Anne Perry - The Angel Court Affair

Pitt wondered what had made a man like Melville Smith join Sofia’s group. It had to be alien to him in every way: to his family background, his culture and his upbringing. The reason must have been compelling, but was it a need for what Sofia taught, a hunger he could not deny, even at the cost of giving up all that was familiar? Or was it a flight from something he could no longer bear?

If Sofia did not reappear soon, Pitt would have Brundage look into the man’s background.

“And Elfrida Fonsecca?” he asked. “Is she gullible too?”

This time both other men hesitated.

“I don’t know,” Smith admitted. “She is extremely capable in administrative matters. We could be in trouble without her, which I am sure she is aware of. It would be very unlike her to absent herself from any of her duties. It…it mattered to her belief of herself.”

“She is much needed,” Ramon agreed quietly, a flash of anger in his eyes at Smith’s betrayal of the group’s vulnerability. “I cannot believe Elfrida would go away from Angel Court willingly. Mr. Pitt, I fear very much that there is cause to be concerned…even afraid.”

Smith moved a step closer to Ramon. “For once I agree completely. There are certain papers I would like to show you, Mr. Pitt.”

Ramon drew in his breath sharply, then looked at Smith and seemed to change his mind about arguing.

Smith turned back to Pitt. “If you would come with me to my office…” He began to walk away, his bearing stiff, and very upright.

Pitt nodded to Ramon and Brundage, and then followed Smith down the hall and into a corridor. Ramon’s face clearly reflected the trouble within him. He did not seem to be aware of Henrietta Navarro marching toward him, her angular frame stooped a little forward. What she said Pitt couldn’t hear, as Smith led him into a room. The office was very pleasant, if a little dark. The mullioned windows looked out onto the courtyard. The direct sun was blocked by the height of the surrounding buildings, leaving only a gentle light. He closed the door and invited Pitt to be seated.

Pitt waited for Smith to open a drawer for the papers he had referred to, but instead the man simply sat down on the opposite side of the desk and folded his hands.

“I am reluctant to tell you so much,” he began, “but I fear events have made it necessary. It is after eleven o’clock, and we have had no word from Señora Delacruz, or either of the women who appear to have gone with her. This has never happened before, and is entirely out of her character. She is fully committed to the cause.”

Pitt did not interrupt him. He looked at Smith’s high-boned, rather pale face and found himself unable to read it. The other man now appeared worried, but not deeply afraid. That could have been so for many reasons. Perhaps he knew that Sofia had disappeared intentionally, to create a stir, and thereby reach a far wider audience.

Worse, it was possible that he welcomed her disappearance because that would leave him as leader of this fast-growing sect, and free to take it in a direction he might prefer.

Smith drew in a deep breath. “Sofia has come to England primarily to meet the family member I mentioned, Barton Hall, who is a cousin in some degree, although he is considerably older than she. She did not hide from me that it is a matter of some urgency, although I have no idea what the matter is. Hall is apparently in good health.” He stopped, waiting for Pitt to respond.

“But what about her ‘mission’?” Pitt asked curiously. If Smith was right and Sofia’s reasons for coming here were less about preaching and more about this meeting with Barton Hall, then it altered the way in which Special Branch would approach her disappearance.

Smith bit his lip. “It was a chance to preach that we could not lose, and I believed it much wiser that we did not make it obvious that meeting Hall was Sofia’s real purpose in coming to England.”

Pitt looked at Smith. He was sitting uncomfortably, his back straight, his hands clasped in front of him, knuckles white-but there was no wavering in his eyes.

“But you don’t know anything of their business?” Pitt asked.

“No,” Smith replied. “But I came to believe that my first supposition that it was a family matter was at least partially mistaken, perhaps entirely.”

“What changed your mind?” Pitt said.

Smith frowned. “It is hard to be precise, and I feel somewhat foolish about it,” he said hesitantly. “If it had been clear to me then I should have prevented this, and you will think me incompetent…”

That word again. “Incompetent?” Pitt said ruefully. “If she has gone away in order to whip up greater public interest in her message, then she has duped me, and I assume you also. If something unpleasant has happened to her, then it is my charge to protect her, and therefore my inadequacy that she is now missing. So please tell me what you know.”

For a moment Smith looked embarrassed, almost compassionate, then it was gone again. “I have known her for nearly six years,” he stated. “If she went willingly then I should have seen it coming. Having seen the threatening letters, I believed those who wrote them to have been no more than cranks, people whose words were violent but who had not the courage to act.” He smiled sourly. “At least not so criminally…”

“What gave you the thought that she was not here to resolve an old family quarrel?” Pitt reverted to the earlier, still unanswered question.

Smith leaned forward a little. “When she was in her early twenties, about ten years ago, I think, she was betrothed to be married to someone extremely suitable, in her parents’ view.”

Pitt knew, at least generally, what was to come-Sir Walter had told him-but he did not interrupt.

“She refused to accept the man,” Smith said with a faint shrug of his shoulders. “I have no idea why. She may have known something of him that was repellent to her. She never spoke of it to me. She simply left England and ran off to Spain. Or more accurately, first to France, then later to Spain, ending up in Toledo. There she met and married a Spanish man-Nazario Delacruz.”

“Is that unforgivable?” Pitt tried not to sound condescending about it, but it seemed such a trivial thing over which to carry a grudge for a decade. Then he thought of Jemima, and how he would feel if she ran away to a foreign country and married someone neither he nor Charlotte had ever met. “Is she happy?” He asked the one question that would have mattered to him, had it been Jemima in that situation.

“I believe so,” Smith replied. “But that is not the issue.” He looked away and smiled uncomfortably. “Nazario Delacruz was already married, with two young children. I know little of what actually happened, but it was both tragic and scandalous. That is what her family could not forgive.”

Pitt was grieved and confused. Such an action seemed completely out of character for the woman he had met.

Smith was waiting for him to say something.

“Then what is it she feels she can accomplish in coming here now and meeting with Barton?” he asked. It did not make sense.

Smith took a deep breath. “She is not coming with regard to the past,” he said quietly. “It is something current. She would not discuss it, even with me.” There seemed to be much more that he wished to say and could not find the words, or did not trust himself to control his emotions.

Did he harbor feelings for Sofia that he could not acknowledge? She was beautiful, in her own way, and frightening in the depth of her conviction, her courage, whether well- or ill-judged.

“Do you know Barton Hall?” Pitt changed the direction of the inquiries a little.

“Only from what Sofia has said.” Smith made a small, rueful gesture. “He is a leading lay member of the Church of England. It is of great importance to him socially and, to do the man justice, perhaps spirituality as well.” A shadow passed over his face. His voice was softer when he spoke. “There is a sense of continuity to it, the safety of what has been tested and sacrificed over the centuries. Men have died for the right to have the Bible in the vernacular, freedom from the Church of Rome to preach and teach as they believed.”