Whitechapel Conspiracy

“Thank you,” Vespasia said with a dazzling smile. “How generous of you.” She glanced up and down Lady Weston’s unimaginative blue dress with total dismissal. “Such a wonderful gift.”

“I beg your pardon?” Lady Weston was confused.

“The modesty to admire others,” Vespasia explained, then, with another smile, flicked her skirt and left Lady Weston furious, knowing she had been bested and only now realizing how.

Vespasia passed the newspaper proprietor Thorold Dismore, whose keen face was sharp with heightened emotion. He was talking with Sissons, the sugar manufacturer. This time Sissons too seemed to be driven by some vigor and enthusiasm. He was barely recognizable as the same man who had been such a thundering bore with the Prince of Wales.

Vespasia watched for a moment with interest at the change in him, wondering what they could be discussing which could so engage them both. Dismore was passionate, eccentric, a crusader for causes in spite of being born to wealth and position. He was a brilliant speaker, a wit at times, if not on the subject of political reform.

Sissons was self-made and had seemed leaden of intellect, socially inept when faced with royalty. Perhaps he was one of those who simply freeze when in the presence of one in direct line to the throne. With some people it was genius which paralyzed them, with some beauty, with a few it was rank.

Still, she was curious to know what they held in common that so engrossed them.

She was never to know. She found herself face-to-face with Charles Voisey, whose eyes were narrowed against the sun. She could not read the emotion in his face. She had no idea whether he liked or disliked her, admired or despised her, or even dismissed her from his thoughts the moment she was out of sight. It was not a feeling she found comfortable.

“Good afternoon, Lady Vespasia,” he said politely. “A beautiful garden.” He looked around them at the profusion of color and shape, the dark, trimmed hedges, the herbaceous borders, the smooth lawn and a stand of luminous purple irises in bloom with the light through their curved petals. It was lazy in the warmth, dizzy with perfume. “So very English,” he added.

So it was. And even as they stood there she remembered the heat of Rome, the dark cypresses, the sound of falling water from the fountains, like music in stone. During the days her eyes had been narrowed against the lush sun, but in the evening the light was soft, ocher and rose, bathing everything in a beauty that healed over the scars of violence and neglect.

But that was to do with Mario Corena, not this man in front of her. It was a different battle, different ideals. Now she must think of Pitt and the monstrous conspiracy of which he was one of the victims.

“Indeed,” she replied with equally distant courtesy. “There is something particularly rich about these few weeks of high summer. Perhaps because they are so brief and so uncertain. Tomorrow it may rain.”

His eyes wandered very slightly. “You sound very reflective, Lady Vespasia, and a trifle sad.” It was not quite a question.

She looked at his face in the unforgiving sunlight. It found every flaw, every trace left by passion, temper, or pain. How much had it hurt him that Adinett had hanged? She had heard a raw note of rage when he had spoken at the reception, before the appeal. And yet he had been one of the judges who had been of the majority opinion, for conviction. But since it had been four to one, had he voted against, it would have betrayed his loyalty without altering the outcome. That must have galled him to the soul!

Was he driven by personal friendship or political passion? Or simply a belief in John Adinett’s innocence? The prosecution had never been able even to suggest a motive for murder, let alone prove one.

“Of course,” she replied noncommittally. “Part of the nature of one’s joy in summer’s fleeting beauty is the knowledge that it will pass too soon, and the certainty that it will come again, even if we will not all see it.”

He was watching her intently now, all pretense of casual politeness gone. “We do not all see it now, Lady Vespasia.”

She thought of Pitt in Spitalfields, and Adinett in his grave, and the unnamed millions who did not stand amid the flowers in the sun. There was no time to play.

“Very few of us do, Mr. Voisey,” she agreed. “But at least it exists, and that is hopeful. Better flowers bloom for a few than not at all.”

“As long as we are of the few!” he returned instantly, and this time there was no disguising the bitterness in his face.

She smiled very slowly; there was no anger in her for his rudeness. It had been an accusation.

Doubt flickered in his eyes that perhaps he had made an error. She had wished him to show his hand, and he had done so. It cost him an effort; he was not a man who smiled superficially, but his face relaxed now, and he smiled at her widely, showing excellent teeth.