Page 61 of Murder at the Dinner Party
“That’s just her way.”
“She still prefers Rupert over you, even after all this time and what he did. You’ll never be good enough in her eyes.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but a thin voice from the doorway stopped him.
“It is true.” The dowager looked feeble standing there, leaning heavily on her walking stick, her stooped back making her look even smaller. But there was nothing feeble in the way she addressed me. It was blunt and bold. “You want to know what happened, Miss Fox? Then I will tell you.”
CHAPTER12
Lord Whitchurch left his wife’s side to assist his mother into the dining room. The dowager’s pace was slow, her steps unsteady as she relied on her walking stick, yet she waved her son away.
“Stop fussing, Arthur. It’s tiresome.”
Lord Whitchurch self-consciously fidgeted with his cufflinks as he watched her settle on a chair. “I think it’s best to say nothing to Miss Fox, Mother.”
“Don’t tell me what to say in my own house!”
Lady Whitchurch appealed to her husband, but when he remained silent, she dared to speak, albeit softly. “It’s Arthur’s house.”
The dowager turned her icy glare on her daughter-in-law. “You do have a voice, I see. If only you’d found it twenty-two years ago, this would all have turned out differently.”
Lady Whitchurch gasped, then lowered her head.
Lord Whitchurch stepped forward. “None of this is her fault.”
“Isn’t it?” his mother bit off. “If she’d been more interesting, Rupert’s head would never have been turned by that foolish girl.”
“Charlotte?” I said, more to cut off Lord and Lady’s Whitchurch’s gasps and protests than any uncertainty on my part.
The dowager’s hand rubbed the top of her walking stick. She wore no gloves. They wouldn’t have fit over her swollen knuckles and gnarled fingers. “Rupert had an abundance of energy. As a boy, he wanted to be outside riding, rowing, running…every athletic activity he tried, he excelled at. He was intelligent, too. He graduated from Oxford with first-class honors. He was handsome, and could be charming when he wanted to be. Naturally, girls adored him. He could have his pick.” She sighed. “When a gentleman has so many virtues, he has a wider choice and it can be difficult for a young man to be discerning. So we chose a bride for him.” Her gaze turned cool again as it shifted to her daughter-in-law.
Lady Whitchurch’s head lowered further. She sniffed.
“Their marriage was set to take place in the autumn of ’78, but it all began to unravel in the summer. Rupert wasn’t interested in his fiancée. You can see how plain she is, Miss Fox.”
“Mother,” Lord Whitchurch chided as he gently patted his wife’s shoulder.
The dowager ignored him. She continued to address Harry and me. “She was always better suited to Arthur. A plain, dull girl for a plain, dull man.”
“Mother!” He did not go on. He didn’t defend his wife or himself, or their love for one another. He didn’t chastise his mother for her cruel words or throw accusations back at her. His half-hearted protest was that of a man who’d been made to feel inferior to his older brother for decades, even after his disappearance. In a way, it may have been better for Arthur if Rupert had stayed and inherited the title. In time, his excesses and arrogance would probably have led to his own ruination. Perhaps then their mother would have appreciated her steady younger son more.
She stamped her walking stick on the floor again, making Lady Whitchurch jump. “You see me as the dragon in this story, but everything I did, I did for the good of this family.”
Lord and Lady Whitchurch both looked away, unable to meet the dowager’s piercing, accusatory gaze. I suspected they knew what she was about to say next.
I also suspected I knew where they’d learned of her involvement. “Mr. Hardy told you the dowager was responsible for Charlotte’s murder, didn’t he, my lord?”
“I wasnotresponsible,” the dowager snapped. “You silly girl. You have it quite wrong.”
I continued to press her son. “That’s what you and Hardy talked about in the Coach and Horses, and again in the courtyard of the Campbells’ house. He accused your mother, and you became cross and angry with him.”
“First of all,” Lord Whitchurch began, “I did not have an argument with Hardy in the courtyard. But you are correct about most of the rest, except that Mother didn’t murder Charlotte.”
The dowager gave me a challenging look, daring me to prove her guilty. I didn’t rise to the challenge. I didn’t have to. Lord Whitchurch seemed keen to talk. All I had to do was prompt him.
“You’d better start at the beginning. When you recognized Hardy at dinner.”
“There’s not a lot to tell. My wife and I recognized Harding, our former groom, and he recognized us. It was a shock. I knew he’d disappeared the night of Charlotte’s murder, of course, and I suspected he had something to do with Rupert’s disappearance, but then I forgot all about him until I saw him at dinner. At the end of the evening, I asked Sir Ian about him. He said they’d gotten him from an agency. He was inexpensive on account of his limp, and the Campbells are struggling financially. Hardy’s references were all aboveboard. He used to work as a butler at some country manor or other and as a footman before that. Sir Ian didn’t know he’d once worked for us. He didn’t even know he’d been a groom. His references hadn’t gone back that far.”
