have known someone who knew Kingsley Blaine—or knew of him. Perhaps I should ask her?”
“Oh, would you?” Caroline said eagerly. “Would you please?”
