After Martha's arrest, Julian collected his five hundred pounds and vanished from London for a fortnight. He wanted to avoid inquisitive acquaintances and journalists; besides, disappearing just when you were most in demand helped keep society in thrall. As Tibbs had said, an audience, like a lover, ought never to be left quite sated. From the seclusion of a cottage in Hampton Court, he followed the aftermath of the investigation through newspaper accounts and letters from Sir Malcolm, who was one of the few people who knew where he was.
True to his resolve, Sir Malcolm unflinchingly made public Alexander's imprisonment of Marianne and murder of Fanny. The solution to the Brickfield Murder all but eclipsed the news of Martha's guilt. Alexander made a far more romantic villain than Martha, and every organ of the press from society journals to ha'penny broadsheets resounded with his crimes.
Sir Malcolm's candour about his son's misdeeds stopped short of revealing anything that would shame or incriminate Mrs. Falkland. The whole story of her encounter with Adams at Mrs. Desmond's was suppressed, and the public was left in the dark about who had tampered with her saddle. Sir Malcolm's chief concern was to silence Marianne, who knew just enough about Mrs. Falkland and Adams to be dangerous. He struck a bargain with her: she would be paid a quarterly allowance on condition of her leaving England and revealing nothing about Alexander's plot against his wife. For the time being, she remained in London to testify against Ridley, who had been charged with false imprisonment and other crimes. There was a wave of protest about conditions in private madhouses; Sir Henry Effingham was to head a parliamentary committee about it.
In one of his letters to Sir Malcolm, Julian asked after Quentin Clare. Sir Malcolm reported briefly that Mr. Clare's health had broken down, and he had gone abroad to try to restore it. Julian drew his own conclusions.
When he returned to London at the end of May, he found a myriad of letters and invitations awaiting him. Among them was a card from David Adams, with a message written on the back:
"Will you give me leave to call on you? I ask nothing but a chance to talk to you. In God's name, please."
Julian tapped the card against his hand. Finally he wrote a terse note stating that he would be at home tomorrow evening after nine o'clock.
*
"Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Kestrel."
"You have nothing to thank me for, Mr. Adams. I feel a responsibility to the investigation to find out what you have to say. But for that, I wouldn't have received you."
"You know, then. About Mrs. Falkland and the thirty thousand pounds. She's told you?"
"She went through that humiliation, yes."
Adams passed a hand briefly across his eyes. He looked haggard—undramatically so, as if strain and lack of sleep had become a way of life for him. "I wondered. The newspaper accounts say nothing about it."
"You needn't be concerned. Everyone close to Mrs. Falkland knows the price she would pay for denouncing you. Her honour and peace of mind are more important than bringing you to justice."
"My God, is that why you think I came?"
"I have no idea why you came, Mr. Adams."
Adams's lips twisted into the old, ironic smile. "I suppose for the same reason I got myself invited to Falkland's party. The same reason I wrote Mrs. Falkland that letter warning her against her maid. The same reason I came to you after her accident and told you I'd seen her maid—or, the woman I thought was her maid—at Mrs. Desmond's. Because I was frantic with worry about her. Because I wanted to help her, protect her. Don't think I don't know how grotesque that sounds! I'm like a man who sets a house on fire, then rushes in to rescue the occupants after it's too late for them to be saved."
"What do you hope to do for her now?"
"This accident of hers—no one seems to know who was behind it. You can't mean to let it drop? If she's in danger—"
"She isn't in danger. We know who caused the accident, but we've dealt with it privately, to spare her any scandal."
"Who was it?"
"I can't tell you that."
"For God's sake, the child she lost might have been mine—"
"You have no rights in the matter, Mr. Adams. None at all."
There was a pause.
"How is she?" Adams asked quietly.
"Shattered. She'll rally, I imagine. She's very strong. She'll rebuild her life with whatever she has to hand. Between you, you and Alexander haven't left her very much."
"Kestrel, I didn't want to do it. I didn't mean to hurt her. I meant to hurt him. I loved her—almost from the moment I met her. I saw that she was as far above him as Heaven is above earth. I knew him: his greed, his vanity, his unholy craving for excitement. I knew that society's darling was a venal, vicious, diabolical child. But I stuck to him—not only because he was useful to me in business, but because I hoped he would ruin himself in the end, and I wanted to be there. And because of
her
—because I lived on the sight of her. It was hopeless. Even if she hadn't been married, her family and friends would never have let her throw herself away upon a Jew. But I couldn't root out my love. It lived upon nothing. It thrived in the face of all my mockery and her indifference.
"When I bought up Falkland's notes-of-hand, I didn't think to use them to get at her. I just wanted to have him in my power—make him beg me for more time, more lenient terms. Sure enough, he came to me, all charm and cajolery, wanting me to treat him like an erring schoolboy, instead of a grown man who'd all but beggared his family. It wasn't enough. I wanted to draw blood. I could pitch him into Queer Street—have the bailiffs into his house, make him sell off his precious toys and trinkets. But then I'd be branded the villain—the rapacious Jew fleecing a friend. No: what I wanted was to make him agree to the vilest terms I could think of—to prove there were no depths he wouldn't sink to, for the sake of his wealth and his vanity.
"I told him I wouldn't compound with him for the amount of the notes, but I might give them up to him, depending on what he would give me in return. I said I didn't care a twopenny damn about his paintings or his furniture or anything else in his showpiece of a house. He had only one thing I counted of any value: his wife.
"
What can you mean?
he said, opening up his eyes. I said, Why should you be shocked? I thought arrangements like that were common enough in the
beau monde.
I wanted him to resist, recoil—I wanted to see him squirm. No such thing. He approached the idea with a cool, easy, business-like logic that took my breath away. I'd meant to hold up a mirror to him, show what a contemptible thing he was, then make some arrangement about his notes and send him packing. But even now, he wasn't humiliated or abashed. He was merely showing his natural colours, and had no shame about them at all. I couldn't retreat while he was still triumphant. And suddenly I was tempted. To be alone with her, to declare my feelings—! Not to purchase her like a prostitute, as Falkland believed I meant to do, but to approach her free of barriers and distractions. Who knew—I might be able to make her love me. I had plenty of money. We could go away together and live somewhere out of England. Falkland was a fiend, he cared nothing for her. I would be doing her a favour, taking her from a man like that.
"You're probably thinking, was I mad? Did I know her so little as to think she'd fling away her honour, her home and family, for me, who meant no more to her than her servants—far less than her horse? I can only tell you, love like mine sends a man silly, blinds his eyes with moonbeams, drives numbing spikes through his brain. I was so crazed that, when Falkland concocted his plan to lure her to that woman's house, I agreed—even though I must have known that a woman of her pride and courage would never yield to a man who tricked and trapped her in order to plead his cause.
"Suffice to say, she scorned me as I ought to have known she would. She hurt me the way that ice, when it's cold enough, tears the skin from your hands. What I did—it wasn't because I thought I could win or conquer her that way. I did it out of despair. I don't expect you to understand."
"But you hope I will," said Julian quietly. "Or why should you tell me all this?"
Adams stared, wary and a little ashamed. "I'm not asking for your sympathy."
"No. I give you credit for that."
"Then you do understand, a little?"
"No. But I think Mrs. Falkland does."
"What makes you say so?" Adams caught his breath.
"The way she spoke of you." He paused, deciding how much it would be fair to her to repeat. "If I were to distill all she said into a few words, I would say that she doesn't wish to see you again, but she forgives you."
Adams drew a long, slow breath. "She forgives me." Then, with an emptiness that was part relief and part desolation: "It's finished."
"Yes. If you really wish to do something for her, you'll let her go."
"Oh, I'm a very bad hand at letting things go!" Adams laughed bitterly. "But you're right. You've helped me to my senses. I have duties; I'm an only son. I ought to marry some demure Rebecca or Rachel and continue the family line." He took up his hat and cloak. "Thank you, Mr. Kestrel. You've been very patient, listening to all this. Will you take a piece of advice, as the only return I can make?"
"What is it?"
"Buy railway shares. Someday these passenger railways are going to amount to something." He smiled his mocking smile and went out.
Julian looked after him for a time. He saw now why Mrs. Falkland could speak so understandingly of him, in spite of what he had done to her. They were two of a kind: proud, fierce, independent—cruel to others when duty demanded it, but cruelest of all to themselves.
It was a great love squandered—stillborn, like their child. They might have leaped mere social obstacles, but not the chasm that parted them now. They would never find their way back to each other. Not this side of Heaven.
32: Beginnings
Martha pled guilty to Alexander's murder, much to the disappointment of the public, which had hoped for a sensational trial. The judge was somewhat at a loss how to sentence her. In the end, he condemned her to lifelong transportation to the penal colony at Botany Bay, Australia. Julian heard from Sir Malcolm that Mrs. Falkland had wanted to bid her goodbye, but Martha had refused to see her. It would not be seemly, she said, for Mrs. Falkland to show any sympathy for the murderer of her husband.
Soon after, Mrs. Falkland wrote to Julian and asked him to call on her. He complied. He found her largely recovered in health, though thin, and strangely softer of feature, as if the decisive lines of a chalk drawing had been gently smudged. But what struck him most about her was her tentativeness: the uncertainty of a newborn creature finding its feet in the world. So many of her old assumptions and supports had been overthrown. He thought she had never looked less beautiful, or more appealing.
After they had exchanged greetings and courtesies, she said, "I wanted to ask you what I ought to do about Eugene. He admires you tremendously, and you seem to understand him better than anyone else. Should I engage a tutor for him, find another school—"
"Take him abroad," said Julian, without hesitation. "Expose him to music, art, fine cookery, elegant conversation. Don't take him among the bored and superior English expatriates—mingle directly with cultured, distinguished foreigners. He'll feel awkward, but he'll have an excuse, not knowing the language or customs. In time he'll acquire polish, confidence—affectations, probably, but a little gentle ridicule will cure him of that. I should be glad to provide you with a few introductions, if they would be any use."
"That's kind of you. But—do you think a tour abroad might be a dangerous influence on him?
"In what way?"
She dropped her gaze and said in a low voice, "Alexander travelled on the Continent when he wasn't much older than Eugene."
"Alexander did a great many things," he pointed out gently. "I don't think you can afford to live your life avoiding everything he touched. You needn't fear for Eugene. He's very promising material. And he has you. He can't fail to set an honourable course, with such a star to steer by."
"Thank you. You've been very good." She gave him her hand. "I want you to know—I don't blame you for anything. You did your duty. You helped Papa find out the truth, and I see now that he needed that more than he needed to believe in Alexander." She lifted her head resolutely. "I
will
take Eugene abroad. I can make it safe for him."
No, thought Julian, he'll make it safe for you. You'll take him to Paris, Venice, Rome, and he'll look at it all with wonder and delight and make you see it through his eyes. For his sake, you'll have to come out of your grief, entertain, make new acquaintances. There may even be a man who can make you see that there's still beauty in the world, and your life can't possibly be over at twenty—
If he ran on in this vein much longer, he would apply for the position himself. He bowed over her hand and took his leave. At the door he looked back for a moment. She was gazing into the distance, a little flushed, as if she could already feel the salt winds of the Channel on her face.
*
Spring gave way to summer. London's whirl of balls, dinner parties, concerts, operas, and plays reached its height, then tapered off. In late July, the fashionable carriages began rolling out of London, bearing landowners away to country estates, young men to shooting lodges, and fair Cyprians to scout for new protectors in watering places and sea resorts. The courts shut down for their Long Vacation; trade languished in the Burlington Arcade and Savile Row. Humbler shopmen and their apprentices settled down to endure the heat and dust and the stench of sewage rising from the Thames.
Julian was strolling in Bond Street one afternoon when a coach drew up beside him and a voice exclaimed, "Why, Mr. Kestrel! How do you come to be lingering in this blighted landscape?"