Page 84 of The Hollow of Fear
Now she did, or at least Mr. Sherrinford Holmes did, on behalf of Lord Ingram.
The house struck Charlotte as well maintained, well decorated, but lacking a sense of history. She could imagine Lady Ingram’s parents, upon being lifted out of decades of penury, getting rid of all their old things in a hurry—the ones they hadn’t been able to pawn, in any case—in order to acquire new and more presentable possessions.
As she waited for the master of the house to be informed of her arrival, she closed her eyes. She was both weary yet uncomfortably alert, an awareness that flooded her with too many sensory details.
This was something she’d learned from a very young age: Her senses sharpened on an empty stomach, occasionally to such an extent that she needed to cover her eyes and stick her fingers in her ears; but a small degree of overeating dulled those senses to a more tolerable level.
As a toddler, she had despised raisins. But the family cook had specialized in plum cakes, which required half a pound of currants apiece. And such had been the palliative effect of an extra slice of plum cake that over time she had come to associate raisins with a feeling of comfort and relief.
After her adolescent years, the oversensitivity had become less intense. A day or two of water and very small quantities of plain toast would not reduce her to a quivering mass of frayed nerves. Still, she had reached a point when a fifteen-course meal would be a pleasure from beginning to end.
If only her stomach would cooperate.
Even plain toast made it mutiny. And along with a sharp nausea would come waves of fear—the dinner with Lord Bancroft had been an exercise in misery.
The fear was utterly unnecessary, she’d told herself. She had prepared; she understood the circumstances; she was determined to be careful and vigilant. She didn’t need any additional fear to channel or guard her.
The fear had roiled on, irrational but palpable. And the only way to reduce its impact was to keep her stomach as close to empty as possible.
She hoped this meeting would help. If it didn’t, the mountain she must climb would become much higher.
“Mr. Holmes,” said the footman, “Mr. Greville will see you now.”
Charlotte shoved aside her discomfort and donned Sherrinford Holmes’s jollity. “Ah, excellent.”
Mr. Alden Greville, the older of Lady Ingram’s two younger brothers, received Charlotte with an anxious keenness. “Please tell me my brother-in-law is carrying on tolerably. I wished to go to Stern Hollow right away after I learned the news, but he specifically instructed me to stay put. He thought it would be too distressing for me to be there. But it’s been awful sitting here biting my nails and waiting for a word, with the papers printing every sort of unkindness imaginable.”
Charlotte accepted a cup of tea, which she drank black—a lump of sugar and a spoonful of cream would have been enough to set off a fresh revolt in her stomach. “He is holding up all right. But I must warn you, any day now he could be charged with your sister’s murder.”
Mr. Greville turned a deathly pallor. “No, that cannot be! He would never have done such a thing.”
“Alas, the body of circumstantial evidence is overwhelmingly not in his favor. And the police will very much desire a conviction in such a prominent case. Our only hope is that they won’t wish to make a mistake in the matter—which would result in a prominent debacle. For that reason and that reason alone, we might still have a little time.”
Mr. Greville knotted his fingers together. “I cannot tell you what a blow that would be. Obviously, it would be catastrophic for Ash and the children. But for Hartley and myself, it would be— I can’t overstate what Ash means to us. I know the one we should be grateful to is Alexandra, who married him to better our lives. But to tell you the truth, my sister never much cared for us, and it was always Ash who took the time to listen and to help, with money yes, but above all with kindness.
“My brother worships Ash even more than I do, if that’s possible. He would be devastated if anything was to happen to him. We were both horror-struck at the rupture between Alexandra and him, when we thought we would lose his affection. It didn’t happen, of course, thank goodness. But to think that now he might lose his—”
Mr. Greville swallowed, unable to continue.
“As Lord Ingram’s friend, I share your concern,” said Charlotte. “I want to make sure that the worst doesn’t happen to him. That’s why I came to you, Mr. Greville. Will you help me?”
“Of course! What can I do? Please tell me. I will do anything in my power.”
His eyes shone with a desperate wish to help. Despite the seriousness of the situation, Charlotte felt pleased for Lord Ingram. He had been unable to spark love in his wife, but the affection he inspired in others was deep and genuine.
“There are some things I need to find out about your late sister. Most likely you will not be able to offer the answers yourself, but somewhere in this house we should be able to locate what I need.”
Mr. Greville leaped up. “Then let us proceed!”
As he led the way to the study, Charlotte asked when Lady Ingram had last visited. Apparently it had been after their parents passed away, to go through some records.
“Once she left, she didn’t come back very often. Almost not at all,” said Mr. Greville, a little apologetically.
And that absence translated into scant traces of Lady Ingram in this house. Charlotte had caught sight of an oil portrait and several large photographs of Lord Ingram—and only one picture of Lady Ingram, as part of a group. It was almost as if he was a favored son of the family and she only a distant cousin.
Mrs. Watson had once relayed to Charlotte an opinion on an adolescent Lady Ingram, by a woman who had worked for the Grevilles. Her main impression of Lady Ingram at that age was one of frustration. A frustration that approached rage, at times.
Lady Ingram hadn’t been angry because she’d wished to marry a different man, as Mrs. Watson had thought at the time, but because her life hadn’t been her own.
