Instruments of Darkness (21 page)
Read Instruments of Darkness Online
Authors: Imogen Robertson
Tags: #Historical fiction, #Crime Fiction
Mrs Westerman swept into the room, her eyes bright with amusement and her son dancing at her heels. Rachel came in a little more sedately behind her. Crowther stood but was waved back into his chair as Mrs Westerman removed her hat and dropped it on the table, then collapsed onto one of the settees. Rachel picked up the hat, shaking its ribbons straight, before carefully removing her own.
‘Crowther! I am glad you are here. We feared for our reputation, but we have become shining moral beacons. Mrs Heathcote!’
That lady put her head into the room. She was smiling broadly.
‘You’ll be wanting coffee, ma’am?’
‘I will. What has made you laugh, madam? Has David been telling you about our leading role in today’s sermon? Are you not honoured to be working for such a paragon?’
Mrs Heathcote grinned. ‘It is indeed an honour, ma’am.’ She turned to Rachel. ‘Shall I take those, miss?’ and carried away the ladies’ bonnets.
Crowther waited and when Harriet looked at him, raised an eyebrow. She burst into laughter and arranged the skirts of her dress, then settled Stephen on her knee and ruffled his hair.
‘Oh, it’s all too silly. The vicar decided on the Good Samaritan as a text today, and held me, Rachel and yourself as examples for attending - oh, what was the phrase? - “the last lonely rituals in a lost life”. I have noted he relies a little too heavily on alliteration for his effects. He should be spoken to.’
Harriet started to pull off her gloves as she spoke. Stephen was allowed to help, and seemed in constant danger of falling off his perch, so vigorous were his efforts tugging on his mother’s fingers. Crowther thought briefly of Nurse Bray’s blood on her palm.
‘Of all the nonsense. He would not have been there himself if we had not arrived, and my sister had to bully us like a she-devil. Rachel is the only one who can think of it and not blush.’
Rachel had tried to look severe during this speech and failed, but at those last words she became a little serious.
‘And Mr Thornleigh.
He
meant to come.’
He
meant to come.’
Crowther glanced at Harriet. She wrinkled her nose at him. He was not sure of the implication. Harriet gave her son a fierce hug, set him down on his feet then held him at arm’s length and cupped one of her hands around his smooth face.
‘Your hair is a mess, young man. Very well - you have seen enough of us for now. Go and get properly dirty until you are called in for your dinner.’
He grinned at her and set off for the lawn again. Rachel turned to Crowther.
‘I know about the knife, Mr Crowther. In what way it was stained, I mean. I made Harriet tell me before I would go to bed last night.’
Harriet leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, and put her chin in her hand.
‘She was most insistent, I’m afraid, and asked if she could hear us discuss how things stand this morning. I agreed, if you are willing.’
Crowther felt the women’s eyes on him, and shifted awkwardly in his chair.
‘With the greatest of respect, Miss Trench, Mrs Westerman is a married woman, and of wide experience. Whereas, yourself, there are elements, conjectures we might make that will not be suitable for . . .’
‘I am not a child, Mr Crowther!’ Rachel said.
The door opened as she spoke and Heathcote came smoothly in with the coffee.
‘And miss, you’ll sound less like one if you learn to keep your temper, if you don’t mind me saying so.’ She placed the tray at Harriet’s elbow, and turned to Crowther. ‘Good girls, the Trench sisters, Mr Crowther. But to hear their tempers fly sometimes, you’d think they had no notion of how to behave in a respectable household. Still, they may mature with age.’
She turned without waiting for a response and sailed out of the room with her head held high. Crowther gazed after her in frank astonishment. The two women looked a little crestfallen for a moment, then seeing Crowther’s expression, both laughed. Harriet began to pour the coffee.
‘I am mistress of this house, only by Mrs Heathcote’s leave, I’m afraid, Crowther. And I fear she may take it all away from me, if she thinks I am behaving badly. She believes we need a mother, as we lost our own when Rachel was just a child, and now she supplies the role.’
Rachel took the full coffee cup from her sister and handed it to Crowther.
‘Her husband is just the same. James says he is Captain only as long as Heathcote thinks he is doing a proper job of it. When they are both in the house, we live in terror.’
Crowther smiled and drank some of his coffee, then becoming aware that Rachel was still looking at him with steady attention, he sighed.
‘I wish you would not listen to us talk, Miss Trench, because we may, as I’ve said, have unpleasant things to say, and I do not wish to upset you in any way.’ Rachel flushed a little and bit her lip as he went on, ‘However, what we imagine is being said is normally worse than what is actually being spoken, so if you have won your sister over, I can have no objections to make.’
Rachel took her own coffee cup and settled herself with evident satisfaction.
‘Thank you. Now,’ she looked from one to the other, ‘explain everything from the beginning.’
The box was laid out in the middle of the table. Susan, Graves and Miss Chase sat round it, regarding its smooth black sides with suspicion. Jonathan and Mrs Chase, her arms crossed comfortably across her broad stomach, stood to one side. The family had just returned from church and the time they had decided among themselves to examine its secrets had come upon them. Mrs Chase looked at them all, then addressed herself to the little boy at her side.
‘Shall we go and help Cook, Jonathan? And then I have a whole box of ribbons that need to be sorted. Shall we leave these folk to their papers?’
The small boy thought seriously for a moment then nodded and allowed himself to be led from the room. The door closed behind them.
‘Well, Susan?’
Graves tried to smile at her. She looked up at him.
‘Who is that man outside, Mr Graves? You did not seem very pleased to see him.’
‘His name is Molloy. I have some business with him, but it is nothing to do with Alexander, Susan, I promise you.’
She nodded and drew the box over to her with an effort, then lifted the lid.
It was mostly papers, but on top of them lay two small packages wrapped in soft leather scraps. Susan lifted the first of them out, and handed it without speaking to Graves. He took it from her and she watched him attentively as he unwrapped it. It was the miniature of Susan’s mother that he remembered Alexander showing him once. There was a larger version of the same portrait hanging in the parlour of Alexander’s house, there to watch over them, but there was a delicacy in this little portrait missing in the larger version. He handed it back to Susan, and she held it in her palm.
‘I think Jonathan and I are rather alone in the world now, are we not?’
Graves felt his throat burn, but nodded slowly.
‘You and Miss Chase will help us though, won’t you, Mr Graves?’
‘Always.’
She wiped her eyes with her fingertips and removed the other little bag, again handing it to Graves. He shook it gently and an elegant gold wedding band fell into his hand. Its glittered with a tiny nest of sapphires. He could fancy it felt warm on his hand.
‘Your mother’s, I think, Susan.’
She took it from him, touching the brilliants with her fingertips, then her shoulders began to shake, and Miss Chase put her hand on the child’s arm.
‘What is it, Susan? Does it hurt you to see it?’
The girl looked a little wildly from side to side at the adults.
‘I don’t know what to do with it! Am I to wear it? I think it is too big for my finger. What if it fell off in the street!’
She burrowed her head into the young woman’s shoulder and cried so hard, Graves was almost frightened for her. He caught Miss Chase’s eye, and opened his mouth hoping to find something of use to say. Miss Chase shook her head very slightly at him, and cradled and shushed the little girl till her sobs lessened a little. With one hand she then felt at her neck, and drew up a simple gold chain that hung under her bodice.
‘Susan, my love, I have an idea. I think it would be a fine thing for you to wear your mother’s ring. Let’s hang it on this old chain of mine.’
Susan looked up, unsure, but hopeful.
‘But it is yours,’ she said.
Miss Chase looked quite severe.
‘It is my gift to you. Look, the clasp is very secure.’ Susan operated the little catch and bit her lip. ‘Now we may put your ring on it,’ she did so, ‘and fasten it round your neck.’
Susan let the light chain be placed over her head, and held up the ring so it caught the light.
‘There,’ said Miss Chase, leaning back. ‘You can wear it under your bodice, as I did, so it is always close to your heart, and safe as if it were in the Bank of England.’
Susan smiled consciously and tucked the chain away. Graves watched, his feelings as the admirer of one woman, and protector of the other, tumbling over in his chest like flag-waving acrobats. Susan leaned into Miss Chase’s embrace again, and they looked at the box, the great pile of papers it contained making Susan shrink against Miss Chase’s arm. Keeping the little girl secure, Miss Chase reached out for the black lid, and closed it over the papers again. Graves stirred a little, as if about to protest. He met command in Miss Chase’s eye.
‘That is enough for now. We can look at the papers later. They will keep, and I think Susan and I should take a turn round the Square.’
He heard Susan sigh with relief, and kept silent.
III.2
H
ARRIET TOOK A drink from her coffee cup, tapping her foot impatiently on the carpet. Crowther wondered how she had managed to contain her energy on the relatively small stage of one of His Majesty’s ships. Even in the country it seemed that she never had enough room to move. While she gathered her thoughts to speak to her sister he considered. Perhaps it was not the physical space she occupied that bound her, but the delicate pressures of expectation and custom that wove the world around them into such tight ropes and checks. Invisible and made of stuff as slippery and delicate as silk, but strong, and tight, for all that. She sat forward in her chair and began to speak.
ARRIET TOOK A drink from her coffee cup, tapping her foot impatiently on the carpet. Crowther wondered how she had managed to contain her energy on the relatively small stage of one of His Majesty’s ships. Even in the country it seemed that she never had enough room to move. While she gathered her thoughts to speak to her sister he considered. Perhaps it was not the physical space she occupied that bound her, but the delicate pressures of expectation and custom that wove the world around them into such tight ropes and checks. Invisible and made of stuff as slippery and delicate as silk, but strong, and tight, for all that. She sat forward in her chair and began to speak.
‘Very well. Hugh, it seems, asked Joshua Cartwright to find someone to look for Alexander, the heir to Thornleigh and its title. This man, Carter Brook, was engaged, and obviously found something - we know that because of the ring of Alexander’s he was carrying - but when he went to meet Hugh in the woods he was attacked and murdered before he could tell Hugh anything.’
‘So says Mr Hugh Thornleigh,’ murmured Crowther, keeping his eyes on Rachel. She must have prepared herself for this, he thought, since his implication that the man she had once loved might be a liar and murderer drew no reaction.
Instead, she said calmly to her sister, ‘Finding, or preventing Alexander from being found, must be at the bottom of this, surely?’
‘Yes.’ Harriet twisted her head a little to look out of the window as she spoke. ‘All the wealth of the estate, and the title depends on Alexander being found, as you know. Though of course if he cannot be traced, or is found to be dead, or is declared to be dead after proper searches have been made, then Hugh inherits everything. For now it is by common consent that he runs the estate.’
Crowther cleared his throat. ‘I have wondered why the family have not taken steps to have Viscount Hardew declared dead before now. His absence has been so extended, and nothing seems to have been heard from him.’
Harriet shrugged. ‘The current Lord still lives, after a fashion. Perhaps that means the family do not think the case pressing. He has already survived five years in this half-state.’
‘You do not think Hugh ambitious to take the title?’
‘Hardly! Do you, Crowther?’
‘No. From what I have seen of him I think he wishes only to divide his time between the hunt and the bottle. But I could be very wrong. Something grates at him, makes him bitter. It may be the fact he has the responsibility for the wealth of his family, but no power to enjoy it. That may make him wish for Alexander’s return, as he says -
or
wish the missing heir to hell.’
or
wish the missing heir to hell.’
Crowther and Harriet’s attention had been drawn in the exchange to each other. When Rachel now spoke, calmly and firmly enough, they both turned to her, slightly surprised to find there were three in the conversation.
‘Suppose that everything Hugh and Mr Cartwright said in front of the Coroner was true, and Hugh’s motives purely looking to the good of his family rather than his own situation within it . . . why did not Hugh instruct his steward, Wicksteed, to try and find out about his brother? He has left everything else of moment about the estate to his care since he arrived.’
‘I can only conclude that Hugh wanted to gather, and act on this information in secret, as he hinted at the hearing,’ Crowther replied. ‘I was surprised, and not a little doubtful when he ascribed that secrecy to a wish to protect the feelings of Lady Thornleigh. Unless he thought she might be harsher in her treatment and attitude to Alexander if he was in straitened or,’ he paused, ‘disgraceful circumstances of one sort or another. And yet her talk about alarming Duchesses does not suggest she would care much if his position were . . . irregular. And if he is alive, she is quite as dependent on his goodwill as Hugh. If not more so.’
Other books
Beyond Eden by Catherine Coulter
Just a Queen by Jane Caro
Thou Shell of Death by Nicholas Blake
The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith
Shift Work (Carus #4) by J.C. McKenzie
Knotted by Viola Grace
Gatefather by Orson Scott Card
An Elm Creek Quilts Sampler by Jennifer Chiaverini
Death of a Chocolate Cheater: A Food Festival Mystery by Penny Pike
Dark Soul Vol. 4 by Voinov, Aleksandr