The Frost Fair Part 37

'He did not stay long enough for me to find out, Mr Redmayne. Good news?'

'The very best, Jacob,' said Christopher. "The very best.'

Jonathan Bale waited until the children had been put to bed before he left the house. His wife gave him a parting kiss on the doorstep. She looked at the shipwright's garb that he was still wearing.

"This is just like old times,' she said.

'Not exactly,' he replied. 'I won't come back with the smell of pitch on me tonight, or with the sound of mallets still ringing in my ears.'

'As long as you return safely, that's all I ask.'

'I will, Sarah. Do not fear on my account.'

He set off on the long walk to the Hope and Anchor, wishing that the wind was not quite so bl.u.s.tery nor the sky so black. There was plenty to occupy his mind. Now that he had come round to the view that Henry Redmayne was, after all, innocent of the crime, he had to find another culprit. The former Captain Harvest was a possible suspect but he schooled himself not to rush to judgement. While the man was clearly guilty of a number of offences, there was no direct proof that murder was one of them.

When he reached the tavern, he popped his head inside but the man he was after was still not there. Jonathan adjourned to the tenement and spoke to the landlord, only to be told that Hannah Liggett had not been seen all day. Undeterred, he took up the vantage point that he has used on the previous evening and resigned himself to a long wait. In fact, his stay lasted less than an hour. He was still crouched in his hiding place when he felt a hard object strike him on the shoulder. It was a small stone and it was soon followed by another missile. Jonathan dodged behind the angle of a building for protection.

There was no need for evasive action. His unseen a.s.sailant was already riding away on his horse. Jonathan recognised the mocking laugh of the man who had called himself Captain Harvest. He had obviously been warned about the constable. The vigil was decisively over.

Any hopes that Mrs Cardinal had of being invited to join them soon faded. When the coach arrived next morning at the house in the Strand, she insisted on coming out with Susan Cheever so that she could exchange pleasantries with Lady Holcroft. Wearing her cloak and hat, Mrs Cardinal was ready for an outing.

'May I ask where the two of you are going, Lady Holcroft?' she said as Susan clambered into the coach. 'I'm intrigued to find out.'

'I offered to take Miss Cheever for a ride around the city.'

'But you hardly spoke to her yesterday.'

'Precisely,' said Lady Holcroft. 'That's why I wanted to spend time with her today. Goodbye, Mrs Cardinal.'

'You make me feel very envious.'

'I envy you that visit to the shops, Mrs Cardinal,' said Susan sweetly. 'Goodbye.'

To the old woman's disgust, the whip cracked and the horses pulled the coach away from the house. She stamped back into the house to complain to her son. The two younger ladies, meanwhile, were driven along the Strand and into the much narrower confines of King Street. Though she had written the letter to Christopher, Susan had not been in a position to deliver it so Lady Holcroft had sent one of her footmen to Fetter Lane. She had stressed that the meeting should take place elsewhere. Accordingly, Susan had suggested the family house in Westminster.

Lady Holcroft said nothing on the journey and Susan did not try to draw her into conversation. As they pulled up outside the house, however, Lady Holcroft flipped back her hood to look up at it with interest.

"This is your home, Miss Cheever?' she asked.

'When my father is in London.'

'It's a beautiful house.'

Susan swelled with pride. 'Mr Redmayne designed it for us.'

When they went inside, Christopher was already waiting for them in the parlour. Susan could see from his eyes how grateful he was to her. She introduced them then swiftly withdrew to leave the pair alone. Lady Holcroft did not remove her cloak. She perched on the edge of a chair and waited. Christopher took a seat opposite.

'Thank you so much for agreeing to see me, Lady Holcroft,' he said. 'I know how embarra.s.sing this must be for you but it could be such a help to my brother.'

'How is Henry?'

'As well as can be expected.'

Christopher was conscious of being weighed up. He could see that it would be fruitless to tell her about the attempt on his brother's life or about the privations he was suffering. Lady Holcroft was patently uneasy about her connection with Henry and with Jeronimo Maldini. She wanted her stay at the house to be as brief and painless as possible. Though her face was pinched and her eyes filled with suspicion, she was still beautiful and Christopher was bound to wonder what had attracted her to his brother.

'Miss Cheever a.s.sures me that you are very discreet,' she said.

'I am, Lady Holcroft.'

'There's no need to explain the delicacy of my position. I could see from your letter that you understood it very well. It's the only reason that brought me here.'

'I see.'

'I did know your brother,' she confessed. 'His work at the Navy Office brought him into contact with Sir Ralph and that was how we became acquainted. I allowed his admiration to me to develop to a degree that was perhaps unwise. But it went no further than that,' she said quietly, 'and I wish to make that clear. Whatever Henry has told you, we did not - and could not - ever go beyond the bounds of simple friendship even though that friendship gave me, at the time, much joy.'

'It was so with my brother, Lady Holcroft.'

'I did not mean to hurt his feelings, Mr Redmayne.'

'He attaches no blame to you,' said Christopher. 'He looked elsewhere to do that.'

"Then he was mistaken in doing so.'

'Oh?'

'Our friendship had rim its course,' she said with a faint hint of irritation. 'The pleasure was waning, the risks seemed too great to take any more. When I explained this to Henry, he accepted it like a gentleman. That should have been an end to it. But,' she continued, pursing her lips, 'someone else came along soon afterwards and, for a number of reasons, that person aroused my curiosity.'

'May I ask how you met him, Lady Holcroft?'

'He was at Court one afternoon. His brother was one of the musicians there and he had been invited along to hear him. We met by chance,' she said, looking away, 'and that's all I'm prepared to tell you about it. Henry, I know, took a different view of it all.'

'He felt that he had been dispossessed.'

She flashed her eyes at him. 'He never possessed me, Mr Redmayne,' she said with controlled anger. 'He had no claim whatsoever upon me. I told him that a dozen times. He was nursing an illusion.'

'Henry is rather p.r.o.ne to do that,' admitted Christopher. 'But illusions can exert a tremendous power. In my brother's case, it provoked an extreme hatred. Not of you, Lady Holcroft - that would be unthinkable - but of the other person we are talking about.'

'Go on.'

'It made the two of them sworn enemies. They were rivals for your affection.'

'No!' she said sharply. 'What kind of person do you take me to be? I do not play one man off against another like that. Henry was never more than a friend and he ceased to be that. It was weeks before...' She broke off and took a deep breath. "This is very painful for me, Mr Redmayne. I hoped that these chapters in my life were closed. I'm afraid there's little I can add that may be of help to you.'

'Answer me this,' he said. 'Do you believe that my brother is guilty of murder?'

'I'd not be here if I believed that.'

"Thank you, Lady Holcroft. That means so much to me.'

'Henry would never hurt me deliberately,' she said, 'and I was deeply upset by that particular death. Even though my friendship with that gentleman had come to an end, I was stricken by the news. And I was even more distressed when your brother was arrested for the crime. He'd not do such a thing to me.' She lifted her chin with patrician pride. 'He'd not dare!'

Christopher began rearranging questions in his mind. Lady Holcroft was not at all the helpless victim of an Italian lover that he had been led to expect. Nor did she requite his brother's love in the manner that Henry had implied. There was a hard edge to her. She would divulge nothing that would be of use to him unless she was sure that it did not compromise her. Yet he saw a potential weakness. She had something of a temper. If he could play on that, he might find out what he wanted to know.

'Henry could not bear the way that his rival treated you, Lady Holcroft.'

'They were not rivals,' she retorted. 'Not in the sense that you mean.'

"They were, in Henry's imagination.'

"That was always far too lively, Mr Redmayne. It was one of the things that persuaded me that our friendship had to end. Your brother, alas, began to make certain a.s.sumptions.'

'About what?'

She was curt. 'That's a private matter and, in any case, no longer relevant.'

'It is to Henry. He still reveres you.'

'I've not encouraged him to do that.'

'But it explains why he was deeply upset when you were cast aside.'

'I beg your pardon!' she said with indignation.

'Henry claimed that the other gentleman took advantage of you.'

'He did nothing of the kind, sir.' Cheeks blushing, she jumped to her feet. 'I regard that as a cruel insult.'

'It was not intended to be, Lady Holcroft.'

'Neither you nor your brother know anything about that particular friendship.'

'But the gentleman did bring that friendship to a sudden end, did he not?'

'No, Mr Redmayne,' she snapped, wrestling to contain her fury. 'I did that. No man would ever cast me aside. I dispense with them.' She moved to the door. 'Good day to you, sir. I can see that I made a grave error in coming here.'

"The error was entirely of my brother's making,' he said, rushing to intercept her. 'Henry is the victim of a misunderstanding. He felt sorry for you because he thought that you were abandoned when the other gentleman tired of you.'

'It was I who tired of him and his infernal questions.'

'Questions?'

'You are standing in my way, Mr Redmayne.'

'What sort of questions did he ask?'

"The wrong ones, sir,' she said coldly. 'And you have done the same.'

Christopher stood aside. 'Thank you for coming, Lady Holcroft. I appreciate it.'

Without a word, she swept past him into the hall and out through the front door. A moment later, he heard the coach pulling away from the house. Susan came into the parlour with a look of consternation.

'Lady Holcroft has just left without me,' she said.

'That was my fault,' admitted Christopher. He gave her a warm smile. 'I suppose that I'll have to take responsibility for getting you back to your friends.'

Susan relaxed visibly. 'There's no hurry,' she said.

A cold night in Newgate had left its imprint on Pietro Maldini. On the advice of Jonathan Bale, the Italian had been locked in a cell with fifteen other prisoners, sharing their stink, deafened by their noise and recoiling from their abuse. They mocked his accent, they reviled his nation and more than one of them felt obliged to punch or jostle him. He was already in pain. The blood had been cleansed from his face but nothing could be done about the broken nose and it throbbed unmercifully. After a sleepless night, Maldini was hollow- eyed and frightened. The fierce rage that had brought him to Newgate in the first place had been drained out of him.

Jonathan had him moved to a small private room so that he could talk to him in relative comfort. Maldini was pathetically grateful even though the constable had been the person who stopped him from achieving his objective. Stripped down to shirt and breeches, he cut a forlorn figure, the once handsome face disfigured by the broken nose, the neat black beard caked with wisps of straw. They sat either side of a bare wooden table. Jonathan explained who he was and why he had come. Maldini was in a daze. His command of English was good, his accent quite p.r.o.nounced.

'What will happen to me?' he asked.

'You'll have to stand trial on a charge of attempted murder, sir,' said Jonathan. 'You tried to kill Mr Redmayne and we believe that you made two attempts to kill his brother as well.'

'I had to do it. That man, he stabbed Jeronimo in the back. I want revenge.'

'People are not allowed to take the law into their own hands in this country. In any case, you attacked the wrong people. There's growing evidence to suggest that Henry Redmayne is not guilty of the murder and his brother, of course, was not involved in any way. You might have killed two completely innocent men.'

'No,' denied the other. 'Henry Redmayne, he stabbed my brother. Everyone say so. Jeronimo's friend, he told me it was true.'

'His friend?'

'Captain Harvest.'

'Ah,' said Jonathan. 'I had a feeling that he might be involved somehow.'

Speaking slowly, he told the prisoner how the soldier had been exposed as an impostor and how he was liable for arrest on a number of charges. Maldini listened with increasing discomfort. When he heard that the man was under suspicion for the murder as well, he was confused.

'No,' he said, 'this cannot be. The captain, he was Jeronimo's friend.'

'I know that he worked at the fencing school with your brother.'

'It was more than that. Jeronimo, he told me this man was a great help to him.'

'In what way, sir?'

'He did not say. My brother and me, we did not speak often. Our lives, they were very different. But I still loved him,' he a.s.serted. 'When I hear of his death, I have to get revenge. It's - what do you call it - a matter of honour?'

'I see no honour at all in trying to throttle a man to death,' said Jonathan harshly, 'especially as he may well turn out to have nothing to do with this crime.'

'But he did. He was there. He had an argument with Jeronimo.'

'So did one or two other people, by the sound of it.'

'I still think Henry Redmayne, he is the man. That's why I went in search of his brother. He stabbed my brother, I wanted to kill his.'

'How did you know where to find Christopher Redmayne?'