The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries) (23 page)

“Yet you thought enough of it to mention it your mistress? Why was that?” She did not answer and looked down at her work. “Hannah, why was that?” She glanced up at him for a moment and he saw the confusion in her face. He pressed on: “Are you sure that was all that happened? A face in the crowd?”

She bit her lip and looked away. Now Giles asked, “Did Master Harry see him, this gentleman who looked a little like his father? Children can be very observant. Did he point him out to you, perhaps?”

It was a guess on Giles’ part, but it made her stare back at him.

“How did you know that, sir? Has Master Harry said something to you?”

“No, but I may have to speak to him. What are you afraid he will say?” said Giles. “You are afraid of something, Hannah, I am certain of that, but surely you know it will be better to tell me everything?”

“But...” she began and twisted up her mouth.

“But?” he said. “I think there was a little more to this sighting of Mr Morgan than you are telling me, is there not?” She nodded. “Did he in fact speak to you and Master Harry?” She nodded again. “So the whole story, if you please?”

She hesitated for a long moment and then said, “I’d hoped I’d never see him again, to tell you the truth. I was as glad as anyone when the mistress sent him packing. It was a relief, and when I saw him there yesterday, in the street, and there was Master Harry tugging at my hand and saying “look it’s Papa, it’s Papa!” I didn’t know what to do, and then next minute there he was talking to Master Harry. I knew I should take him away at once, that it wasn’t right, but when I tried to say that, Mr Morgan looks at me and says, “you mustn’t rush away Hannah, you must respect a father’s rights” and then he said that it was God’s law that he should be allowed to see his boy, and if I stopped him I was doing wrong. And he’s not an easy man to stand up too, sir, he’s a big man and he... well...”

“Did he threaten you?”

“He said he wanted five minutes with his boy and if I didn’t let him – well he had my wrist and he squeezed it so hard and –” She held out her hand and rolled back the cuff, showing a bruise. “So I let him, I stood there and let him talk to him.”

“And why didn’t you tell your mistress all this?”

“Because... because...” It was clearly becoming hard for her to speak. “I only told her what I did because, well I wanted to say something, give her a hint, but he told me if I breathed a word of it I could expect the consequences, that he was watching us all and he could come and get me any time he wanted. Just like he did before.” She looked away.

“Before?” Giles said. “What do you mean by that?”

“He used... sometimes he used to come up to my room and once, well, you know, he...” She broke off, looking down at her hands which were now furiously twisting up the piece of darning.

“Can you bear to tell me a little more plainly what he did?” he asked gently, hearing the rapidity of her breathing.

“He got into my bed,” she managed to say. “I couldn’t push him off – he’s a big man, like I told you. He, well you know, sir, don’t you, what I’m talking about?”

“Do you mean he forced himself on you?” She nodded.

Then she burst out, as if she had been dying to speak of it, “He said he’d tell Mrs Morgan that I’d lured him in, if ever I breathed a word of it. That it was all my fault. That I mustn’t make a sound. It was...” She was clearly struggling to continue. “I tried to push him off, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It was... it was...” She could no longer speak, her arms wrapped tight about her, her body hunched up, her faced screwed up in pain.

He would have liked to have comforted her, but he had the good sense to know that she would have flinched at any man’s touch.

“I am glad you have told me this, Hannah,” he said. “You have done the right thing in telling me. What he did was unpardonable. If I can lay my hands on him, I will make sure he goes to the gallows for it.”

“But what if he finds out, what if he comes back here tonight?”

“You won’t be here for him to find you,” said Giles. “I want you to take Master Harry out when he comes up from the garden. Just leave the house as if you are going to for a walk but instead you are to take him to my sister, Mrs Fforde’s house. I will write a note for you to give to her. She will make you both welcome, and you will stay there as long as needs be. You will be perfectly safe there.”

“But what about the mistress?” said Hannah. “He said... when he was... he said that he gave her the same treatment – he said that she was a dirty whore who deserved to be treated like a whore –” she stumbled over her words.

Just as the letter had said, Giles thought.

“She will be safe too,” said Giles. “I will make sure of it.”

“May I go now, sir?” she asked.

“Of course.”

She made a bolt for the door.

These revelations he made him both depressed and angry. He was used to catalogues of misdeeds – the darker side of human nature was familiar to him – but it was still shocking that a man could prey on the women of his household, treating both his wife and a trusted servant as soulless objects.

He forced himself to wonder what and how much Mrs Morgan might suffered at her husband’s hands, though it disturbed him to think of her being treated so. She had only hinted at unpleasantness, masking it all in that bright gilding of her personal courage, but Hannah’s bitter testimony suggested a routine callousness that would have made her life beyond miserable. In the eyes of the law, if Morgan forced himself on a servant without her consent and the facts could be proved, he would be found guilty of rape. However, his wife was afforded no such protection by the law. Rape within marriage did not exist – it could not when a woman’s body was effectively the property of her husband. Giles suspected it was a more common state of affairs than anyone with a shred of decency or feeling would like to admit. That Mrs Morgan had managed to evict him from her life seemed a remarkable achievement – if unfortunately a short-lived one. There was now no doubt that Morgan was in Northminster and if the tone of his letters was anything to go by, it was a dangerous development.

He went downstairs and found Mrs Morgan dressed and sitting in the large drawing room, a score open on her lap, pencil in her hand. He was glad to find her alone.

“I am going to conduct a little experiment,” said Giles. “If you do not mind. I am going to make you vanish.”

“Vanish? What do you mean?”

“I am going to hide you and see what sort of reaction that provokes. Your husband is in town and he knows where you are – therefore I think we had best remove you to a safer place, at least for the time being.”

“And Harry?”

“Hannah will take him to my sister’s house. That is the best place for him. I do not think your husband is interested in harming him.”

“And where I am to go?”

“I have another idea about that. Can you contrive to go out for a walk alone, in about half an hour?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Go through the Minster Gate and into the Blue Boar. It is a perfectly respectable establishment, and I will leave instructions for you there.”

She put down the score and stood up, scrutinising him.

“I do not like this grave tone in you at all. What have you found out?”

“We will talk later. You must trust me.”

“Yes, of course, of course. How could I not?” and she reached out with both hands and briefly, and warmly squeezed one of his hands.

Chapter Thirty

“So, Mr Carswell, what is all this about you and Miss Pritchard?” Giles asked, coming into his consulting room.

“How did you hear of that?” said Carswell, jumping up form his desk.

“From Lord Rothborough.”

“Oh, dear Lord,” muttered Carswell.

“What has been going on – if you don’t mind me asking?” Giles asked.

“I wish I knew!” exclaimed Carswell. “I have been embroiled into something I cannot begin to understand. She is... I do not know what she is or what she is about!”

“The young woman – the other night, outside the Treasurer’s House – was that Miss Pritchard?”

“Yes. I should have liked to have told you. You must believe me.”

His distress was apparent. “Of course.”

“I do not know what she is up to. I asked her – well, it was not in earnest, and –”

“What did you ask her?”

“To marry me. Yes. Ridiculous though that sounds – and I was being ridiculous. I was not in my right mind, and she saw that and said no, just as any decent girl would, thank goodness, and then her father and my Lord arrived. It looked a trifle compromising but it need not have been had she –” Breathless in his agitation, he paused for a moment. “Had she not decided to announce to them the fact she accepted to me. In flat contradiction to what she had just said to me in private. A public declaration of intent. It could not have been worse, or at least so I thought!”

Giles reached into his coat pocket and felt for the the key decorated with the plaid ribbon and the matching rosette.

“I went to the Deanery this morning in an attempt to sort it out, only to find she has now made an accusation against me,” Carswell continued. “An extraordinary accusation. I cannot think why, unless she is a fool or something, which I do not think for a minute she is.”

“What did she say?”

“She has told him – her father, that is – that I have ruined her. And now Lord Rothborough will hear that and he will – well, God knows what he will do.”

“He will doubtless disbelieve it, as I do.”

“You believe me?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, thank God! But why on earth would she say a thing like that? Why would she take it into her head to slander me? Lord Rothborough will not believe me. He will take her part.”

“I doubt it. He knows you would not do such an dishonourable thing.”

“You do not know him as I do, sir. He will be ready to believe the slightest thing against me.”

“I do not think so,” said Giles. “And although it is distasteful to have to conclude a respectable young woman is lying, I think anyone who knows you will give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“So what on earth is she doing? Is she trying to trap me? But that makes no sense because she could easily have got me when I was a fool enough to ask her. But she was clear as anything on that point. And then –”

“I think there’s a great deal Miss Pritchard is not telling us,” said Giles, taking the ribbon rosette from his pocket and studying it. “And hopefully she will be prevailed upon to come clean sooner rather than later.”

“Or I shall be forced to the altar by Dean Pritchard,” said Carswell. “He has a vile temper – you would never know it to look at him. One of those people who is too mild for their own good and then:
soudain!
”

“Did he strike you?”

“Yes. That’s the worst of it – I worry for her. There was such a look of desperation about her this morning, as if he’d threatened her with the Lord only knows what. She can’t be doing this lightly – I must say that for her.”

“I will talk to them both,” said Giles.

“You will? If anyone can make sense of this it will be you, sir!”

Giles went back to his office and found Holt sitting patiently on the bench in the passageway.

“I am glad you took me at my word, Mr Holt,” said Giles, showing him into his office. “I have a particular job for you to undertake, if you are interested. I have to ensure the safety of a lady.”

Having briefed Holt and made his arrangements for Mrs Morgan at the Blue Boar, Giles made his way back to the Minster Precincts, thinking he might go directly to the Deanery in search of Miss Pritchard. But as he passed the front of the Song School, he suddenly remembered George Watkins shuffling the music on his grand piano, and casually, yet carefully, putting aside a named portfolio.
K. Pritchard.

He had heard Kate Pritchard play at his sister’s house. She did not play like a young lady. She had played like a professional musician. Who in Northminster would a young woman of such talent find attractive? Perhaps a man of equal talent and the same passion for music. Someone young, energetic, handsome and talented who was at the same time completely unsuitable.

He decided he ought to talk to George Watkins again.

There was no answer when he rang the bell to the Master of Music’s house, so Giles tried the door. It opened, and he called out “Mr Watkins? Are you at home?”

There was still no answer. Giles decided to seize on the opportunity presented by an empty house. He went into the music room where they had previously spoken. There were still great piles of music on the piano. He soon found what he wanted: a unbound volume of nocturnes by Field, marked “K Pritchard” in a woman’s hand.

Just as he had laid his hands on the folio, he heard the bang of a door somewhere in the house.

He went back into the hall, and down a passageway which lead to the kitchen, where the fire was burning and a kettle sat on the hob. There was also a dressy bonnet lying on the table and a coloured shawl draped over the back of a chair – neither item looked like the property of a servant.

He could hear that someone was moving about in what he assumed was the scullery beyond.

“Hello!” he called again.

There was a long silence, then Miss Kate Pritchard walked out, wearing an apron, with a cloth and a tea cup in her hands.

“Major Vernon,” she said.

“Miss Pritchard,” he said. “I am glad to find you.”

“Are you?” she said, with a shake in her voice.

“I think it will do you good to talk to me,” he said, pulling out a chair for her.

“I was making tea. Would you like some?”

“If you like,” he said.

She made tea and did it slowly. She had something of the air of a bride entertaining a guest for the first time, laying out the cups on the kitchen table with some ceremony, however incongruous that might be. She was certainly not in the position to be acting as the mistress of this house, and yet it was entirely as if she was.

“So,” he said, when she had poured a cup for them both. “Where shall we begin?”

She took her time to answer, avoiding his gaze. He had long enough to observe her red-rimmed eyes.