Читать книгу 3-Book Victorian Crime Collection: Death at Dawn, Death of a Dancer, A Corpse in Shining Armour - Caro Peacock, Caro Peacock - Страница 23

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Even so early in the morning it was unthinkable to walk down the main drive, with all those windows watching me. The back road was reassuring by comparison. After passing a big, lightning-scarred tree it dipped between high banks crowded with cow parsley, wild geraniums and red campion, the air so sweet after a long time inside that it began to raise my spirits.

Once clear of being seen from the house, my mind was free to think about other things, like the letter I’d taken from the fireplace. Let him not cross the Channel. The man who had written that was scared, and the reason for his fear – as the reason surely for my father’s death – came from France. So did the unknown, unfortunate woman that the fat man was hunting. And yet my last letter from my father, hinting at a secret, had not mentioned danger, rather the reverse: … one most capital story which I promise will set you roaring with laughter and even perhaps a little indignation … Blackstone could probably make sense of it all, but he wouldn’t tell me. Well, I was being his good spy. After only a few days under the Mandeville roof, I was bringing him a fat packet of news.

The banks on either side flattened out and the back road joined the main road that I’d travelled on from Windsor. Half a mile in that direction were the great gates of Mandeville Hall. They were closed, but a trail of smoke rose from the chimney of the gate lodge into the blue sky. I turned in the opposite direction, making for what I hoped was the heath. For half a mile or so I had the road to myself, then four figures appeared, coming towards me. I fought against the impulse to jump into a ditch and went on walking. They were three haymakers, walking with their scythes over their shoulders, and a boy scuffling his boots in the dust behind them, trailing their long shadows as the sun came up. They nodded to me and the boy gave me a sideways look. If I’d had more confidence I might even have asked them the way, because I wasn’t sure I was on the right track for the livery stables.

After a while a lane went off to the right, deeply marked with hoofprints, and a signboard with a horseshoe pointed to the stables. The heath opened out, with skylarks singing overhead and from far away a vibration of drumming hooves that seemed to come up through my bootsoles and straight into my heart. I envied what must surely be the uncomplicated happiness of the people riding those horses. Then the line of them came into view, pulling up from a gallop to a canter. I stood back from the path. They came towards me, but the lads riding them didn’t give me a glance. They had their hands full, bringing the excited horses back to a walk before they came to the harder ground of the path. The air was full of the smell of horse sweat and leather. There were five horses, three of them bunched together, then a calmer, cobby type with a big man aboard. Then a gap and a bright bay mare a little smaller and more finely made than the others. The lad riding her was having trouble slowing her to a walk, but that was because he was so heavy-handed. He’d pulled the reins in tight and was trying to hold her by sheer force so that she was dancing on the spot, fighting the bit. His face was white and terrified. He looked no more than twelve or so and I supposed they’d put him on the mare because he was the lightest. A sideways jerk of her head tugged the reins out of his hands. He grabbed and got one rein, slewing the bit sideways in her mouth at an angle that must have hurt. She reared up and, as her head came round towards me, I recognised the comma-shaped blaze and intelligent eye, now terrified.

‘Rancie.’

The boy rocketed out of the saddle and landed on his side on the path. Rancie came down to earth and galloped past the other horses. One of them wheeled round to get out of her way and barged into his neighbour, who kicked him. I think I’d said her name aloud, but with the shouting, whinnying and groans of the lad on the ground, nobody noticed me. I ran after her, scared that she’d catch a leg in the trailing reins and throw herself down. Some way along the path I caught up with her. She’d stopped and was snatching at grass, not like a happy horse eating but a desperate one looking for consolation in something familiar. Scraps of grass were falling uneaten from her trembling lip. She rolled her eye at me and flinched as if expecting punishment. I think a kindly horse feels guilt when it loses its rider.

‘Rancie, girl, it’s all right, Rancie …’ I put a hand on her sweat-soaked shoulder. ‘It’s not your fault. Poor Rancie.’

With my other hand, I gathered up the trailing reins. By then, the other horses were coming past us. The man on the cob was leading one of them because its rider had dismounted and was looking after the lad who’d been thrown. They were coming slowly along the path together, the lad limping and holding an arm crooked across his chest. The man on the cob called out to me as he passed.

‘Well done, miss. I’ll take her.’

If an oak tree could have spoken, it would have been in that deep Hereford voice. Amos Legge, my fair-haired giant. He threw the reins of the horse he was leading to one of the lads and sprang off the cob’s back, landing neatly beside Rancie and me.

‘Thought it was you, miss. You be come to see Rancie, then?’

He didn’t even sound surprised. As he ran his hand down Rancie’s legs, checking for injuries, she bent her head and nuzzled his back with that deep sigh horses give when anxiety goes out of them.

‘No great mishtiff done. Will you lead her in then, miss?’

We followed Amos and the cob along the lane and through a gateway into the yard, Rancie as quiet as a pet dog. The yard was busy, with the horses coming in from exercise and a pair of greys being harnessed to a phaeton. Amos seemed to sense that I didn’t want to attract attention and led us to a box in the far corner.

‘You two wait in there, while I go and see to this fellow.’

The straw in the box was deep, and good clean hay in the manger. At least Blackstone was keeping that part of our bargain, so perhaps he’d keep others. I stayed in a dark corner, talking to Rancie, until Amos came back. He untacked her, plaited a hay wisp and used it in long, sweeping strokes to dry off the sweat. When he put her rug on, he reached under her belly to hand me the surcingle strap, as if we’d been working together for months. As soon as the rug was on, the gold-eyed cat jumped down from the manger and settled in her usual place on Rancie’s back.

‘I thought you’d have gone home to Herefordshire by now,’ I said.

‘No hurry, miss. There’s work for me here if I want it, so I thought I might stay for a bit, see her settled. And it was in my mind I might be seeing you again.’

A voice from the yard called, ‘Amos. Where’s Amos?’

‘I have letters for the post,’ I said. ‘Could you see they go on the next mail coach?’

Blackstone had instructed me to send letters through the owner of the stables, but this was the chance of a little independence. Amos nodded, took both letters from me but gave back Celia’s coins.

‘I’m doing well enough, miss, but what about you?’

‘I’m employed at Mandeville Hall, only they mustn’t know about this.’

‘Amos.’

The call was impatient. Amos picked up the saddle and bridle.

‘You wait here till I come. You’ll be safe enough.’

‘I can’t wait.’

I’d lost track of time, but Betty would surely be getting the children up soon and I’d be missed. Still, one thing was urgent.

‘Rancie must be exercised properly. Isn’t there anybody who can ride her?’

‘I’m too heavy and the lads are feared of her, miss. That’s the third she’s had off.’

‘It’s because she’s light-mouthed. They’ll kill her spirit if they go on like this. Can you tell them you’ve had word from her owner that nobody should ride her until further instructions?’

He nodded, but looked worried.

‘Needs a lady’s hand, she does.’

I don’t know if he was deliberately putting an idea into my mind.

‘I’ll think of something,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back on …’ I did a quick calculation. In four days there might be an answer to one or both of the letters ‘… on Saturday.’

He nodded and went out to the yard, taking his time. When I glanced out, everybody in the yard seemed to be occupied, so I slipped past them without anybody noticing and out of the gates.

‘You look feverish,’ Betty said. ‘Did you sleep badly?’

She’d been kinder than I deserved, getting the children up and dressed, taking them for their walk before breakfast. I’d almost bumped into them on my way back from the flower garden where I’d put a clove carnation on the rustic seat for Celia to find. I’d had to hide behind the beech hedge then rush up the back stairs to wash and tidy myself. By the time they came back to the schoolroom, I was tolerably neat in my blue-and-white print dress and muslin tucker, reading from the Gallic Wars.

‘She’s wearing rose-water,’ Henrietta said, sniffing.

Observant little beast. The maids had taken most of the water as usual, and there had only been enough left for a superficial wash, not enough to abolish the lingering smell of stables.

‘It smells just like my rose-water.’

It was. Desperate, I’d gone into her room and sprayed myself from the bottle on her white-and-gilt dressing table. What do nine-year-old girls need with rose-water in any case? It marked the start of a difficult day in the schoolroom. The children were short of sleep and sullen, still shaken by their father’s anger the evening before. I could hardly keep my eyes open, let alone summon up any interest in Julius Caesar or multiplication in pounds, shillings and pence. Towards the end of the morning, when we’d moved on to French conversation, Mrs Beedle paid us a visit of inspection. She sat listening for a while, very stern and upright, but from the thoughtful way she looked at her grandchildren I guessed she was trying to tell if they were affected by what had happened. What was more alarming was that I caught her looking at me with a puzzled frown, nostrils flaring. She’d certainly noticed the rose-water and probably guessed where it came from, but had she caught a whiff of horse as well?

‘Miss Lock, I am concerned …’ she said, and paused.

‘Concerned, ma’am?’

‘… that you are teaching Henrietta the wrong kind of French.’

I tried not to show my relief.

‘I hope not, ma’am. Her accent has improved quite remarkably in a few days.’

It was my one pedagogic achievement. The child had a good ear and I had coached her to utter some sentences of politeness in a way that would not have caused pain in Paris.

‘Please do not contradict me. I couldn’t understand a word she was gabbling. I shall examine her again next week and expect her to be speaking French like an English gentlewoman.’

The children slept in the afternoon and so did I, so deeply unconscious on my attic bed that I woke thinking I was back at my aunt’s house, until the clash of saucepans from the kitchens below reminded me. I cried for a while, then dressed and tidied my hair and went down. Betty was laying out Henrietta’s white muslin frock with the blue sash.

‘We’re surely not taking them down tonight,’ I said. ‘Not after what happened.’

‘If they’re sent for, they’ll have to go.’

At first, James flatly refused to change into his best clothes. He wanted to see his mother but his fear of his father was greater.

‘Your papa is a very important man,’ Betty told him. ‘He’s angry sometimes because he works hard, that’s all.’

But her eyes, meeting mine over his bowed head, told a different story. Henrietta was impatient with her brother.

‘Don’t be silly. Papa didn’t mean to hurt me.’

I looked at the blue bruise on her jaw and thought there was a kind of courage in her. James let himself be dressed at last, but began crying when the bell rang for us and clung tightly to my hand as we went down the staircase to the grand hall. There were servants at work, dusting and polishing. This was a surprise because normally cleaning was done early in the morning, before the family were up and about. The reason seemed to be a re-arrangement of the pictures. There were dozens of them round the hall, some of be-wigged Mandeville ancestors and their white-bosomed ladies, others of great moments from British history. Julius Caesar confronting the Druids had been one of the most prominent, next to the door to the larger of the two drawing rooms. Now it had been taken down and propped against the wall and a portrait was being put up in its place. Sir Herbert himself was supervising, with Mrs Beedle, the butler, Mrs Quivering and two footmen in attendance. Since all this was barring the way to the drawing room, we could only stand there with the children and wait. When they’d fixed it in place at last, and Sir Herbert had nodded his grudging approval, the painting seemed a poor substitute for noble Caesar. The portrait was a comparatively modern one of a pleasant though somewhat pop-eyed young woman, dressed simply in white silk with a blue sash, arms bare and hair piled in curls on top of her head, surrounded with a wreath of roses, all in the easy Empire style of our parents’ time. To my surprise, I recognised her from other portraits I’d seen, and when James tugged at my hand and whispered, ‘Who is she?’ I was able to whisper back.

‘That’s poor Princess Charlotte.’

My father had not encouraged concern about the doings of royalty, but even a republican’s daughter may be interested in princesses, especially young ones who ended sadly. So although I was no more than a baby when Princess Charlotte died, I knew a little about her. She was a grand-daughter of mad King George III, the only legitimate child of his son George IV and his unruly and hated Queen, Caroline. Her lack of brothers and sisters was accounted for by the fact that her father, on first being introduced to his arranged bride, had turned pale and called for a glass of brandy. They spent just one night together in the royal matrimonial bed and Princess Charlotte was the result.

Charlotte showed signs of being one of the best of the Hanoverian bunch, which to be sure is not saying a great deal. She was, by most accounts, more amiable than her father and more sensible than her mother. They married her before she was twenty to one of those German princelings who are in such constant supply, and she became pregnant with a child who would have succeeded her and become king of England – only she died in childbirth and her baby boy died too. Which was why we were about to celebrate the coronation of a different grand-daughter of mad King George, Charlotte’s cousin, little Vicky. In the circumtances, going to such trouble to commemorate Charlotte seemed another of Sir Herbert’s eccentricities.

‘Is she the new queen?’ James whispered to me.

‘No. I’m afraid she died.’

Sir Herbert stood staring at the picture. None of us could move before he did. James fidgeted and gripped my hand even more tightly. He probably needed to piss.

‘What did she die of?’

An awkward question. I could hardly explain death in childbirth to the boy, especially in such public circumstances. I began, in a whisper, that she had caught a fever, but a higher voice came from my other side.

‘She was poisoned.’

Henrietta, in that terribly carrying tone of hers, determined to be the centre of attention. There was a moment of shocked silence, then her father’s head swung round, slow and heavy like a bull’s, from the picture to where we were standing. After his violence the night before, I was terrified of what he might say or do to the child. I was scared for myself too, certain that I should be blamed for Henrietta’s lapse both in manners and historical knowledge. The child’s lurid imagination and over-dramatic nature would be no excuse. I forced myself to look Sir Herbert in the eye, determined on dignity at least, and the expression under his black brow so disconcerted me that I fear my mouth gaped open. The man was smiling – a phenomenon I’d never before witnessed. He took a few heavy steps towards us, then, amazingly, bent down until his eyes were level with Henrietta’s, gently tweaked one of her ringlets and put a finger to his lips.

‘Shhh,’ he said to her.

I think everybody there was as amazed as I was, not believing him capable of such a kindly and humorous rebuke. Henrietta was wriggling and simpering, having achieved exactly what she wanted. He touched her hair again, straightened up and said a few more words, equally surprising.

‘It is a pity you are not ten years older.’

They were said in an undertone, and I think I was the only one apart from Henrietta who caught them. Then he turned and walked into the drawing room and we followed him with the children. James had his half-hour with his mother, then we managed to get him back upstairs before he wet his breeches.

That evening, Betty went to her room soon after the children were in bed. I stayed on my own in the schoolroom with the window open and a lamp on the table, preparing notes on the geography of India for next day’s lesson. I was dozing over the tributaries of the Ganges when the door opened quietly and somebody came into the room.

‘Is one of the children awake?’ I said, thinking it must be Betty.

‘I hope not,’ Celia said, coming over to the table.

She was in evening dress, peach-coloured muslin with darker stripes woven in silk, bodice trimmed with cream lace. Her face was pale in the candlelight, eyes scared.

‘You were seen, Elizabeth.’

She took hold of the back of a chair and pivoted from side to side on the ball of one satin-shod foot, in a kind of nervous dance step.

‘By whom?’

‘One of the laundry maids has a sweetheart who works at the livery stables.’

‘Why didn’t you warn me?’

‘Am I supposed to know every servant’s sweetheart? I only heard about it from Fanny when she was doing my hair for dinner.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘The stable boy was sent up here on some message. He told his laundry maid a tale of a woman appearing out of nowhere and catching a horse that was bolting.’

‘She wasn’t … I mean, how did he know it was me?’

‘He didn’t. Only he described you and what you were wearing and the laundry maid said it sounded a bit like the new governess.’

‘They don’t know for certain, then?’

‘Not yet, no. I was shaking. Fanny must have felt it. Then I had to sit through dinner wondering if Sir Herbert had heard about it yet.’

‘Did he give any sign?’

‘No, but then he may just be waiting for his time to pounce.’

I put down my pencil and found my hand was shaking too.

‘What are we going to do?’ Celia said. ‘I must have the reply to my letter.’

‘Oh, there’s certain to be a reply, is there?’

I was nettled at her refusal to consider any problem but her own.

‘I’m sure Philip will reply by return of post. I told him to write care of the stables. It should be there by Friday or Saturday at the latest.’

‘Is a love letter so important that I must risk dismissal for it?’

She sat down heavily on Henrietta’s blue chair.

‘It’s more than that. I wish … oh, I must trust you. I’ve asked him something. I need his answer.’ She looked down at the map of India, picked up my pencil and turned it over and over in her fingers. ‘I’ve asked him to elope with me.’

‘Doesn’t the suggestion usually come from the gentleman?’

‘I’m certain Philip would suggest it if he knew. But he can’t know until he reads my letter. You see, somebody’s coming soon and I want Philip to take me away and marry me before he arrives.’

‘This other person, is he the one your stepfather wants you to marry?’

She nodded.

‘When is he arriving?’

‘I don’t know. He’s expected any day.’

‘But your stepfather surely can’t have you married against your wishes, the moment this person sets foot in the house.’

‘It would be so much safer in every way if I weren’t here.’

I supposed she was referring to Sir Herbert’s violent temper. I felt sorry for her, but wished she hadn’t planted her burden on my doorstep.

‘Your stepfather said something surprising to Henrietta this evening,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘He wished she were ten years older.’

‘I wish to heaven she were.’ It burst out of her, vehement and unguarded. ‘When did he say it?’

I told her about Princess Charlotte’s portrait and the rest. All the time she stared at me, as if every word mattered. I hoped at the end of it that she’d tell me why it concerned her so much, but she just heaved a sigh nearly as deep as Rancie’s.

‘So what are we to do about your letter?’ I said.

Whatever happened, I must keep open a way of communicating with Blackstone.

‘I was hoping you’d think of something,’ she said.

‘You know the ways of the household better than I do.’

She stared down at her silk-stockinged ankles, looking so lost that I pitied her in spite of my annoyance.

‘If I can think of something, will you do it, Elizabeth?’

‘If you can, yes.’

She got up slowly, and took a few steps to the door, as if reluctant to leave the sanctuary of the schoolroom. At the door she turned round.

‘Don’t fail me. You’re my only hope.’

‘I’m my only hope as well,’ I said, but she was gone by then.