“What is her background? And do you know anything more about him?”
“What is this, dear heart? You are becoming quite the gossip in your old age.”
“Not at all. But he was odd, you know, in some of the things that he said. There was something of the Jacobin about him, if I’m honest.”
“Oh, really? I shall enquire more deeply. Perhaps that is why our Charlotte wanted to avoid him. One would not want to be tarnished by association with radical politics.” Although Charlotte herself did seem to be perfectly happily in associating with artists, which was surely just as bad. In fact, didn’t those two things go hand in hand? Adelia waved at the teapot and Theodore leaned over to pour two cups.
“And what of Mrs Dymchurch?” Theodore asked.
“I believe her late husband was a wealthy man. She herself is of an old, old family – you know the Hopkinsons of Dorset? Lots of lands there, and a few mills in the north too. Plenty of money and old connections. She will have inherited enough to ensure she didn’t need to marry again, I am sure. There are a smattering of barons and so on throughout the generations.”
“Country set, then.”
“I suppose so. Of the sort of people who are endlessly trying to marry themselves upwards with each generation, you know?”
“You cannot mock anyone for that,” he said with a jesting wag of his finger.
“Indeed, I cannot. I am simply stating the facts. Perhaps that is why I have some fellow-feeling for her. Mr Dymchurch was of a similar background, so they were a good match. He was in finance but don’t ask me to explain any more than that; last night at the table someone mentioned investment and bonds and trading overseas, and I confess my eyes glazed over and I was distracted by a passing blancmange. Strawberry, and very nice it was, too.”
“Did you speak with Mrs Dymchurch at all?”
“Last night? Not directly, no. We were in a small group together at one point. Everyone was being dreadfully nice to her and saying all the right things about her bereavement, and she burst out with a few things that were unguarded but we all overlooked it, due to the circumstances.”
“Oh? What things?”
“Well, as I say, I am sure she will have inherited enough to keep her comfortable and she admitted as much, but there are some heirlooms that she feels belong to her own family and she is rather resentful that she does not have them.”
“Where are they?”
“I have no idea. She got a little upset and we calmed her down and changed the subject. People in mourning get fixed on funny little things that become hugely important, quite out of all proportion. It won’t be easy for her, at this time of year, to be alone.”
“You ought to persuade Charlotte to invite her here.”
“I am sure she would have already extended such an invitation; I believe they are acquainted. Oh, that was one more thing I needed to speak to you about.”
“Invitations?”
“Charlotte,” said Adelia, and she turned her half-empty cup in her hands, twisting it around and around. “She said something awfully curious to me. She said – oh, and that’s another thing! She said this to me when she saw Robert talking to Mr Nettles, just as he left Robert and went to speak to you. She wasn’t happy about Robert talking to him at all. She was quite odd. She said that they had made a dreadful mistake.”
“Good heavens. What sort of mistake?”
“That’s just it. I pressed her upon it, and she went pale and said she could not tell me there and then. It involved her and Robert, and they both wanted to speak to us together about it.”
“When?”
“Today, I assume.”
Theodore poured himself another cup of tea. “Well. I had better be alert, then.”
“I think we both ought to be.” She passed her cup over to him for him to refill. “But remember. We’re here to relax, or so you keep telling me,” she said as she took it back from him, saying it to herself as much as to him. “We are not to look for crimes to solve.”
“I suspect the universe is going to have other ideas for us,” he replied.
“Very well then, just as long as there aren’t any murders.”
“I am sure we’d have heard about that.”
“Quite so.”
Three
No. Charlotte’s “problem” was nothing to do with any suspicious deaths.
Charlotte and Robert broached the subject with Theodore and Adelia when they gathered in the early afternoon. They took tea together in a pleasant, small sitting room at the back of the house, well away from the noise of the street. A roaring fire was burning in the grate, and a smell of spices and fruit filled the air. Every room in the house seemed to have been decorated with a small evergreen tree, after the fashion of Queen Victoria and her late husband, and even here in this small private space there was a tree in one corner. Charlotte had twisted a red ribbon through its branches to add some contrast, and there was a small glass bead in the shape of an acorn hanging from the peak.
They sat on comfortable armchairs around the fire, with two round tables placed nearby so that the tea things and various cakes were within reach but protected from the heat by a freestanding tri-fold screen which Charlotte had covered with decoupage. Fashion magazines had been cut up and glued all over it, a lively layering of ladies in hats and gowns.
“What is all this about?” Adelia said. She stared in turn at her daughter and her daughter’s husband. They both looked embarrassed, shifting uncomfortably in
