Cynthia Bailey Pratt (12 page)

He did not want to remain trapped upstairs. This house was not a suitable blind. It was too isolated and had too few inhabitants. A town house in a crowded city, an old inn with many back doors, an office beside a bustling dock were the places a hunted spy felt safest. However, he could feel the desire to stay the night, and he knew the longing for rest was just as much his enemy as the people who wanted him dead. If they knew where he was. He’d thought he’d shaken them off. Maybe this feeling of impending evil was the result of his exhaustion and his wound. But he could not rest. Not yet.

Three figures stood, tense and silent, in the yard. He recognized both the girls and saw that the man was the old codger who worked the garden. Hammond wondered what was wrong. At the sound of a horse clopping along the road, he saw them look up. He heard a gruff male voice. The prickles of raised nerves along his back and arms told him this new man was thoroughly bad.

Chapter Seven

“Good even to you, Miss Burnwell.” Cocker leaned down to open the gate, as no one did it for him, and urged the horse through into the garden.

Jocelyn knew Cocker was a bad man. His suggestive words to her echoed whenever she saw him, poisoning the air. Now that she knew he also plagued Helena, she felt angry instead of ashamed. “You’ve been told before to stay away from this house.” Her uncle had made that plain two weeks ago.

“Friendly, ain’t you, girl? Well, I got a right to be here now. My mistress is here.” His tone made it seem as if he meant “mistress” in a sense other than employer. He leaned down in his saddle, and his slits of eyes rested on Helena. Jocelyn heard the girl’s quick in-drawing of breath.

“Well, there she is. Tell her what you’ve come for.”

Cocker grinned and rubbed one hand along his thigh in a manner that made Jocelyn feel ill. She felt Helena’s hand tremble on her arm and Helena half-opened her lips as if to speak.

“State yer busyness and get outta my garden,” Mr. Quigg said sharply, stepping in front of the girls, his pitchfork pointing, business end up, at Cocker.

“Be good t’me, old duffer.”

“Or what, you dog?” Mr. Quigg spat.

“Or you’d wished you had, that’s all. I don’t make no promises. ...”

“What do you want, Mr. Cocker?” Jocelyn said tiredly.

“The vicar wants me to tell his darlin’ sister how he’s changed his mind an’ she should be comin’ home t’night.”

Helena said, “What? But he promised ...” She remembered Cocker was only a servant. “Did my brother say you could take the horse?”

“Why, sure he did. Got a little somethin’ t’do in town later, an’ he says I should take it. Ain’t it right, I should take it?” Cocker’s voice rose as his hands clenched into fists. Mr. Quigg shifted the pitchfork. Cocker’s manner grew servile once more. “You hurry yerself along, missus. The vicar’s in a rare takin’.”

Helena stared at Cocker in fascinated horror. She shrank behind Jocelyn, leaving her to answer. “Remind Mr. Fain that Miss Fain will be staying with me over the next several nights. Thank you. You may go.”

“Stayin’ wid you? Nay, the master won’t like it. Better she should go along home.”

“Don’t argue, please. Take my message to the vicar.”

“Perhaps I should go home,” Helena whispered.

“It’s wrong of your brother to chop and change like this. He said you can stay. I think you should.” Under no circumstances was Jocelyn going to allow Helena to go home to be leered at by Cocker. She felt like taking Mr. Fain severely to task for not restraining his servant’s insolence. The vicar could not be so blinded by his love of humanity to miss Cocker’s evil ways. Was that what Hammond had meant?

“Stayin’ wid you, is she? Won’t that be cozy?” Cocker said, one lid closing over a reptilian eye and his bright red tongue coming out between cracked lips. He looked at Jocelyn and said, “All alone in the house but for this old duffer an’ her? How’d you like some company? Protect you real good, I will.”

“Alone? My good man, what do you mean?” Hammond stepped out into the yard, his hat on the back of his head and his black and silver cane balanced on the back of his hand. His stomach seemed to have grown, to have become the proud property of a man built with the hard labor of knife and fork. “‘My dear niece, won’t you introduce me? I’d like to know who I’m going to be put to the trouble of horsewhipping.”

“Uncle, this is Mr. Cocker, the vicar’s servant,” Jocelyn said, nearly laughing at Hammond’s pompous tones and the expression of utter surprise on Cocker’s dirty face. Her only fear was for Helena’s good opinion.

“No worries, mister. I just come to tell—”

“You’ve told her; now leave.” Hammond tossed his cane in the air and caught it in his fist. It instantly became a formidable weapon. “Go on. Get out.”

Cocker gurgled like a clearing drain, the sound that in him passed for laughter, and turned the large bay horse around, riding slowly away in the red sunset with many a backward glance. Only Jocelyn noticed the way Hammond’s eyes followed the horse, disappointment drawing his brows together. He looked at her, as if to say “Lame, indeed?” She tried to communicate that she’d told him the truth as she’d known it, but he looked, still frowning, at Helena instead. Jocelyn wondered if another heart was about to be lost to her friend’s beauty.

Mr. Quigg seized a bristle broom and swept away all trace of the man’s presence. Jocelyn patted him on the shoulder and went into the kitchen, followed by Hammond and Helena. She opened the stove and thrust the wood into the fire.

Helena looked at Hammond with some of the dazed fascination she’d shown Cocker. Jocelyn tried to make the situation more comfortable for her friend. “Helena. This is ... Hammond. He is not my uncle. He is a friend.”

“Of yours?” Helena observed Hammond’s face, neither attractive nor unattractive, and colored under the glint in his eyes. Helena did not blame Jocelyn for keeping him a secret. She wondered how long they had known each other and if they were in love. It did not surprise her that Jocelyn concealed his existence from the Swanns. Those two women would consider it the gossip opportunity of the century if Jocelyn found an admirer.

Helena smiled slowly and said, “I don’t usually approve of lying, Mr. Hammond, and as the vicar’s sister, I can hardly condone it, but I must thank you for telling Cocker you are Jocelyn’s uncle. I think you frightened him away.”

“Some men should always be lied to. And some women.”

Jocelyn decided to change the subject. She did not like Hammond smiling in that way at Helena. “Well, if you are going to stay with me, Helena, shall I loan you some things for the night?”

Helena did not have the opportunity to answer. She was interrupted by Arnold shouting, “I didn’t . . . Stop saying I did when I didn’t!” There was the solid smack of a head being hit.

Jocelyn ran out the back door. Helena followed. Arnold and Granville scuffled frantically. As the girls ran out, Arnold broke from his brother’s restraining grasp and, arms flailing, returned to the attack. Granville pushed his brother away every time he got close enough to land a blow, not hurting him but frustrating him terribly.

Helena tried to go forward to intervene, but Jocelyn stopped her. Jocelyn knew better, having been knocked down accidentally a time or two before. “Mr. Quigg!” she called.

The old man came out, his pitchfork once more in his hands. He held out the long handle behind Granville, tripping him, then, when Arnold laughed to see his brother fall, pushed Arnold down by poking him behind the knee. “Thank you, Mr. Quigg,” Jocelyn said with a laugh.

The old man touched his cap and said, “D’you want me t’be ready t’give a good hidin’, Miss?”

“No, thank you. I’ll manage.”

Mr. Quigg walked away, shaking his head. “Too late t’send ‘em up widout supper. Just one damn thing after another ‘round here.”

“Boys, apologize to Miss Fain. Behaving so when I told her how good you’d been.” The boys got up, with sour faces and mumbled apologies.

“Tell him to stay out of my room, Jocelyn. Everything’s at rag’s end.” Granville seemed to realize he had not upheld his ideal of elegant indifference and straightened his jacket, tossing back his head. “I won’t have dirty little boys stealing my things. Trying to give himself airs to impress his silly girlfriends.”

At this accusation Arnold lunged at Granville again, but Jocelyn locked her arm lovingly about his neck and kept him against her without too much trouble. “Yah,” he said, thrusting out his tongue. “Girlfriends? I wouldn’t have that fat cow Isabelle Franklin for a hundred million pounds. All la-di-da and crooked teeth.”

Behind Jocelyn, Helena laughed, stifling it too late. Outraged, Granville tugged his cuff’s into place and wheeled away. Jocelyn didn’t try to make peace between the brothers. She knew they’d be friends again as soon as a common enemy-such as their tutor-appeared.

She was relieved the question of who rumpled Granville’s shirts had been shelved. Letting go of Arnold with an exhortation to be good, she realized that she had not seen Mr. Fletcher. Usually, when Granville and Arnold began to wrangle, he would admonish them, though nothing he ever did was as effective as Mr. Quigg and his pitchfork handle.

Hammond had also taken the opportunity to disappear. Helena said, “We need to talk, Jocelyn. We have been keeping secrets from each other.”

“I don’t know what you mean. Hammond is someone I met by chance a few days ago. He happened to be visiting here just now.”

“Visiting? Why, then, did he take supper privately, upstairs?” Jocelyn said nothing. “Oh, very well. I shan’t pry,” Helena said. “But he isn’t staying, is he? I couldn’t . . . you heard Mrs. Swann’s innuendos. She isn’t the only one who will talk. Some of the congregation has wondered at your aunt and uncle leaving you alone with ... an eligible man.”

“They must mean Mr. Quigg,” Jocelyn said. “For I can think of no other man here whose affections are not already engaged.” Neither the fading daylight nor rising moonlight was bright enough to reveal Helena’s blushes, but the appearance of her white teeth in a happy smile was plain.

“Go put on your hat,” Jocelyn said. “We’d better go for your clothes.”

“Oh, yes.” Helena’s blue eyes widened in alarm. “You don’t think . . . Cocker ... I mean ...”

“He said he was going into town. If we hurry, we can go and return before him. It may be cowardly of me, but I think we’d best avoid your brother until the morning.”

Noises from down the hall told her that Arnold and Granville were loudly and obviously ignoring each other. It would be impossible to look for Hammond without their noticing her behavior. Speaking more loudly than she usually did in the hope that Hammond would hear, Jocelyn told her cousins that she and Miss Fain were walking to the vicarage and would only be gone a short time. “Arnold, it’s time you were in bed,” she added, knowing she wasted her breath.

By the time the girls left, the moon had risen, its brightness undimmed by the ancient scars on its surface. It shed its beams along their path but did not illuminate it. The shadow of even the smallest stone was black and deep. The lantern Jocelyn carried did little good on the path turned strange. They did not see, but they heard the brush of wings over their heads as an owl flew by in search of prey. A funny damp smell filled the air. They heard a sound like stone beads pulled through bony fingers.

Helena stopped, clutched Jocelyn’s arm and said, with a half-giggle of nervousness, “Maybe I
should
borrow some clothes for the night. We can come for my things in the morning.”

Jocelyn said heartily, her voice unnaturally loud. “Oh, it isn’t much farther.”

“I know, but ...” Helena looked over her shoulder. “I feel as if someone’s watching us,” she whispered.

Involuntarily Jocelyn looked back. She saw nothing, but it occurred to her that if Helena was right, the person behind them might be Hammond. It was pleasant to think he was near, even if her pleasure was somewhat spoiled by the idea he followed only because he still didn’t trust her.

“Come along, Helena.” She forced a smile. “It’s a beautiful spring evening. You’re acting as though it were All Saint’s.”

“I suppose it is just nerves,” Helena said, responding to Jocelyn’s tone. But as they walked on, they couldn’t help looking back from time to time, though they saw no one. They paused a long time on the edge of the cemetery before they mustered enough nerve to walk among the crumbling headstones.

The vicarage was a small stone building set back from the edge of the road just to the side of the church. Most vicars, cursed with large families, found the tiny rooms a nuisance. Not so Mr. Fain. He was used to scholarly pursuits, no one ever came to stay, and his half-sister hardly saw him from week to week, except at meals, for he was always prompt in that regard.

Helena opened the front door and listened for her brother. She heard nothing. To be certain he was not in, she called, “Nicholas? Nicholas?” There was no answer. “He may be at the church. Let’s hurry.”

The girls went up to her narrow room under the eaves. Jocelyn set their lamp on the floor. Helena said, “My second-best valise is in the attic. I’ll climb up for it. Will you hold the ladder?”

No sooner had Helena climbed down than they heard a definite thump from the floor below. Helena squeaked with fright and clutched at her friend. “Oh, what is it?”

“I don’t know. I hope it’s your brother. I want to talk with him.”

“No, Jocelyn. Let it wait till morning. You don’t know how cutting he can be.”

The girls went back into Helena’s room. The sound they heard made Jocelyn nervous, and she constantly stopped to listen. Finally, to relieve Helena’s mind and to make the packing go faster, Jocelyn volunteered to go down and see if anyone was there. Helena did not want her to go, but Jocelyn insisted. She still hoped to have a chance to tell Mr. Fain what she thought of his unreasonable behavior.

The house was very quiet when Jocelyn walked through it. She could hear nothing, except a dripping sound as though water were falling into water. Investigating, she walked through to the vicarage’s kitchen, tiny compared to that at the priory.