Miss Verity Chase stepped into the room, carrying a steaming glass.
“Do drink some of this, Mr. Graves. It is my mother’s restorative, and mostly brandy, I think. She and some of our neighbors have gone to see to Alexander and fetch clothes for the children. And you should know that their girl, Jane, came back with her mother as soon as news reached them. They will look after the shop. But then what will happen after that, Mr. Graves? The children are orphans now. Do you know of any family that might take them? If not, we must hope their inheritance shall pay for some school or other, though if they are poor and without relatives to fight for them, their lives will be hard.”
Mr. Graves passed his hand over his face, and Miss Chase felt suddenly like the worst sort of fool. She had spoken the first words that had come into her head, and had offered him worries to heap upon the horrors he was already victim to. She watched him holding the glass. Even his hands seemed suddenly older.
“I have little enough, nothing but what I can earn with my pen. It makes me a poor prospect, but I will always have a place for them. I hope you will also stay their friend.” She nodded. “As to family … that may be difficult, but must be tried.”
He stretched out his long legs, then noticed with a pulse of horror that a little of his friend’s blood was still visible, dried and dusty, on his shoes. He pulled himself straight again, and drank for want of anything else to do or say.
The brandy hit his stomach and glowed there briefly before the cold and dark of his body extinguished it again. Her presence was a comfort though. It had been in the past a torment and delight, ranked as he was in the legions of admirers; he had never before felt it as this. He glanced at her profile again then back at the glass in his hand before he continued.
“Alexander told me that he left his family when he married for love, but that his family is at least well to do, I think. He wondered if he had done the right thing, cutting the children off from their inheritance, but he seemed glad to have left the influence of his house. I doubt Adams was ever his name.”
Miss Chase looked shocked and serious. “What is to be done then?”
Graves shifted awkwardly on his chair and looked around the room as if he might find answers posted on the fire irons or hanging from the bell pull.
“I shall go to the magistrate and the coroner in the morning, then let us bury him under the name he chose. There is no more family to shift for him and his if we shall not.”
“You have no idea why Alexander was murdered in this way?”
She picked up her sewing from the table at her side as she asked the question and let a few moments pass. She found that her hands were still trembling too much for the fine work she had in front of her, so she let it lie on her lap again, and traced the emerging pattern with a fingertip. Graves frowned, and the wound on his face twisted painfully.
“I have no idea. I do not think it was cards, or women.” He held up his hands in miserable frustration. “We may know more when Susan decides to speak, if she decides to do so. But I cannot question her.”
His voice struggled under the last words, and he felt more than heard Miss Chase’s soft response: “Of course.”
Her father came into the room and prevented Graves’s attempt to stand with one fat hand.
“Don’t you even think of getting up, boy. I’ve set up a truckle bed in the side room of the nursery. Not much comfort, but I thought the nearer you are to those children tonight, the easier you’ll rest.”
“What news, Father?” Verity asked. Mr. Chase looked worried and bit his nail. “Don’t bite your thumb, dear sir.”
The words were automatic, but she blushed to find herself correcting him this evening. Mr. Chase did not seem to resent the comment, however.
“They say Lord Boston was dragged from his coach, but no one was hurt more than ripped clothing and injured pride. Half of the House seem to have lost their wigs though. All the great legislators of the land, struggling about with their fine coats in tatters and mewling like infants.” The thought amused him, and he struggled for a moment to maintain a proper gravity, but as his thoughts moved on his tone evened. “Troops appeared at the House of Commons to guide them out again, but they cannot act against the crowd till the Riot Act is read and the magistrates are in hiding or besieged. An evil night this is, an evil night.”
Graves stirred himself and looked up into Mr. Chase’s broad face.
“Who then do we inform of Alexander’s death? The proper authorities … He must be buried. The children.”
Mr. Chase’s paw tapped him gently on the shoulder again. “Do as you can in the morning, Graves. But if I read it right, the law will be no help to you while this disorder lasts. Let us look to our own and bury him decently. There are enough of us to swear to what was done when this is passed and the law can turn to us again.”
Graves settled in his chair. “Thank you, sir, for allowing me to stay near the children.”
“Dear boy, as if I’d send you away with your face in pieces and all of London, it seems, ready to fall to flames. And I was very glad you came to us. Speaks of a trust, boy, that I value. Your place is not fit for a family, I imagine, and they cannot stay in the shop. No, we must hugger mugger here, keep a watch on the children and an eye on those drunks and warriors staggering about outside.” He saw a look of alarm on his daughter’s face. “Briggs and Freeman have gone to fetch your mother home, my dear, and see poor Alexander is secure. I hear the crowd broke up a wine shop owned by some poor Catholic, so now they are drunk and hungry for whatever they can grab. A dark day it has been, and who knows what the morning will bring us.”
10
Crowther left the house after sitting with the ladies awhile, silently, as the squire entertained them. He was aware that the current situation in America, and Commodore Westerman’s part in it-crucial, apparently-had been much discussed, but he had not attempted to pay any close attention. He heard, however, the tone and temperature of the conversation and so learned that Commodore Westerman was loved and missed by his family.
His attention was directed to a portrait to the right of the fireplace. The commodore looked very young to him, and pressingly vigorous. He wondered why Mrs. Westerman kept the picture here in the formal salon, rather than in the room where most of her daily business was conducted. Perhaps she did not wish to be always under his eye. He watched her a little coldly in the candlelight-the flutter of her hands as she talked, the play of red in her hair as she gave enthusiastic agreement to some truism of the squire’s. He wondered how her manner would change if she knew of the conversation the men had just had. Her friendly reception of Bridges in her house looked suddenly like the worst sort of naivety. How could she see into the mess of murder if she thought this man was her friend? But he would not hold her back. The squire had angered him, and in so doing had bound him tightly to the body in the stables.
Having taken his leave early and pleading a tiredness he no longer felt, Crowther let his horse walk at its own pace through the modest gates of Caveley, and turned the animal’s steps back toward the village with the merest pressure of his knee against its flanks. The evening was beginning to darken, reluctantly, as if holding on to the pleasant sun of June as long as it possibly could.
He supposed that to an extent his system was recovering from the sudden shock that another man knew the secret of his identity. The sharp chill that had spread through his bones had faded, but he was left uneasy. The wall he had constructed between himself and his past, that had seemed so solid mere hours ago, had become weak and porous. It was true the squire had no reason to expose him, not at the current moment at any rate, but if Bridges traded his way through life with information and politics, it might at sometime be worth more to him to expose Crowther than to keep his knowledge to himself. And as Crowther knew he had no intention of withdrawing, or persuading Mrs. Westerman to withdraw, that moment might come suddenly and soon.