A Murder at Rosamund’s Gate, page 17
“Oh, no, mistress,” Lucy said, trying to smile. It still hurt her deeply to talk about Bessie. “I know Bessie was quite fond of you. I know she felt well treated and protected here.”
“Protected,” Mistress Hargrave repeated, pulling idly at a loose thread on her skirt. “Yes, that’s a funny thing to say. How protected could she have been? I should have done more. I would have helped her find a place for the babe.”
Their gazes met in the mirror. The mistress spoke again. “Yes, I knew she was with child. What I don’t know is—” She broke off. A second later she gripped Lucy’s hand. “Do you know? The child?”
Lucy shifted uncomfortably. It hurt too much for her to bear thinking about. The mistress continued. She was trembling, Lucy could see. “The father? Who sired the babe? Tongues have begun to wag, you know.”
Lucy gulped, for the mistress’s words were an unwitting dagger to her gut. “I know not the truth, mistress. Bessie never unburdened her soul to me.”
Mistress Hargrave went on, unaware of the pain she was causing. “I am the mistress of the household. It is I who is supposed to look after the good virtue and morality of my servants. In this, I have failed most abjectly. I lie awake at night. Could it have been a member of this household? Adam? Lucas?” she faltered, fidgeting with a small linen. “My … husband?”
“No, mistress!” Lucy averred. “That cannot be true. Even the most heinous gossip knows how devoted he is to you.” Tears threatening to spill, Lucy added, “The babe was begot by William, my brother, I would suppose. Everyone knows they were coupling.” Or perhaps the painter, Lucy added to herself but did not dare say.
The mistress looked contrite. “Ah, Lucy! You must think me heartless. I’m very sorry. How could I have forgotten?” The mistress rubbed a curing oil onto the fine wrinkles on her cheeks. “Do you think that is indeed what everyone believes? That it was your William, and not my son and not”—she paused—“my husband?”
“Indeed, mistress.” Lucy could barely keep the bitterness out of her voice. “’Twas Will’s passion for Bessie that seems to be setting the noose around his neck.”
As she took the combs from her mistress’s outstretched hands, Lucy’s eyes widened. The combs were black with gold and red filigree roses, obviously made by a craftsman of uncommon skill. “Oh, these combs are beautiful,” Lucy said breathlessly. “Where did you get them?”
“Oh, I can’t quite recall,” Mistress Hargrave replied. “The magistrate must have gotten them for me, during his travels. I believe they are Spanish or perhaps Flemish.”
As Lucy carefully slid the combs into her mistress’s hair, she knew she recognized them. The mistress had been wearing them in the painter’s sketches. The combs were in the same style as the lacquered hairbrush set that Bessie had kept so hidden beneath her linens. How odd, she thought. A little notion began to nip at her mind. “Mistress Hargrave, how is your portrait coming along?”
If she wondered about the flow of Lucy’s thoughts, the mistress didn’t let on. She spoke without a hint of guile. “I don’t rightly know. Bessie used to run such errands for me. Perhaps I shall send him a note by and by.” The mistress grew more decided. “Yes, I’ll write him a quick note that you could run over to him, inquiring about the status of my portrait and whether I need sit for him again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Lucy said, her mouth tight. She busied herself with fixing the mistress’s collar.
“No need to let anyone know of this little visit.” The mistress put a stray hair back in place. “I should not like the magistrate to think me vain.”
* * *
Early the next morning, Lucy slipped out of the house and made her way to Putney-on-the-Green, where Del Gado lived. The houses there were decent, mostly white with wood beams, a style that had become pervasive when Henry VIII had been king. These structures were not balanced so precariously against each other as was common in some of the more run-down parts around the city. Everyone knew that King Charles admired Del Gado, having specially commissioned him to paint his favorites at court. Most notably, the seductive and infamous Nell Gwyn, rumored to be the king’s own mistress, had been lovingly rendered on canvas. However, the painter lived in a rather scandalous way, if the stories about him were indeed true.
When Lucy got to the house, she carefully compared the number to the address on the note. Yes, number five. She moved to the rear of the house, thinking to hand the note to a footman. The mistress had not asked her to wait for a reply, but she would not mind a bit of refreshment and a chat. Maybe she could get some answers.
When her first tentative knock went unnoticed, Lucy rapped on the wooden door with more force. A moment later, a young woman answered the door, and Lucy found herself gaping at her. Usually she could place a person in an instant, servant or nobleman, tradesman or convict. Everyone she knew dressed according to their station in life, and even when their fortunes rose or fell, it was not too hard to discern the place they fit in society.
This woman, however, defied expectation. She did not have the look of a lady, for her dress was cut shockingly low and her long dark hair fell loose about her shoulders. She wore no cap. Only the apron over her skirts suggested her to be a servant. What kind of servant was she, though, to be in such disarray and brazenly regarding Lucy’s small, neat form? “What?” the woman asked, disinterested.
Lucy held out the note with a shaking hand. “This for Master Del Gado,” she said. “Could you please give it to him?”
“You can bring it to him yourself,” she said, a flounce to her skirts. “I’m no servant. ’Sides, he likes to see lasses when they come to the door. Though ’tis not likely he’d be interested in drawing the likes of you.” She smirked.
Lucy hesitated at the door. She had no doubt that Del Gado had painted this girl many times, and more besides.
“Who is it, Marie?” Del Gado’s lazy, elegant voice drifted from a partly closed door.
“Just a servant with a note for you, Enrique,” Marie said. To Lucy, she said, “This way, girl.”
Her manner haughty, Marie pushed open the door. She led Lucy into what should have been a drawing room, but this room was barely furnished and had none of the pleasing elegance of the Hargraves’ home. A fire was crackling in the hearth, to be sure, but the room was dusty and the chairs looked grimy from the smoke. A few pieces of pewter lined the shelves. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling, and a mouse hole could be seen in the corner. A few sparse candles made long shadows that danced oddly when the air moved. The whole room emitted a depressed, neglected feel.
Looking about the room, Lucy was shocked by the portrait of a nude woman occupying a place of honor above the great fireplace. She appeared to be stepping from her bath, long tresses of auburn hair partially hiding her body from view. No innocent was she, Lucy thought, for her gaze was at once knowing and intimate and mysterious. A slight cough forced her to turn away.
Del Gado was regarding her carefully, smoke arising lazily from his pipe. Marie stood behind him where he sat in his chair, her arms wrapped around his neck. Her easy clutch made it clear she was not merely Del Gado’s servant.
“Ah, my little curious kitten from the Hargraves’,” Del Gado said, tapping his pipe into a small tray. “What has brought you here to my den?”
Lucy handed him the note, which he quickly perused. “So, your mistress wants me to resume the portrait,” he mused out loud. “Alas, I’ve grown a bit weary of painting your dear mistress. She is a mite too wan for my tastes. I find it too hard to awaken that tiger!”
Marie’s arms tightened around him. With difficulty, Del Gado extricated himself from her embrace and swatted her plump bottom. “Leave us a moment, love.”
Flouncing out of the room, Marie flashed Lucy a warning. Catching the look, the painter smiled fondly. He stood up. “Yes, Marie is a tiger, too, but she has become predictable. I am weary of her. I need a new muse. Someone younger, fresher…” He took a step closer to Lucy and breathed deeply. “Sweeter.”
Transfixed by his voice, Lucy stood stock-still.
“Perhaps you, my dear, should like to pose for me? I have many things to offer a girl such as you,” Del Gado suggested.
“I do not want to pose for you,” she whispered.
As if she had not spoken, he continued. “No, I can see, no mere trifles for you, no combs or dressing boxes or gilded mirrors or perfumes. A girl like you wants something different; I can sense it.” He reached for a curly wisp that had escaped from her cap. “Perhaps you would like a small picture for your lover so he can delight in your loveliness. A token that you can bestow upon him.” Lucy flushed, and he laughed, dropping his hand. “No, I can tell you want something from me but do not wish to say. That intrigues me, my love, yes, that intrigues me. Just know that when I think of it, you’ll not refuse. I desire to know you, little one; I sense something in you, but no matter. I do not know yet where to place you, how to capture you.” Del Gado’s eyes drifted over her body knowingly. “You are still a girl, but the woman in there…” He sighed. He moved to open the door.
Knowing, even as she spoke, the pure folly she was venturing upon, Lucy seized her chance to find out what he knew. She pretended to reconsider. “I do not think my mother should like it if I posed”—she paused—“as you would have me.”
“Ah, mothers. She would never know, my sweet. I can already see you, my little Psyche, a nymph in a simple white robe, perhaps just slipping off one shoulder here, revealing—”
Lucy interrupted before he could touch her. “You say you would give me something in return? Perhaps you could just do my eye. As you did for Jane Hardewick.” Lucy held her breath.
A frown creased Del Gado’s brow. He stepped back. “You knew Jane?”
“We worked together before I came to the Hargraves,” she lied, figuring he would never know. “We were friends.”
“And she showed you the eye?” he asked. The excitement that he had just displayed was fast fading. Lucy nodded, hoping he would not press for details.
“Yes, lovely girl. Made Marie jealous, which isn’t too hard to do these days.” He licked his lips. “I had to use a special ocher to get the brown of her eye right.”
A dark shadow crossed his face. For a moment, he looked—what? Angry? Desperate? Disappointed? “Shame about the girl, though. Waste of lovely young flesh.” Del Gado looked at Lucy sharply. She merely nodded. Then he stepped back, the earlier vulnerability she had glimpsed now disappeared. “Tell your mistress I shan’t need her for any more sittings; the portrait the magistrate commissioned is finished. I’ll have it sent over shortly. And Lucy,” he added. “Remember. There’s much I can offer you—more than you can imagine.”
16
After supper had been cleared that night, Lucy brought a mug of mulled wine to Adam, taking care to leave the door wide open. A few thick law books lay about his room, various passages marked by any number of odd objects, including a feather, a rock, and a shard of wood. A sheaf of printed pamphlets was strewn across his writing desk. Placing the steaming mug on his desk, she waited nervously for him to look up.
After one last notation, his quill stopped scratching on the paper. “Thank you, Lucy.” When she did not move, he added, “Yes, Lucy? Is there something else?”
He knows what I’m going to ask, she thought. She nodded at the papers on his desk. “Is that William’s case?”
Adam grimaced slightly. “Yes. I’m afraid I haven’t much new to tell you. I’m trying to work out the questions he must put to his accusers.”
“You cannot ask the questions for him? I’m afraid he will not remember what to ask.”
“No, I wish I could. You see, the law of this realm is set up so that a man may face his accuser and be able to question him. That is all well and good, but I have seen many a time when an accused man grows flustered, or is tongue-tied, or simply forgets to pose the right questions to his accusers. I’ve often thought that barristers should be the ones to pose the questions in court, so long as the accused agrees.” He rubbed his forehead. “All I can do is try to keep him focused, so he’ll ask the right questions,” Adam said. “It’s rather tricky, you see. He must plead a certain way, so we must think through what words he should say. We must, in essence, work out his defense. It shan’t be ‘learn the neck verse’ either. Worst piece of advice a fellow can get!”
“How so?” she asked.
He explained. “One of the prison clergy taught it to him. The neck verse is the Fifty-first Psalm. It’s a common enough strategy. If the accused can memorize it and speak it to the magistrate and jury during his trial, sometimes that means the prisoner can be passed off as clergy.”
“Clergy are not harmed?”
“Sometimes they are spared. A fool’s strategy, I can tell you that!” Adam slammed down his book. “The whole case is based on hearsay! There is no definitive evidence that Will did it.”
“Because he didn’t,” Lucy said.
Adam glanced at her. “Of course. Unfortunately, Will had a motive and means—two things the law is most concerned with. Bessie was with child, probably his, and the jurors are likely to believe he did not wish to be hindered with wife and child when he’s widely let it be known that he wishes to be his own master.”
“Still, he had no need to kill her,” Lucy said. “He could just have denied her, as men usually do in situations like these.”
If Adam heard the bitterness in her voice, he did not let on. “Well, she was murdered in a fit of rage. It might be argued that Will killed her because he could see no other option. The courts might well have made him marry her, if she claimed he was the father to her babe.”
Lucy looked up at the ceiling, despairing of his logic.
“Or,” he continued, “the jurors could be convinced that Bessie was blackmailing him. And there were, of course, the stolen items. The constable might also say that Will had convinced her to make the theft and then killed her to maintain her silence.” He raised his hand to stem her protest. “We know that was not the character of either Will or Bessie. The jurors, however, do not know that. So we must create doubt in the minds of the jury. That is our only hope here.” Adam began to pace around the room, his steps on the wood floor softened by the leather slippers he wore.
Lucy watched him quietly. Does he regret his offer to help? Her lip curled. He must think the case is impossible. What hope is there for William?
Adam’s next words confirmed her fear. “We could say that he had been drinking, which is of course true,” he mused. “When he discovered her infidelity, and about the baby…”
“No!” she cried. “I won’t allow it! It’s not true!”
He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “’Tis unlikely to get him out of jail, but it should do well enough to keep him from swinging at Newgate, to be sure. That will have to do.”
Lucy wanted to slap him. This was her dear brother he was speaking of, not some common oaf out of the gutter. A life in jail was as bad as swinging. She marshaled her anger and tried to stay calm. Her tone was icy, reasonable. “What about the painter, Master Del Gado?”
“What about Del Gado, Lucy?” he asked, stacking the papers into a pile.
“He certainly knew Bessie. Indeed, he knew her intimately.”
Adam shrugged and picked up the wine. “He had no motive.”
“Yes, but he also knew Jane Hardewick!” she cried. “Quite well! What do you make of that?!”
Adam set the mug down heavily. “What do you mean? How could you possibly know that?”
“Sir, I was at Master Del Gado’s today, and I—”
The force of his glare stopped her midsentence.
“Why were you at Del Gado’s? For God’s sake, Lucy! Are you completely addled?”
Lucy flinched. “I’ll have you know that your mother, Mistress Hargrave, sent me and—”
“Of course she did.” Adam picked up his mug again and set it down without taking a sip. “No thought about sending a girl like you into a scoundrel’s den like that.”
Lucy shuddered as he unconsciously echoed Del Gado’s own words.
“By God, Lucy, it isn’t right. Anyone can see you’re a decent respectable innocent girl! Mother shouldn’t have sent you there; John should have gone to check on her precious portrait, which I imagine is the excuse she gave you! I’ve a good mind to say something to her!”
“Oh, no, sir!” Lucy cried. “Please don’t! Mistress Hargrave did not want me to tell anyone she had sent me. I mean, I wasn’t to tell the master. I mean…” She trailed off.
“All right, Lucy. I won’t say anything. But sometimes my mother—” He muttered, “I mean, look at you! A girl like you! A man like him! Your brother would never allow it!”
Thinking of her brother made her remember why she had come to his room in the first place. “Oh, yes, sir! Do you think that Master Del Gado may have had something, er, to do with Bessie’s death? I mean, he did paint her, and I know he gave her the box with the dressing brush and combs…”
“Combs?”
“Well, the combs like the ones your mother wears.” Her voice faltered; she was unsure how to put her thoughts into words. “When I was dressing your mother’s hair, I saw her combs. They were just like Bessie’s, painted, I’m sure, by the same hand. I asked her about them, and she said they were a gift from your father. Forgive me, sir, I think they may have been from Master Del Gado.” Lucy twisted her hands uncomfortably.
“Never mind about that,” Adam responded tersely. “I daresay everyone knows about mother’s, er, sessions with the painter. Everyone excepting Father, that is, but that is neither here nor there. I’m afraid I’m not following you.”
“It got me thinking. I knew Bessie and Mistress Hargrave had both posed for Master Del Gado, and I think he gave them the combs—”
“Yes, yes,” Adam interrupted. “I understand that. What does this have to do with Jane Hardewick?”
Suddenly, Lucy felt trapped, like a hen before the butcher’s knife.
He went on. “So somehow you assumed that Jane Hardewick had posed for Del Gado, too? You thought, what, that you would just ask him? Tell me, Lucy.” Adam’s voice grew hard. “Exactly how did this leap in logic come about? I’m quite eager to know.”
