The Weeping Ash (67 page)

For all reply Thomas snatched up Cal's crutch, which was leaning against the sofa, and with, it aimed a blow at Cal's head which must have knocked him senseless if he had not moved sharply aside; as it was, it struck his shoulder and sent him sprawling. He fell, striking his injured leg on the harp, which overbalanced. The twang of the strings mingled with Cal's shout of pain. He was up the next instant, however, perfectly white, his lips compressed and his eyes blazing.

“You cowardly scoundrel! I'll require satisfaction for that!”

“Cal,
Cal
!” his sister besought him. “This is folly! Remember yourself, think where we are. Think of Fanny!”

“Thomas!” begged Fanny likewise. “Stop, stop! This must go no further—you should
not
have struck your cousin!”

“Oh, why not?” said Cal coldly. “Knocking down an injured man with his own crutch is only such behavior as might be expected from Cousin Thomas.”

Thomas, who did seem almost mad with fury, appeared quite capable of repeating the act, but fortunately, at that moment, a loud peal at the front doorbell brought all the protagonists to a sense of their surroundings; Thomas took himself off with an angry exclamation, bawling for one of the servants to answer the door; Scylla managed to drag her brother away to his chamber, where he paced up and down, fulminating against Thomas, until obliged to lie down through a sudden sickness and weakness brought on by the pain of his fall.

The ring at the door, which had interrupted the cousins' quarrel so fortunately, was equally fortunate in its purport, for it proved to have been an express messenger from Cal's friend Lieutenant, now Captain, Howard, who, at Portsmouth, having achieved his promotion and been posted into an eighteen-gun sloop, the
Asp
, was sending to inform Cal of his good fortune and beg his friend to join him as senior lieutenant and second in command without delay.

At any other time Scylla would have cried out against the notion of his putting out to sea in his present state, so very soon after his injured leg had healed; but now even she could see that there was no possibility of Cal remaining at the Hermitage any longer; he and Thomas would be continually at loggerheads. Miserably she helped him pack up his belongings and sent Jem to the White Hart to order a post chaise for six o'clock the following morning.

“That way I shan't be under the necessity of seeing that skulking fellow again; which is as well, for if I got my hands on him I'd never let go till I wrung his neck. Poor Fanny! I do sincerely pity her! My consolation is that it can't be too long before he has his deserts. There must be twenty people within five miles who would be glad to murder Thomas Paget.—But what will you do now, love? Shall you stay here? Or”—with a faint smile Cal recalled Miss Musson's letter—“do you want to go up to London and try your luck at Almack's?”

“Oh, Cal, how can I tell? I think I must stay here for a while. I do not feel in the mood for London.”

“I am glad to hear it.” Cal's rage was ebbing fast, with the prospect of interest and action ahead; he said ruefully, “I fear it will be upon Fanny that the brunt of this confounded quarrel will fall. Thomas will be as sore as a bear for days. She will be glad of your company.”

“And I shall be glad of hers. But if”—Scylla did not wish to say,
If Thomas's attentions to me become too marked or too intolerable
; she did not want to wake Cal's ire again—“if I decide to go to London, I shall stay with our cousins the Lambournes, who have a house in Berkeley Square. They came to call when I was in Egremont House, and though I did not greatly care for Caroline Lambourne, she was perfectly civil, and indeed pressing in her invitation to me to make their house my own.”

“Humph!” remarked Cal, stuffing neckcloths into his portmanteau. “Just like our cousin Juliana and our cousin Thomas!”

“Or there is an old great-uncle living in Hampshire,” said Scylla despondently.

“Well, if I write to you, I shall direct my letters here.”

“Oh,
pray
write, Cal—I shall miss you so unspeakably—indeed I do not know how I will be able to bear it.”

“Now, goose—do not be shedding tears all over my clean linen! You know we should have had to part sometime.”

“I wish we might have a house together and live in it.”

“Well, so we will, when I am an admiral. Come, cheer up; go to Mrs. Strudwick for me and coax out of her a pasty or something, so that I need not see Thomas at the dinner table.”

But Mrs. Strudwick, who had taken a strong fancy to Cal, insisted on putting up for him a whole box of eatables, including a spare Christmas pudding and half a ham. “For,” she said, “I know that on those ships they gets nothing but nasty salt beef and biscuits all a-squirming with weevils.”

Scylla too, avoiding the family dinner table, retired early to her couch and got up in the black, icy dawn to walk down to the White Hart and say good-bye to her brother there, as he did not wish to rouse the rest of the household by having the chaise come to the door. A new fall of snow, from the previous evening, muffled their footsteps, but it was not above half an inch and had already melted from the cobblestones in the street.

Goble obligingly carried Cal's bag for him, refused a shilling for his pains, and seemed genuinely sorry to say good-bye.

“Watch out, then, Mus Cal! Don't 'ee goo camsteary on that leg, now. I'm in behopes you'll be back, when old Boney's been put to bed with a shovel.”

“Ah, I'll be back then, Mr. Goble, and we'll make a grand sossel of it!” Cal said, clapping him on the shoulder affectionately. “And don't you worry any further about what you told me. Done is done, and telling over won't help it.”

“Ah, you're just about right there, sir,” said Goble, and hobbled off.

“What had he been worrying about?” Scylla inquired.

“Never mind! Something he'd done that can't be mended now. He's a strange old fellow—we got talking—I couldn't sleep last night, my mind was whirling about like a windmill. I rose at three and spent the rest of the night outside, wandering about in the snow and listening to the owls.” Scylla could believe that, for Cal was pale and hollow-eyed. “I couldn't get Fanny out of my mind, Scylla; you'll keep an eye on her, won't you? She is so frail—like those windflowers we saw growing on the banks of the Kunar River—do you remember? Say”—for a moment his voice cracked—“say good-bye to her for me, will you? And give her this”—he dropped a light kiss on her mouth. “I can't give her anything more tangible, or Thomas would infallibly discover it! Anyway—as I was about to say—at four o'clock or thereabouts, what should I see but old Goble standing in the garden like a ghost. I said to him, ‘What in the world are you doing here at this time of night, Goble?' and he said, ‘I've summat on my mind, Mus Cal, what puts me all in a cold clam. I dreamed I saw a shim out here by the wellhead, an' I got so fidgety I came down from my bed to see if 'twas so.”

“What is a
shim
?”

“A ghost, I fancy.”

Scylla shivered. “Poor old man! Perhaps he has not enough bedclothes up there in that loft. I'll mention it to Fanny.”

“By all means do so—but he had more than blankets on his mind. Ah, here is my chaise. Good-bye, love—don't forget me”—and he gave her a quick hug and swung himself up, awkwardly, with the driver's help. The horses clattered off on the icy cobbles, and Scylla found herself suddenly alone, her throat full of tears, hungry, hollow in the heart, and freezing cold.

She returned home, wrapped herself in shawls, and climbed into her cold bed. I shall never sleep, she thought, but she, like Cal, had spent the early part of the night in wide-eyed restless wakefulness, looking ahead into what seemed a black and hopeless future; she did in fact fall quite quickly into a heavy slumber and slept long and late.

When she woke next it was full day, and there was a feeling of uneasiness and urgency so strong about the house that, even before she was washed and dressed, Scylla felt certain that something was badly amiss. Indeed, while she was combing out her curls, a tap came at the door.

“Who is it?” she called.

“It's Tess, miss. Oh, miss! Have you little Master Thomas in there with you?”

“Master Thomas?” Scylla flung open the door. “Good gracious, no! Why should I have him in here? Is he not in his cot or with his mother?”

“No, ma'am, he's not nowhere! He've gone missing, and, oh, I'm afeered the gypsies must have taken him!”

“Oh, what nonsense! I daresay he is in Miss Bet's room.”

“No, we have looked all over, miss, and now Master is calling the constables,” Tess said tearfully.

Scylla was appalled and hurried to the parlor, where she found Fanny, shivering and pale, but composed.

“Fanny! Can this be true?”

Fanny turned and speechlessly grasped both Scylla's hands. In the dining room the nursemaid Jemima could be heard sobbing hysterically and being scolded by Mrs. Strudwick. Bet and Patty, aghast and wide-eyed, huddled in a corner, Thomas, somewhere outside the house, was shouting orders.

“Yes, it is true,” Fanny said at last. “Who could have done such a thing I cannot—” She gulped, and fell silent. Outside, the constables had now apparently arrived. Thomas was instructing them to interrogate the turnpike toll keepers on the Midhurst and London roads, as to any strangers who might have passed by during the night. Scylla suddenly realized that the reason she could hear all this so clearly was because one of the windows was open six inches, although there was no fire in the hearth and the morning was bitterly cold. She moved to shut the window, but Fanny put out a hand to stop her.

“Thomas says we must leave it so. It was like that when I came down.”

“How very strange! Was it not fastened last night?”

Scylla knew that it was Thomas's habit to make a circuit of all the downstairs windows and doors before going to bed, checking bars and bolts. But perhaps last night he had forgotten. Perhaps he had been as distracted, as thrown off balance, as Cal—

Cal!

Hoarsely, finding that her voice came out two tones deeper than she expected, Scylla said:

“Fanny, Cal has gone back to sea. He went off by post chaise this morning. He—he thought it best not to say good-bye to you. He asked me to say it for him—”

Fanny stared at her in silence. It seemed to take a moment for the impact of the news to sink in. Then she said, almost inaudibly:

“Cal has
gone
?”

“Yes; gone to Portsmouth, to join a ship, the
Asp
…”

Thomas came into the room with two burly men in top hats, the town constables, who gravely inspected the open window.

“Arr,” said one of them. “Anybody could-a clumb in there.”

“'Countable easy, they could,” said the other.

Then they followed Thomas upstairs to inspect the baby's empty cradle and, finally, to interrogate Jemima, who, heavy-eyed and husky from crying, could only declare she had fallen into a deep sleep on the previous evening—“Dunnamany hours I slept, I never had sich a slumber before, never!”—and had awoken in the morning to find the baby gone.

“Were it not best to send for Lord Egremont?” whispered Scylla to Fanny while this was going on. “Is he not lord lieutenant of the county? I daresay these men are doing their duty as best they can—but they do not seem very sharp-witted.”

Slowly Fanny nodded.

“Yes, that would be best. I wonder Thomas has not already done so.” She spoke slowly and dazedly.

Thomas was rushing about in a kind of wild, frenetic activity—now urging the maids to make yet another search of the attics and cellar; now ordering Goble and Jem to search the garden and outhouses. The well, with memories of the previous incident, was opened and inspected but found to contain nothing; nor did the stables, nor Thomas's garden room, nor the cellar beneath it.

Quietly, Scylla went out to Goble.

“Goble, will you please go to Petworth House and—and have Lord Egremont informed as to what has happened here?”

Dull-eyed, the old man looked up at her.

“Ah, that'd be best, missy; I'll go an' fet'n drackly.”

“Goble,” said Scylla—she could hardly trust her voice, her breath was coming in irregular gulps—“Goble, you don't
know
anything about this, do you? About—about little Master Thomas being lost?”

His expression was that of a desolate dog, beaten for some fault it does not understand.

“God's my witness, I don't, missy; I only wish I did; by the pize, I do.”

She let him go on that; she could not bear to ask the question that trembled in her mind: whether he thought that Cal had anything to do with it.
Cal?
No, it was just not possible. Not as a prank; no, he would never do anything so horrible. Not when it involved Fanny…

Wearily Scylla returned to her chamber—which bore evidence of having been roughly searched—and sat on the bed, staring straight in front of her.

Presently she pulled out Miss Musson's letter and looked at it.

“
I think you should know of the depth, the strength, and disinterested attachment of his feeling for you—
”

After she had looked at them for a while the lines swam before her eyes.

Lord Egremont arrived at noon. Thomas, by that time, having learned that Cal had left Petworth, was insisting that his cousin must have stolen little Thomas and demanding that he be fetched back.

“Skulking off like that at nighttime! It's as plain as day that that's what he must have done. The man is mad—epileptic—spiteful and raving!”

“Oh, tush, my dear fellow. Lieutenant Paget? Absurd! Why should he commit such an act? He is a
gentleman
! Stealing babies? Good God, man, you must have a maggot in your idea box. No, no, depend upon it, you will find that some local ruffians are responsible for this. Bad business, shocking business, but I hope we'll very soon get to the bottom of it.”

Egremont, as Scylla had expected, initiated a far more intelligent and speedy inquiry than the constables had done, sending out members of his own staff to question half the town, dispatching a message to London for Bow Street runners, and organizing an intensive search of the Hermitage and its environs.

At about four in the afternoon, when early winter dusk was already beginning to close in, a kind of shocked hush succeeded the uneasy bustle that had surrounded the house all day. Scylla, Fanny, Bet, and Patty were huddled in the parlor, over a dismal fire which nobody had the heart to blow brighter.

All of a sudden—“I believe they have found something,” said Scylla.

They all listened, straining their ears. The sounds had been coming from outside and seemed to have centered around the ash tree. Scylla, moving to the window and parting the curtains, could see nothing; all beyond appeared already black as midnight. But in a few minutes the hall door opened and they heard low voices.

“Who's to tell her?”

“Not I, for sure.”

“
I
will tell her,” said Lord Egremont's voice, firm and clear, and he came into the room. He was still wearing his greatcoat and had mud daubed on his hessian boots; for once he was not smiling; his face was grave and stern.

He glanced about the room, observed Scylla, made her an infinitesimal signal with his head, as if to gesture her toward Fanny, then, moving up to the latter, took her hand, saying, gently but firmly:

“My child, I have some very bad news for you. I see no means of softening the blow but by telling you directly.”

Fanny looked up into his face.

“The child is dead?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Wh-where did you find him?”

“He was buried under the tree outside. The ash tree. Had it not snowed in the night he must have been found sooner, but the snowfall disguised the broken earth.”

“The ash?” Fanny said. Her lips scarcely moved. “He was buried under the ash tree?”

“I am afraid so. Yes.”

Scylla moved to take Fanny's arm but the latter seemed almost unconscious of her surroundings.

“What had—how had he been killed? He had not—he had not been buried
alive
?”

“No.” Lord Egremont's face was set as if he hated to speak, but there was no help for it. “His throat was cut.”

“Oh, dear God,” Fanny whispered to herself, and then, puzzled, blindly looking up. “Who would
do
such a thing? To a
child
?”

“My dear, I do not know. But we will find out, depend upon it. Now I want you to come with me up to Petworth House, where Liz will look after you.” His eyes met those of Scylla; she nodded, agreeing with the plan. “You should not be staying here just now. This is too sad a place for you.” Fanny, however—shocked, appalled as she was—would not budge. “I must remain here. Thomas will need me. Where is Thomas?” For the first time a gust of emotion shook her. Tears started from her eyes. “Oh, Thomas—
poor
Thomas! What will this
do
to him? I must go to him directly.”

Again Egremont's eyes met those of Scylla, and he slightly shook his head.

“No, ma'am, I do not think you should do that just now. Your husband is—not himself.”

“Where—where is the baby? Can I see him?”

Egremont shook his head decisively.

“The constables have—have taken charge of the body, ma'am. There must be an inquest, you see.”

“An inquest. Yes.” Fanny nodded. “Like poor Miss Fox.” A kind of shudder went through her. After a moment she said:

“I think I should like to lie down on my bed for a little.”

“Very sensible, my dear—though I wish you will come back with me. But if you remain here—somebody must be with you.”

Scylla said, “Bet—why do you not take your stepmother upstairs? I will come in a moment.”

Patty followed her sister and stepmother. Directly she was alone with Lord Egremont, Scylla went on:

“Sir, I have to tell you something. I—I feel it is my duty. My brother, as you know, returned to sea today. Yesterday evening he had a violent quarrel with Captain Paget.”

“Yes, my dear, so I have heard.” Lord Egremont smiled faintly. “After such a quarrel, witnesses are not backward in coming forward! Half the servants seem to have overheard it. And indeed Thomas told me himself.”

“Of course.” Scylla swallowed; then went on to relate the story of Cal's vigil in the garden. “I do not—do not know if this has anything to do with the crime, but I thought it right to inform you.” Should she mention that Goble had something on his conscience? No—that was between him and Cal.

“Has—has Captain Paget accused my brother?”

“Indeed he has,” said Egremont calmly. “And in no uncertain terms! But we have made due allowance for his distressed state of mind. I do not doubt but that he will have had second thoughts by tomorrow. We shall have to send for your brother, however.” He took Scylla's hand and added, “Ma'am, it is with reluctance that I leave you in charge of this stricken household. Do not hesitate to send for me, though, if anything occurs to trouble or distress you. Now I will bid you good night.”

Scylla went slowly upstairs to Fanny, whom she found lying perfectly motionless on her bed, wrapped in a shawl, staring at the ceiling.

Scylla sat down on the bed by her and took her hand. After a moment Fanny said:

“Is Thomas accusing Cal?”

“Yes.”

* * *

By next day, however, Thomas had changed his tune and was accusing Fanny. And with more apparent justification. For early next day two Bow Street runners arrived and proceeded to conduct an exceedingly intensive and thorough search of the house and garden, sifting through ashes of fires, prodding patches of loose earth, raising loose floorboards. One of the first things they discovered, in the vault of an outside privy at some distance from the house, was a blood-soaked garment which proved to be one of Fanny's cambric nightdresses. And wrapped up in it was a discarded razor of Thomas's, which Fanny had been in the habit of keeping in one of her bedroom drawers. She said vaguely, when questioned about it, that she had made use of it for undoing seams “when taking out tucks, so as to enlarge garments.”

Meanwhile an express messenger, sent posting after Cal, had arrived too late; the sloop
Asp
, under command of its new captain, had sailed last night with the evening tide, under sealed orders from the Admiralty. Where was its destination? Nobody knew.

During this period gossip ran rife in the town. Who could have done the horrid deed? Most townspeople suggested that for the criminal the runners need look no further than one of the inmates of the Hermitage itself. “Very likely one o' the daughters—the eldern's a plain, spiteful mawk, an' 'tis well known the liddle maid were tarnal jealous o' the babby, allus tormenting and tarrifying of it.”

Since it hardly seemed possible, however, that little Patty was capable of lifting a large baby from its cradle and cutting its throat, let alone digging a two-foot hole and burying it in frozen ground, suspicion rested more heavily upon Bet.

Indeed the Bow Street runners questioned her intensively for several hours, and at the inquest she was subjected to a formidable interrogation by Captain Dallyn, the chief constable.

Dr. Chilgrove gave evidence as to the state of the body: “The child's throat had been cut to the bone by a sharp instrument; there had also been several stab wounds in the corpse, which was quite drained of blood. At least three pints must have been lost. The body was cold and stiff when I examined it at 4:30 p.m. I am of the opinion that death had taken place at least twelve hours previously, probably more.”

Parsons, one of the constables, gave evidence as to the open window. This produced a considerable sensation in the town hall (where the inquest was held) and public opinion veered back to the theory that some piker, mumper, or waygoer had broken into the house, possibly with the intention of burglary, had accidentally roused the child, and murdered him to stifle his noise. But then, what about the nurse Jemima's unnaturally heavy slumber? What about Mrs. Paget's nightdress soaked in blood? And the razor, which had been kept in her drawer? The inquest jury demanded that Mrs. Paget be questioned; but this Dr. Chilgrove flatly refused to allow, informing Captain Dallyn that she was in a state of collapse. Scylla, Bet, and the maids all gave evidence, but none of them had anything useful to contribute. Thomas, again by Dr. Chilgrove's order, was not questioned; his grief and distress were too profound to make him capable of answering rationally.

The inquest jury returned a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

Later on that day, quietly, without stir or commotion, Fanny was arrested and taken away; not to Petworth jail, where she might become the target of local hostile and angry feeling, but to Chichester, fifteen miles distant, over the Downs. She was treated with civility and consideration; allowed to take a small bag of her own toilet things and nightwear; and assured that, owing to Lord Egremont's good offices, she was to be incarcerated in a cell by herself, and even be allowed a cot bed instead of a straw pallet. She received this news unemotionally, with the distrait, absent calm which had characterized her behavior since she first received the account of the child's death. It was Scylla who, outraged and furious, demanded by what right they took her off, how dared they accuse her? Surely Lord Egremont could not countenance such a miscarriage of justice?

“Lord Egremont be lord lieutenant o' the county, miss,” one of the arresting constables pointed out phlegmatically. “Nothing can't be done without he knows about it.”

“Do not trouble about me, pray, Scylla,” Fanny said wearily. And she added in a low tone, “I never loved either of them. I have only my own self to blame.”

“
Fanny!
Do not talk so!” Scylla was horrified. “I shall go to see Lord Egremont directly—I—I shall be coming to visit you in pr—over there—as soon as possible. I am
certain
that, very shortly, this injustice will be set right.”

Thomas was not present when his wife was taken away. Indignantly, Scylla went in search of him and found him in his bedroom, methodically instructing Mrs. Strudwick and the weeping Tess to pack up all of Fanny's clothes and belongings.

“Thomas! What are you doing?”

“She is a murderess,” he said coldly. “She killed my son. I do not want any relic of her to remain in this house.”

“Have you gone mad? You know Fanny could not do such a thing! To her own child!”

“I know nothing of the sort. She had always neglected the child. She would not take it about with her. She disliked it, she was ashamed of it; she would not show it to people. For a long time she had been wishing it dead.
I know her nature
!
” He lifted his eyes—angry, bloodshot, full of dreadful sufferings—to those of Scylla. “Pray do not refer to this again, Cousin; it is inexpressibly painful to me.” Scylla left him and took herself up to Petworth House, where she found Liz Wyndham, alone and deeply troubled.

“George has gone over to Chichester; he is doing what he can to ensure that Fanny will be used with civility and given comfortable quarters.”

“He is very good,” Scylla mechanically said. Then she burst out, “Liz! For God's sake! How
could
he permit her arrest? He cannot believe she did it?”

“I do not think he does.” Liz looked even more distressed. “But George cannot flout the processes of law. And the evidence against her is very strong, Scylla.”

“But
Fanny
—so good, so gentle, who would not hurt a fly—her own
baby
? The
hours
I have seen her trying to teach that poor little thing to crawl, to take food, to talk—”

“Yes, that is true. But, Scylla, I don't believe she loved the baby—in fact I know she did not, she once said as much to me… And she may well have come to hate her husband—”

“She had cause.” Scylla's tone was bitter.

“Very likely. But that is why—don't you see, I am so afraid that, in the end, the baby may have come to
represent
Thomas in Fanny's eyes.”

“I do not believe it.” But, in spite of herself, Scylla was shaken again. She exclaimed, “Oh, God! Why did Cal and I ever come to Petworth? If we had not come here, Fanny and Thomas, might never—might never—Oh, how I wish Cal were here now.”

“Well, George is doing his best to get him back,” Liz said. “He has applied to the Admiralty for an urgent message to be dispatched after the
Asp
—wherever it has gone. We can only wait.” She added doubtfully, “Let us hope that whatever your brother has to say will clear Fanny entirely.”

Scylla shivered. “In fact, I do not see how it can. He did not see Fanny again after—after his quarrel with Thomas. His last words to me were a request to say good-bye to Fanny—”

Her voice faltered.

Liz gave her a very piercing glance.