Farrier's Lane (33 page)

He ached to be able to give her more, and yet he was perfectly sure that what he felt was not pity; indeed he found the word offensive applied to her. She had far too much courage, too much dignity for him to dare such an intimate and intrusive feeling.

And yet he was aware with an ache of pain how her life had changed.

But the most powerful emotion in him was still the longing to be with her, to share his thoughts, his ideas, the experience of the things he loved. He imagined walking across a wide field with her by his side, the smell of the dawn wind off the sea, and the clouds piled and shredded in veils of light. The loveliness of it would fill him till he could scarcely contain it, and he would turn to her, and know she saw it with the same bursting heart that he did. And in that sharing all loneliness would vanish.

It flickered through his thoughts that if Adolphus Pryce felt this same consuming emotion for Juniper Stafford, and over years, perhaps it had driven from him all sense of proportion,
and ultimately of morality. But it did not remain with him long, nor form itself into coherent ideas.

Instead of being with Eleanor, he was here, in Bow Street, waiting for reports on a murder he knew he would not solve. If it was solved at all, it would be by Pitt. It would be Pitt’s anger at waste and injustice, and Pitt’s insight, helped no doubt by Charlotte’s curiosity, which would find the answer, whether Drummond was there or not.

The job had completely lost its savor for Drummond, and he realized gloomily that he was in danger of making some stupid, unnecessary error, which would spoil his reputation and close his career with shame instead of honor.

He turned from the window and strode across to the hat stand, where he picked up his hat and cane, took his coat from the peg and went out into the corridor.

“Poulteney, I’m going out. Put the reports on my desk when they come. I’ll see them in the morning. If Inspector Pitt comes back, tell him I’ll see him tomorrow.”

“Yes sir. Will you be coming back tonight, sir?”

But Drummond was already striding away and he did not register the question.

Outside he walked the short length of Bow Street and around the corner into Drury Lane, where he caught a hansom. He gave the driver Eleanor’s address, and sat back trying to compose his mind and prepare what he was going to say. He changed the words a dozen times between Oxford Street and Baker Street, but when he got out at Milton Street and paid the driver it all sounded so much less than he meant. He even considered calling another cab and going away again. But if he did, the situation would not improve. He would be no more than delaying what was for him inevitable. He must ask her, and there was nothing to be altered or gained by delaying.

The same surly maid answered the door, and when he informed her he wished to see Mrs. Byam, she conducted him with ill grace through the hallway and back to Eleanor’s private door.

“Thank you,” he said briefly, and waited while she glared at him, then turned on her heel and went.

With suddenly beating heart and dry lips he raised the knocker and let it fall.

It was several moments before he heard her steps at the far side and the handle turn, and then it swung open. It was Eleanor herself; presumably her one maid was otherwise occupied. She looked surprised to see him. For an instant there was pure pleasure in her face, then within seconds it clouded with anxiety, almost a foreboding as she met his eyes. Perhaps she saw his emotions there, as naked as he felt, and it was not acceptable to her. Instantly he was embarrassed. He had said nothing at all yet, and already he had begun badly.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Drummond,” she began, then blushed at the clumsy formality of it. Surely neither of them needed to pretend quite so much? A little social grace to hide behind was good, but too much and it ceased to be a shield and became a mask.

“How kind of you to call,” she said in a rush. “Please come in. It’s turning a little cold, don’t you think? Is it too late to offer you tea?”

“No—thank you,” he accepted, and followed her in. “I mean, no, it is not too late. I should very much like a cup of tea.” The small room was exactly as he had remembered it, cramped, narrow windowed, shabby carpets worn in the center, mismatched furniture, only made special by her few small possessions kept from the house in Belgravia: a painting of the western isles, a small bronze figure of a horse, a few embroidered cushions.

She rang the bell and when her one maid appeared requested tea with a courtesy few women used towards servants. He could not remember whether it was her usual manner or something new since her wildly reduced circumstances. Either way, its graciousness warmed him ridiculously, and its necessity touched him to new sadness.

Eleanor stood by the mantel shelf, looking down at the fire, unlit. It was too early in the season to burn a fire all day, for one who had to be careful of the coal.

“I hope you are not concerned for me?” she said quietly. “It is not necessary, I assure you. My means are sufficient. And I really have no desire now to mix in society.” She looked at him suddenly, her eyes very serious.

“I did not come out of any anxiety for you,” he replied, meeting her gaze.

She blushed, the color rising up her cheeks in a dark tide.

Again he felt exposed. He knew his emotions were in his face, and he had no idea how to hide them.

“How is your case progressing?” she asked quickly. “Are you doing any better?”

She had changed the subject that was unspoken between them, and yet as obvious as if everything had been heard in words. He resented it, and yet he was also grateful.

“No, I think we really know no more than last time I was here,” he replied ruefully. “Pitt is determined it is not the wife or her lover, but I think he is wrong. There really is no evidence either way.”

“Why do you think it is them?” she asked, sitting down at last, and permitting him to do so as well.

“Tragic as it is, it is still the most likely,” he answered. “The only other alternative seems to be to do with the Farriers’ Lane case. And that was closed five years ago. Eleanor …”

She looked up, waiting, her breath indrawn as if she too were about to speak.

“Eleanor, I really don’t care about the case—or any other case especially. It has become less and less important to me lately …”

“I’m sorry—but I expect you will get over it. We all experience a touch of ennui occasionally. Familiar things become tedious for a while. Maybe you need a break from London? Have you thought of going away for a few days? Even a week or two, perhaps?”

All sorts of answers came to his mind. He could not leave Bow Street until this case was resolved. The murder of a judge was too important. It would look as if he did not care, even though there was nothing he could do that Pitt would not do better. He did not wish to inflict his restlessness
on his daughters, who would expect him to join their family life. A fortnight with either of his sons-in-law would be far from restful, and he hated being in someone’s house when he had neither a true guest’s status nor a resident’s independence. He would be bored and lonely staying in a hotel, and long walks in the autumn solitude of the hills would leave his problem untouched.

Instead he spoke the simple truth.

“My feeling has nothing to do with London, or the death of Judge Stafford. It has simply sharpened my knowledge of what I must do.”

There was a flicker of fear in her face, which might have meant anything. With a cold hollow in his stomach he plowed on, dreading her response, and yet determined now not to shirk the issue. He was capable of more pain than he had believed, but he was not a coward.

She was waiting, accepting now that she could not dissuade him.

“I must acknowledge that my happiness lies with you.” He could feel the blood hot in his cheeks. “And ask you if you will do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

Almost before he had finished the denial was in her face, the misery in her eyes.

“It would be an honor, Micah. But you must know I cannot.”

“Why not?” He heard his voice and hated himself for his lack of dignity, his childishness, as if arguing could make a difference. Why was he vain enough to have imagined that her gratitude, her innate kindness was anything akin to love?

“You know the answer to that.” Her voice was low and full of pain. Her face had the baffled look of one who has been struck unexpectedly.

“You do not care for me.” He forced the words out, preferring to say them himself so he would not hear them on her lips.

She looked down at the floor.

“Yes, I do,” she said very quietly, less than a smile touching her mouth, merely a softness. “I care for you very
much—far too much to allow you to marry a woman who is socially such an outcast that alliance with her would ruin you.”

He drew in his breath to argue.

She heard him, and looked up quickly.

“Yes, it would. The scandal surrounding Sholto will never be forgotten. I am inextricably tied to it, and I always will be. I was his wife. There will always be people who remember that.”

“I don’t—” he began.

“Hush, my dear,” she interrupted him. “It is very noble of you to say that you do not care about society, but you have to. How could you hold the position you do, commanding the investigation into delicate cases where political discretion is needed, and immense tact, scandals that involve our greatest families, if your own wife had been so closely tied to the very worst of them?” Her eyes were intense. “I know very little of the police, but I can see that much. I am sensible of your honor, that you would not withdraw an offer once made, no matter what your greater wisdom might tell you, but please—we have been friends. Let us at least keep honesty between us. It would ruin you, and I cannot let that happen.”

Again he wanted to speak, to argue, but he knew she was right. He could never continue in his position if he were married to Eleanor Byam. Some scandals were forgotten, but that one would not be—not in ten years, not in twenty. The absurdity was that if he were to keep her as his mistress there would be whispers, a little laughter, perhaps a good deal of envy. She was a beautiful woman, but their affair would be largely ignored. Whereas if he did what was immeasurably more honorable, and married her, he would be distrusted and eventually shunned.

“I know,” he said very quietly. He wanted to touch her. He wished to so intensely it was a physical effort not to, but he knew it would be wrong, clumsy, and somehow indelicate. “But I count your company a greater happiness than any social or professional position.”

She looked away quickly, for the first time her composure
breaking. The tears filled her eyes. She stood up and walked over to the mantel shelf.

“You are very generous, and I admire you immensely for it. But it does not alter anything. I cannot let you do such a thing.” She turned around and forced herself to smile at him, the tears standing out in her eyes. “What kind of love would I have for you if I were to take my own well-being at such a price to you? It would be no happiness.”

He could think of no argument. What she said was perfectly true. Everything worldly he could offer her would be reduced by her very acceptance. And he would never have married her if by doing so he would have ruined her.

Very slowly he rose to his feet, a little stiffly, even though it had been only a short time.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice husky.

For a moment he thought of going to her and taking her in his arms. But it would be intrusive, unfair, and it would change nothing. He had no idea what to say. To take leave formally now, as if he had only called for tea, would be ridiculous. He met her gaze, and knew that his face betrayed all his emotions. For a moment he stood still, then he turned and went out, passing the ladies’ maid in the hallway. The tea tray was sitting on the table. She was a discreet woman, and had understood more than he gave her credit for. She opened the door for him, then hesitated a moment.

“I hope you will call again, sir.”

He looked at her and saw in her set, tense expression that the words were not idle, not simply a very customary way of bidding farewell.

“Oh yes,” he said very firmly. “I shall certainly call again.”

    Pitt had also found little satisfaction in the day. He had spent some considerable time further pursuing the relationship of Juniper Stafford and Adolphus Pryce, learning what he could about how it had deepened from a social acquaintance brought about by Pryce’s professional contact with Judge Stafford. It had been extremely difficult to do without
at any time suggesting to those who did not know that it was now an immoral liaison and could have led to murder. The people he spoke to were agog for gossip and innuendo. Had they not been, they would have been of little use in his quest for facts, but their very sensitivity meant he had to be the more careful. As a result the picture he had gained was unclear, full of shadows and implications of passion, but without substance.

He came home tired and dispirited, feeling that he was pursuing something whose reality he would never know beyond doubt, and certainly never prove.

Charlotte had an excellent dinner ready: rich mutton stewed with potatoes and sweet white turnip, and flavored with rosemary. He ate slowly and with more satisfaction than he had felt all day. He had finished and was sitting in the parlor by the fire with his feet on the fender, sinking slowly farther and farther down in his chair, before he realized that she was preoccupied and looked now and then a little worried.

“What is it?” he asked reluctantly, wishing it would be nothing, some domestic triviality he would not have to bother with.

She bit her lip and turned from the work box where she had been sorting threads.

“The relationship between Mama and Joshua Fielding.”

“Is she going to be very upset if he is implicated in the Farriers” Lane murder?” he asked. He liked his mother-in-law, although he was more than a little in awe of her, and he certainly would not wish her to be hurt. However, being disappointed now and then was part of caring, and the only way to avoid it was to care about no one, which was a kind of death. “I don’t see why he should be,” he went on. “Everything I have found out indicates it was Aaron Godman, just as the original trial decided.”