Page 32 of A Ruse of Shadows
When Inspector Treadles handed the Christmas Eve Murder to Charlotte, he had already uncovered some useful information. That Garwood Hall was empty and up for let, for one thing. And, for another, Miss Harcourt’s address.
Victor Meadows’s sister, Mrs. Harcourt, had passed away. Charlotte wrote her daughter, claimed to be an old acquaintance of Mrs. Meadows’s, and requested an audience. That was immediately following her meeting with Inspector Treadles. But even after her return from Paris, having reassured herself that Bernadine and everyone else in Mrs. Watson’s household were all right, there was no response from Miss Harcourt.
Last night, however, as soon as Charlotte had said good-bye to Lord Ingram, a telegram from Miss Harcourt landed on her doorstep.
Apologies. Was away and read your note only now. Do not know anyone’s current whereabouts but am keen to speak together. Will postpone all other engagements to await your call.
Charlotte would have happily set aside the Christmas Eve Murder for the time being. But in pretending to be Mrs. Meadows’s old friend, trying to find her again after many years, shehadmade herself sound most eager. The fictional Mrs. Beaumont would not haveturned down Miss Harcourt’s invitation, especially now that Miss Harcourt was rearranging her own schedule.
Her reaction surprised Charlotte—she had expected at best a polite tolerance, not this avid interest to meet a murdered uncle’s wife’s forgotten friend.
She weighed the matter, entrusted the ongoing search for Mr. Underwood’s boxing connections entirely to Mrs. Watson and Lawson, and set out by rail early in the morning.
Miss Harcourt lived in Oxfordshire, at the edge of the Cotswolds. Unlike the modern mishmash that was Garwood Hall, Trilby Park had been built in the heyday of neoclassicism, with an exterior that was severely symmetrical, almost humorless.
Miss Harcourt’s carriage had picked up Charlotte from the railway station. Miss Harcourt herself was waiting by the wide granite steps at the front of the manor as the vehicle rolled to a stop.
She pumped Charlotte’s hand with both of her own. “Oh, Mrs. Beaumont, I’m so glad you’re here. Do please come in!”
Her Wedgwood blue drawing room felt comfortably worn. Not threadbare or ill maintained, simply a little faded with the passage of time.
Miss Harcourt, if one judged her by appearance alone, was also slightly faded. At thirty years of age, she had faint lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes, and a few grey strands in her light brown hair. But she walked fast—she’d bounced up the steps—gesticulated expansively, and peppered Charlotte with questions about Mrs. Beaumont’s life, her curiosity benign and lively.
If anything, Miss Harcourt had understated her keenness to speak to Mrs. Meadows’s long-lost friend.
After a cup of tea, Charlotte ventured to ask, pointing at the garden outside the windows, whether they could chat while taking a stroll outside. “I’ve been on a great many railway journeys of late and am growing terribly stiff. Given that I must still return to London by rail today…”
When she was younger, whole days on end of sitting—or lying ona chaise—exacted no toll at all. Now if her bottom remained glued to chairs for such Homeric durations her back protested. And Mrs. Watson, always one to encourage movement, had warned her that the stiffness would only worsen with age.
“Oh, absolutely.” Miss Harcourt immediately led the way. “I prefer the outdoors. In fact, as a part of my grand tour, I plan to stay awhile in Southern California. I’ve heard that it has marvelously agreeable weather and one can be outside most of the year without being too cold, too hot, or too drenched.”
As it turned out, Miss Harcourt was days away from beginning that globe-spanning voyage, the first leg of which would see her visit Madeira, the Canary Islands, and the Azores.
Charlotte had met her share of heiresses. Often they carried an unhappy tension within: They were raised to believe in the superiority of their bloodlines—a massive fortune must be a sign of God’s favor—only to be regarded as lowly upstarts when they were thrust into the thick of Society. And for all the wealth they would inherit, they often had little say in the most pivotal decisions of their young lives.
But Miss Harcourt had endured no ambitious parents forcing her to marry a resentful peer. She’d never even partaken in a London Season. Instead, she’d invested in an education for herself and then cared for her mother.
“In the final months of my mother’s life, we spoke quite a bit of my aunt Meadows,” she said. “In fact, that’s part of the reason I’m going on this rather intimidating voyage. Cousin Miriam—that’s what I called Aunt Meadows’s sister—she once said that someday they were going to see the whole world. I would dearly love for them to be doing just that right now—and for me to run into them along the way.”
They were walking between two tall hedges—the garden boasted a hedge maze. And the wistfulness in Miss Harcourt’s voice made Charlotte wonder whether her dealings with Mrs. Meadows hadn’t been somewhat one-sided.
“All I know is that Mrs. Meadows stayed in Manchester for a year or two after she was widowed. She left no forwarding address?”
“No.” Instead of tassels, the edge of Miss Harcourt’s parasol had been trimmed with strings of clear glass beads. She raised a hand and filliped one such string. “Nor had she breathed a word to us beforehand.”
Aha, so the Harcourt ladies had indeed been the more fervent ones in their friendship with Mrs. Meadows.
Charlotte told Miss Harcourt the story of how her younger self, lonely and homesick in Australia, had exchanged letters with a young Angelica Tipton for two years. “My letters spilled on for pages and pages, but hers were always short and to the point.”
That regular correspondence ended abruptly.
“I found out later it was around the time of her wedding that Angelica stopped writing. My mother cautioned me against reading anything sinister into it, but I was never able to feel completely at ease about her marriage. She was only sixteen, and it followed so closely on the heel of her parents’ bankruptcy and deaths.”
The path turned. They had reached the center of the maze. In the small clearing, a stone nymph danced in a fountain, water pouring from the vase she held aloft.
“Even my mother didn’t know much about the state of her marriage—she wasn’t close to her brothers,” said Miss Harcourt. “But my aunt Meadows was thought of as a dutiful wife who managed her household well and rendered onto her husband all due deference. And we never heard about my uncle Victor not treating her well or anything of the sort.”
She looked contemplative. “He was eighteen years her senior. But age difference aside, theirs was a domestic arrangement that attracted little attention. And knowing Aunt Meadows, it feels…deliberate. There was always something unknowable about her, do you not think, Mrs. Beaumont?”
