Southampton Row - Anne Perry [48]
This time Tellman made no movement at all.
“And what did any of you reply?” Pitt asked. He needed to know what Rose Serracold had attended for, but he was afraid that if Kingsley gave that answer first, and saw or sensed Tellman’s response, he would then conceal his own reasons. And perhaps they, too, were relevant. After all, he had written the virulent political attack on Aubrey Serracold, albeit without knowing he was the husband of the woman who sat beside him at Maude Lamont’s table. Or had he?
Kingsley was silent for a moment.
“General Kingsley?” Pitt pressed. “What did you wish to learn through Miss Lamont?”
With great difficulty Kingsley answered, still staring at the floor. “My son Robert served in Africa, in the Zulu Wars. He was killed in action there. I . . .” His voice cracked. “I wanted to assure myself that his death was . . . that his spirit was at rest. There have been . . . different accounts of the action. I needed to know.” He did not look up at Pitt, as if he did not want to see what was in his face, or reveal the raw need inside him.
Pitt felt some acknowledgment at least was required. “I see,” he said softly. “And were you able to obtain such a thing?” He knew even as he asked that Kingsley had not. The fear in him was tangible in the room, and now too the grief was explained. In Maude Lamont’s death he had lost his contact with the only world he believed could give him an answer. Surely he would not willingly have destroyed it?
“Not . . . yet,” Kingsley replied, his words so swallowed in his throat Pitt was not sure for a moment if he had heard them at all. He was aware of Tellman beside him and his acute discomfort. Ordinary grief he was accustomed to, but this confounded and disturbed him. He was unsure of his own responses. He ought to feel ridicule and impatience, that was what all his experience of life had taught him. Looking for a moment at Tellman’s face, it was compassion that Pitt saw.
“What did the woman want?” Pitt asked.
Kingsley was jerked out of his own thoughts. He glanced up, his eyes puzzled. “I’m not sure. She was very eager to contact her mother, but I was not certain why. It must have been a very private matter, because all her questions were too oblique for me to understand.”
“And the answers?” Pitt found himself tense, afraid of what Kingsley might tell him. Why was Rose Serracold risking the expense and possible ridicule at this extraordinarily sensitive time? Had she no perception at all of what it meant? Or was her search so important to her that all other things were subject to it? What could that possibly be?
“Her mother?” Pitt said aloud.
“Yes.”
“And did Miss Lamont contact her?”
“Apparently.”
“What did she ask to know?”
“Nothing specific.” Kingsley looked puzzled as he recalled it. “Just general family information, other relatives who had . . . gone over. Her grandmother, her father. Were they well.”
“When was that?” Pitt pressed. “The night of Miss Lamont’s death? Before that? If you can remember exactly what was said it would be most helpful.”
Kingsley frowned. “I find it very difficult to imagine that she would have hurt Miss Lamont,” he said earnestly. “She seemed an eccentric woman, highly individual, but I saw no anger in her, no unkindness or ill feeling, rather . . .” He stopped.
Tellman leaned forward.
“Yes?” Pitt prompted.
“Fear,” Kingsley said quietly, as if it were an emotion with which he had long intimacy. “But there is no point in your asking me of what, because I have no idea. She seemed concerned if her father were happy, if he were restored to health.