“None.”
“I see. Now we are alone,” Adelia said, quietly, “Can we talk a little more about the matter of clandestine affairs and criminal conversation?”
“You mean Mr Nettles?”
“All of them.” Adelia had a piece of paper folded in her bag that lay at her feet, and she pulled it out to show the names and web of connections she had worked out earlier with Theodore.
“I don’t understand this,” Charlotte said.
“We are looking for links. There must be a link between Wiseman and Nettles. A third link, I mean. A mutual enemy as the note suggested.”
“Possibly so,” Charlotte said slowly. “But you have Octavia’s dead husband on here, and his old lover too and neither of them were linked at all to Nettles or Wiseman.”
“That’s good to know,” said Adelia.
“But...?”
“But what?”
“What are you getting at?”
“Nothing,” said Adelia. “Unless there is something I have missed? What do you know that I do not know, Charlotte?”
Charlotte was silent for a moment before saying, very reluctantly, “There was gossip when Octavia’s husband died. He was called Manfred Dymchurch. Oh, he was one of those men who you wouldn’t look twice at until he started speaking and then he could charm the birds out of the trees.”
“And by all accounts, that’s what he did.”
Charlotte nodded. “Yes. There were far more women linked to his name than just this Mariana da Costa but she was the one who was closest for the longest time. Anyway, so when he died, even though he’d been ill for a while, a lot of gossip went flying around.”
“And was any about Octavia?”
Charlotte looked appalled. “No! It was all about Mariana da Costa, of course, never her. You know, I have met her, this Miss da Costa, although I do take care to avoid her wherever possible. But she turns up at parties and salons, usually dressed in the most outrageous way, but she can get away with that, being a dancer and everything.”
“Her name sounds Spanish.”
“Yes, that is what she claims to be. Personally I don’t believe her. Her accent roams all around Europe especially when she’s had a drink.” Charlotte’s thoughtful air brightened suddenly. “Mama, it’s someone you probably should look into, after all. Why don’t you come to one of our gatherings?”
“I think not!”
“Not a party. I’m not talking about something loud and debauched. Come to one of our intellectual gatherings. We discuss art and literature, philosophy and new ideas. There’s usually poetry too but you can ignore that. You’d love it. There’s one tomorrow. It won’t be on late into the night. It’s awfully refined and I think it might change your mind about a lot of things.”
“My reputation, Charlotte, would never survive it.”
“Mama! You are so old-fashioned! All the very best people go to these sorts of things. It is a salon and perfectly correct in every way. Anyway, it’s the party season, and it’s London. No one will care!”
“I will care.”
“Don’t you want to investigate Mariana da Costa?”
Adelia felt herself being manipulated and she did not like it. Her attention was being misdirected. She looked Charlotte squarely in the face. “No. As you say, there are few real connections. It is tenuous at best. I shall concentrate on this mysterious figure in the hooded cloak.”
Charlotte’s eyes tightened. But she did not argue back, and that was evidence enough for Adelia that something else was going on here.
“How?” she asked as if she were merely interested.
“I am not sure, yet. I have other things to attend to this afternoon, however. Do excuse me; I am still in my outdoor clothing and Smith has been waiting for me all this time.” Adelia swept off along the landing with a grandeur that made Charlotte’s jaw drop, and Adelia allowed herself the slightly unbecoming feeling of gloating satisfaction, just for a moment.
SHE SAT AT THE DRESSING table with a pot of cream in front of her while Smith fussed with her hair, brushing out the grime of the streets and re-dressing it into a manageable style.
“Smith, here’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. A few things, actually, have been on my mind. Firstly, my daughter has complained that she finds it hard to keep staff for any length of time. They go off to be better paid in the factories, she claims. Is that the case, or is there some problem with the system of housekeeping here?”
Adelia watched Smith’s reflection in the mirror. The lady’s maid smiled to herself as she pulled the tortoiseshell hairbrush down Adelia’s hair in long sweeping strokes. “There are no problems below stairs, my lady. But if I might advise the Lady Lassiter on one matter? She ought to take care to employ older, steadier servants.”
“They are more expensive.”
“Naturally, for she would be paying for their experience and their reliability. The younger ones are all as honest as one might expect. None of them are bad people, my lady, but they are so very easily turned by the idea of money. It is a problem that is far more rife here in the city, though we’ve had our own share of it too.”
“Does she have any real cause for concern with any of her current servants?”
“No, my lady. Rest assured I would have told you immediately, were that to have been the case.”
“Good. Thank you.”
Smith began to roll and pin Adelia’s hair up onto her head again. “And the other thing, my lady?”
“It’s linked, in a way. I ... may be overstepping my place, here,” she added. Still fresh in Adelia’s mind was her reception by the housekeeper and staff at Digby Nettles’ house; there was a divide between mistress and servant, between upper and lower, and no amount of good
