An Appetite for Violets (34 page)

My heart was racketing fast as I peered through the glass to be sure Mr Pars was still at his bonfire. He was, yet why did the very sight of him make my legs long to run and run? I closed my eyes. What had my mistress and Bengo both eaten? She had long since given up sweetmeats; there was no food up there in her chamber. Or what had she drunk? Only her comfrey tea.

An ice-cold dart of fear ran through me. This morning the remains of her comfrey tea had been spilt by Bengo, after he broke the cup the liquid had dripped all over the floor. The stupid dog had no doubt lapped it up.

But again I argued counterwise. Only me or Mr Loveday had ever bought the tea at market stalls. Yet I had a faint recollection now, like a half dream, of Carinna telling me that Mr Pars had given her a dose last night. It had to be the comfrey tea. I pictured it, standing on the table by her bedside. A walnut caddy filled with shredded leaves.

I checked the window. Mr Pars had thrown a large portmanteau in the fire and was poking it with a stick. Evelina was slumbering peacefully, her tiny eyelids fluttering. As quietly as I could I crept along the hallway and up the stairs. It would be the work of a moment to find the tea and be sure he had not exchanged it. Yet my footsteps slowed as I reached my lady’s room. I had not seen her corpse since I’d laid her out last night.

Pushing open the door I found her still shrouded by the sheet, though a half-dozen flies circled her like corpse watchers. Moving quickly to the table I found the caddy, its lid down just as it should be. I opened it and looked at the pale greenish leaves. Thank God, I told myself, they are comfrey leaves. I sighed and then, from habit, picked up a couple of leaves and thrimbled them between my finger and thumb. Then I raised my fingers to my nose and sniffed.

The scent was not comfrey. Comfrey has a green smell of musty parsley. This was poppy-like and higher in the nose. I sniffed it again, dropping my nose deep into the box. It was something I knew, something I had smelled many times. Then, with my face so close, I noticed tiny hairs on the leaves. The name came to me then, a commonplace name, yet one well famed as a medicine and poison. Foxglove.

The sound of a creak on the stairs made me jump like a startled hare. I tried to drop the lid gently, but my butterfingers slipped and it banged like a crow-scarer. In a moment Mr Pars was standing at the door. He had caught me in the very act.

‘I always knew you were quick, Biddy.’ He was grinning like he was pleased with me, but I reckoned he was more pleased with himself. ‘If anyone would find me out, it was you.’

I froze like a block of ice. Only my dead mistress lay stretched between us. Oh Lord, I thought. He killed her. I stared from her corpse lying murdered, up to her steward, so merry with himself. I opened my mouth with the notion of somehow distracting him by chattering on, but my voice was high and strangled.

‘Foxglove and comfrey. Easy to mistake one for the other.’

He folded his arms and leaned on the door frame.

‘So Lady Maria told me. A true scholar of herblore, she was. Trained me how to grow my coltsfoot and much more besides. Now she was a true gentlewoman, not like that filthy whore.’ He nodded towards the corpse that lay between us.

I glanced at the window and saw it was tightly shuttered. There was no escape that way. Oh Lord, don’t let me die, rang a silent voice in my head. I had the notion that if I kept him talking, Mr Loveday might come home at any moment.

‘How long had she been taking it?’

‘Since we stopped at Ashford. I first exchanged it that day I surprised you in her chamber. I should have guessed her shamming trick, for I mistook you for her then, and called out her name. She outflanked me there, bringing you along. As for the foxglove, every time I switched it none of you were wiser. Well, there was that overindulgence at Turin, you remember? The bitch’s heart near stopped. My only concern was that you would finally notice.’

I shook my head weakly.

‘But you had your head turned, didn’t you? She saw to that. You cannot picture my satisfaction, to think of her drinking her poison every day and night, all prepared by other hands than mine. Turin told me what I needed about the dose. Last night I merely tripled it.’

‘But the doctor would have noticed.’

‘What doctor? Last night I merely took a turn around the lanes.’

Again I scrabbled about for questions to keep him talking.

‘But why did you – hate her?’

He laughed at me like I was an idiot. ‘I forget, you still believe that brimstone bitch was an innocent. If you had seen her greedy face when she first arrived at Mawton, you would not have aped her as you did. There was nothing any of them would not do for money. I met her uncle at the law courts when I was searching for a way to get Pars Fold back, after Sir Geoffrey had bullied my father into handing it over. I fancied I might secretly transfer the land back, for who of Sir Geoffrey’s heirs would know better? But the lawyer I consulted, a toad in a greasy wig, told me it could not be done in secret, and anyway, I must pay the current value. To pay a vast sum for what was rightfully ours? I couldn’t let the matter lie, it grew like a canker. I took comfort in a tavern outside the courts, and found Quentin. He was up for fraud, naturally. We got to talking and found we each had a use for the other. We made an agreement, a solid agreement, to divide Sir Geoffrey’s fortune between us, half for me, half for them. He said he had a fresh young niece and was on the lookout for a wealthy rook, and I – well, I had need of others to distract from my part. What was Pars Fold to me if all of Sir Geoffrey’s fortune was for the taking? But I needed them, a pair of dupes to take the blame. Who would take notice of my part, after his gold-hunting wife had finished spending? It was my wits alone that devised the whole pretty trick. Quentin and Carinna landed like flies in honey.’

The silence scared me, so I stuttered out another question. ‘So why not share it as you agreed?’

He pointed contemptuously at my lady. ‘Because that dogess went back on her word. No sooner had she wedded Sir Geoffrey than she started up her own game. The black bitch was suddenly set upon travel, and threatened to take all the money abroad and leave me nothing. Said that if I didn’t, she’d ruin me, she’d send the Letter of Credit we concocted together to Ireland, for it bore Sir Geoffrey’s false signature in my hand. Ruin me! The trouble that harlot caused, making me chase all this way at her skirts just to keep her sweet. As for her spending, she did it to enrage me, you do know that? One day on Dover beach she said she would spend my share in double time in Paris. It’s astonishing I didn’t snuff her sooner.’

Dover beach. I recollected two figures, a greatcoated man striding fast with his hands tight in fists.

‘And she’s kept that jewel close. Ever since Lady Maria showed it me, when I first rode up to Yorkshire to collect that sweet lady, I’ve had a hankering for that jewel. So hand it over, girl.’

Please Lord, not the jewel. I had to let his boasting run on.

‘So who fathered Carinna’s child?’

‘The devil knows which filthy rake she lay with. I only knew it couldn’t be Sir Geoffrey’s.’

‘For sure you knew that,’ I threw back. ‘He was poxed half to death.’

Pars pulled a sour little smile. ‘Yes, damn his soul. While he had the strength to live on like a festering corpse, the pox as good as murdered every child Lady Maria conceived and finally murdered her. The chancre reached her heart. It was a vile sore right there.’ With eyes fiercely distant he touched his own barrel chest. ‘She kept it hidden underneath the Mawton Rose.’

I had to turn him off that jewel again. ‘But you let Lady Carinna marry him, knowing that if he bedded her, it would slowly murder her too?’

‘She deserved it. No one could replace Maria.’ Then he recollected himself. ‘So where’s the jewel?’

I tried to blank my face like a white glazed platter. ‘I don’t know.’

He moved then, taking slow heavy steps into the room, so that I backed away towards the wall, cringing like a hound. A few inches from me he halted, panting so hard so I could smell his sourness.

‘Biddy,’ he said, his head cocked sideways in a mockery of concern. ‘For some time you have worried me, girl. Carinna gave you fancies that could only ruin you. And that fop of a count’s attentions have puffed up your head.’ He pursed his thin lips, and the red veins flushed over his cheeks like a purple brand. ‘You forget you are only a kitchen slut.’

I opened my mouth, but no words sprang to my rescue. I sized him up and reckoned Humphrey Pars was twice my weight. I was no match for him. We stared at one another, and I saw in his eyes something raw and monstrous that he generally kept hooded.

‘Those fools have spoiled you, Biddy. And if you will not support your old friends, if you would play the traitor—’

He was talking very slow and sing-song, watching me and rubbing his fingers against each other, as if rubbing away cold sweat.

‘Mr Pars,’ I said, and my voice came out like a whine from a beggar. ‘You can trust me, sir. You can always—’

Just then a distant sound reached my ears. At first only I could hear it. Evelina had woken and wanted the world to know it. Then I saw a spark of anger cross his face.

‘What’s that? I told you to get rid of it.’

The babe’s stubborn wail rose up the empty stairs.

‘That damned squeaker! I’ll squeeze the air right out of its lungs—’

‘You will not!’

‘Only two things I asked. Get rid of that child and give me the jewel.’

Then I said it, what I had been thinking all this long day. ‘And if I did. Then what?’

He showed his hately smile then and it made me shiver, for I think the old serpent himself could not have smiled wider. ‘You are mighty quick tonight. It’s a pity you and that slammerkin did not truly change places. She never could keep up with me.’

Evelina wailed on, still tugging at my nerves, so I opened my mouth just to cover the noise.

‘So it was never her doing at all, to give Sir Geoffrey the apoplexy?’

‘Her?’ he scoffed. ‘I sent a bottle of Sir Geoffrey’s favourite Usquebaugh to London to celebrate the wedding. It had foxglove mixed into the spirit. He seemed never to drink it, but when he finally did, the day could not have been better chosen, the day he and Carinna parted with hot words. My only regret is that he survived.’

As I scrabbled for more to say, I prayed to hear Mr Loveday on the drive, but no sound came.

‘But surely you will be caught?’

‘Caught? They will have to find me first. And by then they will know Carinna stole the money. I am sending back to Mawton the most perfectly balanced accounts to prove she spent every penny. And letters held by my brother Ozias show I did all in my powers to restrain her. Pen and ink will prove my case.’

‘I meant for her – murder.’

His mouth twisted in an acid downwards smile as if I made a great jest.

‘My dear Biddy, Carinna is not dead. She was seen all about the streets only today. And even the count would testify that this swollen hulk before us was not Carinna. It helps of course, her having been a flighty piece. So none will be surprised she’s run away with her mysterious lover and so thankfully, will never be seen again.’

‘I don’t understand. So whose is the funeral tomorrow?’

The room was suddenly airless and cold. My fingers wretchedly groped the smooth wall behind me.

‘The funeral is for that poor unfortunate maid, of course. The one who came from Mawton with a bastard in her belly. The one who fancied herself so much cleverer than me.’

He fixed me with his red-rimmed eyes, but I saw his muscle twitch to raise his heavy arm. ‘Obedience Leigh.’

There was no time to think on it, I dashed beneath his lifted arm and ran for the stairs. He caught at my skirts and slowed me for a moment, but I tugged and tugged and broke away free. I ran at full pelt along the landing and could see the first step of the stairs. By the time I reached it he was thundering behind me. A hand grabbed my hair, but I wriggled forward and felt the pins tug from my scalp as my empty cap came loose in his hand. Then I was clattering down the stairs as fast as I could. I could hear him, puffing his breath out just behind me. Evelina’s wailing rose; every sinew in my body ached to grasp her and run away I knew not where. Then from behind me his heavy hand grasped my sleeve, but I shook it off. Evelina was screaming, and I told myself I would reach her.

With a jolt my loose hair was yanked back, and my neck savagely twisted. I stumbled and missed my footing. For what felt a long age I teetered on the stair edge, and then, with a powerful punch to my kidneys from behind me, I lost my footing and fell headlong down the stairs, racketing my way down bump after bump. Reaching the bottom, though I tried to hold out my hands to protect myself, my head walloped hard against the stone floor and I knew no more of what befell me.

XXXIV

It was market day in Leghorn, and loud-mouthed women jostled Loveday, their squalling children staring and pointing at his unfamiliar features. At the captain’s house he had waited in a dirty servants’ room while Jesmire saw the master. He had dozed in the soupy heat, listening to washerwomen’s voices rising and falling as they scolded their wailing broods. Then someone had opened a shutter, and barely one hundred paces away he glimpsed the turquoise sea and a harbour packed tight with tall-masted sailing ships. He asked the other manservants where the ships sailed to, but their words were hard to understand. One single word rang out like a bell. ‘Kochee?’ he repeated. They nodded. The word revived him like a powerful tide. Kochee. He had disembarked at that sun-gold, spice-dusty port on his passage to England. He could picture the huddle of merchants’ houses, the brown-eyed sailors dressed only in knotted white cloths, the beautiful oval-faced women, their nostrils pierced with diamonds. He had to get to Kochee; it was an ache in his
manger
spirit, it stretched and strained like a sail in a wild wind.