Shadow of the Past (17 page)

With no more than a nod, he was on his way. I would suggest to my mother, next time I wrote, that she found a way of ensuring that such a quick-witted and willing young man found speedy promotion.

The inevitably sluggish horses took us to the Franes’ vicarage with a speed that suggested they might have sensed our urgency. Mr and Mrs Frane received us with cool politeness and the news that
Mr
Yeomans – not
Parson
, I noticed – was out. A lad whom they had left kicking his heels on the scullery step was much heartier in his welcome, when we identified ourselves as ‘the bang-up coves what he was wishful to take to the God-botherer down Marsh Lane way’.

‘Willum, at your service, gents.’ He even managed a jerky bow.

Just as we were about to follow him, however, Frane emerged, with a turn of speed I had not seen in him since he escaped from an irate Cambridge bag-wig.

‘Tobias, Dr Hansard – pray return instanter.’

Had Mrs Frane been taken ill? We dashed back to him at full pelt.

‘Inside – both of you. Now, divest yourself of your valuables.’ He produced a large box. ‘For God’s sake do not attempt to take more money or property than you need. Even a handkerchief is a desirable object, to be unpicked and sold.’

Astonished, we did as we were told, Frane locking everything in his box, which he took off with him.

It was clear the lad reckoned he deserved another vail for the delay, but we urged him on, promising him fourpence on our arrival.

‘A groat? Go on, guv, make it a sow’s baby.’

‘Done,’ I agreed, not at all sure what I had promised.

Our way lay through alleys hardly worthy the name, they were so narrow and full of stinking matter I for one did not care to look at lest my stomach revolt.

‘Green about the gills, ain’t you, mister? Tell you what, we’ll stop at the next boozing ken and you can have a ball of fire. No? A drop of daffy? That’d go down well.’

‘Just get us there, lad,’ Hansard said with authority.

The child shrugged, his thin shoulders emerging briefly from the holes in his shirt and subsiding again.

At last, after twists and turns that so disorientated me that I doubted I could ever find my way back to the vicarage without his assistance, clearly worth at least a florin, he came to a halt outside a rooming house. It must once have been a farmhouse, perhaps two hundred years old, but now it was cheek by jowl with lowbuilt slums, already falling into desuetude. From inside came the sound of rough swearing, of feminine tears, and the wail that children give when they are almost beyond hunger. It was into here that Willum wished us to proceed.

The stench of unwashed humanity and its detritus assailed us, like a physical force. Dr Hansard had no compunction in pressing his handkerchief to his nostrils, so I did likewise. We followed the child up a staircase that could have been grand, had not someone purloined the
newel post and half the banister rail, presumably for firewood.

‘You there, Bess?’ Willum yelled.

‘And where the hell should I be?’ came a squawk of a reply.

‘It’s them nobs for you. Nah, that reverend’s cronies,’ he said, overriding a comment so lewd I cannot repeat it. ‘After Lanky.’

‘They’d better come in then. Come on, Lanky, perk yourself up a bit.’

By now we stood in the doorway. We were greeted by the sight of Jem, at the barely open window. Sleeves rolled up, he was applying a wet rag to the face and hands of a tall young man, whose dark hair sprouted at odd angles from his head, who was cowering away from the door. Jem dried them with his own handkerchief, the object, it was soon clear, of Bess’s cupidity. She, wearing what was left of a crimson and black velvet robe some ten years out of fashion, was squatting on a pile of rags that might have concealed a mattress. Although she was much thinner, there was no doubting her relationship to the poor man who had made his way to Moreton St Jude – her hair was as black as his, with the same kink, and her features broad. The skin was an attractive pale olive, but marked by the small-pox and far from clean. As to her age, she might have been anywhere between twenty and thirty.

‘That’s Bess,’ Willum said, adding, ‘Miss Bess Monger, sister to ’Enry Monger, deceased.’

‘Parson Campion at your service, ma’am. And Dr Hansard,’ I said, not quite knowing how to greet a woman in such a position but nonetheless holding out my hand as if she were a duchess born.

While Hansard made his bow, she gripped my hand and I
found myself not engaging in a social courtesy but levering her to her feet.

‘This ’ere’s my brother’s mate,’ Bess declared, with a jerk of a curling thumb. ‘’Enry. The one what’s dead, ’e says.’ She showed no immediate sign of grief. ‘Looked after Lanky there ever since he was hurt in Spain.’

‘How very good of him,’ I breathed.

‘Not just you toffs as have debts of honour,’ she said sharply. ‘Seems Lanky saved ’Enry. What must ’Enry do but nurse him back to health and then bring him here. Then he sees this advertisement about him, and does as he’s told and goes off to the country to claim his reward and there he goes and snuffs it. And left me without support,’ she added, pointedly.

‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ I said.

We stood like an ill-mixed tableau, all staring towards the window.

Jem stepped forward. ‘Gentleman, may I introduce Hugo, Lord Chase?’

Having achieved what we had set out to do, we all, I suspect, felt a similar sense of anticlimax. In the thrill – or otherwise – of the pursuit, none of us had considered what to do next.

‘I am sure you are right, Jem,’ Hansard said. ‘But we must have evidence. Sufficient to convince any lawyers Bramhall has engaged to have him declared dead.’

Without a word, Bess crossed to the fireplace and shoved a hand casually up the chimney. She dusted the soot from a small box before handing it to Edmund. ‘Your mate there took it on trust, but if you want to cast your beadies on that lot, feel free.’

A miniature of Lady Chase; a letter from his father; a pencil sketch of a building I did not know; a note from his commanding officer.

Acting as devil’s advocate, I made myself say, ‘I fear the lawyers will say these could have been stolen.’

‘There is one piece of evidence that cannot have been stolen,’ Hansard declared. ‘My Lord, will you smile, please?’

It took a word from Bess to produce the desired result.

‘Look at that chipped tooth, Tobias – it is Lord Chase indeed. Or, as Hamlet might have said, a part of him.’

It was Bess who spoke next. ‘Dunno where you’re planning to take him, gents, but I doubt if he’ll go quietly. He’s hardly shifted from the room since poor old ’Enry left. And he won’t go nowhere without me, I’m telling you.’

That turned out to be the simple truth. The barest hint from Jem that Lord Chase might quit this foul place was greeted with a terrified wail. The poor man dashed to the shelter of Bess’s arms as a child might seek comfort of its nurse, despite the nits visible in the tangle of her hair.

Reaching up she stroked his cheek with remarkable tenderness. Now we could see why the hair grew strangely – a network of scars, some horribly deep, crisscrossed his scalp.

‘Miss Bess,’ I asked, ‘what would your advice be?’

She reflected. ‘You could leave him here and pay me to look after him. The only time I leave him, see, is to go and earn enough for our bread. Isn’t it, Lanky? I goes and whores for you, so you can have your bit of supper.’

I could not meet Edmund’s eyes. I said, my voice cracking, ‘Miss Bess, you could have raised a great deal of money had you sold that miniature.’

‘Wasn’t mine to sell, was it? Nor that great ring my brother took with him.’

Somehow my stuttered promise of a reward was deeply inadequate.

None of us, I was sure, could imagine taking Hugo, stinking and rough-dressed as a beggar, or Bess, in her tawdry rags, back to Berkeley Square, no matter how poor Mrs Tilbury’s eyesight. Even Frane, and perhaps especially Frane, would baulk at their presence, no matter how temporary.

But it was more than time that someone said something. ‘Madam, I promise you that you will never again have to whore to buy your supper,’ I declared flatly. ‘Indeed, you may have to quit this room for a while, but it is only to buy yourself and – er – Lanky – some decent clothes.’ I might have used the word in its general sense, but indeed she showed far more of her flesh than can have been seemly even in this part of the world.

Her eyes gleamed. ‘And how am I to pay for them? You tell me that.’

I turned to Willum, who had occupied himself with chasing down vermin and squashing them between two overgrown thumb nails. ‘How much would it cost, Willum?’

‘A couple of yellow boys, your honour.’

Bess protested. ‘Come on! Them parsons’ pal looks full enough of juice, even if they don’t!’

‘
And
a few hogs’ change for you, Reverend,’ he declared inexorably.

‘Will you go with her?’ I asked humbly.

He weighed me up, observing that I had not offered him money, no doubt.

‘You may keep two hogs for yourself,’ I said. ‘And Bess may keep the rest.’ If only I knew how much a hog might be.

The two exchanged glances.

She acquiesced. ‘Now, you stay here with these gennelmen for a bit, Lanky. They won’t do you no harm. And Bess’ll bring you back a nice glass of porter.’ She pushed him away, chucking him under the chin.

We took advantage of her absence to strip the rags off him, washing him in the cold water Jem fetched from a pump in the yard. I would have set to myself to pare his toe– and
fingernails, but my knife had unaccountably disappeared from my pocket.

‘I fear Frane was right,’ Edmund observed. ‘My spectacles have disappeared too.’

Jem, with a dry smile, produced a knife from his boot. In the absence of eyeglasses for Edmund, I knelt on the floor and got on with the job. Jem attacked the nits. At last, having done the best we could, we swathed the silent and unprotesting man in my greatcoat while we awaited the return of the others.

At least in their absence we were freer to talk.

Hardly to my surprise, Jem took the lead. ‘A cheap but respectable tavern is the answer, I think,’ he said, although the question had not been spoken aloud. ‘I will stay with them until you decide where to take them next.’

I nodded. ‘You are right. It must be
them
. See, he is already getting agitated. Presumably she has not left him alone for such a long time before.’

The moment we had released him, Hugo had pressed his face to the filthy window panes, and was now tearing his hair in an anxiety so great it was almost madness. He slapped away Edmund’s gentle reassuring touch.

‘And it cannot be back to Moreton Hall,’ Edmund said. ‘Not yet.’

‘You fear the effect on her ladyship of seeing him like this?’ I asked.

‘She will do whatever is needful, I warrant you. No, I fear the effect on him. Consider the end of his strong and healthy friend, Henry. Hugo would be as vulnerable as a baby. I will stay with Jem, at whatever inn young Willum suggests. You, Toby, will return with all speed to the village.’ He clicked his fingers in irritation. ‘No, not the village. To Leamington.
Thence you will make a calm and unhurried journey to your home, and when you have seen Maria and Mrs Trent,
then
you will pay your respects to her ladyship. She must make no sign whatsoever that she has received this news. Instead, she will decide to make a trip to one of her other estates – a distant one. And she will tell no one, no one
at all
, why she is going. I would rather they did not even know where, but I can see that secrecy might in itself arouse suspicion.’

‘How will she receive the news that initiates this journey?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I will write – I will disguise my usual hand. Between you, surely, you can devise some excuse. You may even wish to escort her to her destination, as she is so fond of you; probably my dear Maria will. When you have settled where it will be, Jem and I will convey Hugo and Bess there, and I will find a doctor skilled in such cases to treat him. And we will all return to our normal village lives. All of us. Even Lady Chase. Do I make myself clear?’

Willum and Bess had chosen some respectable artisans’ gear for Hugo, and for Bess something she clutched tightly to her. We withdrew, waiting on the landing as Hugo would go no further without her, while she carried out the ablutions we insisted on. She swore fluently and audibly as the chilly water met her flesh.

At last she presented herself for our inspection. She wore a silk dress almost fashionable but for its cherry and
apple-green
stripes: no doubt some old gown had been unpicked and reshaped. Her bonnet bore a startling array of fruit, and her battered velvet pelisse was a green that did not begin to tone with the green of her gown.

‘I told you you’d look like a bleedin’ tart,’ Willum moaned.

‘Well, that’s what I bleedin’ am,’ she responded.

‘But you’re not supposed to look like a bleedin’ tart. I told you. You’re supposed to look respectable, like.’

‘It’ll do till tomorrow,’ Jem intervened. And then you may take her out again, Willum, with the same reward for yourself, and trick her out like a decent servant girl. As for you—’

‘You don’t need a tiger, do you, sir? Always wanted to be a tiger.’

Jem laughed, but very kindly. ‘Working with me would take you a long way from home, Willum.’

‘I ain’t got a home, have I? I’d scrub up good, too, you know.’

He sounded eager rather than pleading, but my heart was wrung. Dear God, how had I forgotten to include him in my largesse? ‘How long would it take you to get kitted out – nothing fancy, mind?’

His eyes lit up. ‘I could do it on the way to the Bear, your reverence? Only take a tick.’

‘Then a tick it shall be. But Jem—’ I stopped, my face aflame with embarrassment. ‘But I will hold you under the pump myself when we get to this Bear of yours – understand?’

In the event it probably was Jem who applied himself to the task of sluicing the lad. Edmund returned with me via the Franes’ home, where we collected all our property and what little Jem had left there. They were handsomely reimbursed for their minimal and – it seemed to me – grudging trouble.

As we hunted down a hack, I said quietly, ‘It seems we have given too little thought to poor Bess. She has lost her brother after all. Her protector—’

‘Or possibly her pimp. Jem and I will have the opportunity to speak to her this evening. I, for one, would like to know how Lord Chase came to be there – indeed, how long he has been with them.’

Once back at Berkeley Square, Edmund wrote a letter for me to deliver to Maria; then he took all his things and the rest of Jem’s to the Bear. ‘We will make an interesting supper party, my dear Tobias. I wish you could be there.’

Wilfred applied himself to packing for all three of us, eyes bright with questions he steadfastly did not ask. Even as I kept silent, I wondered what it must be like to be so vital to others’ affairs without being considered important enough to know what they were.

All too soon I waved Edmund off in the hack Wilfred had procured and returned to the house. Wilfred closed the door silently behind me.

‘We put you to such trouble,’ I said with a smile. ‘And yet you never complain, or demand the explanations that are due to you.’

‘Not at all, my – Mr Tobias,’ he said woodenly.

How could I argue? That was how we behaved, how they accepted their lot. I said, ‘Believe me, Wilfred, your tact and discretion are valued more than you know. And when I
can
explain what has passed, believe me, I
will
. Now, while I make my farewells to Mrs Tilbury, I want you to do one more thing. I must needs return to Leamington this very night, and it is too late to catch the Post, is it not? I want you to hire me a swift team of horses, with postilions. Spare no expense. I shall set forth in an hour.’

The trouble with grand words such as those is the need to
follow them up with a grand gesture, the casting of a full purse upon the servitor’s shocked hand, perhaps.

As it was, Wilfred replied with no drama at all, ‘If speed is vital, Mr Tobias, then why not send round to the stables for your brother’s post-chaise?’

I was a mere whipster, but Charles was a nonpareil, whose horses were always matched thoroughbreds.

‘His lordship’s team of greys are eating their heads off, with the grooms and postilions doing likewise, I make no doubt, and no one calling on them these six weeks. There are no better bits of blood in the whole of London, I’ll wager.’

I regarded him quizzically. ‘So it is a choice of hiring an unknown equipage with an unknown team, or setting out in immediate luxury with a hand-picked team of men and horses.’

‘Outriders, too, Mr Tobias.’ He permitted himself the ghost of a grin, to which I gladly responded.

‘Would you be kind enough to ask them how soon they can be ready?’

Mrs Tilbury looked aghast at the news of my precipitate departure, and more to please her than anything, I ate a scrap of the chicken she’d hoped I might fancy for my supper – alongside a great deal else, I would wager.

‘Now you’ve found your way back to us, pray, Master Tobias, don’t leave it so long before you come again,’ she said, pressing me to her as if for the last time. And indeed, it probably would be the last time she
saw
me, Edmund having sadly confided to me that the condition was so advanced that no surgeon would be able to cure her poor eyes.

I made a rash promise. ‘I will come again, very soon. And
give you better warning, dear Tilly.’ It must be kept. And I must see her regularly after my mother persuaded her to retire. I wondered where she would be accommodated. I could trust mother to see that she had every comfort, every attention – but I must do my share.

And so I set forth in a style that would have rounded little Willum’s eyes. Something must be done for him, too – an apprenticeship, or even that job as a tiger. And for Bess. Try how I might, however, I could not imagine her donning the demure garb of a servant or even a milkmaid.

Somehow, with thoughts such as these swirling about my head, I let my head fall back on the luxurious squabs and to my amazement passed most of the night asleep, woken only by the changes of horses. Having sped at something like ten miles an hour, we were able to wheel at last into Leamington in time to bespeak breakfast at the Angel.

I was so keen to follow Edmund’s instructions to the letter that, using the rough paper, vile pen and muddy ink that the landlord provided, I wrote to him confirming my safe arrival in Warwickshire, my note returning with my brother’s team. Then, to ease my unaccountably aching limbs, I walked about the town to do a little shopping before returning to a hired hack, on which I jogtrotted easily home. I went via Langley Park, knowing how anxious Mrs Hansard must be.

It was my good fortune to find her in the garden, in conversation with the gardener. She soon abandoned him, and, tucking her arm in mine, was ready to return to the house. I bent our footsteps towards their pretty wilderness, however, lest we be overheard. Pressing Edmund’s note into
her hand, I attempted in the privacy of the grove to tell her all our adventures.

At length she nodded her understanding of my garbled narrative. ‘And Edmund wishes me to accompany her ladyship on this journey?’