Shadow of the Past (18 page)

‘He thinks you might prefer to. But cudgel my brain as I might, I cannot think of the reason you might give for doing so. Certainly she will need a lady’s support when she sees her son, and loyal as we must believe all her household must be, Edmund was reluctant to let any of them into the secret.’

‘I will speak to her and see how it may be arranged,’ she said firmly. ‘And you want the same discretion in our household, too?’

‘Absolutely. And even in mine. Though Edmund did not explain how three of us should suddenly take it into our heads to travel to the same far-flung part of the kingdom.’

She squeezed my hand. ‘Lady Chase and I can ponder the matter. Meanwhile, I suppose you must go post haste to the Hall?’

‘Indeed no. My orders were quite explicit. I was to be seen going about my normal tasks, making my morning call tomorrow.’

‘And will you retain your locum? Alas, poor Mr Rogers cannot be easy with the villagers, nor they with him.’

I laughed. ‘But, as Mrs Powell would say, he has only been here five minutes. How long did it take me to acquire a decidedly grudging respect? And I am sure it was Edmund’s sponsorship of me as a friend that tipped the balance. They like and respect him, so they must try to do the same for me.’

‘You do not do yourself justice. However, you do not answer my question.’

‘I fear he must go home, or it will look as if my journey is premeditated. Poor Rogers – he needs both the country air and the money.’

‘You can always summon him back again?’

I shook my head. ‘In truth, I trust it will not take us long to reach whatever estate Lady Chase selects. Then we are to return immediately – I, at least.’

‘Ah, ha – you do not like to be away from Lady Dorothea.’

‘I wish I could keep her out of my thoughts, dear Mrs Hansard. I do during the day when I can keep my mind occupied. But who can control their dreams? Emphatically she would not make a clergyman’s wife – but when her bright eyes gleam with amusement at something I say or do…Yes, I confess, I still carry the tiniest of torches for her. Were she to know where I stayed in London, how I travelled to Leamington – but that would mean she loved my family and its accoutrements, not me, would it not?’

‘Come and have a glass of wine, Tobias. And then everything will seem much better.’

As I had promised, I did not make my morning call at the Hall until the following day, having sent Rogers on his way with many thanks, two baskets of fruit and vegetables from my cottage garden, one of Mrs Trent’s matchless cakes, a fine ham, and, though he did not know it, a couple of extra guineas folded into a scrap of paper at the bottom of his valise.

I was shown directly to her ladyship’s private bookroom, where she was going through her accounts with Furnival. We exchanged commonplaces, and I was able to reassure her that my relative’s illness had been much exaggerated. Since this
personage’s very life was an extravagant fiction, it could scarcely be otherwise.

At last, with almost a girlish flounce, she pushed away her papers and declared that she had had enough of tedious figures. Furnival might present himself, should he think it necessary, the following day, but she would take a turn about the knot garden. Since the day was sunny, despite what the locals called a lazy wind, blowing not round but straight through one, such a decision was hardly likely to raise the most suspicious eyebrow. Accordingly the old man bowed himself out, and Lady Chase gripped my hand almost painfully.

‘Well?’

‘With respect, your Ladyship, I think we should put your plan into operation. The day is cold, but a turn in the fresh air never did anyone any harm.’ I kept my voice as even as I could, my face bland.

‘How dare you keep me thus in suspense?’

I touched my finger to my lips. ‘Pray ring for your maid and ask for your pelisse and bonnet. Perhaps even a muff.’

We were scarce out of earshot of the house when I said, very quietly, ‘You must walk and talk as normally as if we were discussing the black spot on that rose.’ I pointed. ‘Do you understand?’

At last she bent towards the same plant.

‘Your son lives, your Ladyship. But he is far from well.’ I gave the briefest explanation.

‘Bring him here this instant! I can nurse him back to health.’

‘Alas, no. Dr Hansard believes – we all believe – Hugo to be in great danger should anyone discover his whereabouts. Think of the fate of the mere messenger.’

I thought she would faint, as she staggered almost drunkenly. But I took her arm and held her upright. ‘Is there a stone in your shoe, your Ladyship? Let me assist you.’

She looked at me blindly, but at last realised what I was trying to do, and, still leaning heavily on my arm, slipped her shoe from the patten she was wearing and shook it vigorously.

‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Now this is what Edmund proposes we should do…’

It was not to be expected that she take everything in immediately, and I had to repeat details several times before she was able to absorb everything.

‘You fear that Hugo will never be himself?’ she asked bleakly at least.

‘Your Ladyship, I am not the one to ask. Even Dr Hansard confesses himself unsure. But he will seek out the finest medical man in the land for you, if that is your wish – nay, I do not need to ask. The finest and the most discreet, of course. He warns that you may have to turn whatever is your choice of estates into what may be virtually an asylum for him.’

‘He has – had – happy memories…’

‘And may have them still, my Lady, simply waiting to be aroused. He has suffered injuries to the head, I know not how severe. He seems to have lost his power of speech, but not of understanding. He is anxious but biddable. My apologies – you were about to speak of a place he loved.’

She nodded. ‘My own nurse is retired to the dower house of one of the estates that formed part of my jointure. It is in Shropshire, somewhat south of Shrewsbury. Perhaps its very peace and tranquillity will bring healing.’

‘Amen.’

‘I will tell my people that poor Mrs Rooke is dying of a painful female complaint. Does Mrs Hansard have family there, and would benefit from a seat in my carriage?’

‘I am sure she does, my Lady. And if she does not, we can obtain one from the same source as my relative in Kent.’

Edmund once told me that there was an oriental proverb to the effect that travel with hope in one’s heart was often better than what one found when one arrived. So, I fear, it seemed with our various journeys to Ditton Priors, the village in Shropshire nearest to the remote manor house that had formed part of her ladyship’s dowry. As Lady Chase had said, her own nurse, Mrs Rooke, a sprightly dame not much above sixty, lived in retirement in the dower house, but the manor itself had been shut up for years, since the late Lord Chase found it intolerably damp and gloomy.

We were not surprised. Hardly did it seem that we could ever make it habitable in the short time before the other party reached us, although they were travelling more slowly and, of course, much further. Indeed, at the very sight of it, Lady Chase, for the first time in our acquaintance, succumbed to an attack of the vapours. We had to convey her back to the dower house, where she was bustled into bed by Mrs Rooke.

‘For shame on you, bringing the poor lamb here at such a
miserable time of year. Well, you have your reasons, no doubt?’

‘We have indeed. And her ladyship will no doubt explain more fully when she is recovered.’

There was very little room at the dower house, which was in truth far less grand than the name implied. Mrs Rooke gave up her own room for her ladyship, accommodating Mrs Hansard in the best guest chamber, and, on my insistence, taking the only other bedchamber herself. Her cook and maid-of-all-work, on whom so much extra work would fall, could not be asked to leave her quarters. Accordingly, rather than share with Mrs Rooke’s outdoor man, I was relegated to an attic, which did not boast a fireplace but was wonderfully scented with the apples she was storing there.

As we prepared the manor, Mrs Hansard came into her own. Since her marriage to Edmund, she had truly become a lady of fashion, having despite her years retained a neat, indeed youthful, figure. Now she divested herself of her elegant attire, almost literally rolling up her sleeves the better to work. She began by hiring a small army of local women, paying enough for them to keep their mouths closed even if – in this remote part – anyone might be interested in their activities.

As for Lady Chase herself, Mrs Hansard reasoned that the best cure for her melancholy was not to sit watching the seemingly unremitting drizzle, but to join in the improvements. Accordingly, the grieving mother was given fabric to cut into curtain lengths. That done, she was to hem them. Although she was reluctant at first, I truly believe that doing something so visibly useful helped restore her spirits.

Meanwhile I made myself useful by journeying to Ludlow
or Bridgnorth to buy anything from paint to clothes pegs. My only attempt at sweeping a chimney ended in so much mess and an equal amount of derision that thereafter my only contribution to the fires was to chop endless quantities of wood so that every room could be aired.

With all our efforts, when the invalid and his friends arrived late one afternoon, they could be welcomed into something very closely resembling a home.

There was, alas, no question of a dramatic and touching reunion – Lady Chase must have realised that as soon as she saw her son’s condition, even as she held open her arms and called his name. It must however be said that the combined attentions of Jem, Edmund, and Bess, not to mention the medical man and his assistant whom they had brought with them, had decidedly improved his appearance. But Chase, like all the group, was bone weary; unlike them, he was too weak to do anything other than retire to his room.

‘Done to a cow’s thumb, he is,’ Bess declared, shoving him willy-nilly up the fine old oak staircase. ‘So don’t look so Friday-faced, Lady C. I’ll have him tucked up in the twinkling of a bedpost.’

As they disappeared, Lady Chase’s voice came as no more than a hoarse whisper; she fought with understandable tears. ‘He does not recognise his own mother.’ She added, appalled, even though Willum had found more appropriate apparel for poor Bess, ‘And he smiles at That Woman.’ She sank into a chair by the welcoming fire lit in the great hall.

Edmund found hartshorn in his valise and mixed it with a little water. ‘Already there is some improvement, my Lady,’ he insisted, pressing the glass to her lips. ‘He has now recalled, without prompting, that his name is Hugo. And as we drove
into the grounds, he said something about a rope swing.’

Her face lit up. ‘He remembered that? It used to hang from an oak in the paddock. Let it be restored tomorrow.’

‘Let it indeed.’ Edmund looked around for Mrs Hansard. Finding her, he crossed the room and kissed her hand. He did not need to say anything. Nor did she, as she blushed rosily as a girl.

‘Dinner can be served as soon as everyone is ready,’ she said, struggling to regain her composure. She beckoned two of the new servants. ‘Owen, Mary – remember your duties. Show our guests to the rooms we have prepared for them, and then bustle about with the hot water. Off you go now.’ As they went, awkward in their new uniforms and new responsibilities, she smiled with a mixture of exasperation and amusement.

Though Lady Chase insisted on moving up from the dower house to her old chamber in the manor, there was not room for all of us to follow suit. Dr Hansard suggested that Mrs Hansard should remain there, to supervise, he said, the inexperienced staff’s morning activities, a proposition with which she did not argue. But after supper Jem and I returned to the dower house, and the apple-scented attic.

‘Is there likely to be a happy ending?’ I asked Jem.

‘Possibly for some. But it seems too much to hope for one for everyone.’ He extinguished the candle.

What did he mean by that? Had his taste for another life made him dissatisfied with his old one? I would hardly be surprised. The only question was what occupation he might take up. Even as I opened my mouth to ask, his breathing slipped into snores.

Once he had assured himself that Hugo was in the best of hands, Dr Hansard declared it was time for the party to break up. Mrs Rooke undertook to do whatever housekeeping was needful, so Maria and Edmund set forth first, visiting friends in Droitwich en route to Langley Park.

Bess insisted on staying with Hugo, who clearly depended on her far more than Lady Chase liked.

‘’Ow could I not? ’Enry left him in my care, after all,’ she said reasonably, coming down to my makeshift timber yard for ten minutes’ fresh air. Jem, to whom the task would have fallen at home, was amused by my pretensions, and spent his time bringing the stables to his exacting standards. He had discovered a useable gig, and had managed to buy what he declared was a reliable, sweet-natured cob. ‘Lanky – his lordship, I
should
say – wouldn’t be alive now but for ’Enry. Well, you can see those scars, can’t you? Pity you gentlemen don’t wear wigs no more, ’cos far as I can see that hair of his is never going to grow anything like. But he wouldn’t have survived without me neither. Not since ’Enry went.’ Her voice changed from the almost unremittingly cheerful. ‘D’you reckon he suffered, Parson? ’Enry? At the end?’ She frowned back tears.

I laid aside my axe. ‘Hardly at all. There was no sign of a struggle where we found his flask and Hugo’s ring.’

‘Got hisself drunk and just keeled over? And then the stream flooded and took him off? Come on, Parson – I’ve cut my eye-teeth, you know. All this secrecy.’ She looked around her and spread her hands. ‘You think someone done him in, don’t you? And you want to make sure no one does Lanky in.’

I looked her full in the eye. ‘Or you, of course. If they think you have information about his whereabouts.’

‘I reckon that’s the only reason his old ma puts up with me,’ she said, sitting on a log. ‘She thinks I’ll blab if I go back. But I wouldn’t, Parson. I wouldn’t.’

‘I know you wouldn’t. You have behaved extraordinarily kindly, generously, towards the young man. I honour you for your loyalty and devotion, Miss Bess.’

She gave me a self-deprecatory grin. ‘I got fond of ’im, didn’t I?’

‘And you want to see what becomes of him?’

Her head went to one side as she reflected. ‘Yes, I suppose that’s it. If he’d been a common soldier boy, it’d have been better for me, you know. ’Cos if he’d got better, he’d have stayed with me and looked after me for a change.’ She sighed. ‘’Ere, put your weskit back on – you’ll be froze to the marrow.’

I obeyed. ‘And as it is?’

‘I s’pose I shall have to go back to me whoring. Ain’t much else for the likes of me.’

‘I promised you you’d never had to do that again – if indeed, you want to go back to London. Her ladyship will make provision for you for life, Bess.’

‘Not without you nagging her, she wouldn’t. Can’t bear knowing he’d rather it was me kissed him goodnight than her.’

I suspected that that was a euphemism, but could scarcely ask. ‘She will be generous,’ I insisted. ‘Would you prefer a pension for life or a position?’

She regarded me, hands on broad hips. ‘I can’t see me working at some great house, can you? Except the gentlemen want a spot of…No?’ She laughed at the shock on my face. ‘But going back to London, to that room… I dunno, Parson, I dunno.’

Who could wonder at the poor woman’s doubts? ‘Were you never apprenticed?’

‘Tried me hand at being a milliner, but it’s me eyes, see – not up to it. Either that or the mother’s ruin giving me the shakes of a morning. Trouble is, Parson, you gives me a purse full of money, I shall booze it all away, and soon find myself in dun territory.’

‘A weekly or monthly allowance? No? The more the money, the bigger the bender?’ I smiled sadly. ‘We shall think of something.’

‘Well,’ she said, pulling her shawl tightly round her shoulders and standing up, ‘no point in us both hanging round here catching our deaths, is there? He’ll probably be awake, a-calling for me.’ She shook her shirts free in a gesture her ladyship would have recognised. If only I could persuade her to converse a little with the poor creature.

‘Wait a moment, Bess. What would you really like for the future?’

She stopped short and turned, shaking her head. ‘I dunno. You see, Parson, no one’s ever asked me that before. Things sort of ’appen to me, if you knows what I mean.’ As if faced with an insoluble conundrum, she chewed on a thumbnail and shrugged. She took a couple of paces away from me. ‘Maybe I shall stay here,’ she said, over her shoulder. Before I could respond, she returned to the house.

I lifted my axe again, with all the more fervour because of my inability to see a future for her. At least, I told myself, for the time being she was useful, clean, well fed and learning – from Mrs Rooke’s example – how to conduct herself with decency and sobriety.

‘You won’t leave
me
here, though, will you, Parson?’
Willum demanded, coming on me as I weighed into the next log.

‘Heavens, boy, I nearly chopped off my fingers!’ I shouted, for I had indeed stripped a long slice of skin from a finger. There was a great deal more blood than there should have been, soaking quickly through my handkerchief. As the blood flowed, so did my fierce words. As it eased, I said more gently, ‘My apologies, Willum. I didn’t mean to ring a peal over you. But you must never make anyone jump when they are doing something dangerous – no creeping up on a cook, for instance, when she’s wielding a carving knife. Do you understand?’

‘Or a man when he’s loading a gun?’

‘Exactly. So you don’t want to stay in Shropshire, Willum? It’s very beautiful round here.’ To be honest, I did not really want to take him back to Moreton St Jude. I feared he would let slip enough hints about his recent adventures to put everything at risk.

‘Quiet as the grave, more like. Everyone as blue as a megrim. And now you’re in a dudgeon and going to leave me here, so help me.’ Occasionally – at a time like this – his
self-assured
mask would slip and he would become the child he was: anxious, vulnerable and indeed inclined to tears.

I smiled and shook my head. ‘I’m not in a dudgeon – except maybe for the same reason as you. I’m missing my home.’

‘Not missing mine, ’cos I ain’t got one to miss – I told you.’ Lower lip a-tremble, he left the silence to grow.

At last I succumbed, as he must have known I would. ‘Would you like to come and live in the rectory with Jem and me?’ What work we could find for him I had no idea.

‘Bit of a rum touch, isn’t it, a village having two parsons?’

‘Jem is only a parson when he’s in London, Willum,’ I said, hoping that would be the end of the matter.

‘I’m more than seven, you know. You can’t be a parson only part of the time.’

‘The rest of the time Jem works with horses,’ I said, not attempting to argue.

He would as long as he stayed, at least. Jem had had itchy feet a while back, after a disappointment in love. Probably he realised, as I did, he could be far more than a simple groom. To be sure, he could not read and write in Greek, but he was lettered in English, and wrote a good hand. Perhaps if Willum relieved him of some, if not all, of his other duties, he could teach in the school Lady Chase proposed establishing for all the village children. He was patient enough, and firm, and would set an excellent moral tone – after all, he was not just my groom, not just my friend, but also my mentor.

‘I’m good with nags. I always wanted to be a tiger.’

‘I don’t need a tiger. Not in the country.’

‘Not need a tiger? You’re a bang-up cove for all you’re a man of the cloth, aren’t you? Stands to reason you need a tiger.’

‘Not in the country. It’s different there. But what I will do is ask Lady Chase’s coachman if you may ride on the box on the journey back to Warwickshire.’

His face lit up. ‘Can I handle the ribbons?’

‘With her ladyship inside?Willum, you joke me.’ I softened. ‘If you make me a solemn promise, then I undertake at least to ask if you may sit beside James.’

‘Feed me liver to crows and let ravens peck my eyes out if I let you down, guv.’

I managed not to shudder. I had seen what birds could do
not just to sheep, of course, but also to humans. ‘I’m sure you won’t let me down. Because if you do it’s straight back to London with you. I want your most solemn oath never, under any circumstances, unless you have my express permission, never to reveal what happened in London and what has happened here in Shropshire.’