The Deathly Portent (18 page)

“I have been trying to persuade Mrs. Dale of her innocence in the matter of Duggleby’s death.”

Cassie’s eyes remained on Kinnerton’s face, and she put out a hand which he automatically took and held.

“Lady Fan says I have been used. She says they took my vision for a signal and killed Duggleby in a way that would make the villagers blame me. I believe it. It is not the first time I have been made scapegoat for the sins of others.”

The words were delivered in a rush, a note of panic underneath that Ottilia was quick to detect. She could not but approve the parson’s studied response, for all that it was delivered in a tone that verged perilously on a caress.

“Hush, Mrs. Dale. Do not upset yourself. Is it not better to know your enemies for what they are than to hold your own talent suspect?”

“Talent! Would it were one.”

“But it is,” he insisted. “There is no saying but that the smithy roof would have come down in any event. What you saw was used, but that does not change the fact that you saw it.”

“You believe in such things, Mr. Kinnerton?” asked Ottilia, firmly entering the lists.

He seemed to become only now fully conscious of her presence. Releasing Mrs. Dale’s hands, he stepped back, a dull colour creeping up his neck.

“I have reason to, Lady Francis.”

“Indeed?”

“Or at least to keep an open mind,” he amended, throwing an apologetic glance at Cassie Dale, who was frowning deeply. “The abilities of some of the African natives were hard to dispute.”

“Ah yes, my husband told me you had been a missionary.”

He looked vexed, as if he did not wish this side of his ministry to be talked of. But he reckoned without Cassie Dale. Her eyes shining, she reached out to him again, but Ottilia noted he did not this time take her hand.

“It was a wonderful thing to do, as I said to Mrs. Winkleigh when she told me of it,” said Cassie.

At this, a rueful grin drove the vexation from his face. “I’ll wager she did not agree with you.”

Cassie laughed, and her whole countenance lightened again. “No, indeed. She disliked it excessively.”

“I am aware. My mother also.”

“Yes, so she said.”

His brows lifted. “I perceive I have been thoroughly exposed by my old nurse.”

Cassie laughed again. “Utterly. But I’m glad.”

Growing a trifle impatient, for all the entertainment of witnessing a budding love affair, Ottilia put an end to this exchange.

“What sort of abilities, sir, did you witness in Africa?”

A crease appeared between his brows, and it was plain his time there had not been uniformly happy.

“On occasion I could swear one or other of these individuals was telepathic. And though I could not approve their pagan rites, their witch doctors appeared to have quite remarkable powers.”

“What sort of powers?” Ottilia asked, glancing at Cassie, who was rapt.

“They could heal—though I suspect that was more a matter of persuading the sick to heal themselves. But, like you,
Mrs. Dale, there were instances of visions of events which subsequently came to pass.”

“You did not think that someone took care, like our present murderer, to ensure that they came to pass?”

He shook his head. “Perhaps once or twice. But on the whole, I have to say I was convinced.”

Intrigued, Ottilia turned to Cassie Dale. “Should you object to explaining how these visions come to you?”

Cassie shivered, and Ottilia found herself the recipient of a distinctly unfriendly look from Mr. Kinnerton. She ignored it, holding Cassie’s gaze. The girl’s eyes deepened with a species of concentrated pain, but she did not look away.

“It is like a fog to begin with, swirling in my head. Then the pictures form.” She shivered and Ottilia wondered at it briefly. “They don’t come immediately, and not in any great detail, and not perhaps in order. They are more like flashes than a sequence of events.” She put her hands together, twisting her fingers. “But in my mind I know. I know the meaning. I know what will happen. Or what has happened.”

“And it is that which panics you?” Ottilia guessed.

She nodded, her tongue darting at her lips in a gesture infinitely more telling than her words.

It proved too much for the Reverend Kinnerton. He caught her unquiet hands and held them fast. “Don’t fear it, Cassie! It is a God-given gift. Let it be. Let it be and it cannot hurt you.”

As Cassie gazed into the gentleman’s eyes, Ottilia began to feel decidedly de trop. She was saved from having to decide whether to efface herself, however, by a sudden shout from the direction of the bridge.

“Reverend! Miss Cassie!”

The effect was felt by all, turning as one towards the shout. Ottilia beheld a burly fellow beckoning with urgency.

“It is Sam! What is it, Sam?”

As Ottilia hurried with the others towards the bridge, the
echo of the man’s shout reiterated in her mind. Miss Cassie? Abruptly, she recalled Mrs. Dale’s odd reaction when she had mentioned her dead husband. The suspicion raced through her mind and was tucked away for future examination as the present crisis was laid bare.

“It’s Molly Tisbury, Reverend,” announced the man Sam. “She’s gone clean out of her mind, to my way of thinking.”

“What has happened?” The sharp note showed another side to the vicar.

“She’s attacking Hannah Pakefield, sir. The two of ’em are fighting like cats, and no one can pull ’em apart.”

Only now did Ottilia take in the running figures, coming from every direction and racing hell-for-leather towards the Blue Pig.

A
s Aidan pelted down the lane, keeping pace with Sam Hawes but outstripping the ladies within a matter of yards, his eyes scanned the hurrying villagers, and he recognised several of the flying figures. Will and Tisbury from the Cock and Bottle, closely followed by Farmer Staxton. He half expected to see old Pa Wagstaff hobbling along, but a glance towards the cobbled courtyard of the Blue Pig told him the aged jokesmith was already in situ, leaning on a thick staff.

As he neared, Aidan caught the sounds of the altercation, along with shouts from the gathering onlookers. When he was able to take in the scene, he saw the huge oaken door of the inn standing ajar and discovered the fight had tumbled out onto the cobbles.

A circle was forming, and he could just see the battling females clutched together in a heaving, screaming mass. There was a roar from the crowd, and Aidan clearly heard the senile cracked voice of Molly Tisbury’s father, egging her on.

“Go to it, girl! Her’ve nowt to gainsay you. Give ’er one in the breadbasket!”

Whether the Tisbury woman heard him was a moot point, for the grunts and yells coming from her own throat had likely made her deaf to anything outside her immediate attention.

As he arrived at the scene, a little out of breath, Aidan recognised Lord Francis Fanshawe standing at the ready, poised to intervene. A little apart stood a lanky man, staggering with a hand to his brow, an expression of horror upon his countenance. And hard by, making quite as much noise as those of lesser status, was the pair of females Aidan had so far seen only at a distance, but of whom he had heard much from Lady Ferrensby.

Wasting no time, Aidan looked to see if Hawes had kept up and found him panting just behind.

“Help Lord Francis, Sam,” he ordered tersely and pushed through to the front of the circle. He threw up a hand to attract Fanshawe’s attention and raised his voice to pulpit pitch, bellowing across the throng.

“Lord Francis!” His lordship looked quickly across, and their eyes met. “Take the one, while I secure the other.”

Without waiting for agreement, he scanned the watchers for the landlord of the Cock and Bottle, who had reached the scene a bare moment before him. Tisbury was found to be standing a little in front of his fellows, his jaw sagging and his eyes following the two women’s staggering motions as they cannoned backward and forward across the cobbles.

“Tisbury!” Aidan yelled, running across. “Don’t stand like a stock, man! Help me stop this!”

Thus adjured, the landlord came to himself with a bang and nodded, shifting alongside Aidan as he looked for an opening. Lord Francis and Sam Hawes were similarly circling as the quarries threw each other to and fro, neither giving an inch.

Aidan had not previously encountered Mrs. Pakefield, who looked to be the more bulky and robust. She was largely
on the defensive, using her ample form to shove hard at the skinnier Mrs. Tisbury and prevent her from moving out of range by clutching the hair on either side of her attacker’s head.

Molly Tisbury’s fingers were thus free to pummel, gouge, and slap even as she shrieked in pain, and her opponent’s grunts and cries showed she was making her mark.

Intent upon his task, Aidan was vaguely aware of the commentary coming from all sides.

“This is terrible! Will no one stop them?” A shrill screech in genteel tones.

“Get her down! Her’s bigger nor you, her’ve to fall harder.”

“Use your feet, girl! Don’t you know owt?”

At which, Molly Tisbury pulled roughly back and aimed a wild kick at her rival’s legs. It fell wide and gave Hannah Pakefield an opportunity to duck her head and butt at the other’s face.

A shriek from the Tisbury female showed she had found her mark, and blood started to stream from the woman’s nose.

Leaving Aidan flat, the frenzied Tisbury belted over to the lanky fellow hovering at the edge of the action, who Aidan had earlier noticed. Tisbury seized the man by the coat lapels.

“Can’t you do owt with your devil wife, you great lummock!”

“Tisbury!” Aidan roared, incensed at this desertion.

At that instant, Lord Francis ran in on the fight and seized hold of the nearest shoulders, which proved to be those of Hannah Pakefield. Aidan immediately grabbed at Molly Tisbury as Sam Hawes joined Lord Francis. To Aidan’s relief, Tisbury hurried back to his aid, seizing his wife by an upper arm.

“Is that Hannah’s husband?” Aidan asked him, holding fast to his quarry. “Why is he not helping us?”

“For as he bain’t nowt but a noddy, is why,” retorted Tisbury, adding fiercely, “Shut it, will you?”

This was to his spouse, Aidan supposed, but he wasted no words himself. It was by no means easy to hold the combatants, despite having two men to each woman, both still screaming abuse at one another, the Tisbury female apparently oblivious to the blood now dripping down her chin and onto her clothes.

“We’ll hold while you tug her off,” Lord Francis barked at Aidan.

But a voice cut in before he could act on this command.

“Don’t pull, man! Got to get Hannah’s fingers out of the creature’s hair first.”

One of the ladies had joined them, the tall female with a mannish air, who had taken one of Mrs. Pakefield’s arms in a grip that effectively stopped its motion.

“Quite right, Miss Beeleigh,” came the calm tones of Lady Francis, as she appeared suddenly into the fray.

The other woman released one of her hands and grasped at the clutching fingers. “Let go, Hannah, let go!”

But the Pakefield female, though her motions had perforce ceased, appeared to have lost her senses. Her shock-filled eyes were fixed upon the other’s snarling visage.

Momentarily uncertain, Aidan looked from Miss Beeleigh to Lady Francis.

“Prise her fingers off, Tillie!”

The instruction came from Lord Francis, and Aidan saw his lady’s fingers reach towards Mrs. Pakefield’s and take hold of them. Gently, she spoke again.

“Hannah, my dear, you must let go.”

At this, a haunted look entered Mrs. Pakefield’s face, and in an involuntary motion, she opened her fingers. Quickly, her hands were pulled back and the combatants dragged well away from one another.

“Tisbury, take your wife under the arms and hold her still,” Aidan panted, trying to keep the wriggling, cursing bundle under his hand from escaping. “Staxton, help him!”

At this command, the tavern’s landlord briefly released his hold, instead slipping his arms under his wife’s shoulders and holding her strongly around the chest.

“Shut it, Molly, do,” he growled in her ear.

Farmer Staxton appeared at Aidan’s side. “I’ll stand by, Reverend.”

A burly arm appeared, and a hand grasped where he was holding so that Aidan was able to let go of Mrs. Tisbury at last. He moved in between the two women. Glancing at Hannah Pakefield, supported now by Miss Beeleigh and Sam Hawes, Aidan could see she was no longer a danger. Indeed, she looked to be in a fair way to falling into a swoon. Her spouse, clearly a helpless individual, could only stand by with a hand to his head, his face a picture of confusion.

Aidan stood his ground, ready to intervene should either of the late opponents show any signs of wishing to renew the fight. But by this time, Molly Tisbury, her cries at last reduced in response to her husband’s vociferous complaints, had ceased her struggles and shrugged off the farmer’s grasp. She had apparently discovered her injuries.

“I be bleeding! Her’ve broke my nose!”

“Her’ve not, neither. Tamest fight I ever did see,” complained her ancient progenitor.