When Maidens Mourn (21 page)

“You did? I was under the impression you considered Arthur a wishful figment of the collective British imagination.”

Childe puffed out his chest. “I may personally doubt the validity of the various tales which have grown up around some obscure
figure who may or may not have actually lived. However, I have nothing but respect for the scholarship of Mr. Richard Gough, and I would consider it unprofessional to cavalierly dismiss the relic out of hand, simply because it does not conform to my preconceived notions.”

“So what happened with Miss Tennyson?”

“We argued. Heatedly, I’m afraid. Miss Tennyson became so incensed that she seized the cross from my hands and hurled it into the lake.”

“You were walking beside a lake? Carrying a foot-long iron cross?”

Childe stared at him owlishly. “We were, yes. You could hardly expect Miss Tennyson to enter the house to view the artifact. I may have known her since she was in pigtails, but it still would not have been at all proper. So we chose instead to walk in the park. Gough Hall has a lovely—and unfortunately very deep—ornamental lake.”

“Unfortunate, indeed.”

“Needless to say, her intemperance in positively flinging the cross into the lake enraged me. I fear I flew into quite a passion myself. Heated words were exchanged, and she departed in high dudgeon. I never saw her again.”

Sebastian studied the stout man’s flushed, self-satisfied face. He was obviously quite pleased with the tale he had concocted. But where the actual truth lay was impossible for Sebastian to guess. He said, “I assume the servants at Gough Hall can corroborate your story?”

“There is only an elderly caretaker and his wife in residence at the moment, but I have no doubt they will vouch for me, yes. Old Bentley even helped me drag a grappling hook along the edges of the lake. But we gave it up after an hour or so. I fear the cross is lost—this time forever.”

“You believe it was genuine?”

“I believe it was the cross presented to the world by the monks of Glastonbury in 1191, yes.”

Which was not, Sebastian noted, precisely the same thing.

He watched a cluster of legal students hurry across the gardens, their black robes flapping in the hot wind. “You say Miss Tennyson was angry?”

“She was, yes. It’s a very choleric family, you know.”

“And melancholy.”

“Melancholy, yes.”

From here they could see the broad expanse of the sun-dazzled river, the massive bulk of the bridge, and the warehouses and wharves of the opposite bank. Sebastian said, “There’s just one thing I don’t understand.”

“Oh?”

“What in the incident you describe could possibly have made her afraid?”

Childe’s smug smile slipped. “Afraid?”

“Afraid.”

Childe shook his head. “I never said anything about her being afraid.”

“That’s because you left out the part about the dangerous forces with a nonmonetary motive.”

A sudden gust of hot wind stirred the branches of the beeches overhead, letting through a shaft of golden sunlight that cut across Childe’s face when he turned to stare blankly at Sebastian. “I’m sorry; I don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t?”

“No.” Childe cleared his throat and nodded to the arm Sebastian still had resting in a sling. “You injured yourself?”

“Actually, someone tried to kill me last night; do you have any ideas about that?”

Childe’s jaw went slack.
“Kill you?”

“Mmm. Someone who doesn’t like the questions I’m asking.
Which tells me that Gabrielle Tennyson had good reason to be afraid. Whatever is going on here is dangerous. Very dangerous. It’s not over yet, and it looks to me as if you’re right in the middle of it. You might want to consider that, next time you’re tempted to lie to me.”

The antiquary had turned a sickly shade of yellow.

Sebastian touched his good hand to his hat and smiled. “Good day, Mr. Childe. Enjoy the rest of your pottery exhibition.”

T
wenty minutes later, Sebastian turned his curricle into Bow Street to find the lane ahead clogged by a raucous, tattered mob that spilled out of the public office to overflow the footpath and completely block the narrow carriageway. Ragged men and gaunt-cheeked women clutching an assortment of howling, filthy, malnourished children jostled and shoved one another in a frantic melee swirling around a small, bespectacled magistrate endeavoring to push his way through the motley crowd.

“Lord Devlin!” called Sir Henry Lovejoy, determinedly turning his steps toward the curricle.

“What the devil is all this?” asked Sebastian as Tom jumped down to run to the frightened chestnuts’ tossing heads.

Lovejoy staggered against the side of the carriage, buffeted by the surging crowd. “It’s been like this since yesterday. We’ve been positively besieged by parents offering up their children for Mr. Tennyson’s reward—everything from babes in arms to sturdy lads of twelve and fourteen. Even girls. And this is only the overflow. Tennyson has hired a solicitor with chambers near Fleet Street to whom anyone with information is supposed to apply.”

“My God,” said Sebastian, his gaze traveling over the desperate, starving mass. “No indication yet of what actually happened to the Tennyson children?”

Lovejoy blew out a long, tired breath and shook his head. “It’s as if they simply vanished off the face of the earth.”

The magistrate gave a lurch and almost fell as a wild-eyed, pock-scarred woman clutching what looked like a dead child careened into him. He righted himself with difficulty. The crowd was becoming dangerous. “Have you discovered anything of interest?”

“Not yet,” said Sebastian. As much as he trusted Sir Henry, when it came to murder investigations, Sebastian had learned to play his cards close to his chest. “I was wondering if you could provide me with the direction of the girl who found Miss Tennyson’s body.”

“You mean, Tessa Sawyer? She lives with her father a few miles to the southwest of the moat in a village called Cockfosters. I believe the mother is dead, while the father is something of a layabout. Why do you ask?”

“I have some questions I thought she might be able to answer.”

Sebastian was aware of the magistrate giving him a long, steady look. But Lovejoy only nodded and took a step back into the shouting, jostling crowd.

Cockfosters proved to be a tiny village consisting largely of a church, an aged inn, and a few villas and scattered cottages lying to the west of Camlet Moat.

Following directions given by the curate at the village church, Sebastian drove up a rutted track to a tumbledown thatched cottage of whitewashed, rough-coursed stone that lay on the far edge of the hamlet. A young girl of some fifteen or sixteen years of age was in the dusty, sunbaked yard pegging up clothes on a line stretched between a corner of the house and a half-dead mulberry tree. A
slim, tiny thing with baby-fine brown hair and eyes that looked too big for her face, she hummed a fey, haunting tune as she worked, so lost in her own world that she seemed oblivious to the elegant curricle drawing up outside her gate.

Sebastian jumped down into the dusty lane and felt a shooting jolt of pain in his arm, for he had dispensed with the sling on the drive out to Enfield. He paused a brief moment to catch his breath, then said, “Excuse me, miss; are you Tessa Sawyer?”

“Oh!”
The girl jerked, her hands clenching the wet shirt she held to her chest, her nostrils flaring in alarm. “Ye startled me, ye did.”

“I beg your pardon.” Sebastian paused with one hand on the gate’s rusty latch. “May I come in?”

The girl dropped a nervous curtsy, her eyes widening as she glanced from Sebastian to the carriage waiting in the sun-soaked lane, its high-bred chestnuts flicking their tails at the flies. “Oh, yes, sir. But if yer lookin’ fer me da, he’s not here. He’s out helpin’ search for the bodies of them dead boys, he is.”

Sebastian had to whack his hip against the gate to get it to open. “Actually, you’re the one I wished to speak to. What makes you think the boys are dead, Tessa?”

Tessa shook her head in some confusion. “It’s what everyone’s sayin’, isn’t it? I mean, it stands to reason, don’t it?”

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the yard. A few scrawny chickens pecked halfheartedly at the bare earth, while a brown goat with a bell around its neck nuzzled a pile of rubbish beside the remnants of an old stone shed. If there had ever been any glass in the cottage’s windows, it was long gone, the unpainted shutters hanging at drunken angles. From the looks of the worn, moldy thatch, Sebastian had no doubt the roof leaked when it rained.

He said, “Did you see any sign of the children when you were at the moat Sunday night?”

Tessa shook her head. “No, sir. I didn’t see nor hear nothin’
’cept a little splash. And I can’t rightly say what that was. It coulda been a water rat, or maybe a frog.”

“Had you ever seen the lady in the boat before?”

Tessa swallowed, her face becoming pinched. “Just once.”

“Really? When was that?”

“Last week, sometime. I think maybe it was Sunday.”

“You mean, this past Sunday?”

“No. The Sunday before.”

“You saw her at the island?”

“Oh, no, sir. She came here, she did—to Cockfosters.”

Sebastian knew a flicker of surprise. “Do you know why?”

Tessa sucked her lower lip between her teeth and bit down on it, her gaze drifting away.

“Tell me,” said Sebastian.

She drew in a quick breath. “She come here lookin’ fer Rory Forster. Lit into him somethin’ fierce, she did, just outside the smithy’s.”

“Forster lives in the village?”

“On a farm, to the east of here. Didn’t ye know?” Sebastian’s ignorance obviously shocked her. “Most o’ the men doin’ the diggin’ at the moat come from Trent Place. But Sir Stanley hired Rory on account of how he once worked for some famous gentleman down in Salisbury.”

“You mean, Sir Richard Colt Hoare? At Stonehenge?”

The girl looked at him blankly. “I wouldn’t know about that.”

“And what precisely was Miss Tennyson’s interest in Forster?”

Tessa turned away and began pegging up the shirt. “I weren’t there for most of it.”

“But you did hear about it afterward, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Sebastian prodded when the girl remained mute.

Tessa smoothed her hands down over the worn cloth. “Folks say she was mad at Forster for tearin’ out the linin’ of the island’s well. They say somebody turned it into a muddy mess.”

“A well?”

She nodded, her face hardening. “He shouldn’t have done that. It’s a special place.”

“Special in what way?”

She threw him a quick, sideways glance. “You know what it’s like when you sit in a really old church and you’re all alone, and it’s quiet and the sun’s streamin’ through the stained-glass windows and you just feel this…this kind of peace and joy settle over you? That’s what it’s like at the White Lady’s well.”

“What White Lady?”

“The White Lady. I’ve never seen her meself, but others have. She guards the well. She always has.”

Sebastian studied the girl’s fine-boned face, the wistful look in her big hazel eyes, and resisted the urge to point out that the White Lady of Camlet Moat had obviously failed to guard her well from some treasure hunter’s shovel. He’d heard of the well maidens, ancient nature spirits said to guard the sacred wells and springs of Britain and Ireland. Although belief in the well maidens predated Christianity, it had never completely disappeared, and small shrines to the well maidens could still be found scattered across the countryside. Somehow, it seemed all of a piece with everything else he’d learned about the island that it should have a sacred well too. He realized Miss Tennyson must have come upon the destruction when she visited the island in the company of Arceneaux and the children.

He said, “Did she drive to the village in a gig? With a man and two children?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where would I find Forster?”

Tessa sniffed and jerked her head back toward the crossroads. “He married the Widow Clark just last year. Her farm’s on the edge of the old chase.”

Sebastian touched his hat and swept the girl an elegant bow. “Thank you, Miss Sawyer. Good day.”

Turning away, he was reaching for the gate’s latch when Tessa said suddenly, “You know, I did hear the last part of what Miss Tennyson said to Rory.”

Sebastian swung to face her. “Oh? And what was that?”

“She told him she was going to ask Sir Stanley to fire him.”

“And did you hear Rory’s response?”

“Aye. He said that weren’t a good idea. And when she asked him if he was a-threatenin’ her, he said—” Tessa broke off, all color leaching from her cheeks.

“What did he say?”

The girl swallowed. “He said yes.”

S
ebastian found Rory Forster clearing rocks from a grassy field edged by a small stream.

Reining in beneath the shade cast by a spreading elm, Sebastian paused to watch as the man heaved a watermelon-sized stone up onto the pile in the bed of the low cart beside him. The cart’s brown mule stood placidly in the afternoon heat, ears twitching as Sebastian left the curricle in Tom’s care and climbed over the stile.