A Stranger in Mayfair - Charles Finch [85]
There was a long break in the conversation, as she cried and cried. The wound was still fresh, it was obvious, or had perhaps been reopened by her son’s death.
“There was a ring,” Dallington ventured at last. “A signet ring, with Ludo’s initials in it.”
Haltingly, she said, “He gave it to me—he—” She began to sob again.
“Then you gave it to Frederick?”
“Yes. When he was fourteen I sat him down at our kitchen table and told him the truth. From then on there was nothing in his head but the Starling family. Just like his mother—a pair of fools.”
“No.”
“A pair of fools.”
“So is that why Frederick went to work for Ludo’s family?” asked Lenox.
“Yes. I begged him not to, but he wanted to be close to his father.”
“Did his father acknowledge him?”
“Yes. Freddie told me they were getting more and more friendly. Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.”
“No wonder Ludo has seemed so agitated,” said Lenox.
Dallington merely raised his eyebrows; apparently he still considered Ludo the primary suspect. Lenox wasn’t quite as sure.
Something else, though, made sense: the intellectual reading, the philosophy and great literature; the tailored suits and shoes; the aristocratic boxing club, where he spent money freely; and the ring, most of all having his own initials engraved on the Starling ring. Frederick Clarke was setting himself up, in his own mind, as a gentleman. Raised in a pub, but apparently of some natural gifts, he had decided to emulate his father. Freddie said he would end up a gentleman one day.
It reached a tender spot in Lenox’s heart, this idea of Freddie Clarke, the footman, striving to be so much more than himself—striving to be like a father who would never fully own him, indeed who would likely never fully love him.
“There was something else, too.”
“What?”
“Something even worse, for poor Ludo—for poor Freddie,” she said, sniffling into her handkerchief.
“Poor Ludo?” said Dallington with disdain.
“What is it?” asked Lenox.
“We—” She couldn’t go on, and for a tantalizing moment it seemed as if she were going to silence herself.
Then suddenly Lenox saw what it must be. “You and Ludovic Starling were married, weren’t you?”
She nodded and burst into further tears. “Yes. That’s it. That was when he gave me the ring! As a wedding ring. I thought his family would kill him when they heard, and they began to put an end to it quickly enough. Pretty soon after that they forced him to marry Elizabeth, though I know for a fact he didn’t love her, and in our little chapel in Cambridge!” A wracking sob went through her body, as if she could only now see just how much she had lost. “An arranged marriage.”
Lenox put a hand on her arm. “It will be all right,” he said.
“Why is that worse? What am I missing?” said Dallington.
“When is Frederick’s birthday?” asked Lenox of Mrs. Clarke by way of response to the question.
She looked at him, and he saw the truth.
Chapter Forty-Two
Lenox thanked Mrs. Clarke, promised to visit her again soon, and dragged Dallington out to the front of the hotel, where they picked up a new cab.
“Where in damnation are we going?” asked Dallington as they climbed in. “Don’t you have to be at Parliament soon?”
“I have an hour. We have to go see Ludo Starling.”
“Why?”
“To confront him. For the first time I think he may be guilty.”
“Finally!” Dallington exhaled. “What convinced you?”
Lenox smiled. “Let me have my little game—come and talk to Ludo with me.”
As they rode through the streets from Hammersmith to Mayfair, the buildings going past in a transition from shabby to genteel to pristine, Lenox tried to read his blue book, but