A Woman's Estate (50 page)

“Rutupiae,” she whispered, “and Eustace would be his
guardian.”

Arthur nodded. “Eustace.” His voice was soft and casual, and
there was no particular expression on his face, but Abigail shivered.

“Eustace tried to kill us both? Because Victor was the earl
and Eustace wanted to be?” Abigail’s voice shook.

“Yes. And he was the first person I thought of when you
showed me Victor’s coat, but I dismissed the idea. Eustace is no fool, and I
thought he must realize he would be suspected immediately. I suppose he felt it
would be called an accident, but—”

“But why should Bertram protect Eustace?” Abigail cried. “If
he guessed Eustace had made an attempt on Victor, why—”

“Family pride. He didn’t want the Lydden name blackened with
a really revolting scandal.”

“He risked Vic’s life because he was afraid of a scandal?”
Abigail gasped.

Arthur turned to her and took her in his arms. “No, love,
because telling us wouldn’t really have done any good and might have actually
endangered Victor more. He had no proof, so there was no way to stop Eustace by
locking him up or forcing him to leave the country. And once the suspicion was
aired, you would have had to forbid Eustace to live at Rutupiae. That’s where
Bertram felt the danger might have grown more acute. As long as Eustace was at
Rutupiae, I suppose Bertram felt he could keep an eye on him. Remember how
suddenly Eustace left on a visit after Victor fell—or was he pushed—into the
river?”

Abigail shook her head unbelievingly. “But Eustace came
back. How could Bertram believe he could control Eustace after that attempt on
us at the mill?”

“I think he might have told us then,” Arthur said, “but I
took you all off to Scotland, and then Victor went to school, where Eustace
couldn’t get at him. Then we were married. I guess he felt Victor would be safe
at Stonar—and he still had no proof.”

Abigail began to cry again. “And now he’s dead, and we still
have no proof.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that yet,” Arthur soothed. “I am
going to Rutupiae. I think Eustace will confess and tell us what he did with
Bertram.”

Chapter Thirty

Abigail cried out in protest, for she feared for Arthur’s
safety, but he laughed at her. Calmly, with a gentle smile on his face, he went
to his dressing room and changed into rather stained leather breeches and a
comfortable shooting coat. Abigail followed on his heels, weeping and pleading,
but his smile never varied, and although he made soothing noises at her, it was
plain he hardly saw her. Abigail began to feel sick as well as terrified, and
when he was ready, she clutched his arm and shook it.

“Are you going to kill him?” she cried.

Arthur hesitated, and the smile finally disappeared. “No,”
he said regretfully. “That would create legal problems. Nor can I bring Eustace
to trial; Bertram would not have liked that.” He shrugged. “I’ll get a written
confession and then put him on a ship to—to Australia. We have a most
insalubrious colony there. The knowledge that I hold his confession will keep
him from returning to England—if he survives.”

Frightened as she was, Abigail realized that Arthur was
making good sense. Eustace would be punished for his crime, the scandal
involved in his leaving the country would be minor, and Victor would be safe.
She could not find any logical protest except that she was afraid Arthur,
rather than Eustace, would be hurt, and her husband had already laughed that
away. She followed him down, silent with terror, until she realized he was
heading for a side door. Then she caught at him again.

“A gun!” she gasped. “Arthur, you will need a gun.”

He stopped and looked at her. “For what?”

“For protection! To threaten Eustace!”

“Don’t be a fool!” he exclaimed, pulling free of her grasp.
“What good would it do to shoot him? I need him able to write and able to
travel.”

He started for the door again, and Abigail cried, “Wait. I’m
coming with you.”

“I don’t think you should,” Arthur said, pausing momentarily
to frown at her over his shoulder.

“It was me and my son he tried to kill,” Abigail said,
adding with a sob, “and Bertram was my friend, too.”

“If you want to come…” Arthur shrugged. “I’m going to the
stable to pick up a horsewhip. Get a cloak so you won’t freeze, and meet me at
the path.”

Shock deprived Abigail of speech for a moment, and by the
time she echoed, “A horsewhip!” Arthur was gone. And while she was still
staring after him, trying to reorient her thinking, Waggoner came through the
doors that led to the servants’ quarters at the back of the corridor.

“There you are, my lady,” he said with relief. “Cook wishes
to know—”

“Never mind about dinner.” Abigail cut him off breathlessly.
“Tell Cook not to prepare anything that can spoil—and get me a cloak, a
pelisse, anything—quickly. I must go out.”

Surprise flickered on the butler’s face and was immediately
suppressed. He hurried away and returned with a heavy cloak Abigail did not
recognize but flung around herself without question as she went toward the
front door. Although it seemed to her the height of madness to confront a
murderer with a weapon no more lethal than a horsewhip, she was still much less
fearful. Arthur might not regard any danger to himself, but she knew he would
not have agreed so easily to her decision to accompany him if
she
might
be in danger.

As Abigail hurried around the house toward the path that led
to Rutupiae, it occurred to her that Arthur’s choice of weapon was not so
foolish. It was almost time for dinner. Eustace probably had no idea that he
was suspected and would be unlikely to be carrying a pistol at his own table.
And Arthur was an expert whip, a top sawyer. Abigail had seen him touch the
lead horse in a tandem pair on any spot he wished from the unstable seat of a
high-perch phaeton.

The footman who opened the door for them at Rutupiae looked
stunned and tried to say something, but Arthur pushed past him and flung open
the door to the drawing room. It was empty. Abigail stopped, reaching for his
arm. She had suddenly remembered Griselda and wanted to spare her the horror
that was to follow. Her husband had moved forward too quickly, however, and she
feared to cry out, so all she could do was run after him. When he pulled open
the door to the dining parlor, she was still a few steps behind. His voice came
back to her, indolent and infinitely cold.

“Where is Bertram, Eustace?”

Over Arthur’s shoulder, Abigail could see Eustace getting up
from the chair at the head of the table—the earl’s chair—but it was Hilda’s
voice that replied, and there was no fear in it, only surprise and indignation.

“Are you mad, Arthur? How should Eustace know where Bertram
is?”

Abigail had reached the door now, although her legs did not
seem to be working properly, and she saw that Griselda was not at the table.
“And where is Griselda?” she cried, terrified. Griselda had seen the man who
shot at them from the mill. She had not recognized him then, but having
murdered Bertram, could Eustace have decided she might remember some gesture
that would betray his guilt?

“You are both insane!” Hilda screeched, but there was fear
in her voice now. She had glanced at her son, and her eyes had remained riveted
on his face, which was pasty gray and distorted with rage and terror. “Griselda
is sick,” she went on, even more loudly as if to distract attention from
Arthur’s question. She had at last torn her eyes from Eustace’s face. “And we
have not seen Bertram for months.”

“Eustace has seen Bertram,” Arthur said with a grim travesty
of jocularity as he moved forward into the room. “Eustace was the last person
in the world to see Bertram.”

“No!” Eustace got out, his voice a terrified croak. “I never
liked Bertram or he me, and—”

The whip, which had been loosely coiled in Arthur’s hand and
almost hidden while his arm hung straight down, flicked out and touched
Eustace’s cheek. He and his mother screamed simultaneously, and just at the
same moment the door at the back of the room swung open for Empson, who was
carrying in the first course of the dinner. Greeted by two loud shrieks and the
sight of the horsewhip lash recoiling and snapping forward for a second strike,
Empson also uttered a startled cry and tried to step backward, only to be
struck forcefully by the door as a footman came running in response to the
screaming. The impact of the door, impelled by a brawny arm, sent Empson flying
forward, and the tray, laden with several large dishes of food and serving
pieces, flew up and out before Empson fell to his knees.

Food and silver sprayed in a wide arc, just as Arthur’s whip
struck Eustace again. Eustace had already been poised to run, and the pain as
the lash nicked his skin a second time narrowed his world to a single need born
of a single terror. His need was to escape Arthur, in whose calm and smiling
face he saw the knowledge of all his crimes and the promise of being flayed
alive. Empson’s disaster hardly impinged on his consciousness. Eustace turned,
twisted to avoid the onrushing footman, and darted through the door.

None of the others had quite the same singleness of purpose.
Although Arthur automatically retrieved his lash, his attention, and Abigail’s,
was drawn to the flying dishes and food. The footman, who had not recognized
Arthur and had intended to prevent any further attack on his master by charging
the intruder, was paralyzed midstride by the havoc he had created. For Hilda,
the domestic catastrophe was a welcome diversion from the terrible revelation
of her son’s guilt. She permitted Empson’s mishap to blot out everything else
and rose to her feet shrieking.

“This is the last offense! You are dismissed! Dismissed
without a character! Leave the house at once! This moment!”

As if the sound of her voice had freed him from his
surprise, Arthur leapt over the strewn dishes and ran out the door. Abigail
started after him, but the sight of Empson’s face, eyes and mouth distended
with horror, made her stop.

“Never mind, Empson,” she said. “It was not your fault.
Clean up in here as quickly as possible. Something far worse than spilled soup
has happened.”

“No!” Hilda screamed hysterically, falling back into her
chair. “No! No!”

Abigail glanced toward her, feeling faintly guilty at
leaving her alone in her agony but too anxious about whether Arthur had caught
up to Eustace to remain. As she went through the door she found herself almost
hoping Eustace would escape. She knew it was foolish, that if he were not
caught and dealt with, Victor would always be in danger, but she shrank from
what Arthur intended to do to wring a confession from him. Then she was through
the butler’s pantry and out into a corridor where for an instant she hesitated,
unsure of which way to go, but there was a maid standing with mouth agape,
staring toward the door that separated the servants’ quarters from the main
body of the house.

Then Eustace had
not
run toward the back door to
escape. Renewed terror closed Abigail’s throat and lent wings to her heels as
she ran toward the gun room. If Eustace had not made for the stables, then he
had gone for a weapon. As she reached the open door, she heard the snap of
Arthur’s whip, a scream from Eustace, and then a heavy thud. The light from the
corridor showed Arthur lifting the whip, swinging the lash toward him to free
the tangled end from the pistol he had pulled from Eustace’s grasp, but Eustace
was raising a second weapon from the table. Abigail screamed at the top of her
lungs. The gun jerked in Eustace’s hand. A roar of sound followed, so loud that
it seemed to throw Abigail backward. She screamed again as she fell with a
heavy weight atop her.

“Are you hurt, Abigail? Are you hurt?”

The words came through in the interval in which Abigail drew
breath to scream again, and she realized that the weight that had hit her was
Arthur. “No,” she gasped. “Are you? What was that noise?”

“His gun exploded,” Arthur said, lifting himself and helping
Abigail up. “In the dark he must have overloaded it in his hurry. I’m sorry to
have knocked you down, darling, but I was afraid you would be hit by a
fragment. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Never mind me,” she said. “Eustace will load another gun—”

“Eustace will never load another gun,” Arthur said calmly.
“He must have been knocked unconscious since he isn’t screaming, and he is sure
to have lost his hand. I had better tie up his arm so that he won’t bleed to
death. Will you ring and send one of the servants for a physician, love?”

There was, of course, no need to ring a bell. The noise of
the explosion had penetrated the farthest reaches of the house, and half the
staff was running into the hall. Abigail turned to face them.

“There has been a terrible accident,” she said. “A groom
must ride at once to fetch a doctor.”

“He had better get Sir John Keriell, the J.P., first,”
Arthur said, coming up behind her. His face was rigid and rather pale. “I’m
afraid Eustace is dead. Some of the fragments seem to have hit him in the face
and penetrated his brain.” Instinctively Abigail turned toward the gun room,
but Arthur’s broad shoulders blocked her view, and he gently put an arm around
her. “There’s nothing you can do, love,” he assured her, “and it isn’t a very
pleasant sight.”

Abigail sighed. It was just as well that Eustace was dead,
better for everyone. She could not grieve for Eustace or for Hilda, who had
taught him the blind, self-indulgent selfishness that even encompassed murder,
but how could they find Bertram now? She shuddered in Arthur’s arms and buried
her head in his shoulder. It was terrible that they should not even be able to
give Bertram a decent burial.

Meanwhile, Arthur was telling one of the footmen to get him
a blanket with which to cover Eustace, ordering one of the maids to send
Hilda’s personal maid to her, and driving the rest of the servants back to
their own part of the house. The crowd around them melted away, all except for
one trembling figure. Arthur had started to bend his head toward Abigail, when
the pale pink dress caught his eye. “I told you—” he began, and then his voice
softened. “Griselda—”

“Is he really dead?” she whispered.

Abigail freed herself from her husband’s grasp and hurried
to put her arms around her sister-in-law, who was shaking so hard she could
scarcely keep her feet. “I’m sorry, Griselda,” she murmured.

“I’m not,” Griselda gasped, although her eyes were fixed and
staring with horror. “I’m not sorry. He tried to kill Victor and you, Abigail,
and—”

“For God’s sake, if you knew, why didn’t you tell us?”
Arthur snarled. “You could have saved Bertram’s life, you fool.”

“Bertram isn’t dead,” Griselda got out between sobs. And
then she began to laugh with tears streaming down her face. “I did save his
life, but—”

“Where is he?” Arthur roared.

“In Mrs. Franklin’s cottage,” Griselda whimpered, recoiling
from Arthur’s violence. “Oh, don’t be angry with him, don’t.”

“Arthur, be quiet,” Abigail cried. “Griselda, don’t be
silly. Arthur isn’t angry at Bertram. He’s only so relieved to learn that
Bertram is alive that he cannot wait to see him.”

“But don’t scold him,” Griselda sobbed. “He knows how
foolish he was, and he is so weak—”

Abigail urgently signaled at her husband to give assurances
and go away, but too late. Arthur had already asked, “What happened?”

He was obviously trying to moderate his voice and his
impatience, but Griselda’s dithering and timidity made him grit his teeth.
This, naturally, did nothing to calm Griselda, and her attempts to answer his
question were almost unintelligible. All they could make out was that Griselda
blamed herself for Bertram’s reluctance to expose Eustace and thus for his
injury. It was not until Arthur had promised twice not to reproach Bertram for
“her crime” and assured her she was forgiven that Abigail was able to get her
into the drawing room and seated. Arthur went to lock the gun room door, and
Abigail concentrated on soothing Griselda, who she now realized was in the last
stages of physical and nervous exhaustion.