Nell (12 page)

He broke out into his irritating guffaw. ‘Ain’t likely to afford me much comfort! Never fear, I’ll make do with this.’ So saying, he placed himself in one of the seats formed by the battlemented windows.

‘How can I serve you, Mr Beresford?’

The eyes widened to their fullest extent. ‘You can’t! I mean there’s no occasion for it. What I came for, Miss Faraday, was to reassure you that there’s nothing havey-cavey going on.’

Nell saw that some response was called for. Was she supposed to believe him? She opted for a neutral note, refusing to assist him.

‘Indeed?’

He grinned in a manner that she could not but admit to be engaging. ‘Well, it’s what you supposed, ain’t it?’

‘Well, yes,’ agreed Nell, capitulating. ‘Only because I had heard something of Lord Nobody’s exploits.’

A shout of laughter greeted this. ‘I’ll wager you’re imagining one or other of us to be none other than that wayward gentleman.’

Curiously, this assertion had the opposite effect from that which Nell supposed he intended. She debated whether to make her suspicions real to him. Instinct prompted her to speak plainly, but caution won. She tried for a smile, hoping that she did not look as dismayed as she felt.

‘I confess that had occurred to me.’

He shook his head and tutted. ‘Miss Faraday, you surprise me. Gad, but I wish I had thought of it! The wretched fellow is forever nabbing gewgaws from the gentry roundabout. I believe most of the ladies take care these days to venture out without ’em.’

‘A sensible precaution.’

Nell watched him carefully. Was it her imagination, or was there a calculating look in his eyes, as if he noted the effect upon her of each of his utterances? He wanted to know how his story was working with her. She determined to keep him guessing. Heavens, how she loathed pretence! Infinitely did she prefer Lord Jarrow’s clipped wrath. Pain her it might, but its effect was to invite her belief in him.

‘But you did quarrel with his lordship?’ She gave a little shrug. ‘Not that it is in the least my affair. Only I woke up, you see, and I should hate my employer to suppose that I was spying upon him.’

‘Ah, so that’s why you mentioned it.’ Mr Beresford nodded his understanding. ‘Thought it odd myself, but now I get the picture. Difficult position for you, Miss Faraday, I appreciate that.’ He fetched a heavy sigh.

‘Yes, we quarrelled. Not surprising, y’know. On top of each other the way we are. And he’s moody is Eden. Quite as bad as Hetty. Got to get away now and then. Can’t blame him, and I don’t think he blames me.’

Trying to follow the gist of this, Nell became thoroughly confused. ‘But is it Lord Jarrow you mean? Did he ride out in the middle of the night? I thought it was you!’

He looked blank. ‘Did Eden say so? Gad, no knowing what he’s going to come out with! Been the same all along—since the accident, I mean.’

A chill crept over Nell. ‘Accident?’

Beresford frowned. ‘Of course, you don’t know, do you? M’sister was killed by a stray bullet. That’s where the highwayman business comes in. At least, that’s the way Eden told it.’

Startled, Nell forgot caution. ‘But was he there?’

The wide eyes were briefly chagrined, but the look was so quickly gone that Nell could not be sure she had seen it. Now he looked merely puzzled.

‘You’ve heard something of it, then?’

Ah, so that was what had surprised him. Annoyed him, perhaps? Useless to prevaricate. Nell opted for a head on challenge.

‘Mrs Whyte hinted at something of the sort. Only she spoke of murder.’

His features crumpled, and he threw a hand to his face. ‘Don’t say it!’

Nell was stricken by remorse. ‘Forgive me, Mr Beresford. That was stupid of me.’

Without looking up, he shook his head, throwing out one hand in a gesture that begged her silence. As if in sympathy, the rain stepped up, tapping at the windows. In a moment or two, Mr Beresford had apparently mastered his emotion. But when he lowered his hand, there was wetness at his eyes. Against her will, Nell could not help feeling sorry for him. The words came unbidden from her mouth.

‘Why in the world do you stay, Mr Beresford, in a place so full of memories? Surely you would do better to go elsewhere. Pray do not fob me off with that tale your brother gave. I have no doubt he could be persuaded to give you pecuniary assistance.’

A heavy sigh greeted this. ‘I would not ask it of him. There are Beresfords enough upon whom I could call. But how can I leave him? Were I to go, who would give the lie to the rumours? I am Julietta’s brother. As long as I stand by him, no one dare accuse him outright.’

The sense of this was clear, but Nell’s heart refused it. She would not give it credence. She would not even acknowledge that he had said it!

‘Then why don’t you ask your family for help?’ she said, ignoring the entirety of the remainder of his speech.

An understanding smile was directed upon her. ‘I see what you are at, and I don’t blame you. Do you suppose that I believe it? Don’t you think that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, I hold Eden entirely innocent?’

There was lead in Nell’s chest. The drip of waters upon the roof walkway outside increased in volume, and somewhere inside her, a scream was forming. She wanted to hurl his words back at him, forcing him to unsay them. She wanted to curl her fingers into claws and scratch his face until he admitted that it was a lie. She did none of these things. She sat perfectly still, and kept her gaze steady on the man’s handsome face.

But she could do nothing about the tremor in her voice, and its husky quality echoed in her own ears. ‘What possible motive could he have?’

The sadness increased in the abruptly hateful features across the room. ‘Why, have you not guessed it, Miss Faraday? Have you not both seen and heard the fear in his expressions every day?’

An inkling was creeping into Nell’s mind, despite the fog suffusing it. Now she thought herself a fool not to have realised before. ‘Henrietta?’

‘Is following so closely in her mother’s footsteps that poor Eden dreads the sight and sound of every symptom.’

Mr Beresford rose from the window seat, pacing to the desk. He placed his hands upon it, leaning over her. Nell stared up into his features, and saw in them for the first time the portrait of Julietta Jarrow. His eyes met hers, wide and fierce with a species of agony.

‘Yes, Miss Faraday. My poor sister was demented. She led Jarrow a life so hideous that I doubt any stranger
could imagine it. Which of us who knew of it could blame him if he could not endure it? If he wished at last to be rid of her.’

The housekeeper’s round cheeks were flushed, her kind eyes uncharacteristically ablaze. ‘He’d no call to say such a thing, he as was brother to the poor mistress and all! Wicked young wastrel he always was. Leading her astray, if you was to ask me the truth of it!’

Nell had not meant to stir up such a storm, in keeping though it was with the protests in her bosom and the lashing rain outside. Contrite, she laid down her cup. ‘I should not have told you.’

‘Begging your pardon, Miss Faraday, you should! You need someone to tell you what’s what, if you’re to be fed a pack of lies.’

Longing to beg for reassurance that it was indeed a pack of lies, Nell banished the question from her lips. Bad enough that she should have roused Mrs Whyte to this extent, only because she could not contain her own distress. She put it down to the frustrating necessity to keep her emotions festering inside while she took Henrietta through her lessons for the afternoon. The result was that instead of questioning the housekeeper obliquely about the late mistress of Castle Jarrow—which was what she had intended—she had spilled the whole tale within moments of the housekeeper serving her with a dish of tea. She hastened to amend the situation.

‘Mrs Whyte, pray don’t upset yourself. It is not as if Mr Beresford said it was so, but only that rumour had got about.’

‘Don’t tell me! There is naught so wicked as those with gossiping tongues.’ A great sigh escaped the other
woman, and she stirred sugar into her tea with a moody hand. ‘It’s the master I’m sorry for. It ain’t as if he hadn’t enough on his hands with the mistress murdered and the place full of constables and magistrates, but some noddy must needs go and start a tale that says he pulled the trigger. Never heard such a nonsense in my life!’

How can you be sure?
But Nell could not say it. She was not even certain she could endure to hear the full account of what had happened upon the fatal night. Not merely for its own horrors, but because she knew it could not fail to remind her of that dread image in her past. Better to stick to the other matter upon which she sought enlightenment.

‘What is most important at this present, Mrs Whyte—at least for my purposes—is what you can tell me of Lady Jarrow’s condition.’ The housekeeper’s features sagged, and her eyes clouded. ‘It distresses you, I know, but—’

‘Yes, it does, ma’am, and I’ll tell you for why.’

Nell waited. Mrs Whyte fidgeted a moment or two with her cup, picking it up and putting it down again without, Nell was persuaded, noticing what she was doing. She shook her head, setting the mob cap dancing, and gave forth another gusty sigh.

‘You see, my dear, while there was conduct as made it certain my poor mistress wasn’t in full possession of her wits, it ain’t that sort as you see in Miss Hetty.’

‘I don’t understand you.’

The housekeeper fortified herself with a gulp of tea.

‘She’d fall into unaccountable rages, yes. Tantrums you’d call it in the young’un. Then there was fits of shaking and muttering, moaning fit to frighten the whole household. After such times it was almost worse, ma’am.
Flat out calm she’d be, sleeping for hours and looking like the dead.’

A tattoo started up in Nell’s chest, and the battering rain sounded loud in her eardrums. ‘And her breathing? Was it laboured?’

The housekeeper shot her a questioning look. ‘Heavy it was, yes. Used to frighten me horrible.’

‘Did she walk in her sleep?’ Was not that one of his lordship’s worst fears?

Mrs Whyte looked dubious. ‘Well, she was used to walk the corridors of a night. Whether she were asleep or no I can’t rightly say. Nor anyone else, for the matter of that. Excepting his lordship perhaps.’ A tinge of colour stole into the lady’s cheeks. ‘They slept separate mostly.’

This intelligence had the oddest effect upon Nell, for a sliver of heat shot through her and her mouth went dry. She was glad to be spared having to speak, for the housekeeper had not completed her disclosures. They proved more and more unsettling.

‘Her chamber was next to his. Times you’d go in and find her gone. Only you couldn’t be sure she was walking, for she’d go in to him on occasion. For comfort, I think, though it can’t be gainsaid she’d her—’ darkly, with a hand flipping quickly beside her mouth to indicate secrecy ‘—
other
needs. And he’d not repudiate her, not his lordship. On either count, I’d guess.’

Nell could readily believe it. Lord Jarrow had ever struck her as a man with a sense of duty. And he must have loved his wife. The thought caused a flicker of hurt to which she refused to give acknowledgement. Yet though he loved her, she must have tested him to the utmost. She recalled where the housekeeper had begun.

‘You mentioned at the start, Mrs Whyte, that Henrietta
is not quite following in her mother’s footsteps. Or have I misunderstood you?’

The frill of the mob cap emphasised her denial. ‘I think you understand me very well, Miss Faraday. You’ve seen something of all that in Hetty. And it’s my belief there are those as want it seen.’

Nell stared. ‘Now you have lost me.’

The housekeeper pursed her lips. ‘Shouldn’t have said that. Pay me no mind, ma’am.’

‘Yes, but I don’t think I can,’ said Nell frankly.

‘Best I keep my suspicions to myself.’

Her curiosity thoroughly aroused, it was all Nell could do to agree to this. ‘Yes, but you were going to tell me something more of your mistress, weren’t you?’

Mrs Whyte fiddled with her spoon again. ‘I don’t know as I ought. It ain’t that I don’t trust you, ma’am, for I can see for myself as you’re a sensible female. Only there’s no saying who might hear me, and a body can’t be too careful.’

Could there possibly be room for such fears? It argued a certain desperation on the part of those who might be supposed to hear. Nell felt thoroughly discomposed. However, the Duck had always said that more knowledge, and not less, was the key to overcoming apprehension. She tried again.

‘Mrs Whyte, I don’t know what may be occurring here in Castle Jarrow, but I have already been subject to certain peculiarities. The more you can tell me, the easier it will be for me to judge of the rightness of anyone’s actions. Ignorance can only leave me open to—well, to whatever it may be that is being played out here.’

The housekeeper sighed again. ‘Well, I can’t argue with that.’

Nevertheless, she got up out of her chair and stepped
softly to the pantry door, opened it and listened intently. Evidently, she was satisfied with what she heard—or did not hear—for she nodded, quietly closed the door, and returned to her seat, gesturing to the splatter of water upon the casement behind Nell.

‘No one won’t hear us, I dare say, above that racket.’ She leaned forward, nevertheless, lowering her voice in a conspiratorial fashion so that Nell had to strain to hear her above the rain.

‘What you’ve seen in Miss Hetty, my dear, is only a tithe of what the mistress put him through. I was that fond of her, but it can’t be gainsaid that she would have tried the patience of a saint.’ She leaned even closer, dropping almost to a whisper. ‘It weren’t the tantrums, nor yet the fits and such. It was the
men
, Miss Faraday. She couldn’t help it. It was like a sickness. The gambling was another. Though there I blame her brother, for he encouraged her. It seems as there was one too many scandals, for at last his lordship brought her home. I think it was that sent her over the edge, if anything did. She never forgave him, and she led him such a dance as it’s a wonder it wasn’t his lordship as was driven crazy!’