I jumped. “Oh dear.” I recalled Cynthia stating that the family did not like to talk about what happened to Lady Covington’s first husband. “That is tragic, especially as he worked for the railway.”
“Funny the way things happen, ain’t it? Rich as anything, Mr. Morris was, and her ladyship copped the whole lot. Miss Harriet and Mr. Jonathan inherited a small amount, but her ladyship has the lion’s share. Holds the purse strings tight, she does. Anyway, Mr. Morris wasn’t in his grave a year, Lady Covington still in widow’s weeds, when it’s announced she’s marrying Lord Covington.”
Mrs. Gamble leaned closer, her large bosom nearly in her teacup. “If you want my opinion, it weren’t a love match, but a business one. Lord Covington needed Mr. Morris’s money put back into the railway business, and the new Lady Covington wanted to influence the railway board’s decisions, just like the first Lady Covington did.” She gave another shrug. “But who knows? They might have been potty about each other. Anyway, Lady Covington and her brood moves in here, and a few years later, Lord Covington pegs it—his heart gave out from overwork, his doctors said. Now young Mr. George is Lord Covington, but it’s his stepmum who runs this household. Maybe if the young master marries, the new wife will put the dowager in her place, but I doubt it. Lady Covington knows her own mind. Besides, Mr. George shows no sign of wanting to marry.” She shook her head, despairing of Mr. George.
“Not everybody rushes into marriage,” I said, thinking of Cynthia’s struggles.
“He’s hardly rushing anything. He’s nearing forty. It might be the making of him. Mr. George is letting the railway line lose money, which displeases Lady Covington no end.”
I remembered Miss Townsend telling me that George had asked her to marry him. Miss Townsend’s family was quite well off, I knew from Cynthia. Had George been hoping to bring still more money into the family business? In addition to marrying a strong-minded young lady who might take him out from under his stepmother’s thumb? I did not blame Miss Townsend for turning him down. I wondered if he’d admitted his defeat to anyone in the family. Had he asked other young ladies with the same result?
“What about Sir Arthur?” Cynthia had said George considered him a parasite. “I am glad you say he is faring better.”
“Aye, he’s resting upstairs, but he et fine this morning. His breakfast plate came back clean.”
“He lives here?”
Mrs. Gamble shook her head. “Not any longer. He’s recently taken rooms in Cavendish Square, near his new school. Excited as a boy about that, he is. But he’s here most nights, his feet under the supper table. Doesn’t have anyone to cook for him. Between you and me and the doorpost, he’s trying to keep in Lady Covington’s good graces. She is funding much of his precious school.”
“So I gather.” Perhaps that was why George considered his step-uncle a parasite. If Sir Arthur persuaded his sister to pour all her money into the Polytechnic, would there be any left for her children and stepchildren?
Sir Arthur, I mused, could have little cause to murder Lady Covington—unless she’d made a will bequeathing him a vast sum for the Polytechnic. I would have to inquire. Plus he’d have taken a great risk if he’d purposely ingested the poison himself to throw off suspicion. Poisons were tricky. Some could remain in a body long afterward and do damage years later.
The rest of the family did have a strong motive for wishing Lady Covington dead. Barring a will in favor of the Polytechnic, her children and stepchildren would presumably inherit all of Lady Covington’s wealth. I wagered Jonathan, as he was her oldest son, would get most of it, but I imagined she’d provided something for the others. Erica’s share now would be divided among them.
“Mrs. Gamble,” I said after another thoughtful sip of tea. “Do you know anyone called Henry?”
Mrs. Gamble looked blank. “Henry? No one here by that name. All our staff is called John and Peter and James, ain’t they?”
“Including the gardener?”
“Symes?” Her perplexity grew. “His name is Algernon. Who is this Henry?”
“I wish I knew. Erica—Mrs. Hume—mentioned the name . . .”
I did not want to break Erica’s confidence, but I could hardly uphold my promise to look after the fellow if I had no idea who he was.
Mrs. Gamble shook her head. “No one I know. Mrs. Hume’s husband’s name was Jeremiah. They didn’t have no children. One would have been the making of her, I think. But from what I hear, he wasn’t home enough for her to have the chance. Gallivanting, he was. Almost every night, different lady each time. Such a shame.”
A cheating husband explained some of Erica’s brittleness. I remembered my own shock and disbelief when I’d learned that my husband, now deceased, had raised an entire other family, unknown to me. The betrayal, humiliation, and self-deprecation had laid me low for a long while. I’d berated myself for being a fool, especially when I’d discovered that my marriage had not been legal. He’d wed the other woman first. Gradually I’d understood the fault was his, and I now blamed him squarely, but it had taken a long time for me to forgive myself.
Erica must have known about her husband’s mistresses even while she lived with him. Horrible. I wondered if his death had brought her grief or relief.
“Mr. Hume were an MP.” Now that Mrs. Gamble was full of tea and comfortable with me, she held forth. “Lord Covington—Erica’s father, that is—helped Mr. Hume win his seat in Parliament. Put his might behind it. Perhaps that was why Mr. Hume played away, couldn’t stand facing the constant reminder that he owed everything to his wife and her father.”
“Perhaps,” I said without commitment. Some men needed no excuse.
If Erica had found herself home alone every night, maybe this Henry had indeed been a lover, someone to comfort her in her loneliness.
It wasn’t done for a lady to take a paramour, although plenty of society women did. Everyone knew of these ladies’ affairs, but no one spoke of them. A woman was more censured for being obvious about her lovers than for having them at all.
Erica did not seem the type. Not a woman who graciously greeted her husband’s friends, all the while smiling to herself that she’d met a handsome man in secret who fulfilled her desires.
Harriet, now. She was unmarried, but with her prettiness and youth, she likely had young men on a string, including the one I’d caught her with at the Crystal Palace. I would have to find out all about him. If he was someone her mother disapproved of, Lady Covington’s death might free Harriet to go to the man. Another idea I’d have to explore.
“It’s a shame,” Mrs. Gamble said, her chin trembling. “Mrs. Hume was not the most pleasant lady, but it’s unfair she passed so suddenly. It ain’t right.”