In the Shadow of Vesuvius Read online

  After dinner, when the guests began to depart, Silvanus, faultlessly polite, put me in one of his litters and instructed the bearers to take me home. As I sat on the cushioned bench, he leaned in through the curtains, his face close to mine.

  “You see how everyone adores your verses. It’s time, Kassandra, that I hear more of your poetry.”

  This time, I had no trouble meeting his stare.

  1902

  19

  The next morning, Colin woke me with a cup of tea and a small bouquet of wildflowers. “I need to interview Carter and Stirling this morning, as well as speak with the coroner, and I want Kat nowhere near any of this.” His dark eyes met mine. “I know you planned to leave for Rome today, to meet with Mr. Walker’s friend, The Times correspondent. Would you take her with you? I have no right to ask given the way I treated you after she was attacked, but I hope you know that despite my dreadful mismanagement of that situation, there’s no one I trust more than you.”

  I tamped down a smile, irritated at the pleasure his words brought me. “Of course. She can keep me company.”

  “I’ll inform her of the plan. Thank you, my dear. Thank you.” He squeezed my hand and kissed me on the cheek.

  The trip was somewhat less pleasant than trekking through the Sahara on an ill-tempered camel and with inadequate supplies of water. Kat spoke not a single word on the way to Naples, nor while we waited for our connection on the overnight train deluxe that would take us to the capital city. We sat silent at our table in the dining car. I didn’t try to engage her in conversation, instead focusing on the book I’d brought with me. She made no effort to hide her relief. The next morning, soon before our arrival in the city of Caesar (Julius, that is; I have never been able to tolerate that wretched Octavian, or, as he and his enormous ego would have it, Augustus), she slipped into our washroom to dress. When she emerged, I hardly recognized her. I couldn’t quite ascertain how she’d done it, but she had utterly transformed her appearance. Gone was the forward-thinking, direct young lady who had worn trousers to a dinner party; in her place was a beguiling rural Italian girl with a sly smile who gestured wildly when she spoke. She’d removed her sling, but that did not surprise me.

  If she meant to provoke me, she would not get the reaction for which she hoped. “What a lovely dress. The color suits you,” I said and bustled her into a cab that would take us to our appointment at a café near the Trevi Fountain.

  “You don’t object?”

  “Why should I?” I asked. “If you choose to visit Rome as a fetching peasant, who am I to argue? You’ve made a nice job of it.”

  “I only remember meeting my mother a handful of times.” She wasn’t looking at me, but her voice had lost the hard edge it usually had when she spoke to me. “Each time she took on a different persona and introduced herself to the nuns as a close relative. I now realize she didn’t want anyone to know her true identity. But she always told me—whispering in German although they insisted we speak French at school—that she was my mother. I was in awe of her ability to slip effortlessly from language to language, and applied myself to studying as many as possible, in an attempt to emulate her. And then, when I could, I turned my attentions to the art of disguise. The nuns weren’t helpful in that regard, but I’ve done a credible job, don’t you think?”

  “Indeed you have,” I said. “How many languages do you speak?”

  “German, obviously. I may have grown up elsewhere, but I’m Viennese at heart. French, English, and Italian are second nature to me. I’m competent in Russian and can translate Latin with ease. I’ve never bothered with ancient Greek.” This last she stated as if it were a challenge, knowing my passion for translating the works of Homer. I didn’t rise to the bait.

  “A most accomplished young lady.”

  “Are you being ironic?” she asked.

  “A bit, perhaps, but only in a manner that might offend Lady Catherine de Bourgh.”

  “You reference Pride and Prejudice.” She laughed and then her eyes narrowed. “I adore Austen. You’re well read, but also no slouch when it comes to academic achievement. Where were you educated?”

  “At home, with a governess who was more interested teaching social skills that would endear me to eligible gentlemen than in serious studies. Fortunately, my father was not averse to expanding my horizons. His library provided me with everything I could want.”

  “So you taught yourself?” She met my eyes for the first time since we left Pompeii. “I did the same, with languages, but they come so easy to me it’s not much of an accomplishment, truth be told. There were loads of foreign students at my school. I talked to them; it’s the simplest way to learn.”

  “Not many people would have figured that out,” I said. “Don’t ever denigrate your talents.”

  She looked away from me again. The cab was approaching our destination, so I said nothing further. Mr. Richards, waiting at a small table, leapt to his feet and greeted us warmly. Kat introduced herself as Floria Tosca—she was fortunate the journalist was not an avid fan of opera—and answered all of his questions in Italian, giving the impression that she could understand but not speak his native tongue. I let them banter for a few minutes before inserting myself into the conversation and asking Mr. Richards about his friend.

  “I only heard about Walker’s death last week—I’d been hiking in the Dolomites and missed the news when it was first reported. He was a good man, Lady Emily. A good man.”

  “I understand you knew him well,” I said.

  “We both started at the newspaper in the same month and shared an atrocious room near the Brooklyn Bridge for six months, until we could afford something better. There’s nothing that bonds two men together like trying to keep rats out of their beds. He was a big personality. Friendly, outgoing, and strong as an ox, the sort of gent who would get caught up in a so-called brilliant idea and throw himself into it, heart and soul. He was the man you wanted at your side in a fight, as much for his strength as for his pigheadedness. Once he decided he was on the side of right, he wouldn’t back down, even when everyone else around him was ready to go home and lick their wounds. A dog with a bone would have given it up to get rid of him. He could be relentless, but relentless in a good way.”

  “Have you met his family?” I asked, as Kat motioned for the waiter to bring her a second cup of coffee.

  “No. He had a brother, Fergus, somewhere in Montana, and a sister who lives in Virginia, but he wasn’t close to her. Walker spent considerable time in Montana as well. Rather, I should say he wasted time there, looking for gold near a place called Last Chance Gulch. It won’t shock you to hear he didn’t find his fortune. His brother had even worse luck. Got into a bar fight and wound up beaten to death. Some sort of argument over gold. Rough places, those mining towns.”

  Kat batted her eyes at him. “Non mi piace pensare a te in un posto così pericoloso.”

  She did not like thinking of him in such a place? What was she playing at?

  “Nor do I, Signorina Tosca.” He cocked his head and looked pensive. “I feel as if I’ve heard your name before. Is that possible?”

  I recognized the source of her words. Quoting Puccini’s libretto seemed to me taking things a step too far, particularly as she was making no useful contribution to the conversation.

  “It’s a common enough Italian name,” I said. “What happened after Mr. Walker’s brother died?”

  “Walker gave up on mining, came back east, and turned his attention to journalism. He’d written a fair number of pieces for the paper in Helena and was a good enough operator that he managed to persuade The Times to give him a couple of assignments after he arrived in New York. The editor liked them, and pretty soon he was on staff.”

  “I understand he didn’t travel much.”

  “No, not after his adventures out west,” Mr. Richards said. “Those were hard years, to hear him tell it, and he didn’t want any more like them. Said all a man needed was a clean room, a good
pub, and decent friends. And a job to pay the bar bill, naturally. He loved New York City; you can’t understand Walker without understanding that. Loved it like it was his own blood. That’s why he did cultural pieces—they let him expound on the merits of the city.”

  Kat had remained quiet through all this, but she was listening with such attention I suspected she was memorizing every bit of the conversation. Clever of her to refuse to speak English, as it now gave her the opportunity to focus on listening.

  “How did he wind up in Pompeii?” I asked.

  “You don’t refuse a piece you’re assigned,” Mr. Richards said. “Not if you want to keep working. His editor thought it would be a good fit for him, as he did a bang-up job on cultural articles in the city. So Walker went, and he wrote something competent, but unimpressive. Wanted to be sure he wouldn’t get sent abroad again. He hated the ocean. Hated boats.”

  “Why did he come back?” I asked.

  “I wish I knew. I was still working out of New York when he was here the first time, but I can’t understand why he didn’t get in touch when he decided to return. His editor said it wasn’t for work. I can’t imagine what would have induced him to make the trip again. I’d love to be more useful, but I don’t know anything else. Do the old boy good, will you? He didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  I could have sworn I saw a hint of moisture in Mr. Richards’s eyes as he spoke. I thanked him for his candor and watched him stroll away across the piazza after he made a meal out of kissing Kat’s hand by way of farewell.

  We sat at the café for another hour. Kat drank a shocking amount of coffee while she scribbled furiously in a notebook. How fortunate that her injury had not affected the hand she needed to write. I collected my thoughts and penned a series of messages, finishing in time to drop them at the telegraph office at the railway station. We boarded our train and I opened the novel I’d brought with me, Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s Wyllard’s Weird, while Kat changed back into her ordinary clothes, erasing all evidence of Floria Tosca. She emerged from the tiny room housing the washstand in our compartment looking uncharacteristically sheepish.

  “I’m aware that sometimes I’m too brash and too impulsive for my own good.” She’d gone back to her habit of not meeting my eyes.

  “The latter is a fault leveled at me more times than I care to count,” I said, closing my book.

  “I’ve a shockingly good memory for conversation, cultivated by years of using it as a party trick. I wrote a complete transcript of your meeting with Mr. Richards.” She handed me her notebook. “I hope it goes some way toward making up for my bad behavior. I wanted to try my disguise and got carried away. It’s fortunate my father wasn’t here to see it. He’d probably send me away forever.”

  “I can promise you he will never do that.”

  “I do so want to get to know him and, through him, come to learn something of my mother. I realize that’s uncomfortable for you. I don’t know much about my parents’ relationship, but it takes no leap to deduce that you’re bound to find it painful.”

  “It all happened long before I met your father,” I said, “and he and I are well versed in awkward pasts. I was married to his best friend.”

  “No! How scandalous. Are you divorced?” There was, perhaps, a bit too much excitement in her voice.

  “Heavens, no. Philip died not long after our wedding trip. It was only after I was out of deep mourning that Colin and I became close.”

  “How frightfully romantic,” she said. “I had no idea. Was he very tortured over it, my father? He strikes me as the sort of man who could brood beautifully.”

  “Tortured enough, but he would never allow himself to get carried away.”

  “No Heathcliff, then?”

  “Never.”

  “I arrived in Pompeii determined to despise you,” she said. “If he’d never met you…”

  If Colin had never met me, very little in Kat’s life would’ve changed. Her mother had chosen to marry someone else. But the way Kat swallowed when she choked back those last words made me see the little girl she’d once been, a girl who dreamed that her mother would collect her from school, take her home—to a real home—and give her a reassuringly ordinary life. The countess would never have abandoned her work, not even for her child, regardless of the circumstances. Kristiana’s choices reflected a devotion to Colin, but little consideration for Kat. Not that I would ever say that to her.

  “Your mother did what she believed best for you. As for her relationship with your father, it never fell within the bounds of society’s norms. There’s no reason to think it would have, even if he’d never met me. They made their choices and we’re left to live with them.”

  “I’ve read my mother’s diaries, but she never once mentioned him or me. She never mentioned anything of interest. Every page was staggeringly dull, as if written to deliberately put off anyone reading them.”

  “Given her work, she may have done just that. It wouldn’t have been sensible for her to keep a detailed, intimate diary, and she wanted to protect your father—you know as much from the letter her solicitor gave you.”

  “Yet you do not share her fears.”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “I’ll never understand his work so well as she, who was engaged in the same occupation. She was privy to much more than I can ever be.”

  “Yet you aren’t—weren’t—jealous of her?”

  Just when I thought we were starting to get along, that hard edge had crept back into her tone. She wanted me to be jealous. Wanted me to feel threatened. “I was consumed with jealousy when I first met her. She was everything I was not—sophisticated, experienced, and essential to Colin’s work. And stunning—absolutely gorgeous, but not in a sweet, pretty way. She possessed a beauty that went beyond her perfect features. Her intelligence and independence shone brighter than her eyes. Next to her, I always felt insignificant and awkward.”

  She turned away, looking out the window. “And now I’m a reminder of something you’d prefer to forget.”

  She did have a way of seeing the truth about people. “Not everyone can marry his first love, your father included. I wouldn’t change anything in his past, for to do so would inevitably alter the man he is today.”

  “I’m sorry I set out to despise you.”

  I hesitated for a moment, but then reached across and took her hand. “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

  The train was pulling into Naples, so we both fell silent. Colin was waiting on the platform when we emerged. He took our bags from the porter, gave me a kiss, and quickly—if a bit awkwardly—embraced Kat.

  “If we don’t dawdle, we can catch the next train to Pompeii,” he said.

  “I’m afraid we’ll have to go to the telegraph office first,” I said. “I’m expecting a reply.” Fortunately, it was waiting, and, after I ascertained it did not require immediate response, we rushed to catch the train. Once settled into our seats and speeding away (I employ the term with irony; it would be difficult for a train to move at a more sluggish pace than the local from Naples to Pompeii), I recounted for him my conversation with Mr. Richards, not mentioning Kat’s disguise. She didn’t utter a word and gave every impression of being wholly uninterested.

  “This is from the sheriff in Last Chance Gulch, Montana. Helena, Montana, actually, as that’s what they call the place now.” I held up the telegram. “I sent a message asking for information about Mr. Walker’s brother, Fergus, who died in the aftermath of a nasty bar fight there. In effect, he was murdered, and Felix Morgan, the man who struck the fatal blow, fled the scene. These American territories are violent and backward; it’s a wonder anyone survives them. I’ve already requested that the American Embassy in Rome check if they have any record of Mr. Morgan having come to Italy, but I don’t hold up much hope. Surely he would have changed his name.”

  “And adopted a new identity as an archaeologist?” Colin asked.

  “Possibly. But most likely not. What if he inve
nted a new life for himself, settled down, got married, had children, and one of those children caught the attention of Mr. Walker?”

  “Benjamin?” Kat sat up straight, her eyebrows raised. “Never.”

  “Mr. Carter,” Colin said. “He was in the States the first time Walker came to Pompeii.”

  “Precisely,” I said. “And nothing happened to Mr. Walker on that trip. Then, a few years later, the journalist returns, because, on the ship, he spotted Benjamin’s striking resemblance to his father, Felix Morgan.”

  “Why would he have got on the ship in the first place?” Colin asked.

  “Mr. Walker wrote cultural pieces about New York. Surely that would have included openings of exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum, where we know Benjamin spent a considerable amount of time drawing. It’s where Mr. Taylor first met him.”

  Colin nodded. “It’s possible. But why wouldn’t Walker have confronted him there? Why come all the way to Pompeii?”

  “For all we know, he did. Benjamin turned down Mr. Taylor’s initial offer of employment. It was only later—perhaps after Mr. Walker approached him about the true identity of his father—that he agreed to join the staff. He wanted to protect himself and his sister from a man bent on revenge.”

  “Benjamin would never hurt someone,” Kat said.

  “Mr. Carter.” Colin frowned. “If Walker was bent on exposing Carter’s father and tempers flared—which we know Carter’s is prone to do—”

  “Benjamin might have killed Mr. Walker in a blind rage,” I said.

  “He wouldn’t do that,” Kat said. “Furthermore, his father died years ago. What would it matter if he were exposed?”

  “Do we know where Carter was when you were attacked?” Colin asked her.

  “At Mr. Taylor’s dig,” she said, crossing her arms and pulling them tight against her chest.