Page 91 of Evidence of Evil
Maule crumpled his napkin and laid it on the table. “No,” he said firmly. “Ask him to join us here.” As the butler bowed and departed, Maule met his wife’s eyes. “There will be no more pandering to his insulting suspicions. He will meet us both, or neither of us.”
Well said,thought Solomon.
But Colonel Niall, when he entered, looked neither fierce nor outraged to find Elizabeth there. Although his bow was certainly rather stiff and his face oddly rigid.
“Forgive the informality, colonel,” Elizabeth said. “We were up late with a little excitement last night, and everything this morning is thrown back. Will you join us in a cup of tea? Some toast?”
“No, I won’t, though I thank you,” Niall said stiffly. “I just came to say my piece, and then I’ll leave you to it.” He looked Elizabeth in the eye. “I spoke this morning to Inspector Omand, who told me the truth of my daughter’s death. I hope you can forgive my quite unjustified behavior toward you. I was entirely wrong and I beg your pardon. Yours too, Maule—I must have made your life very difficult. Both your lives. I can only be grateful for your forbearance. I’m sorry.”
“You are grieving, sir,” Elizabeth said quickly. “There should be no grudges or anger between neighbors.”
“We accept your very handsome apology,” Maule said. “And you are welcome to join us.”
The colonel sat in the chair that should have been Constance’s. He accepted a cup of tea with thanks, but did not touch it, then said abruptly, “I don’t know what to do, what to say to people.”
“Don’t say anything,” Maule advised. “Just thank them for their kindness. Dr. Laing’s arrest will be a nine-day wonder. The village will gossip, of course; we can’t change that. But we’ll make sure people remember the good work Frances did, the way she made people laugh and lit up whatever room she entered.”
“Very good of you,” Niall said hoarsely. “I could never control her. She was worse after my wife died, got ridiculous ideas like wanting to be a doctor.A doctor!”
“If that had been possible,” Solomon said, “things might have been different for all of you.” He was sure Constance would think so, and he agreed with her. To ignore one’s own nature, one’s vocation, only led to unhappiness and frustration.
He could not and should not try to take Constance from hers. But perhaps he could distract her a little with one thing they had in common. She had gone, for now, but this time,hewould make the first move…
*
She had lefthim a brief note, handed to him by Mrs. Haslett after breakfast. It said that matters at her establishment in London required her attention. She asked that Elizabeth’s maids pack the rest of her bags, if he wouldn’t mind taking them back to Town for her. Her footmen would call for them next week, if that was convenient.
“Is it?” Elizabeth asked, reading over his shoulder.
“Convenient?” Solomon said vaguely. “Of course. I shall leave you in peace today. And apologize for our lack of honesty with you, Maule.”
“Humph knows that was my fault,” Elizabeth said. She tapped the note with one fingertip. “That’s a very cool note for a friend. Have you quarreled?”
“No,” Solomon said. He gave a lopsided smile. “It would be easier if we had. Merely, we don’t quite understand each other.”
“I think you understand each other well enough,” Elizabeth said shrewdly. “It’s yourselves you don’t understand.”
Solomon blinked at that stunning piece of insight and decided to put it away for later.
“Honesty,” Maule growled. “That’s what you need. And if I’ve learned anything, it’s that the past does not matter, only the present.”
He was wrong, but Solomon did not tell him so, for Maule had taken his wife’s hand, and she was smiling mistily up at him.
A mad clattering on the stairs, accompanied by shouts of laughter, warned them that the children had been freed from the schoolroom, and Maule stalked out to read them the riot act.
“Would you believe me,” Elizabeth asked Solomon, “if I told you Constance is the best person I know?”
“Yes,” he said briefly. With a bow, he left her to pack his own baggage. And Constance’s.
*
Three days later,Constance sat in her private sitting room at the front of the London establishment. She had just gone over the books for the month and was counting out the final wages due to Hildie, who had been offered the position of under-housemaid in a respectable house over toward Knightsbridge.
She was interrupted by Janey, who tended to erupt into a room rather than enter.
“Your bags have turned up, ma’am, and there’s a gent in the downstairs salon. Bloody handsome gent too, even if he sounds like a sodding reformer.”
“Who let a reformer into the house?” Constance demanded, letting the bad language go on order to address the greater crime. “Whoever did so can be rid of him again.”
