An Unlamented Death: A Mystery Set in Georgian England (Mysteries of Georgian Norfolk Book 1) (19 page)

The old gentleman had made no show of modesty. Indeed he had been amongst those most ready to raise his quizzing-glass to ensure he missed no display of feminine charms. Adam too, being in male company and far enough from home, had relaxed into the spirit of the evening. Though he mentally advised himself to censor the story he would tell Mrs. Brigstone when he arrived home.

Yet even during the amusement of the evening, something nagged at him. He felt he had been offered some insight which he had failed to grasp. The archdeacon's death was always at the back of his mind. That evening's melodrama had shown him people playing one victim off against another. Might that not suggest something? If it did, he could not grasp it. In that puzzle which so obsessed him there was only one victim. Yet...what if that were not so? What if the constable had been playing some deeper game? What if...?

No, he told himself, that is enough. Leave the matter for today. Sleep upon it. Perhaps tomorrow may dawn clear.

F
or a while
, life for Adam returned to normal. There were patients to be seen, of course. Yet now the recommendations Adam had received over the past few months meant that he could drop many of his most onerous tasks. Being freed from the necessity of making money by any means possible, he could pick and choose. He was well on his way to establishing his practice amongst the more well-to-do people of the neighbourhood.

His social life was expanding more slowly. He dined with Lassimer and Lassimer came to him in return. His mother visited, bringing Miss Lasalle. Adam found the young lady's company most congenial. The three dined with Mr. Jempson and his daughter, Elizabeth, in their home and made up a happy party. The Jempsons had completed their move from Norwich and were now well-respected residents of the town. As Adam might have expected, their house was modest, yet still a haven of comfort and quiet good taste.

Elisabeth Jempson proved to be both agreeable and well-educated, as befitted a Quaker family. Her father had made sure she had an education rather greater than many women of her time and she had taken full advantage of it. Miss Lasalle was plainly delighted with her company. Before an hour was past, they were calling each other Elizabeth and Sophia, as if they had been childhood friends. If this easy intimacy caused Adam some feelings of envy, he took care to keep them hidden.

Adam admired Elizabeth Jempson’s mind and conversation as much as Miss Lasalle did. Yet he could not help noticing her neat, well-proportioned figure, her fine, grey eyes, her sleek hair and her excellent complexion as well. Like her father, Elizabeth dressed in Quaker fashion, though the quality of the cloth of her dress was apparent. It was a good time since Adam's affections had been engaged by a woman. Now, with two in the room who might appeal to any man, he should have been content. He was not, and it had much to do with neither of them being available for a more intimate relationship.

Mr. Jempson had written before their visit to tell Adam that he had informed his daughter of Adam’s interest in making contact with Mr. William Ross. She too thought him the person her friend had spoken of. So she had written at once to Birmingham. Yet Mr. Jempson explained to Adam that Elizabeth thought the friend a poor correspondent. She feared it might be some time before she obtained a reply. He would need to be patient.

Yet when the next week the Jempsons dined with Adam and his mother in their turn, she was ready with news. The young man her friend Alice had found so agreeable was indeed Mr. William Ross. He had travelled to Birmingham immediately after his father denied him his own house. There he found the warmth and welcoming friendship he had come to expect from the members of the circle of Dr. Priestley and Mr. Darwin. There was more. Once they heard the details of his situation, some of the most important men in the city had taken swift action to find him a way to earn his living.

Mr. William Ross’s prowess with numbers was well known. Now these men of business discovered him to be diligent in his application of his skill to practical use. As a result, a Mr. Bredwardine, a partner in a bank as well as in several manufacturing concerns, had swiftly engaged him as his chief clerk in all financial matters. Mr. Ross enjoyed the work and still found time to pursue further studies in mathematics and science.

It was in connection with Mr. Bredwardine’s business interests that Mr. Ross was presently absent from Birmingham. He was visiting various shipowners and traders in the port of Hull. Unable to speak to him directly, Alice had therefore sent him a letter through Mr. Bredwardine. In it she had acquainted him with his mother’s contrition and unhappiness, and urged him to make contact with her as soon as he might be able.

This was such good news, and so suitable to Adam’s desires in the matter, that his thanks caused Miss Jempson to blush. Her father beamed upon her and added his own praise for her kindness in the matter.

‘Let us hope the young man is persuaded to act out of love and sympathy,’ Mr. Jempson said. ‘The whole service of God consists in kindness towards your fellow men. Without such deeds, the most profound faith and devotion is worthless. Did not St. Paul write that a man that hath not charity is but as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal?’

‘From all that I have heard,’ Adam said, ‘I am indeed hopeful that the young Mr. Ross will be as loving towards his mother in her grief and suffering as any man. He has made a most powerful impression on the people with whom he is now living, and I cannot believe that comes solely from his intellect. In my experience, many of those most admired for their powers of reason make but a poor fist of dealing with their fellow human beings. Yet Mr. William Ross has made himself useful and pleasant to the cream of commercial and scientific society in those parts. I cannot doubt he has more to offer than an ample mind.’

T
wo days later
, Adam’s mother and her companion went on their way to visit Trundon Hall. Adam went with them. In part this would ease the fatigue of the journey. His brother had also arranged a dinner party to welcome his mother and Miss Lasalle to Trundon. He invited Adam too, saying that several members of prominent local families would be present. They would all have known Mr. Harmsworthy for a good while, he thought, and might well have some useful insights. Of course, this ensured Adam would attend, as Giles knew it would.

While the ladies were present at table, conversation moved amongst conventional topics, but was none the less animated or interesting for that. Only when the ladies retired to the drawing room, the cigars were lit and the port began its endless journey around the table, did Giles bring up the subject of Mr. Harmsworthy. It looked likely to be an evening of considerable drinking. It would thus be well to hear what the others had to say while most were still sober.

‘Does anyone know Henry Harmsworthy?’ Giles began. ‘Adam had something of an odd encounter with him recently. He was quite rude.’

‘Not surprised,’ Lord Sidestrand said at once. ‘Bit of an odd fellow all round. Reclusive. Never heard anything definite against him, you understand, but not the kind of person you would want to welcome into your family.’

Robert Norton-Harvey took up the topic. ‘I’ve heard he can’t be found,’ he said. ‘Left his house and disappeared, no one knows where. I also heard he has resigned from the bench of magistrates. I wonder if he plans to move away?’

‘No great loss,’ Sir Daniel Rivers said. ‘Not to society anyway. As Sidestrand said, the man is a recluse. You never see him at anyone’s house, nor at society events. Not married either. Well, that estate isn’t much, so I suspect few mothers have ever had him in mind as a match for a daughter looking to rise in society.’

‘If that is the reason,’ Norton-Harvey said. ‘Odd men like that, you know. Makes you wonder. To be fair though, I haven’t heard anything specific to suggest he’s the other way inclined. That’s the odd thing about him. He’s dull of course. But he’s also pretty near impossible to get to know.’

Now Braydon Townsend joined in. ‘You have to admire what he’s done with that estate. When he inherited it, it was worth scarce a thousand a year. It must be worth double that today. I wonder where he got his skill with money? Not from his father, that’s for sure.’

‘Nor his mother either,’ Lord Sidestrand said. ‘Not that way, anyhow.’ The four of them nodded and laughed at that. Here was something they all knew that Adam did not. So, putting on his most innocent voice, Adam enquired why Mr. Harmsworthy’s parents provoked such mirth.

Lord Sidestrand, who had probably consumed the most port, was the first to answer. ‘Mr. Harmsworthy senior was an odd fellow,’ he said. ‘No bottom. All surface polish, but nothing behind it. Never could settle to anything. Start it, spend heavily, then drop it. Even his own father didn’t care for him.’

‘You must be even more drunk than I am,’ Norton-Harvey said. ‘I could barely understand a word of that. For goodness’ sake, Sidestrand, start at the beginning and try to use complete sentences.’ He turned to Adam. ‘The answer to your question is in there somewhere, Bascom. It’s just been mangled by Sidestrand’s mode of speech.’

‘So tell him,’ Sir Daniel protested. ‘Listen to me, Dr. Bascom. Mr. Harmsworthy senior never recovered from going on The Grand Tour. He came back more Italian than the Italians. While he was in Italy, he took up collecting paintings and statues. Of course, when he came back he had nowhere to put them. His father wouldn’t have them in the house. So the son sulked in London for several years, learned to lose at the card tables and ran through a whole series of expensive mistresses. He would have ended in a debtors’ prison if his father had not died in the nick of time.’

‘He got his hands on the estate,’ Townsend interrupted, ‘but it didn’t change his ways. He put up all his paintings and started paying huge sums to architects to rework the house in the latest style. That, a new set of women and even more gambling debts ate up most of the ready cash. Then he married a woman as wild and feckless as himself.’

‘Real beauty though’, Lord Sidestrand said. ‘My father said he’d never seen a lovelier, better-dressed woman. That was something, coming from him, believe me. He’d made a lifetime study of ladies of every kind.’

‘Beautiful indeed,’ Townsend continued, ’but with the morals of an alley cat. As he grew older, her husband lost interest in women and turned to horses instead. It was said he had the finest stable in the country and she had twice as good a stable of men and rode them twice as hard. They had one child between them – our Henry – and neither took any interest in the lad.’

‘He must have been about ten when his father died,’ Sir Daniel said. ‘His mother then lost all restraint. The paintings, horses, jewels and the like, all gone. There wasn’t even much left of the estate to mortgage. Charlotte Harmsworthy did what her kind always do: first she sold whatever she could, then she lived off a succession of elderly fools while continuing to enjoy every stiff, young cock she could find.’

‘There was quite a scandal, I believe,’ Norton-Harvey added. ‘It may even have been at the Dublin Castle. She arrived at a ball wearing a gown cut so low even the gentlemen were shocked.’

Adam had been listening with barely half his attention up to this point. Now he felt as if a spring had jerked his head upright and caused his whole brain to tingle.

‘Did you say Dublin?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ Norton-Harvey replied. ‘Didn’t you know the Harmsworthy’s are an Irish family? Not papists, of course. Part of what gets called the Protestant Supremacy. Our Henry was definitely born there.’

‘Must have been about the time of the scandal that he left,’ Lord Sidestrand said. ‘Dublin got too hot for his mother and she went abroad somewhere. Henry was packed off to live with some dreary uncle in Glasgow. Poor boy had nothing. Even the estate was seized by the creditors and sold. Anyone know what happened to Lottie?’

‘I believe she died in Italy somewhere,’ Sir Daniel said. ‘About two years later. You can’t keep up that kind of pace and live a long life. You’re right about the son. I think he was destined for the Church. It’s often the only source of income open to poor sons of good families. What rescued him was the death of his mother’s step-brother without issue. He got the estate here and the chance to live like a gentleman again.’

‘His rackety upbringing left its mark though,’ Townsend said. ‘He has never been happy in company. Nor has he ever married.’

‘I heard he isn’t the marrying type, if you catch my drift,’ Lord Sidestrand said. ‘There was that fuss about old Merson’s son a few years back. He and Henry Harmsworthy were almost inseparable until Merson whisked the young man away.’

‘Nothing was proved,’ Sir Daniel said, ‘though I admit it seemed fishy. The Merson boy was definitely that way. I believe he lived in France until they all went mad there. Half the nobility of France were sodomites … rest were adulterers! Now those who are left are running for their lives over here. Not that we need any more of their sort, if you ask me.’

Ever since the mention of Dublin, Adam’s mind had been working at double speed. As a result, he more or less missed a good part of the subsequent discussion. Indeed, he would probably have missed everything else that evening if his brother had not gently touched him on the arm and roused him from his speculations.

‘Wake up, brother,’ Giles said. ‘We’re going through to join the ladies now. Was that helpful to you?’ Adam could only nod.

A
s soon as
he arrived at his home the next day, Adam wrote at once to Mr. Wicken. He did not trouble that powerful and devious man with news of Mr. William Ross. That would hardly be of much interest to a person he had come to think of as far more than a mere spymaster. Instead he set down a full explanation of his recent actions and thoughts, together with a brief summary of the discussion around the dining table at Trundon Hall.

Chief amongst the points he made was his realisation that he had been most remiss in ignoring the contribution of Mr. Harmsworthy to the affair of the archdeacon’s death. The magistrate had appeared open enough about his contact with Dr. Ross on that fateful evening. Yet a fuller consideration revealed that this openness was deceptive. Nor had Adam known of Harmsworthy’s connection to Ireland. He was sure Mr. Wicken had told him one of the men taken in the raid was both Irish and a notorious rebel. What did this say of Harmsworthy’s actions?

As he set all down for Mr. Wicken, it became even clearer. Mr. Harmsworthy had stated after the inquest that he had taken Dr. Ross to the churchyard at Gressington. There he had left him, never enquiring the reason for the choice of such a strange destination at that time of the day. But that would not do. Constable Garnet had seen Mr. Harmsworthy and Dr. Ross together. Adam was certain that must be correct. He had been sufficiently alarmed to run away. Mr. Harmsworthy must have done more than drive into the village, allow Dr. Ross to alight alone, and drive away again.

To this Adam now added the intelligence that Mr. Harmsworthy had Irish connections, had left home at some time close to the raid on the smugglers and had not returned. No one was certain where he had gone. Must that not also be seen as suspicious, he wrote? It was well beyond Adam’s means to track Mr. Harmsworthy down, but he was sure that Mr. Wicken’s resources would be more than equal to the task. He therefore ended his letter by urging that Mr. Harmsworthy be found as soon as possible. Only then could he be asked to account in detail for his actions – something he had not done in the course of the inquest.