The Serpent and the Scorpion (3 page)

Katya followed Ursula’s gaze, and her eyes narrowed. “Ah,” she announced blandly. “I see Mr. Dobbs has found my husband.”

Ursula looked at her swiftly. This was hardly the tone she expected from the wife of someone so closely associated with Christopher Dobbs.

“Don’t look so surprised,” Katya responded. “I saw how you reacted when he first arrived. And you need not be concerned. Although many of my compatriots have reached the Holy Land aboard Dobbs’s ships, I still cannot bring myself to trust the man.”

Ursula blinked.

“I’m sure you are aware that conditions across Russia are very difficult. My husband has provided funds for several agricultural settlements—we call them
moshavot
—situated just outside Jaffa. Dobbs’s ships have transported nearly one hundred men, women, and children to a new life in Palestine. Unlike my husband, however, I am not deceived by Mr. Dobbs or his charm. I do not believe he does anything except serve his own interests.”

Ursula was about to respond when Peter Vilensky looked up from his discussion with Dobbs and signaled for Katya to join them. Katya sighed. “I must go,” she said, clasping Ursula’s hand. “But I am glad to have found another outsider with whom to view the world.”

“Me too,” Ursula answered, noting the resignation in Katya’s voice.

“I hope to see you Monday,” Ursula urged. “At the WSPU meeting?”

“I will try. We are in the midst of making preparations for another trip to Palestine. My husband and Baron Rothschild are considering a new land trust, and it is important for us to visit. We are hoping to visit Egypt en route back to England.”

“Why, I’m going to Egypt in a few weeks—for business, I’m afraid, not pleasure. Perhaps we will also see each other there?” Ursula caught sight of Peter Vilensky signaling again, this time a flash of irritation passing across his face.

“I would like that very much, but now I really must go.” Katya’s eyes flickered between her husband and Ursula. She kissed Ursula gently on both cheeks. “May the new year bring you health, happiness, and continued wealth.”

“For you, too,” Ursula replied. She could feel the tension in Katya’s embrace. Ursula was uneasy. Peter Vilensky’s summons was so peremptory—as if his wife was little more than a servant, to be summarily ordered to do whatever he chose. It annoyed her, but Ursula had learned by now not to display such feelings in public. Instead she reflected, once again, on the repressive nature of marriage.

Katya joined her husband and Christopher Dobbs, leaving Ursula standing alone beside the fire. Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith, an old friend of her father’s, soon sought her out, and Ursula endured her gossip and advice for nearly half an hour (“Ursula, no man, not even Lord Wrotham himself, is going to abide a woman telling him that he’s wrong; that’s the problem with educating you young women—you will disagree with people all the time! Mark my words, a man is much happier hearing you discuss redecorating the sitting room than he is hearing about votes for women. . . .”).

As midnight approached, Lady Winterton gathered her guests in the vaulted entrance hall of her Kensington home. Ursula found herself uncomfortably wedged between Mrs. Pomfrey-Smith and Brigadier Galbraith as she watched Lady Winterton ascend the stairs and stand next to the grandfather clock on the landing. They waited as the clock struck twelve. A violinist appeared at the top of the stairs and began to play. The crowd responded in turn, and soon the hall resonated to the strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” Lady Winterton waved her champagne glass and bid them all Happy New Year.

A draft of cold air crossed the hall and lifted the fringe on the bottom of Ursula’s dress. She turned, craning her neck to see above the crowd of heads, but no one had entered through the front door. There was only Lady Winterton’s footman, standing in the narrow portico. His countenance seemed prescient somehow, silent and grave. Hardly a good omen, Ursula thought bleakly, for the year that lay ahead.

Two

A week later, Ursula Marlow and Winifred Stanford-Jones sat side by side on the high-backed Mackmurdo sofa. Winifred, with her navy trousers and striped shirt, shoes off and feet propped up on the low ottoman, looked like a young man contemplating life through the haze of cigarette smoke. In fact, she was Ursula’s good friend and fellow suffragette. They had met at Oxford University, and while both shared a passion for politics and writing, Winifred preferred drafting political manifestos to journalism. She also owed Ursula her life. Without Ursula’s determination to clear her name, Winifred would have spent her life as a patient at Broad-moor, an asylum for the criminally insane.

Winifred extinguished the cigarette in the small ceramic ashtray on the side table and immediately lit another. Ursula had banned her from smoking her pipe inside (“such a ghastly smell, Freddie!”), so Winifred had to be content with her Gauloises. Ursula, in her stylish afternoon dress by Cheruit and dark auburn hair coiled about the nape of her neck, presented a total contrast to Winifred’s mannish figure. It was as if Hades and Persephone had risen from the underworld to sit side by side in an English parlor.

Ursula looked up from her notes and stretched her arms above her with a yawn. She had recently finished redecorating the front parlor, and she surveyed it with satisfaction. Finally, almost two years after her father’s death, she could call Chester Square
her
home. She had had the whole house repainted, new drapes and furniture ordered; she’d even arranged for the servants’ quarters to be refurbished. The only room that remained in its original state was her father’s study. Apart from removing a number of his files to be archived, Ursula couldn’t bear the thought of changing anything in his room. It provided her with both a poignant reminder of him and a place of sanctuary. She could often be found there, curled up in her father’s armchair, on a rainy Sunday afternoon, drawing comfort from the familiarity of his books and belongings.

The front parlor had been painted eggshell blue, and the fireplace, once white marble, was now adorned with glazed green and blue tiles. On the east wall hung two paintings by Wassily Kandinsky, maelstroms of color and bold black lines. Instead of the plush velvet drapes her father had favored, silvery damask curtains now adorned the bay windows. On the mantel was the Liberty Tudric pewter bowl Lord Wrotham had given her and a green Farnham pottery vase filled with tall white tulips.

“We’re accepting twenty-five apprentices to start with,” Ursula said. “The room isn’t large, but it’s well ventilated, and we can fit three long tables in through here. We can then set up the cutting room next door and put in a row of sewing machines, like so—” She pointed to the pencil-drawn map that lay in her lap. “The nursery annex will go here, next to the cafeteria. There’s a formidable local lady, Mrs. Murchison, who’ll run both of these for me. She used to work at a Dr. Barnado’s orphanage in Birkdale.” She looked at Winifred eagerly. “So what do you think?”

“Hmm . . . ,” Winifred replied, drawing on her cigarette.

“Oh, Freddie! You know it’s a good plan. These aren’t women with many options. I can provide them with a basic wage, child care, and vocational training as well as one hot meal a day. I don’t know of any other place that would offer this—not to these women. Most of the factories in the area wouldn’t even spare them the time of day!”

Ursula had read about the pioneering work by Cadbury and had resolved to try in her own small way to emulate it by setting up a factory in Oldham in which women who had “fallen on hard times” could get the opportunity to work and receive training as seamstresses. Such women included those whose husbands had deserted them and who had young children still to clothe and feed. There were also women who, for whatever reason, found themselves without any family or support. Ursula had visited the local workhouses as a child and had been horrified by what she had seen. She was now determined to offer an alternative for poor women such as these—somewhere they could find employment and receive not only a decent wage and a meal but also a place for their children to be looked after.

Winifred broke into a wide but guarded smile. “It’s a splendid plan, Sully. I just wonder how you’re going to convince ‘that lot’ to go along with it.” Winifred used the pet name she had given Ursula while they were at Somerville College, Oxford.

Ursula knew “that lot” referred to Lord Wrotham and Gerard Anderson, two of her father’s most trusted friends who now, in capacity of trustee and financial adviser, still held much of the power over her father’s estate.

“Oh, let me worry about them.” Ursula replied airily.

“I’m not worried about Anderson—you can manage him all right. It’s Lord Wrotham I’m not so sure about.”

Ursula abruptly got to her feet and walked over to the bay window that overlooked Chester Square. It had been a bleak winter, despite Christmas with Winifred’s aunt in Yorkshire, but today, at least, the rain had stopped. The sun, however, remained stubbornly trapped behind the low, leaden clouds. There had hardly been a clear, dry day since Ursula returned to London to attend Lady Winterton’s New Year’s Eve party.

“Don’t be angry,” Winifred responded to the unspoken rebuke. “You know exactly what I mean.”

Ursula rubbed her nose.

“Sully,” Winifred then said in gentler tones, “it’s been a really tough year for you. What with the strikes and accidents at the mills and factories. I just want you to choose your battles carefully. And as for Lord Wrotham, well—” Winifred paused for a moment. “Are you sure you really know what you’re doing?”

“Getting myself into even more scandal, that’s for sure,” Ursula responded nonchalantly, but her face belied her tone.

Winifred rose from the sofa and walked over to her friend. She placed a hand on her shoulder, but Ursula continued to stare resolutely out of the window.

“Why must it always come down to marriage?” Ursula finally asked.

Winifred leaned against the wall and folded her arms. “Because for a man like Wrotham, it always does.” The Seventh Baron Wrotham and eminent King’s Counsel, Lord Oliver Wrotham was one of the many peers of the realm who had to earn his living to preserve his family estate, Bromley Hall, from financial ruin. Since Venezuela, Ursula’s relationship with Lord Wrotham had gone from “complicated” to “fraught” as he wrestled with society’s censure over their unlikely romantic liaison and its failure to materialize into matrimony.

“But I’m just finding out what it means to be me—not my father’s daughter, not somebody’s fiancée, but
me
. I want to learn how to do it on my own. Otherwise, no one’s going to respect me, no one’s going to believe I actually succeeded in running my father’s business. Not if I’m married to him.”

“No need to convince me. You know my views on the whole marriage thing.”

“I know.” Ursula sighed.

“But even if I felt differently, I would understand why you need more time. After what happened with Tom . . .”

Ursula shivered at the unwelcome reminder of her onetime fiancé, Tom Cumberland—the man who had murdered her father. The man who had tried to murder her. Ursula blinked. Even today, she could not forget the image of the judge, in his ivory wig and black-and-red gown, as he leaned over, staring at the prisoner, and delivered his sentence.
You will be taken from hence to a lawful prison, and from thence to a place of execution, and there you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead
. Ursula had sat transfixed by these words, even as the crowd in the public gallery began to disperse. Even as Winifred, with tears in her eyes, urged her to leave. She had sat, cold and numb, as all those around her departed. It wasn’t until Lord Wrotham, who had been seated behind the prosecutor, rose and came over to her that the trance was broken. His voice, low and calm, had washed over her. She had then stood up, clasped his hand, and together all three of them had left the court.

Winifred tapped her arm gently. “That was thoughtless of me. I shouldn’t have reminded you.”

“It’s all right,” Ursula replied, rubbing her temples. The unbidden image of Tom, standing in the dock, however, remained in her mind. “It’s not like either of us are likely to forget.”

Winifred looked away. The revenge Tom had exacted on behalf of his father had affected her just as badly as it had Ursula. Accused of murdering her female lover, Winifred still bore the emotional scars of her time spent in Holloway Prison awaiting trial. She owed Ursula and Lord Wrotham a debt of gratitude too great to ever be repaid, for finding out the truth and gaining her acquittal. All she could do was remain Ursula’s steadfast friend.

A familiar gray Daimler come to a halt at the curb outside. Winifred glanced at Ursula and, seeing her look of surprise, gave Ursula’s hand a tight squeeze.

“That’s my cue to leave,” Winifred said in low tones. “We can speak more at tomorrow night’s committee meeting. We’re at Lady Winterton’s, remember—and be careful, the police are keeping a close watch on our activities now.” As members of the militant WSPU, Winifred and Ursula were under increased scrutiny, especially since the start of the WSPU’s window-smashing campaign.

“Don’t worry,” Ursula replied as she watched the familiar tall, lean frame get out of the motor car. “I think I can manage to avoid the likes of Inspector Harrison.” Harrison was the detective who had led the investigation into the deaths of Laura Radcliffe, Cecilia Abbott, and Ursula’s father, Robert Marlow. He was also the man who had arrested Winifred on charges of murder.

Winifred kissed her on the cheek. “Harrison’s been promoted, my dear; he’s now got bigger things to worry about than us, like German spies and the invasion of England!”

Ursula remembered that six months ago, after having been promoted to chief inspector, Harrison had seemingly disappeared from the ranks of the Metropolitan Police. Rumor had it that he was now a member of the Special Branch of Scotland Yard.

A knock at the door dismissed all thoughts of Chief Inspector Harrison from her mind.