A Kind Of Justice E-Book

Henrietta Stackpole

• Herausgeber: Henrietta Stackpole
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

The first in a series of ‘Sensation’ novels by Henrietta Stackpole is 'A Kind Of Justice', her sequel to Henry James’s 'The Portrait of a Lady'. Hardly ever could two novels be so different, James’s is a work of established literary genius and Henrietta’s is in the style of the populist Victorian ‘Sensation’ novel. Henrietta’s book starts where James’s finishes and with all (and more) of the same cast. But instead of the almost indolence of The Portrait characters those of 'A Kind of Justice' are all action, mystery, secrecy, murder and more. Of course, you don’t have to have read Henry James’s introspective novel to thoroughly enjoy A Kind of Justice.THE BLURBOutraged by the deceit of her brutish husband and her passion awakened by an old flame, wealthy Isabel Archer Osmond despairs that there is no divorce law in nineteenth-century Italy.LOYAL FRIENDS GATHER ROUND.Can they solve the mystery of the murder in Rio?Can they discredit her evil husband, Gilbert, and seek annulment?Must they go to even greater lengths to free Isabel from the shackles of a disastrous marriage?Where Henry James’s ‘The Portrait of a Lady’ leaves off ‘A Kind of Justice’ takes off. James’s serene and measured literary masterpiece leads neatly into a fast-paced crime thriller with veins of romance running right through it. Organised crime, amateur detectives and a pair of Rome’s finest carabinieri play their parts to the hilt.If you like Victorianesque ‘Sensation’ novels—something Wilkie Collins or Mary Elizabeth Braddon might have written, then Henrietta Stackpole’s novel will suit you fine.Henry James refers to Henrietta as a ‘celebrated authoress’, he doesn’t say he liked her writing and he probably didn’t—far too pacey and vibrant I would think, but ‘celebrated’ means many others did enjoy her works. This one, purportedly written in 1883 is the first one to be released under her name, the second ‘Stackpole Sensation’ novel, 'Some Choose The Pen' will be published in the last quarter of 2015.

Leseprobe

Contents

Title Streetlib

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

Chapter VI

Chapter VII

Chapter VIII

Chapter IX

Chapter X

Chapter XI

Chapter XII

Chapter XIII

Chapter XIV

Chapter XV

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVII

Chapter XVIII

Chapter IXX

Chapter XX

Chapter XXI

Chapter XXII

Chapter XXIII

Chapter XXIV

Chapter XXV

Chapter XXVI

Fore and Aft

Acknowledgments

A KIND OF JUSTICE

by

HENRIETTA STACKPOLE

For Isabel… Henry James’s ‘Lady’

Copyright 2015, Henrietta Stackpole

Published by Stackpole & Co at Streetlib

ISBN 978-1-904221-05-0 (epub) 978-1-904221-06-7 (mobi) and 978-1-904221-07-4 (pdf)

England

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Chapter I

‘Look here, Caspar, just you wait!’ I said.

Crestfallen, Caspar Goodwood bowed his head, stared down at the doorstep of my Wimpole Street apartment and almost inaudibly sighed. Having just told him that the love of his life, Mrs Isabel Archer Osmond had gone back to Rome when she had not, I piled further sorrow on a man, for whom I had the highest regard, with my rather facile and ambiguous remark. As I was, indirectly, the cause of his sad demeanour, guilt washed over me. He seemed to have inferred an alternative meaning to the advice I had given, it was clear he had turned my intention into a negative one but further words would not right the wrong. In the hope of providing some small solace I took his arm and led his subdued person away from my door. After a few yards Caspar stopped, raised himself to full height, patted my hand, smiled weakly and said ‘I do hope we meet again soon Henrietta—under much more joyous circumstances, please wish that for me’.

‘I fervently wish that for you’ I replied with a smile and an embarrassed kiss on his cheek, and then we parted.

Gathering myself together I walked off in the opposite direction to continue with the task I had begun when Caspar had knocked upon my door those few minutes before, a visit to the post office in Great Portland Street. Here I sent a telegram to Mrs Touchett’s apparently resourceful major-domo at her main residence, Palazzo Crescentini in Florence, it read as follows:

PRECIOUS CARGO ARRIVES WEDNESDAY 20:00 HOURS—PLEASE COLLECT AT SMN—HENRIETTA STACKPOLE.

I was assured by my dearest friend Isabel that the major-domo was primed by Mrs Touchett, her aunt and his employer, to understand ‘precious cargo’ as referring to Isabel and her maid. The telegram despatched, I left the post office in the bright sunshine of a day in the second week of June 1877 and returned directly to my furnished London lodgings, took off my hat and entered a cheerful room which I had made into my office.

‘Isabel, it breaks my heart to lie to and so deflate such a long-standing friend and man of great honour as Caspar Goodwood. He and I do not always agree but I do hope that your desire to somehow end your unbearable marriage to Osmond in order to wed Caspar comes to fruition. Nothing less would compensate me for the guilt I feel. Since your marriage is flawed by the deep deceit of your husband I am not comfortable with using that same device myself. Even though I can read him very well I cannot conceive of what Mr Bantling will make of my deception.’ I said.

Isabel stood by the window which looked on to the rear area. The light caught her face, she was still the elegant and beautiful lady I had met all those years ago in Albany, New York, but the light on her face masked the sorrow at the recent loss of her much-loved cousin, Ralph Touchett, and the tangible fear she felt at the thought of returning to her cynical, authoritarian and consummately offensive husband, Gilbert Osmond, an American long since domiciled in Italy, their current home being in Rome. He had been so dismissive and unyielding when Ralph’s mother, Mrs Touchett, had sent Isabel a telegram from Gardencourt, one of the family’s English residences, which had said Ralph could not last many days and would like to see her if she had no other duties. Then the mother added her own small piece of emotional blackmail by suggesting that Isabel SHOULD see it as a duty, reinforcing that Ralph really was dying and had no other company.

This was a telegram that Isabel had expected. Several days before I had given her a full but negative report after I had escorted Ralph back from Rome to England. The need for this return arose when his misguided visit to the Eternal City, for health reasons, was curtailed by his enduring consumptive nature deteriorating so rapidly that his home beckoned. I had been in Rome gathering material for articles I was writing for the New York Interviewer but I offered to escort and nurse Ralph back to England. Isabel persuaded Mr Goodwood, who continued to bob in and out of her life despite her having declined his proposal of marriage seven years before, to accompany Ralph and I. Naturally she did not show her husband the actual telegram but he was such a small man acting the giant that I could well imagine that he could not bear what he construed as competition from a dying man. He forbade Isabel from going but matters she had recently discovered about him through his sister, the Countess Gemini, had hardened her heart and mind. She defied Osmond and left for England at the earliest possible moment. Ralph was not just a cousin, he was like a brother to Isabel and had indeed persuaded, almost six years before, his dying father, a wealthy banker, to leave Isabel a fortune of some seventy thousand pounds. I always thought this to be the strongest of motivations for Gilbert Osmond, an impecunious and pretentious man in my view, to seek to marry a beautiful and wealthy woman such as Isabel.

‘…I cannot conceive of what Mr Bantling will make of my deception.’ I said.

‘Do not tell him!’ replied my friend of eight years.

‘Not tell Mr Bantling! Are you mad? Are your personal morals sinking to a level that matches the paucity of your sad marriage? I feel desperately sorry for you dear Isabel and the position you are in but I myself will soon have a happy marriage which I will not jeopardise with deceit’.

I said this with such venom that Isabel’s composure, fragile as eggshells, collapsed under an excess of tears and woes. I took my anger back, comforted her and eventually the tears subsided and our friendship and equanimity were restored.

An hour later the subject of my disquiet, Mr Robert Bantling arrived at my apartment from business he’d been transacting on Isabel’s behalf.

‘I’m ready to escort you to Charing Cross for the start of your journey Mrs Osmond’ said Robert. Isabel shuddered, at the sound of her married name and replied ‘Please call me Isabel at all times—just as before—don’t be formal Robert we have known each other for years.’

‘Very well Isabel but we must leave if you are to catch the Paris train and your transfers for Florence’.

We three friends left the house with Isabel’s luggage and her loyal, discreet and trustworthy maid, Francesca. Robert hailed a cab and we headed off south-eastwards across London to Charing Cross terminus from where some of the European continental trains departed. Isabel had had the foresight not to purchase return tickets when she left Rome some four weeks earlier so Robert went to the ticket window for two single tickets to Florence. He found the correct platform, the maid took the luggage to the van with a porter and then found herself a safe seat near to it whilst Isabel and I kissed goodbye. Isabel laid claim to a seat adjacent to the platform and opened the compartment window so that we could continue to talk and shout above the hissing steam. Doors slammed, the guard flagged the driver, steam belched, the wheels spun on the track and Isabel waved and shouted out of the window.

‘See you in Rome, Robert.’

‘Rome?’ said my fiancé. ‘Am I going to Rome?’

‘Of course you are dear Robert, come, I will explain all when we get back to Wimpole Street.’

A cab-ride later we were back at my apartment sitting in the office and drinking English tea that I had made.

‘I wish you would take on a maid Henrietta,’ said Robert.

‘I don’t approve, it’s tantamount to slavery and I cannot condone that—considering the last century and more of my country’s history.’

‘When we marry we will take some on you know.’

‘I know but I shall pretend they are for your benefit and they shall be well rewarded and kindly treated. As long as we agree that we will be providing employment to those who otherwise would have none I can just accept it Robert’.

‘I also wish you’d call me Bob, all my friends do,’ implored Robert.

‘I hope you consider me more than a friend since we are soon to unite. I clearly see you differently than others; to me you are a Robert.’ I paused. ‘In any event “bob” is a verb, a rather aimless one at that, and you are most definitely not an aimless verb, and to finalise the matter, “Robert Bantling” with its two syllabic structure is balanced, it much suits your character more than the lop-sided one-two rhythm of Bob Bantling,’ I concluded.

‘Very well Henrietta dear—as I told Isabel when we met her at Charing Cross on her way to visit poor Ralph on his death bed—“I agree with everything you say”. But to Rome please, give an explanation so that I can agree with that!’

‘Shortly, Isabel intends to return to Mr Osmond but not before she has spent some more contemplative time at her aunt’s palace in Florence. You remember you took me to visit Mrs Touchett and Isabel there some years ago, five I believe. I have a little writing work to complete here but plan to join Isabel on Saturday. When she does return to Osmond in Rome she will need the support of as many of her true friends as we can muster. You are to be one and earlier today I used a little deceit to divert Mr Goodwood to Rome by telling him that Isabel had already left for there,’ I explained.

‘I’m disappointed that deceit has become part of your vocabulary, your unswerving honesty is one of your most endearing virtues. I shall do my utmost to right your wrong with Caspar as soon as I arrive for surely he will follow Isabel to Rome,’ he chastised.

‘Oh that is a certainty and yes—please explain to him that my reasoning was entirely for Isabel’s welfare and safety and his longer term interests. This marriage with Osmond must somehow be toppled as there is no divorce law in Italy but please do not impart that or anything else I tell you to Mr Goodwood, we want him to be cool-headed and supportive, not hot-blooded and incensed, there might be dangerous times ahead.’

‘If that be the case then there must be more that I need to know, what more is there?’

‘Do you recall, after Ralph’s funeral I told you that before Isabel left Rome she discovered her husband had deceived her since the day they had met by not revealing something which most certainly should have been shared between man and wife?’

‘I do, yes I do, but I thought it best not to insist on amplification at that point, I was a little selfish at the time, Ralph was my dearest and oldest friend and his death upset me more than I cared to show.’

‘I know dear.’ I continued, ‘The full story is that Pansy Osmond is not, as Isabel had been told, Osmond’s daughter by his first wife, but his by Madame Merle.’

‘Madame Merle! That woman that poor Ralph had and I have, little regard for, despite Ralph being briefly in love with her many years ago? She is talented, intelligent, beautiful, a fine pianist and entertaining but she is like a leech the way she descends on households and stays free of charge for months at a time. She brings to mind some of the worst monarchs of England in this respect. I never understood why Mrs Touchett was such a friend to her. There is something about her which I find odd, as though she hides much of her past and that seems to be borne out by this revelation.’

‘Apparently they had been lovers from when Osmond’s first marriage was but a year old. When his wife died they were in Piedmont away from their home in Naples. Madame Merle was pregnant at the time and some four months later Pansy was born. They made use of the distance between the north and the south, together with some of the administrative disruption caused by the Risorgimento, to pretend and arrange false papers that Osmond’s wife had died in childbirth and Pansy was the result. It broke Serena Merle’s marriage apart and her husband died a few years later estranged from her.’

‘Why did they not marry then?’ asked Robert.

‘Because Osmond was not wealthy, they both had and still have pretensions to greatness. You know he considers himself to be the “first gentleman of Europe” and she of course, is considered the most successful woman in Europe. They promised, apparently, to further the cause of the other and Madame Merle has certainly done that by being the initiator of Isabel and Osmond meeting and subsequently matchmaking between the two. In this she is a success and she has also secured her daughter’s position since Pansy and Isabel love each other. In all other respects she seems to me to be a failure, her position in the world is peripatetic; ironically, maybe this is because she was born in Brooklyn Naval Yard, her father being a seaman.’

‘How did Isabel learn this?’

‘Amy, her sister-in-law, the Countess Gemini told her, it transpires she got to a point when she believed that Isabel did not know of the affair and was tired of keeping her brother’s secret.’

‘Doesn’t she have a poor reputation for the truth though?’

‘Yes, but taking this into account, Isabel thinks more highly of her than most and in view of some recent behaviour by Madame Merle which almost exposed Madame, Isabel is fully inclined to believe everything that Amy has told her about this subject.’

‘I have rarely heard of such deceitfulness played upon one innocent by two arch-connivers like Gilbert Osmond and Serena Merle. Over the several years we have known them they have become not what they seemed to be; like the onion, the peeling of one layer just reveals another yet to be exposed.’

‘I am doubly hurt by the fact that they are also both Americans!’ I said.

‘I’m only glad they aren’t English!’ added Robert.

‘Since that revelation, Ralph told her something else, she said he had warned her that danger was not far away and she should be careful. Up to now she will not elaborate, when I meet with her in Florence we will decide on the best and safest action for when she returns to Osmond in Rome. That is why I want you there when we return, you must tell Goodwood as little as possible but get him to trust you for Isabel’s sake.’

‘Why might she go back to Osmond anyway?’

‘For Pansy’s sake and also to further a possible annulment, although I fear Osmond will not agree to help in this. Amy’s visit to the Osmonds’ palazzo was curtailed when Isabel left for England. Gilbert told the Countess to leave when he realised that she favoured Isabel and her cause. But Isabel has kept Amy on in Rome to keep contact with Pansy and to be her eyes and ears in her absence; she has rented a villa for Amy on the outskirts and supplied some servants to supplement her own maid and an old retainer she has with her.’

‘Isabel still has command of her fortune then?’

‘Sufficiently so it appears but it is a subject I never discuss with her and therefore I cannot speak with actual knowledge, just appearances.’

‘Amy is not wealthy I assume?’

‘That is a fact, her husband, the Count, is an inveterate card-player and a very mean-spirited man. Sometimes it is hard to understand why Isabel married Osmond but it is always incomprehensible to me why Amy married the Count Gemini. I cannot begin to understand.’

We talked on a little further about travel arrangements when there was a knock at my door, a post office boy stood there with a telegram.

‘Telegram for Stackpole?’ he barked.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘No reply needed Miss. Good day,’ he said and walked briskly away.

‘A telegram,’ I said on my return to Robert. Opening it, I read:

TELL ISABEL—OSMOND BECOMING INSANELY IRRITABLE—BEWARE WHEN SHE RETURNS—LOVE AMY—AND PANSY.

‘It is fortunate that she has diverted to Florence or she would not have received this warning; now at least you can give it to her when you arrive,’ commented Robert.

After parting from Miss Stackpole, Caspar Goodwood wandered aimlessly about London’s streets, he passed many renowned places and sights but they held no interest for him. Mid-day hunger brought him back to reality; he took notice of his surroundings and headed off towards Piccadilly and on to his hotel, Morley’s in Trafalgar Square. He had a light lunch and then retired to his room to consider the situation. Henrietta’s words kept going around in his head, she had said them with an ambiguous tone of voice, he was not sure what to make of it but at least her final tone was kindness itself and gave him some hope to cling on to. Remembering the kiss and passionate embrace he had stolen from Isabel in the grounds of Gardencourt a few days earlier he cheered himself with the feeling that although Isabel had denied him with her head she had not done so with her heart and her passion. Now, if he linked Henrietta’s admonishment for him to wait her words seemed more positive, more comforting. Henrietta knew his beloved Isabel better than anyone—he took her words as sound advice.

You’re an engineer,’ he said to his reflection in a mirror on the wall, ‘do something practical!’ In this manner he ordered himself into action. ‘Amongst other things the least I can do is follow Isabel back to Rome,’ he thought.

Taking out a small case from the bottom of the hotel room’s wardrobe he retrieved his address book with its many entries. He drafted out four telegrams—two business ones to New York, a personal one to his home in Boston, Massachusetts and another personal one to Naples. He put his address book and case back in the wardrobe and went out to the nearest telegraph office which was just around the corner. His task completed he spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the side of the Thames from the relatively new Westminster Palace to the Inner Temples before wending his way towards Covent Garden and a favourite little eating house that he dined at whenever in London. A satisfactory meal of beef ribs and a few glasses of wine left Caspar full of higher spirits than he had been in all day. He paid for his meal and left, purposefully heading for the railway terminus at Charing Cross so that he could decide which train to take for Paris and thence on to Rome on the morrow. His mission accomplished and an eight-thirty train selected he started back to cover the short distance to Trafalgar Square and his hotel. It was now close to dusk and he rounded a corner into an alleyway to take him back to Morley’s when he was confronted by a tall and thick-set ruffian. Caspar turned about in order to go back, but his way was blocked by another of the same ilk. He turned back yet again and faced the first ruffian who said

in a menacingly quiet cockney voice, ‘You Caspar Goodwood?’

‘Yes, to whom do I have the honour of speaking?’ replied Caspar fully intent on talking his way out of the situation.

‘To oom do I ave the h-onour is it,’ sniggered his adversary, ‘never mind oo I am guvnor. I ave a message from Mister Hosmond, e sez to stay away from is wife,’ and with that the man thumped Caspar in the midriff with his huge fist. He crumpled forward and doubled up in pain, as he went down the ruffian chopped him on the back of his neck with intertwined fists which sprawled him flat on the cobbles of the alley. He could only groan, he couldn’t call for help, his breath had been knocked out of him and he was near to unconsciousness. The second man charged in and kicked Caspar in the ribs, then the first assailant weighed in again with a final hefty boot into the side of Caspar’s head, he bent down and put his mouth close to Caspar’s ear and menacingly whispered again, ‘Stop sniffin raand Mister Hosmond’s missus—d’ya ear?’ Then the two men ran off in the direction of Charing Cross. The back alley was little used and Caspar had managed to regain control of his breathing and to sit up before anyone passed along the narrow lane, but eventually two men appeared and he asked for help.

‘Are you drunk?’ asked one man.

‘No—I was set upon by two ruffians,’ replied Caspar.

‘Did they steal anything?’ the other man asked.

‘No, it was a warning not to dabble in something I shouldn’t.’

‘Ah!’ said the man knowingly, ‘you’re American aren’t you, do you live here?’

‘No, I’m visiting friends.’

‘Not very good friends it appears.’

‘It’s not anyone here in England who is trying to frighten me off—the really chilling thing is that the message comes from a man in Rome!’ said Caspar.

The two men helped Caspar back to his hotel where he was checked over, cleaned and strapped up by a doctor; pronounced to have no broken bones Caspar went to bed certain that he would have to get a later train to Paris on the morrow.

The morning arrived and Caspar, who had barely slept, admitted defeat and stayed in bed all day, recovering; there would be no journey to Paris this day. Over and over in his mind he tried to solve the conundrum posed by the previous evening’s attack—how did Gilbert Osmond know that he had renewed his pursuit of Isabel? He could only envisage that it had been someone at Ralph Touchett’s funeral and wake. Could it be Henrietta—or Robert? Perhaps, after all, his friends were not very good friends as the men who helped him in the alley had intimated.

Chapter II

The next morning, Wednesday morning, Caspar felt much better, he was still extremely stiff and aching but he thought he might rest as well on trains and boats as in his hotel room. The porter hired a boy for him and they slowly walked the short distance to Charing Cross where the young lad stowed his bags on the train and settled his customer into an empty compartment before he ran back to the Square with a sizeable tip.

The journey to Paris was not comfortable and the changes from train to boat and boat to train were not easy but by the end of Wednesday Caspar was in the Hotel Lafayette where two telegrams awaited him: one from home confirmed a money transfer he had requested and the other came from Naples and simply said:

GOODWOOD—MEET GHETTE FRI 10:00 TO 14:00 CHAMBERY STATION—EMMANUEL

Caspar didn’t know ‘Ghette’ and he didn’t know ‘Emmanuel’ either, the latter was, no doubt, an unknown contact of a contact who was a contact of the friend to whom Caspar had sent his telegram, he had no idea how close the relationship was and it was probably better left that way.

That same morning Isabel was on the final leg of her journey to Florence after an overnight stop at Turin. Just before six in the evening the Turin to Rome train pulled into Pisa station after a long haul down from the Alps and along the coast of north west Italy. Isabel and her maid alighted from the train and had a porter truck their luggage to a connecting train which was conveniently waiting to take them on to Florence, capital of Tuscany and the former capital of a partially unified Italy. Two hours later the regional train arrived at Santa Maria Novella station and Isabel breathed a sigh of tired relief. She gathered her rug together with a small bag containing her personal belongings and money then alighted from the train amid steam blowing gently back down the platform in clouds from the hissing engine up ahead.