A Corpse in Shining Armour (28 page)

A visit to the cottage produced nothing but well-tidied emptiness. If Tabby had come back, she’d have left some trace. The
next hope was to go back to the hall, in case anybody had news of her now. I felt tired and weighed down with worry. The freshness
of the air after the storm had been burned away as the sun rose higher, and everything felt hot and sticky again. But that
was only part of the reason for my reluctance to go back to the hall. I didn’t want to return because Robert Carmichael was
there. His last words to me had been a reproach, and an undeserved one. Come just so far but no further, had been the message.
He must have known that Lady Brinkburn was coming close to confiding in me and would surely have had enough influence with
her to stop her if he’d really wanted. But then, she was stubborn in her way and had shown me the journal, even though he
disapproved. He’d been unmistakeably relieved when I told him that she’d denied the story of the daemon lover. Then just one
more question, and a perfectly justified one in the circumstances, had changed his attitude entirely. I’d been invited to
share at least some of the family secrets, then treated like a trespasser.

Still, no help for it. My responsibility to Tabby would have to come before the Brinkburns’ problems. I drank some water,
nibbled at a slice of yesterday’s bread, then threw the rest for the ducks and went back through the woods to the road.

I’d chosen that way in preference to the river bank because there were two cottages on the way I hadn’t covered in my search,
but they were as useless as the rest and I began to regret my choice. The road was rutted and dusty, the sun beating down
so that my head felt hot even under the straw bonnet. The only people I saw were four farm workers, taking a break from their
work in the shade under the hedge, their scythes propped up beside them. Then, perhaps half a mile from the hall, the sound
of galloping hooves came from along the road in front of me, and a horse and rider appeared.

It was too hot for galloping and the road was too hard, but that didn’t seem to matter to this man. At first he and his horse
were no more than shapes in a dust cloud. As he came nearer I could see that he was dressed like a gentleman in a black jacket
and top hat, but he was riding like a jockey, swinging his whip hand to urge the horse on, though not actually hitting it.
If he saw me, it didn’t make any difference to his speed or direction, and I had to jump aside on to the grass verge as he
went past. I recognised the horse as a blue roan I’d seen in the livery stables at the Bear, useful-looking but not accustomed
to this pace and labouring hard. Then, in the one glance I had at his face, I recognised the rider, too. It was Stephen Brinkburn
and he looked furious.

I waited for the dust to settle, then walked on slowly. Nobody had seen Stephen for ten days. He hadn’t been at the hall the
night before, so must have arrived while I was looking for Tabby. Lady Brinkburn had not said anything about expecting him.
In normal circumstances, there’d have been nothing out of the way in the elder son rushing to comfort his bereaved mother,
but normal circumstances didn’t apply here. Besides, his visit must have been indecently short.

Whether or not he’d arrived in a bad temper, he was certainly leaving in one. That was the biggest puzzle of all. If he’d
spoken to his mother, he must have received good news. She was no longer claiming that his conception was the result of a
visit by somebody other than his father. Therefore he was what he’d always believed himself to be–legitimate successor to
a title and a fortune. There’d be no embarrassing revelations in the House of Lords, society gossips would lose a good story
and the fair Rosa would transfer her wavering affections back to her true knight. Even allowing for the death of a father
who had not played a large part in his upbringing, Stephen Brinkburn should have been beaming like a man who’d just had all
his birthdays come at once, not beating the dust out of the road as if he hated the world. That is, unless his mother had
decided to change her story again. The possibility of that was at least a diversion from worrying about Tabby. Had Sophia
understood the significance of what she was saying to me? I’d believed she had at the time, but a laudanum-hazed brain is
a strange thing.

I’d thought yesterday that my work for the Brinkburn family had finished, but now it might be all to do again.

The maid who opened the front door to me looked hangdog, like a girl who’d had a scolding.

‘Are you Dora?’ I said.

‘Yes, ma’am.’

It was a mutter with her eyes on the floor.

‘It was unkind to tease poor Tabby,’ I said. ‘Still, I’m sorry about the ham. Has she come back?’

‘No, ma’am.’

I was about to ask if Lady Brinkburn was receiving visitors when Mr Whiteley came down the stairs, nearly tripping over in
his hurry.

‘Has your maid reappeared, Miss Lane?’

‘No.’

‘We’ve looked everywhere for her. I’m quite certain she’s not on the estate.’

He looked scared of me, as if I’d hold him personally to blame. I asked him if he’d kindly send up to Lady Brinkburn and let
her know I was back. He looked even more unhappy.

‘Her ladyship is resting. Mr Carmichael said I was to ask you if you’d be kind enough to call back tomorrow, if convenient.’

It was another slam of the door, just in case I hadn’t been deterred by the first one. The day before, Sophia had implored
me to stay and protect her from whatever phantoms were haunting her dreams. Now she was treating me like an annoying and distant
acquaintance. Dora was still standing by the front door, ready to open it again. I was practically being thrown off the premises.
I stood my ground and looked Mr Whiteley in the eye.

‘Mr Brinkburn has just passed me on the road,’ I said, forgetting to give Stephen his new title. ‘He seemed in a hurry.’

He gulped. Always, in his dealings with me, he must have it in mind that I knew he’d committed perjury. In my anger, I was
prepared to use that shamelessly.

‘Yes, I believe he was.’

‘Was his mother expecting a visit? She said nothing about it to me.’

‘I understand Mr Stephen’s visit was unexpected.’

‘And they quarrelled?’ I said.

He couldn’t bring himself to say so in words, only dropped his eyes and nodded. That confirmed what I’d expected from that
glance at Stephen’s face. I thought he’d wanted something from his mother and hadn’t got it. In spite of what she’d said to
me, she’d refused to confirm the legitimacy of his claim.

‘Please give Lady Brinkburn my compliments and let her know that I shall come back tomorrow,’ I said.

Then I released him from his misery by turning on my heel and walking out of the door. Anger took me halfway up the drive
at a pace too fast for a hot day. I stopped to adjust my bonnet and, against my better judgement, looked back at the house,
wondering if anybody was watching me from a window. If so, there was no sign of it. The serene red-brick façade framed by
its close-cut lawn gave no hint of the suspicion and unhappiness inside. I looked at the place on the lawn where Sophia’s
eyes had been fixed the night before and an odd idea came to me. Suppose it had been a real man and not a laudanum vision
after all. Could it be that Stephen had arrived before daylight and gone walking round the grounds of his old home, preparing
for a crucial interview with his mother? I imagined him, staring up at her window in the half light, knowing that his whole
future might depend on what she told him in the morning. Then, in the morning, they’d quarrelled and nobody was going to tell
me more than that.

For the rest of the afternoon I dragged myself round on my fruitless search for Tabby. I was becoming convinced that she was
on her way back to London. First thing tomorrow I’d send a message to Abel Yard and ask Mrs Martley if she’d reappeared there.
For now, I didn’t even have the energy to lift a pen. I’d had precious little sleep the night before and had walked so many
miles in the day that the seam of one shoe was bursting. I made some soup, dragged myself upstairs, undressed and went to
bed.

From anxiety over Tabby and anger with Lady Brinkburn, I’d expected a restless night, but must have slept for eight hours
or more, because when I woke up it was broad daylight and the birds were shouting their morning challenges to each other.
I looked at my watch and found it was half past five, plenty of time to write my note and take it to the Bear to go by an
early London stage. But it was stuffy in the cottage and the morning outside looked so clear and beautiful that I decided
to give myself a few minutes by the river first. I changed from my nightgown into a chemise and petticoat and walked barefoot
down the garden path to the bank. The cool river smell was all over the garden, early bees buzzing in the marigolds. The water
was cold to my toes so I drew my feet up and sat on the bank, watching willow leaves eddying in the current. A kingfisher
darted out of an alder tree, swift and bright as a rapier. My eyes followed its flight upstream. There was a rowing boat coming
down.

My first thought was that it might be Robert Carmichael, coming to explain or apologise, and I prepared myself to be angry
with him. But he was skilful with boats and would never have allowed one to proceed in such a disorderly way. It was drifting
in the current like the willow leaves, sometimes coming straight on, at other times turning almost sideways. Nobody was rowing
it. I thought it must have come unmoored from somewhere further upstream and stood up, looking for a pole or tree branch in
case there was a chance of pulling it into the bank. There was nothing suitable to hand, so I ran back to the porch where
I’d noticed an old clothes prop leaning. By the time I got back with it, the boat was almost level with the garden, but on
the far side of the river. It headed for the opposite bank, then was caught by a counter-current that twitched it back midstream
and carried it on with more speed than before. In that moment, I saw that it wasn’t empty. Somebody was lying in it, white
face upturned, body swathed in some dark fabric.

I only had one glance before the river carried it on, but was certain that the face was female. The first fear about Tabby
and the river came rushing back. Instantly, I was sure she was the figure in the boat, unconscious or dead.

I slid down the bank into the river, taking the clothes prop with me, and waded out waist-deep, petticoats floating out round
me, toes sinking into the mud. I flailed after the boat for a few yards, but it was useless. There was no hope of catching
it. Mud rose to my knees, flinging me forward into the water, head and shoulders under. I managed to keep hold of the clothes
post and lever myself upright, then leaned on it to thrash my way back to the bank. Once clear of the water I lay on the grass,
gasping and sobbing, until it occurred to me that the figure in the boat might have been only unconscious, not dead. I didn’t
truly believe that, but while even a slim hope remained I had to get help for her. I ran inside, crammed my wet feet into
shoes, grabbed a cloak from the back of the door to cover myself then ran towards the road, hoping against hope to meet somebody
with a horse or cart.

The path through the woods felt endless, with brambles like snares that seemed to have grown overnight. When I got to the
road, there wasn’t a person or a cart in sight. I remembered then that it was Sunday, with no farm workers out early. It was
no use wasting time asking for help around the cottages. My only hope was that the boat might come to a stop at one of the
piers of the new railway bridge, or at least that there’d be somebody there with a boat. I hitched up my cloak and ran, welcoming
the stitch in my side as a distraction from the pain of my conscience. If I hadn’t interfered, trying to save Tabby from her
precarious style of life, she’d have still been sleeping, happy and louse-ridden, under a pile of old sacks in Abel Yard.

When at last I came to the bridge there were workmen with a pony cart and handcart, on some railway task so vital that it
had brought them in on a Sunday. But they weren’t working now. Some of them were on a substantial wooden jetty stretching
a long way into the river, others clustered at the landward end. They were all looking in the same direction. I ran up to
them and asked what was happening.

‘Woman drowned,’ one of them said.

I ran on to the jetty. The men there had their backs to me so I couldn’t see what they were looking at. I touched the shoulder
of the one nearest and he turned.

‘Who’s drowned?’

‘She’s not drowned,’ he said. But my surge of relief didn’t last for more than a heartbeat, because he went on: ‘She’s in
a boat, stone dry. But she’s dead.’

‘I think I know who she is. May I see her?’

The men made way for me. They’d moored the rowing boat to one of the posts on the jetty. Both the post and the rope, designed
for barges carrying bricks, were too large for such a small vessel. A long boat-hook swathed in waterweed was spreading a
damp stain over the dry planks. They must have used it to catch the boat as it went past. For a moment I couldn’t look past
that stain, knowing what I’d see when I did.

I made myself look at the boat. Dark fabric, entirely dry as the man had said. It seemed to be a cloak wrapped round her.
They’d drawn it up over her face.

‘Please let me see her face,’ I said.

One of the men kneeled down on the jetty and moved it gently aside. The pale face was as tranquil as a wax mask, framed in
thick swathes of hair that were only a little disordered. Hair that had been well tended for a lifetime, lightly streaked
with grey.

‘You all right, miss?’

‘Your mother, is she?’

Rough murmurs of male sympathy round me, a hand on my shoulder.

‘No, she’s not my mother. It’s not who I thought. She…’ I hesitated, still not quite believing it. ‘She’s Lady Brinkburn.’

The first relief that I hadn’t, after all, brought Tabby to her death gave way to shock and incomprehension. Lady Brinkburn’s
eyes were closed. She might have been asleep in her white bed where I’d last seen her. There were no obvious signs of violence.
I found I was trembling and let the workmen guide me to a pile of timber and sit me down. They were kindly men, but brought
in by the railway company and not local, so when I asked if somebody could take a message to Brinkburn Hall, I had to explain
where it was. One of the younger ones volunteered to run there. I’d have preferred to break the news myself, but had no strength
left and was realizing what a sight I must look, feet stockingless inside my shoes, hair wet and muddy, nothing but underwear
beneath the cloak. I told the young workman to ask for Mr Carmichael.