Untitled (13 page)

Chapter 7

F
rom the window Mina Bentley can see nothing but the backsides of the houses behind Cursitor Road and a band of dingy sky. A thin rain is falling. She puts down her pen and stretches first her arms, then her back. Her chair creaks and she gives a loud yawn. "God," she mutters to herself, "what a dreary town." As much as she can, she has kept inside. She has excuses for Robert—there are the household accounts to look over, there are the servants to supervise while his mother is ill.

   She would give anything to be out in London's streets, in the life and bustle of the place—not a street like Cursitor Road, walled in by high, blank-faced houses, but in a part of the city where there is life. But she must not risk that more than absolutely necessary. It would be dangerous. Two days after arriving here—her first time to step foot outside this house!—she caught the eye of a man leaning against the railings across the street. A quiet bulk of a man with a thick beard that hid his mouth, and shabby gentleman's clothes. He seemed to have nothing better to do than to smoke his pipe and occasionally stroll about with a newspaper under his arm. She was certain he'd been there since breakfast time—what could he be doing? He didn't belong in a street like this. As she came down the steps his gaze hung on her, and she felt a clutch of panic in her chest. Since then she has seen him out there from the dining room window and decided she would not go out. Is such fear ridiculous? Perhaps. But then there was Lizzie, and the thin man who'd taken off up the street, and Lizzie's face looking so thoughtful.

   It's easy to tell yourself you're making too much of such incidents. Isn't it?

   She forces her attention back to the papers on the desk. Even with Marie and Madame Pépin on board wages for the time being, expenses have not gone down substantially. There is still the rent to be paid. Bills have been coming in—for the new dress she bought before leaving Paris, for the boxes the carpenter made for Robert's equipment to transport it safely to London, for food from the butcher and the baker that has already been eaten and forgotten. Now what is left in the bank account has withered away. She's known for months this would happen. Of course—they have no income as such, only expenses. Her money could not last forever. Yet to see it so reduced—to know that they must do something, and for Robert that means finding a position here in London—fills her with dread.

   There is hope, though, and she sits back and lets the pen roll across the open flap of the desk. It comes to rest against papers and account books shoved carelessly into the pigeonholes at the back. Or not so carelessly—the burglar must have sat here, picking through the papers, replacing them carefully. But what might he have found out?

   Nothing more than she knows: that Robert's mother has little else now beside the house, that all the property his grandfather once owned has been sold off over the years because his only son was determined to be a gentleman. Now Robert's father has long been dead, and his older son has taken off for India and the civil service, and the younger one—well, maybe Robert isn't so different from his father. When she met him he'd been living in cheap lodgings, using what money he could save from the allowance his mother sent him to buy equipment. A man of twenty-seven! Yet, she'd loved him for his lack of interest in money, and for the way he'd been shocked by her suggestion that he use his knowledge and education to earn a decent living. How could he, when he had so much to learn at the side of his beloved Monsieur Bertillon? To her, though, Bertillon seemed a cold fish. Besides, as she pointed out, Bertillon earned his living, didn't he? He was chief of the Department of Judicial Identity for the Paris Police Prefecture. Robert had thought about that, had turned serious. One day, he said, he'd persuade the British government to do as the French had, to adopt anthropometry, and then they'd need someone—a Monsieur Bertillon, of sorts. And maybe that would be him. She'd nodded, said,
One day.
As though that day would never come, or else by the time it did she'd be ready for London. Ever since they'd married she'd found reasons why they couldn't visit—she was ill; she'd arranged to have people over for dinner after the Christmas concert; she'd accepted Monsieur and Madame Martin's invitation to stay in their villa in Nice—Madame wanted to teach her to swim. Robert was to have come to London on his own to testify before the Troup Committee, but when the news arrived that his mother had taken ill she'd had no excuse for why she could not accompany him.

   And now? Even if Robert's testimony does sway the Troup Committee, there'll be no position for him before her money is worn down to nothing. Is that what it will come down to? Living here on the thin hope of Robert's prospects, hiding herself away as best she can? No. They must return to Paris. They must have money.

   She props her chin on her hand. Upstairs her mother-in-law is lying in the expanse of her bed. Beside her, Price might be dozing, or measuring out her medicine. Or, more likely, reading a magazine she has taken without permission from the drawing room and that she will say she wanted for her mistress. How long might Robert's mother live? Another few weeks? Surely not even that. Then she and Robert will dismiss the servants, put the furniture up for auction, sell the house—such a house for one old woman! Henry will have to agree, of course. If he doesn't? He can buy Robert's half of the property—he will be here in a day or two. And once the dreadful affair of what promises to be a slow death is over, the business of the funeral and executing the will and finding a buyer for the house will unroll.

   She leans over the paper, but she isn't thinking about her letter. She's thinking about what kind of man Mr. Henry Bentley must be. A careful man. A man who takes control, who organizes. After all, wasn't it he who insisted on having the water closet installed on the half-landing? And the new stove down in the kitchen? And wasn't he the one who after the chaos of his father's dying without a will, would not let his mother make a similar mistake? Mina picks up the pen and lets the end of it rest against her lips. She will have to be cautious around him—a man who looks off into the future and sees consequences, a man who arranged his own mother's will. A will that not only makes him and his brother beneficiaries, but is careful to lay out what should happen should he or Robert marry and die, so that under no circumstances will their widows or children be in doubt as to their inheritance.

   She makes herself lean back over the papers. There are still the bills to be paid, and a letter to be sent to Marie with instructions for her and Madame Pépin. She writes the date at the top of a new sheet of paper but finds herself looking out the window. Hard to keep her attention on the desk when a coldness has gripped her gut. There's a dinner tonight, despite her protests that there is little use in socializing here when they will be leaving again so soon. For some reason Robert has insisted this time. So they will go out—to the Fosdykes'. Robert and Mr. Fosdyke will talk about the dreary business of identifying criminals, all the measuring, the photographing, the difficulty of using fingerprints, leaving her to Mrs. Fosdyke and whatever conversation they can find between them.

   It will all happen without incident, she tells herself. A fourwheeler will arrive, she will keep her head down as Robert helps her into it, and they will be closed into its privacy. By the time they return it will be dark.

   Yet she can't rid herself of the sight of that man loitering in the street, a newspaper rolled under his arm, smoking a pipe and looking about him as though he was simply waiting for someone. What if he was waiting for her?

   Ridiculous, she tells herself. More likely he is the follower of the cook across the street, or the impoverished uncle of some butler who lives nearby and is hoping to borrow money from him. Besides, has she seen him in the last few days? No, though a few doors away she's seen a man in a brown hat and a smooth chin—the man who took his place? Or the same man with an altered appearance?

   Neither. It's all nonsense, the result of an imagination gone wild. Really, she tells herself, she must stop reading those detective stories in the St
rand
.

   From the hallway she hears the chiming of the clock. Three o'clock already, and she's done little this afternoon. So she forces her pen back to the paper, writes a few lines, tells Marie that London is dreary and she hopes they will be back within a month or two. There's a knock at the front door, a double
rat-atat, rat-atat,
but she pays it no attention. She's gripping the pen hard, and though it makes her fingers ache, she keeps going. If Madame Guillaume should call, pass on her regards and ask about the baby. Be sure to clean the apartment thoroughly. Don't let the Bonzons' young maid persuade her to buy any more hats—she must be sensible with her money.

   The knocking comes again, louder this time.

   One floor below in his basement room, Cartwright puts down his glass of port and yesterday's newspaper. Only the postman, with a telegram by the sound of that insistent double knock. He straightens his tie and heaves himself out of his chair. He breathes a few times with his mouth open to clear the smell of alcohol. Where are the maids? Where is that Jane Wilbred? He walks up the stairs— Wilbred, the name makes him think of the police and a hanging, but over what? He can't remember exactly—he walks up the stairs and feels his breath tight in his chest and his head light. He has to hold on to the handrail to steady himself.

   The postman sees nothing of this confusion, though. When Cartwright swings the door open he holds out a telegram and says needlessly, "Telegram."

   At the back of the house, in the morning room, Mina Bentley is still bowed over the letter, her face close to the end of her pen. Along the hallway comes Mr. Cartwright, in his hands a salver holding the telegram. His tread is light enough for her not to hear his approach. Just before the door he stops for a moment. This has long been a habit of his. He has found out all manner of information this way: that after the master's death his mistress, despite her stiff face, wept when she was alone; that she was upset over Mr. Henry's decision to go to India; that although Mr. Robert wants to stay in London, Mrs. Robert is determined not to, that she hates this city. It made him like her less to hear her talk about London in that way, as though it is not good enough for the likes of her.

   This afternoon, though, he hears nothing at all.

   Mina lets the end of her pen rest against her lips. There's a knock at the door of the morning room this time. The servants have been told not to disturb her when she is working in here. She does not want their eyes wandering across her accounts, or noticing that their mistress's papers have been tugged out of their pigeonholes. She frowns and looks over her shoulder. This is not the first time— far from it. In the week after she arrived Price would come knocking with her demands that the doctor be called right away, although her mistress was no worse—and no better—than on the day before when he'd visited her. As for the maids—Sarah burst in three times in as many days and Lizzie, before she'd dismissed her, had the habit of rapping on the door then marching in as though determined to catch her at something. So now she simply calls out, "Yes?"

   Through the door Cartwright tells her, "A telegram, Mrs. Robert."

   "For me?"

   "For Mr. Robert."

   "He is out this afternoon, Cartwright."

   "It is a telegram, ma'am. I thought you would like it brought to your attention." There's silence for a moment, and he scowls at her through the wood of the door.

   "One moment."

   He hears a chair being pushed back, the rustle of her skirts, then the key being turned. She has been in there most of the afternoon with the door locked—what, he wonders, does she have to hide? Sarah said she's been going through Mrs. Bentley's papers, and he'd had to hush her. It doesn't do to have the lower servants talking about the family like that. Still, he's taken to going down the back stairs more slowly, listening for what Sarah tells Mrs. Johnson, though that hasn't been much of any substance, as though there has been nothing at all to find. That in itself, he thinks, is strange—who hides the details of her life so carefully?

   When Mina opens the door she sees only his jowly face, his flushed cheeks, the salver between his hands. Around him hangs the heady scent of alcohol. That, she thinks, she must mention to Robert, because it's not the first time. "Thank you," she says, and plucks the telegram away before pushing the door closed.

   It is not, in fact, addressed to her husband. It says simply, "Bentley Residence." Despite her curiosity, it is not for her to open it. Instead she presses the envelope against the window and brings her face close. To her disappointment, the afternoon light is not strong enough for her to make out anything of the message. With a sigh she props the telegram against the desk lamp and goes back to her letter.

       
H
e is dead. Henry James Bentley, drowned at sea in the foundering of the steamer the S
tar of the Orient,
off the treacherous coast of France.

There is more news: he had a wife. And she has survived.

Chapter 8

A
lready the room feels haunted, stale with old smells, its furniture covered with dust sheets. The first thing Jane does is to push the sash up as high as it will go and fling the shutters open. Then she leans on the sill, breathing in the dirty air of London. Even on a morning like this, when frost glints on the roofs in the first sunlight of the day—hazy though it is—the air smells of coal, as though no wind is ever strong enough to sweep it away. She closes her eyes and tries to imagine the prickling smell of the sea that she has lived with for so long, but even after only a fortnight in this city, it can't be done.

   This is the first time she's seen this room: Mr. Henry's room, not that he'll be needing it. He's already two days dead. After living in India, after coming all that way, to drown in the English Channel! And now they've put him in his coffin for what's left of the journey. That's what Mr. Cartwright said at breakfast. Jane wonders how it must be for his widowed bride to travel with her husband in a box, as though he were a piece of luggage.