Shadow of the Past (9 page)

Her younger sister cut in swiftly, ‘Family circumstances being appropriate, Mr Campion. Now, if you will excuse us, I believe our mother requires our presence.’

I could conceive of nothing less likely, but rose and bowed them on their way. So the Bramhalls were hoping that Lady Chase would fund the extremely expensive business of a society launch. It was hardly surprising. What was surprising, however, was that both daughters were to be brought out at the same time, when the custom was for the elder to shine and catch her husband before the younger was allowed out of the schoolroom for anything more than informal dances. I wondered what Lady Chase would make of the idea when it was broached.

In the absence of the girls, I found a more pleasant situation beside Mrs Hansard, who, despite all her accomplishments and indeed her personal friendship with Lady Chase, was being patronised by our insufferable host. He surrendered her swiftly to me, and disappeared from the room.

She said quietly, ‘May I suggest that you gentlemen agree to linger over your port this evening? It may well be that I might winkle out more of a girl’s secrets than a young gentleman like yourself.’ She patted my hand in a most uncharacteristic way with her folded fan, as if she had aged twenty years into an old lady like Mrs Powell and was treating me as an honorary
son. ‘But tell me, Tobias, how does our friend Jem?’ she asked, almost under her breath. Clearly one did not speak warmly of the lower orders under the long faces of the Lely portraits of Lord Chase’s ancestors.

I responded in kind. ‘He compares his nose unfavourably with a pump. He keeps to his room, apart from sorties into my study for reading matter, and looks forward to your curry soup. I have hopes that he will be ready to return to the world by Friday.’

‘Excellent. Ah, our hostess – our aspiring hostess, I should say – is preparing to gather us up for supper. Now, what will be the order of precedence, I wonder?’

‘Order of precedence? For a family dinner?’

‘You mark my words,’ she said darkly, turning with a simper to Lady Bramhall.

Naturally, Sir Marcus led in Lady Chase. Then I was asked to give my arm to Mrs Hansard, whose husband led in Lady Bramhall. On any other occasion I would have been delighted by the arrangement, but on this occasion I feared it would limit my ability to interrogate the family subtly.

Even though we were dining
en
famille
, the table had not been much reduced and the hideous epergne squatted determinedly in the centre of the table. As often before, I wondered why Lady Chase tolerated such intrusions into her routine. Did she not care? She had the authority to do anything in her late husband’s home until the law decreed that her son was dead and that Sir Marcus was indeed the new Lord Chase. Or was she saving her powder for a more significant engagement? If that was the case, when might the next skirmish be?

A glance along the table told me that Dr Hansard was
deeply involved in conversation with Lady Bramhall, who was for once waxing quite loquacious. For all her faults I had not considered her a lady who indulged in imagined ill health, but from his expression of deep concern I could not imagine that she was doing anything but listing symptoms. With a blush I realised how little I knew about either of the Bramhall ladies.

My lapse in manners drove poor Mrs Hansard to seek conversation on her other side, a fact for which apology was certainly due – until I realised I might have afforded her precisely the opportunity she sought to speak with Lady Honoria. Without wishing to appear ill-bred enough to try to eavesdrop, I wished I could have heard the conversation, which was no doubt to elicit information that the young lady did not realise she was revealing. I prepared to concentrate on what was on my plate and in my glass. The former was excellent, as you would expect from Lady Chase’s French cook; the latter, despite the care with which Lord Chase had laid down his cellar, was thin and sour. I suspected Sir Marcus’s hand. I left it undrunk.

It became apparent that Lady Dorothea, seated the far side of the table, was preparing to flout convention, and even the epergne, to converse with me. My heart bubbling uneasily within my breast, I responded. I tried to persuade myself that had she been present the afternoon of Miss Southey’s immersion in the stream, she would indeed have tried to comfort her. Soon I was listening to the latest musical news from London, and we had undertaken to attempt a new duet together.

Despite my desire to return to the drawing room and the piano as soon as possible, as the covers were removed, I
recalled Mrs Hansard’s advice that I must dawdle over the port. Since Hansard helped himself to a regular bumper, I assumed he was acting under similar instructions. My suspicions were soon confirmed. When Sir Marcus stepped from the table to relieve himself, the moment he was behind the screen, Edmund was on his feet too, emptying the greatest portion of his port into a convenient hothouse plant. A jerk of his head told me to follow suit.

I know not whether the wine benefited the health of the gaudy specimen. But at least we both kept clear heads, and encouraged our host to dip deep.

‘Come, Bramhall,’ Edmund urged at last, his speech a little slurred, as if he were half-sprung, ‘tell me, man to man, what passed between you and that little governess of yours. I can’t believe that either of your lads gave her a slip on the shoulder,’ he added with a leer, implying that they would not have succeeded while an attractive older man might.

‘That bracket-faced female,’ he sneered.

‘No need to look at the fireplace when you poke the fire,’ Edmund cackled.

‘Never had an eye for an ape-leader,’ Bramhall declared conclusively.

‘So you’ll be looking for a prime article to replace her?’ I suggested.

‘No. Girls too old for a governess, they tell me. Two daughters. Glad to have them off my hands. Not in the basket, you understand, but not too flush in the pocket.’

‘Good job her ladyship’s full of juice,’ I suggested. ‘Keeps the duns at bay, at least.’

‘Don’t like living on the expectation. Don’t like swimming in the River Tick.’

‘So will you pursue a law case to have her son declared officially dead?’

‘Why bother? Living here like lords, eating the fat of the land – any that’s left, when her ladyship’s fed the five thousand. And I blame you for that, Campion – all these charitable works of yours.’

I did not need Edmund’s kick on my shin to keep my tongue in check. ‘So you’re just biding your time?’

‘After seven years – declared dead. Why bother feeding those gull-gropers of lawyers? Just stay here. Sit it out.’

‘Her ladyship will no doubt sponsor your daughters when they come out?’

‘Swimming in lard – why wouldn’t she? Both of them, with luck. Use her London House. Grosvenor Square, good enough for me.’

‘But you have your own establishment in town?’

‘Indeed.’ He set his glass down on the table with a sharp rap. Drunk or not, he would not admit its location.

I made great show of leaving the table and then changing my mind. ‘Damn near forgot. Friend of mine wants a governess for his girls. Wife says she’s got to be fubsy-faced. Suppose your Miss Whatshername wouldn’t want the post?’

He spread his arms widely, to the imminent danger of the decanter. ‘How would I know? Upped and offed. Just like that. No idea where she’s gone.’

‘You did not dismiss her?’

‘Wife did. Well, girls did. Gave her a month’s notice. Got to do the right thing. Next I knew, she’d gone. No more idea than the man in the moon where she’s taken herself. Honest truth. Honest truth. Where are you off to?’

Hansard had also risen to his feet.

‘You said we were to join the ladies,’ he lied. ‘Been making indentures, Bramhall, all of us. Mustn’t dip too deep or they won’t like it, you know.’

‘Me? Bosky? Never!’ He lurched to his feet. The expression on his face changed with almost comical speed, and he covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Damn me, if I’m not going to shoot the cat.’

I was surprised that even the considerable amount Bramhall had sunk had caused him to cast up his accounts, and to my shame wondered if Edmund might have slipped something into his glass to bring the interminable repast to a close. He, however, seemed as surprised as I by the sudden attack of vomiting, if rather less alarmed.

Bramhall himself dismissed any suggestion that he should retire to his chamber to recuperate, saying he would be well in two shakes of a bee’s ankle. ‘If I went to bed every time I spewed I’d be a poor fellow indeed – nor do I want physicking, thank you all the same, Hansard.’

‘You are often indisposed like this?’ Hansard asked quietly, taking the man’s pulse, and insisting on looking at his tongue.

‘Good wine, rich food,’ Bramhall replied, waving a dismissive hand. ‘A sip of brandy and I shall be as right as ninepence.’

It seemed he was. Having straightened his neck cloth and mopped his sweating forehead, he seemed improved rather than chastened by the bout of illness. His language became
more suited to the drawing room than the stable, and we were soon able to join the ladies with a smile that must at least appear sincere. In the drawing room a sensible conversation about Miss Southey – not to mention about the man in the stream – was not possible, of course. It was as if death and disappearance had been written on a schoolroom slate, and wiped completely clean, lest the very notion disgust.

Accordingly, while nothings were quietly murmured in the rest of the room, Lady Dorothea, dazzling in that extraordinary gown, sang to my accompaniment, and appeared willing to sit apart from the others when the card table was suggested. Hansard, I knew, was so averse to gambling – or so addicted to it – that he would not expose himself to even the mild temptations of a domestic game of whist. As if eager for the privilege, I offered myself in his place, partnering Lady Bramhall. To my amazement, she was a very shrewd player, as acute as Mrs Hansard. Apparently now quite sober, Sir Marcus played with great verve. Much as I would have wished to pursue certain avenues of conversation, I was obliged to concentrate on the cards themselves. At last we lost, but not disgracefully.

The tea tray brought a further general exchange of trivia, and I for one was heartily relieved when we could at last say our farewells. We drove in tandem down the drive, Hansard’s groom George attending to the gates himself to save disturbing Mrs Powell. As he closed them behind us he slipped round to my gig. ‘The doctor’s compliments, Mr Campion, and would you be kind enough to follow him and Mrs Hansard to Langley Park? I understand your bed chamber is ready for you there, sir.’

I saw no reason why I should accompany my good friends,
but would never willingly offend them, so I acquiesced. We arrived to find a good fire still cheering the drawing room, and Burns at hand with the decanters.

As soon as he had dismissed him, Hansard rubbed his hands together less with the cold than with satisfaction, I fancied. ‘What a very useful and interesting evening, was it not? Including our
soi-disant
host’s sudden bout of nausea, of course.’

‘Useful? Interesting? You joke me.’ I must, despite myself, have imbibed enough to make me forget my manners. ‘In what way?’ I added more humbly.

‘We have learnt a very great deal we did not know before,’ Edmund declared. ‘I would never have thought that Lady Bramhall had any power behind the throne, for instance. I had her down as a mere cipher, but Bramhall insists it was she who selected Miss Southey and she who dismissed her.’

‘So she will be able to tell us where her family live?’

He spread her hands. ‘Let Lady Bramhall be asked to recall as simple an item as that and she reverts to her usual dizzy state.’

‘But at least she will write to the steward in charge at their London house to ask him to find all the papers about the girl? Miss Southey must have come with recommendations – surely from ladies of Lady Bramhall’s acquaintance. She must remember their names,’ I declared.

‘Alas, she has regrettably forgotten them too. But no doubt the London steward will have even those.’

‘For someone so forgetful, she plays a remarkably cool game of cards,’ Mrs Hansard said quietly, accepting with a smile a small glass of Madeira from her husband, who presented me in turn with his usual excellent brandy.

‘Do you really think she knows nothing of what has happened to Miss Southey?’ I asked. ‘Sir Marcus assured us that
he
did not and I am inclined to believe him.’

‘I do not think that she does, either. She seemed to think it a natural part of a governess’s general awkwardness that she should decide not to work out her notice, and claims to have been surprised when she did not present herself in the drawing room as usual that evening. As for Miss Southey’s trunk, she assumes it must now be housed in the attic – it would, she said, be too heavy for Miss Southey to have carried it away with her. But she did wonder that the poor young woman could possibly have left anything behind that she had always regarded as precious. Apparently soon after her arrival Lady Honoria and Miss Georgiana had decided that it would be amusing to ransack the trunk for garments for a schoolroom play and she fell into the strongest hysterics.’

‘At which point the girls discovered they had power over her,’ Edmund ruminated. ‘And did you discover, my love, how Miss Southey came to be up to her waist in water when she came upon the corpse?’

‘Lady Bramhall was careful to gloss over that. But my conversation with Miss Georgiana was not unfruitful. It was clear that they considered it amusing to cast poor Miss Southey’s bonnet into the water and order her to fetch it – on pain of dismissal.’

‘It was a bonnet hardly worth losing your position for,’ I recalled. ‘But why should she have been dismissed for abandoning her own property? Did they in fact threaten to betray another, different confidence if she did not do it? I remember such “dares” at Eton.’

‘It would be useful to open the trunk, then,’ Hansard
mused. He shot a sudden smile at me. ‘Usually I criticise your want of logic, Tobias, but tonight I applaud it.’

‘Open the trunk, Edmund? How will you do that?’ Mrs Hansard objected.

‘In my capacity of Justice of the Peace. I should have thought of it earlier, should I not?’ Slamming a fist into his palm, he sprang to his feet and paced the room with ill-suppressed rage. But at the far end he turned, a smile softening his features. He looked around, and, spreading his hands, declared out of the blue, ‘You have made this such a welcoming room, Maria. Welcoming, yet elegant. Occasionally, as tonight, when I am tempted to play cards, I think of losing all, as I so nearly did before. But what I have gained…’

Tears stood in his eyes. His wife rose and joined her hands with his.

Suddenly I realised the lateness of the hour. They did not attempt to detain me from my bed any longer.

It was a very formal pair that presented itself at Moreton Hall the following morning, asking for Sir Marcus and declining to accept the butler’s information that his master could not see us until after noon.

‘It is not a mere morning call, Timmins,’ Hansard snapped. ‘We need information of him, urgently.’

‘Do not tell me that you wish to speak about this damned governess again?’ Sir Marcus demanded, resplendent in a brocade dressing gown as he joined us some ten minutes later in the library. ‘What is it now?’

‘Sir Marcus, I might equally wish to speak of the man who inconveniently blocked your stream. Miss Southey was merely the person who discovered him. She will, however, be needed
at the inquest that must undoubtedly be held. Unless you wish your two daughters to take the witness stand?’

As far as I understood the matter they might well have to anyway, but I remained silent.

Dr Hansard continued, ‘Lady Bramhall has very kindly undertaken to obtain information from your London steward.’ I could have sworn I detected a flicker of some emotion cross Sir Marcus’s face. ‘However, we cannot wait until his response arrives. We must inspect Miss Southey’s trunk for information about her possible whereabouts. You made it clear last night you had no knowledge of her actions when she left you. So we must seek other means.’

Sir Marcus spread his hands in exasperation, but summoned Timmins again. He appeared with such alacrity I might have suspected him of attempting to eavesdrop.

With considerable – and possibly well-feigned – surprise, Timmins personally showed us up to the attics where Miss Southey’s trunk might be expected to be stored. Other servants’ boxes and the great pile of travel equipment that Sir Marcus and his family required were clearly visible. But of Miss Southey’s poor trunk, there was no sign.

Hansard turned to Timmins. ‘That trunk must be located. Do you hear? And before we quit the Hall.’

The butler bowed, removing imaginary dust from his gloves with finicking gestures. Such an expedition was clearly beneath him, but his loyalty to Lady Chase prevented him raising even so much as an eyebrow when he ushered us from the attic as if the steep steps we had to descend were the grandest of staircases.

‘If you would be kind enough to wait in the morning room, gentlemen, I will set further enquiries in train.’

‘And if he finds nothing?’ I asked, impatient at kicking my heels for ten minutes.

‘That in itself would be significant. I understand your frustration, Tobias – if only we could obtain all this information instantly. But a few minutes’ wait may save us hours of jauntering around the countryside.’

I shook my head, taking an irritated turn about the room. ‘We are allowing ourselves to get sidetracked, Edmund. Miss Southey may be an important witness but to the best of our knowledge she is no more than a witness. It is the dead man’s identity that we should be seeking!’

‘And do you not think I have had poor George careering about the village asking anyone who may have seen him – to have seen
any
stranger – to come forward?’

‘I am sure you have – and sure that Jem would have been sharing his task, had he been well. But no one has given us any information at all. Unless—?’

‘Unless I have been concealing an exciting development from you?’ he asked, kind in the face of my anger. ‘Nay, Tobias, you know me better than that.’

Dropping my eyes, I nodded apologetically.

‘But I do have an idea to propose. You hold his funeral late this afternoon, do you not?’

I nodded. ‘I decided to hold it so late in the day because it meant the men who attended would not have to lose any of their pitiful wages.’

He nodded. ‘You have taught them to be compassionate, and those who are not may simply be nosy. I would like you to make an appeal at the graveside for information. You may even promise a reward – which would be gratefully received, in these unhappy times.’

‘With all my heart. Edmund, I ask your pardon for my hasty words.’

He shook my outstretched hand, clapping me kindly on the shoulder. ‘Too much of Sir Marcus’s port, my boy – that is what made you hasty. And with a sore head and sick stomach, I make no doubt. No wonder Bramhall was ill.’

‘I hardly drank, Edmund. What Timmins served with dinner was such sour stuff I avoided it. It is not Lady Chase’s way to serve inferior wine.’

‘But possibly Sir Marcus’s way of countering what he sees as her extravagance in offering vintage champagne to her guests. But one may imagine what Timmins must have thought.’

‘Of course. And when it came to the port, I followed your lead and applied it to the plants.’

Edmund went to remove his wig the better to scratch his head, but recalled that on their marriage Mrs Hansard had insisted that in future he present himself to the world with his own hair. He looked at his hand in surprise, then applied a finger to a sensitive spot anyway. ‘How strange. I have been feeling bilious, too – and dear Maria, the most abstemious of creatures, admits to the headache this morning.’ He said no more.

The door opened very quietly, as if Timmins were trying to catch us exchanging shameful secrets. But he too might have been scratching his head in puzzlement.

‘With regret, Dr Hansard, Mr Campion, I have to confess that I cannot locate Miss Southey’s luggage. I have, of course, enquired in the servants’ hall.’

‘Excellent. As a matter of fact, Timmins, it would be helpful to speak to those of the servants who helped her carry it downstairs and waved her on her way.’

Never could I accuse such a perfect butler as Timmins of blushing, but it was clear that he was sadly distressed.

‘I fear that I have been unable to identify anyone who might have assisted her, Dr Hansard. It seems she had a poor farewell, from folk who should have known better,’ he admitted, leaning forward confidentially.

I was unable to imagine him thawing enough to shake the lady by the hand to wish her well, but preferred to nod encouragingly to illicit further information. ‘Did she leave on foot? Or was a carrier called?’

‘On foot, I understand. In the hope, no doubt, of catching a coach at the crossroads outside the village.’

‘A three-mile walk in the dark. No wonder she was unable to take her few belongings with her.’

‘She had a bandbox and a cloak bag with her,’ Timmins corrected me, adding belatedly, ‘or so I am given to understand.’

‘Not being a countrywoman used to making long journeys on foot, she would not have been able to make swift progress. And she was, after all, shocked and exhausted by the events of the afternoon. I wonder she was not compelled to take instantly to her bed – even Jem, my groom, has been suffering from a feverish cold.’

‘Indeed, sir. I am very sorry to hear it.’ Timmins clearly thought it best to bow himself out. ‘I will send a message to you immediately I have located Miss Southey’s remaining luggage, Mr Campion.’

Dr Hansard coughed. ‘I think that despite what you have told us we will call again on Mrs Sandys. Would you be kind enough to announce us, Timmins?’

Mrs Sandys, whom we disturbed at her window pouring over swatches of fabric, was no more welcoming than she had been the previous time we had exchanged words, but in the presence of Timmins and Dr Hansard she could scarcely keep me standing in the corridor. She admitted us with subdued courtesy.