Cheating the Hangman (16 page)

Staring down at him from my full height, I said, ‘I fear you are misinformed. But let that pass. Yesterday’s outrage. Tell me about that, if you please.’

They exchanged furtive glances. I did not dare let my eyes stray to Jem, lest we both succumb to a fit of unseemly giggles: how many times had my father spoken to us like that when we had been caught in some boyish escapade?

‘We had this note, sir. Just a piece of scribble. It said we weren’t to be there under pain of death.’

‘Pain of death,’ Boddice echoed solemnly. ‘And our crops razed and cattle killed if we told anyone.’

‘Of course you recognised the handwriting? No? So where is the note?’

‘Burnt, sir.’ Lawton’s eyes opened wide as if the question were stupid. ‘Like it said to do.’

‘So you are alleging that some evil person is giving you orders to do things which you suspect are illegal. And I suppose that if you had not paid off the curates the fate that nearly befell me would have befallen them. Yes or no?’

‘They were more persuadable than you.’

‘How very convenient. Now, you have no doubt heard of the offer I made when I was about to be hanged. If any
of the malefactors – any who conspired to kill me – is brave enough to step forward and confess to me, then I will be as merciful as I can. That does not necessarily mean,’ I added, as I had failed to do the previous day, ‘that they will get off scot-free. But I suspect I would be kinder than a magistrate, do not you?’ I looked them up and down. ‘Very well, gentlemen – you may go.’

It was good to wake in my own bedchamber, even though it was less grand than the one at Langley Park. When she brought my hot water, Susan was bright and cheerful, telling me that Dan continued to improve. She pulled back the curtains with vigour, with a slightly disparaging look at what was obviously a grey day. It seemed an omen: today was the day I had to do what I dreaded. No, there was no argument.

No one said anything to shake my unspoken resolution: ‘If you want your breakfast in peace, sir, you should make haste. Today’s the day Mrs Trent and I are going to clean your study and make everything right and tight again. Mrs Trent says Robert must help too – she says if the rugs aren’t beaten properly the smell of those ciggirillows will linger.’

Naturally I did as I was told.

Soon after ten, however, the carrier’s waggon drew up outside, draining all my optimism. He would be delivering my new clothes – I had ordered buckskins as well as a coat
to go with the boots and other essentials I had bought when I was gadding about the shops with Toone. Surely this was an omen.

Binns, who had remained at the rectory to care for Dan, materialised beside me as I regarded the packages with disfavour and laid them unopened on my bed.

‘If you would permit me, Dr Campion, I can have the creases out of these in a trice. You bought a new hat and boots, I understand? Perhaps I might cast my professional eye over those too. It would not do to visit Orebury House looking anything other than your best. Your hair … I have not mentioned it before, sir, but the cut has lost its shape somewhat. Oh, and not your bands, sir, not for Lord Hasbury, if you are to pay him a morning visit today. Nor even a simple stock. A neckcloth it must be.’

Willy-nilly, then, I was to be turned from my humble self into a man fit to greet a duke. Clearly the day I had been dreading had chosen itself. I told myself that in any case I needed to speak to Lord Hasbury, keeping him abreast of the activities in Clavercote: I did not want him to use all his judicial might yet, but he should not be kept in the dark, lest the coroner, Mr Vernon, question him about the background to the murder. As far as I knew no date had yet been set for the inquest, nor a location requisitioned.

Within an hour, I was mounted on Titus, who was the picture of equine health. My father would have disdained as unmanly anyone who presented himself in a workaday gig, in the absence of a curricle or phaeton, neither, of course, a suitable vehicle for the life I had chosen.

The venture felt momentous, but all around me people went about their workaday lives. Mrs Trent was chivvying Susan over some fancied omission; Robert, the mat-beating apparently over, was polishing horse brasses; the gardener whistled as he tied netting over the peas. As I rode past the village school I could hear childish voices repeating parrot-fashion the words Jem had said a moment before. The blacksmith swore as a horse fidgeted. At Langley Park I would have had support and encouragement aplenty, but to seek it would have felt wrong. Bearding my father in his temporary den was like facing down the mob two days before. It was a matter for me and me alone.

My Lord Hasbury was still in his chamber, his butler told me, his voice reprimanding me for seeking a man of his tastes before noon. As for My Lord Hartland, he would summon Walker to take up my card.

‘You could not have come at a more opportune moment,’ my old friend declared quietly as he led me upstairs. ‘His Lordship is not sleeping well. Dr Hansard says that it is because he is unable to take any exercise – a strange notion, but one the doctor clings to. He says that any day now he may take the air, and that soon he may be able to ride a little, but in the meantime he wants something to occupy him.’ He stopped at the first landing to look me up and down. ‘I see there is no Stultz or Weston round here, sir, but there is nothing wrong with that waistcoat.’ His eyes took in my buckskins and boots.

‘Nor is there a bootmaker to match Hoby’s,’ I agreed with a laugh. ‘All one may do here is look the gentleman.’

‘Which I have to say you do, Master Toby. Or will do in a moment, if I may make so bold.’ He gave two delicate tweaks to my neckcloth, and left me to inspect some morally improving paintings, huge and ugly, which had clearly been relegated from more public locations in the house, while he told my father of my desire to see him. Never had the concupiscence of the elders seemed less attractive.

Although I had resolved to make no more than a formal bow as I entered the room, I found myself on my knee at my father’s side, kissing his hand. For a moment I fancied his hand rested on my head, as if in blessing. But he growled, ‘Is this how the clergy are supposed to greet people? Take a seat. No, that one, so I can see you better.’ He pointed with his walking stick.

Tongue-tied, I obeyed. It was hard not to stare at the man before me, resplendent in a magnificent frogged brocade dressing gown. He had aged a great deal in the six – no, seven – years since we had last met, and he had lost weight – something which he could afford to do, though he had never been fleshy. I was sure, however, that as soon as Edmund declared him well enough to travel, he would head for London and his tailor. His gouty foot, swathed in bandages, was propped up on a stool. Beside him, on a delicate mahogany table, were a newly ironed copy of the
Times
and a carafe of what I suspected was some of Toone’s coloured water.

To my chagrin I still could not speak. But I asked myself how many sickbeds I had attended. All I had to do was employ some of what Edmund occasionally disparaged as professional patter. Even so, I had to swallow hard; if I had
to force the words out, they had to be reasonably intelligent words. My father would not wish to be patronised simply because he was an invalid.

‘I am sorry to hear that you have been so unwell, sir,’ I said. ‘Hear – and now see,’ I added, in a foolish gabble. ‘Has the gout spread beyond your foot?’

‘Not as far as my brain – though it sounds as if the bang on the head that sawbones friend of yours tells me about addled yours.’

‘Indeed, it probably did. And being bled left me as weak as a kitten – probably as stupid, too.’

He glared at me under eyebrows that had grown greyer and bushier. If anything his eyes were more piercing. They were always cold. ‘So why are you here?’

The truth came out unbidden. ‘To make my peace with you, sir. And to ask for your help in a matter of some moment.’

‘My help! Can you not see that I am crippled? Dear God!’

‘Your foot may be diseased, sir, but your brain and hands are not. Between them, they can accomplish what no one else in my acquaintance can. No one,’ I added firmly.

‘Hasbury is awake on every suit: ask him.’

‘Hasbury was remarkably helpful when I found the corpse on Wychbold’s land, but has shown no interest in any of the strange goings-on round here since. He is hosting a houseful of guests, sir, and can hardly spare the time to assist a mere country priest. Even if that priest is your son, sir.’

‘Hmph. He has a secretary – of sorts. Burford, or something like that. Would not he be of assistance in
whatever you are doing, which I tell you to your face is not the sort of business in which a man of the cloth should be meddling. No, nor a gentleman either. Even in this benighted part of the world.’

‘Alas, sir, we are so benighted that we lack even a parish constable. And the man to whom I would have turned, the rector of Clavercote, in whose parish these distressing events took place, has taken himself to the Continent, to take the cure.’

‘With Napoleon … Dear God, he is more foolish than you, sir! Has no one bid him return?’

‘No one can. It seems that not even the bishop knows his direction.’

‘You are trying to tell me a man can simply— but surely he has left behind him his curate?’

‘He never had one, sir.’

‘Is he under the hatches? A gambler, perhaps?’

‘I know nothing of his financial affairs. Indeed, sir, to my shame I never met the man.’

‘Never met—!’

‘He never responded to the card I left and never made me a welcoming morning call. There have been church functions to which we were both summoned, but I never knowingly encountered him there. Certainly we were never introduced.’

‘Sounds a damned havey-cavey business to me. And next time I see that bishop of yours in the House so I shall tell him.’ Reaching for his stick he tried to struggle to his feet.

‘Sir?’ I gave him my arm. He had never leant on it so heavily before.

He steered me to the window. The grey day had turned
to the sort of thick, mizzling rain that never knows how to stop. The drenched view gave him no pleasure, but he stared out like a prisoner gasping for any view but the bars of his cell. ‘So what did you want me to do?’

‘As I said, sir, I know of no one else with your wide range of acquaintances in the
ton
. And I know of no one whose request for information would be responded to with such alacrity. Whichever spa Mr Coates – my absent colleague – has taken himself to, the British consul or better still ambassador there will know. Might I ask you, might I beg you, to use your good offices to find any information about him?’

He reeled off a list of names – those of his cronies and the cities where they represented His Majesty. ‘Any one of those would oblige you if you mentioned my name … No, we were known to be at odds, were we not … Damn me if I do not write to them myself. Hasbury’s secretary shall assist me. Just jot down a little memorandum for Brentford or whatever he calls himself. Everything you know about the man. Excellent. Now, my boy, you’ll join me in a little wine?’

‘Only if the wine comes from that carafe,’ I assured him, pointing at Toone’s coloured water. ‘How might I imbibe if you may not?’

Supporting himself on his stick, he turned to face me, nodding slowly. ‘You may come and visit me again soon. When your parish work permits, of course,’ he added with a mocking inclination of the head. ‘As I recall, you play a halfway decent game of chess …’

This was not the time to protest that he was mistaken, and that my eyebrow still bore the scar from when he
had thrown the board at me in his rage at my stupidity. ‘I should be honoured, sir, and will send you word.’ But I must make sure that Edmund was at hand to interrupt the game.

My father consulted his watch. ‘I’d best set that good-for-nothing secretary of Hasbury’s to work. Burntwood. Ring the bell for him, if you please.’

Walker, a conspiratorial smile on his discreet face, was at hand as I left the room, going so far as to invite me to join him for a mug of ale in the servants’ hall. I gladly accepted his invitation, happy to reminisce with him if not for my own particular pleasure, certainly for his.

Silence fell as we sat at the broad, scrubbed table. No doubt many of the servants were disconcerted to see a fellow servant, even one as distinguished as valet to a duke, entertaining a gentleman in their midst. Mrs Heath was almost outraged, bustling up to offer the use of her sitting room, but as she recognised me in my new guise her curtsy was more amused than obsequious. She herself brought us a jug of ale, but, summoned elsewhere, she had to beckon a maid to bring us tankards. She happened to pick on Sally, the girl I had cross-questioned and caused to be further interrogated. Perhaps she had reason to be sullen, but she was bright and happy, responding to our thanks with a smile and toss of her head as I slipped her a coin. What she did not do, I would swear, was recognise me. Even though she could see my full face, and I was facing the window, not a glimmer of acknowledgement entered her eyes. Even when I spoke to her by name, her expression was
blank, though she responded politely as she bobbed another curtsy and resumed her usual duties.

It would be wrong to interrupt Walker’s stream of recollections by mentioning it, and soon we were laughing at yet another of my childhood follies.

Soon, however, his bell rang, and he prepared, with some haste, to part. However, I followed him, asking him to hand me over, as it were, to Hasbury’s butler. I needed to be conveyed to his master.

I had had some fifteen minutes to make a further exploration of his underused library when my host appeared. Hasbury’s coat, exquisitely cut, fitted him so well that his valet must have had to ease him into it inch by inch. His snowy neckcloth fell into such intricate folds that I was grateful that Binns and then Walker had taken such pains with mine. Even so I was a country bumpkin alongside a master, a comparison he did nothing to allay in his manner.

‘You have put me to a great deal of trouble,’ he said, playing with his quizzing glass, ‘you and that damned corpse. That self-important man Vernon is insisting on holding the inquest here’ – he waved a letter before me – ‘despite all Beresford’s letters representing how inconvenient it is. What do you pay a secretary for, if not to persuade people of the rightness of your opinion, eh? And moreover, Vernon wants me to bring witnesses to the inquest. Holds me responsible, he says! What is any of this to do with me? A bit of poaching, I can deal with that, or someone pilfering someone’s chicken. But this is beyond reasonable!’

‘Indeed, I understand your anger, Hasbury. But imagine the chaos if Vernon had asked Wychbold to provide a suitable room.’

He laughed, to the imminent danger of those neckcloth folds. ‘But surely an inn is the usual location – surely there is one in Clavercote?’

‘My experience of the Dun Cow is limited to the worst ale it has ever been my misfortune to taste. If the accommodation resembles that in any way, then I cannot think it would be remotely suitable: more a byre than a place for humans to assemble. I believe your excellent housekeeper, Mrs Heath, and her team will transform whichever room here is selected to host the occasion to a courtroom and back again in the twinkling of an eye, with minimum inconvenience to you. As for any hoi polloi wishing or required to attend, they can surely be directed via a backstairs route,’ I added ironically. Why should the Sareys of this world go through their brief lives without ever seeing the first-class works of art hung on walls or standing on tables like those in Orebury’s entrance hall?