“Has Mr. Fielding spoken to you of our concern?” Concern was such a tame word, but she could think of no better—at least until she knew more of the situation.
“Oh yes,” Clio replied quickly. “And I am so glad you are going to do something! We none of us believed it was Aaron. We simply had no idea how to succeed in making anyone else accept that. Poor Tamar has struggled alone for all these years. It is wonderful to have someone really capable with her now.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to say that she was not really so very capable, then changed her mind. It would be most unhelpful, even if true. It would discourage Tamar and make Clio Farber less likely to trust her.
“Well, we need all the help you can find,” she said instead. “You see, it all depends on being able to observe people when they are unaware you have any interest in the matter at all.”
“Oh yes, I see that,” Clio agreed. “Tamar explained it quite clearly. I shall contrive a situation where you can meet Kathleen O’Neil in such a way it will all look most natural. I am good at that.” Her face shadowed and she moved very slightly so that her back was towards the others in the room.
“I don’t know if Joshua told you,” she went on, “but I am … acquainted”—she hesitated delicately, but there was nothing sly in her, or intending innuendo—“with Judge Oswyn, who sat on the appeal.” Her face shadowed. “With poor Judge Stafford.”
“Did he know Judge Stafford?” Charlotte asked. “I mean personally?”
Clio’s face was thoughtful, her answer quick, as if she had already considered the question and it troubled her. “Of course they were acquainted, but how much it was personal rather than simply professional I do not know. I feel it may have been. Granville, that is, Judge Oswyn, seemed to have some deep feeling about him. I rather think it was a kind of embarrassment. Or perhaps that is not quite right—maybe a sort of anger mixed with discomfort. But when I asked him why, he was evasive, which is most unlike him.”
Charlotte was confused. She had assumed Clio’s relationship with Judge Oswyn was casual and social, but from the candor with which she apparently spoke to him about the most indiscreet subjects, perhaps it was much more. Was she his mistress? It would be inexcusably clumsy to ask. How could she phrase her questions so as to elicit the information and yet remain reasonably tactful?
“You think he would have discussed it differently had it not troubled him?” she said aloud.
“I am quite sure,” Clio replied with a smile. “He is a very frank and gentle man. He likes to be open, to speak freely, to laugh about things, not unkindly, but to”—she shrugged slightly, an elegant and expressive gesture—“to be with friends. You know, friendship is rarer than one would care to think, especially for a man in his position.”
“And he had not that friendship with Judge Stafford?”
“No—I think not. I formed the impression there was some matter between them which Judge Stafford kept pressing, and which Granville did not wish to discuss anymore.”
“Aaron Godman?”
Clio frowned. “I am not certain. I know Granville was unhappy about it, and hated to speak of it. The trial was perfectly proper, of course, but he felt it had been poorly handled. It was a source of embarrassment to him.”
“By Judge Quade?” Charlotte said with surprise.
Clio shook her head quickly. “Oh no—not at all. By the police, I think. I am redly not sure. He would not discuss it with me. But then that is quite natural, since I knew Aaron, and cared for him very much. He was a very sweet man.”
“Was he? No one has said very much about him, personally, only about the case. Tell me about him,” Charlotte asked.
Clio lowered her voice even more, so Tamar, a few feet away, could not hear her.
“He was two years younger than Tamar—twenty-eight—when he died five years ago.” Her face had a curious expression of sweetness mixed with pain. “He was slight, like her, but not really so dark, and of course a lot taller. In fact he was not so unlike Joshua. They used that, sometimes, on stage. He had a lovely sense of humor. He loved to play the most terrible villains and provoke the audience to scream.” She smiled as she said it, then her eyes quite suddenly filled with tears and she sniffed hard and turned her head away for a moment.
“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said quietly. “Please don’t go on if it is painful. It was thoughtless of me to ask. It is Devlin O’Neil we have to know about.”
Clio sniffed again. “That is really too bad of me,” she said fiercely. “I thought I had better control of myself. Please forgive me. Yes, of course. I shall arrange for you to meet Kathleen O’Neil.” She fished for a handkerchief. “I know just how I shall do it. She is very fond of romantic music, and there is a soiree the day after tomorrow, at Lady Blenkinsop’s house in Eaton Square. I know the pianist well, and he will invite us. Can you come?”
Charlotte considered asking if Clio were sure it would be socially acceptable, and then decided she really did not care if it were or not.
“Certainly,” she said firmly. “I shall enjoy it. Tell me who I am supposed to be. I cannot be myself, or they will tell me nothing. In fact they will probably ask me to leave.”
“Of course,” Clio agreed cheerfully. “You had better be a cousin visiting from—from Bath!”
“But I don’t know Bath,” Charlotte argued. “I would look ridiculous if I fell into conversation with someone who knew it well. Let it be Brighton; at least I have been there.”
“By all means.” Clio smiled and stuffed her handkerchief away. “Then it is arranged? If you come here first, we can travel together. I shall say you are up visiting because you are interested in the stage. Can you sing?”
“No. Not at all!”
“Well, you can certainly act! At least your mother says so. She has recounted some of your adventures to Joshua, just two or three days ago, and he told us. We were all very entertained—oh, and impressed, of course.”
“Oh dear.” Charlotte was taken aback. She knew Caroline disapproved of her involvement in Pitt’s cases. How much she had changed, at least on the surface, if she was now regaling her new friends with accounts of them. How much she was denying her previous self in order to please. That was a most uncomfortable thought, and she pushed it away. There was no time for it now.
“I think it is quite thrilling,” Clio went on enthusiastically. “More dramatic than anything we do—because it is real. Remember not to dress too fashionably, won’t you? You are supposed to be a provincial cousin.”
“Oh, certainly,” Charlotte said with a perfectly straight face. What did Clio Farber imagine policemen earned, that their wives might dress in the current vogue?
In the event, without Emily to borrow from, and not daring to approach Vespasia for anything less than a reception or a ball, Charlotte asked Caroline if she might try something of hers from last season, or even the one before. Her request was granted with alacrity, and considerable disappointment that it was really not advisable for her to go also. But it would risk being conspicuous for three of them to turn up to such a function, and Kathleen O’Neil would not find it the chance encounter it was intended to seem.
But she did not refuse the offer of Caroline’s carriage to pick her up at home in Bloomsbury.
She left a note for Pitt on the kitchen table.
Dearest Thomas,
I have been invited to a soiree with a friend of Mama’s and I am going because I am a little anxious about her lately. She is becoming very fond of people I do not know at all, and this will give me an excellent opportunity to make their acquaintance rather better. I shall not be late, it is only an hour or two of music.