Anne Perry - Resurrection Row

“I see. Thank you, Maizie.”

“Where’s my ten bob?”

He fished in his pocket and brought out string, a knife, sealing wax, three pieces of paper, a packet of toffees, two keys, and about a pound’s worth of change. He counted out ten shillings for her, reluctantly; it had been a promise made in the heat of discovery. But her hand was out, and there was no going back on it. She snatched it, checking it minutely.

“Thank you.” She closed her grip on it like a dying man’s and put it into the reaches of her underskirts. “That’s Bertha, all right. Why do you want to know?”

“Her picture was found in a dead man’s house,” he replied.

“Murdered?”

“Yes.”

“Who was it, then?”

“Godolphin Jones, the artist.” She might not have heard of him. Probably she could not read, and the murder would be of little interest in this quarter.

She did not seem in the least surprised.

“Stupid girl,” she said imperturbably. “I told ’er not to go posin’ for ’im; better to stick to what she knows. But not ’er, would try to better ’erself. Greedy, she was. I never like things on paper, meself; only leads to trouble.”

He grabbed at her arm without thinking, and she pulled away sharply.

“You knew she posed for Godolphin Jones?” he demanded, holding onto her.

“Of course I did!” she snapped. “Do you take me for a fool? I know what goes on in that shop of ’is!”

“Shop! What shop?”

“That shop of ’is a number forty-seven, of course, where ’e takes all the photographs and sells them. Disgusting, I calls it. I can understand a man who wants a girl and can’t get one for ’isself, like what ’Orrie used to provide for; but one what gets ’is fun out o’ lookin’ at pictures, now that’s what I call un’ealthy!”

A flood of understanding washed over Pitt, and a whole world of possibilities opened.

“Thank you, Maizie.” He clasped her hand with a warmth that positively alarmed her. “You are a jewel among women, a lily growing in a rubbish yard. May heaven reward you!” And he turned and charged out of the door into the thick darkness of Resurrection Row, crowing with delight.

Alicia first heard of the death of Godolphin Jones from Dominic. He had spent a morning with Somerset Carlisle, going over the names of those they could count on to support them when the bill came before the House in a few days’ time, and the news had come, whispered from servant to servant around the Park. Carlisle’s kitchen maid had been keeping company with Jones’s footman and had been among the first to hear.

Dominic arrived at the Fitzroy-Hammond house before luncheon, looking breathless and a little white. He was shown straight into the room where Alicia was writing letters.

As soon as she saw him, she knew something else was wrong. The joy she had expected to feel evaporated, and she was aware only of anxiety.

“What is it?”

He did not take her hands as usual. “They found the body of Godolphin Jones this morning. He was murdered.” He made no attempt to tell her gently or evade the unpleasantness. Perhaps association with Somerset Carlisle and the workhouse in Seven Dials had made such qualities ridiculous, even an offense against reality. “He was strangled to death about three or four weeks ago,” he went on, “and buried in someone else’s grave-the man who fell off the cab and you first thought was Augustus. He turned out to be someone’s butler.”

She was stunned, bemused by the rapidity of fact after fact, all new and jarringly ugly. She had never even thought of Godolphin Jones as having anything to do with the corpses. In fact, since Augustus was buried again, she had tried to dismiss the whole matter from her thoughts. Dominic was far more important, and over the last week her feelings about him had been becoming gradually less complete, tinged with an unhappiness, or perhaps an anxiety, that she had tried alternately to resolve or to put from her mind. Now she simply stared at him.

“Naturally, they’ll be looking in the Park,” he went on.

She was still confused, not understanding him.

“Why? Why should anyone in the Park kill him?”

“I don’t know why anyone at all should kill him,” he said a trifle tersely. “But since you cannot strangle yourself, even by accident, obviously someone did.”

“But why here?” she persisted.

“Because he lived here, and Augustus lived here, and Augustus’s corpse turned up here.” He sat down suddenly. “I’m sorry. It’s wretched. But I had to warn you because Pitt is bound to come. Did you know him-Godolphin Jones?” He looked up at her.

“No, not really. I met him once or twice; he was socially acquainted. He seemed pleasant enough. He painted Gwendoline, and Hester, you know. And I believe all three of the Rodneys.”

“He didn’t paint you?” he asked, frowning a little.

“No, I didn’t really care for his work. And Augustus never expressed any wish for a portrait.” She turned away a little and moved closer to the fire. She was thinking of the murder, but it seemed very impersonal. No one she knew appeared to be involved; no one was threatened by an investigation. She remembered how terrified she had been when it had been Augustus-afraid other people would suspect her, then even worse, that they would suspect Dominic. To begin with, the idea had been something outside herself, outside both of them, and she had felt they stood together facing an undeserved suspicion from those whose ignorance or malice would eventually be proved wrong.

Then the old woman had sowed seeds in her mind of doubt that the circle was really so simple. Assuredly, there was the circle that enclosed both of them in a common motive and held them apart from others; but there was also another circle that enclosed her alone, and it was a double barrier. She was ashamed and frightened by it-but the thought had crept into her mind that Dominic might have killed Augustus. The old woman had said he did, and she had not brought the whole heart, the absolute conviction to denying it that she would have wished, indeed, expected. There was a streak in him, a childlike reaching for his wants, that had allowed her to believe it possible, even if only for an instant.

How well did she know him? She turned away from the fire to look at him now. He was still as handsome, with the elegant head and shoulders, the way the hair grew on his neck, strong, neatly curved to the nape. His face was the same, the lines of his smile, But how much more was there? What did he think, behind the face? Did she know those things, and did she love them, too?

When she looked at her own face in the glass, she saw even features, fine hair. When she moved closer, in the morning light, she saw all the tiny flaws, but she also knew how to disguise them. The whole was pleasing, even beautiful. Did Dominic see any more than that? Did he see the flaws and still love her, or would they disturb him, even repel him because it was not what he had looked for, believed in?

All he knew was the careful face she presented to him; her best. And perhaps she was at fault for that. She had taken so much trouble to hide all the other facets, the weaknesses and failings, because she wanted him to love her.

Had he wondered if she had killed Augustus? Was that why he had been cooler lately and so absorbed in this bill of Carlisle’s, not sharing it with her? She could have helped! She had every bit as many connections as he, in fact, more! If he had trusted her, felt that unity she believed was love, then he would have told her how he felt, what fear or pity Seven Dials had stirred in him. He would have tried to explain the confusion, in terms not of social wrong but of his own emotions.