Theft of Life (11 page)

‘Crowther! I thought you had seen enough of your fellow beings today. You are become such friends with the world, I hardly know you. Do we go to the Opera? The Pleasure Gardens?’

‘You are satirical.’ He sat down on one of the armchairs near the fire and half-closed his eyes. ‘Are you writing to your sister?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted and leaned back in her own chair. ‘We argued before I came away. Rather badly, I’m afraid. She feels I should marry again. Her little hints I could ignore, but she has taken it upon herself to find a number of suitable candidates.’

Crowther put his long fingers together. ‘So I understand.’

Harriet sat up rather sharply. ‘And how, may I ask, do you know anything of it?’

He reached into the pocket of his coat and removed a letter. ‘She wrote to me.’ He turned the pages over in his hand while Harriet gaped at him. ‘She has some concern that you may have fled to London because of your passion for me.’ Harriet was speechless. Crowther kept his voice as even as he could manage. ‘Why else could you object to the charming Mr Babington, after all, as Rachel so reasonably asks, were it not for some other guilty passion?’

‘She
wrote
to you?’

‘She begs me to be kind.’ Crowther looked up at the ceiling. ‘She rightly suspects that I do not wish to be anything other than a bachelor, and hints that although we are good friends, we might not be compatible as husband and wife.’

There was a silence and a log cracked in the fireplace before Harriet spoke. ‘I shall return to Hartswood at once and murder her in her bed.’

Crowther’s laughter was rare and sounded like dry leaves turning in the breeze more than anything else, but it made his eyes gleam. ‘Your sister is usually a sensible woman, Mrs Westerman. I can only think the sleeplessness that must follow nursing her child herself has softened her brain a little. You might be pleased to know that within hours I had a letter from her husband telling me to ignore whatever his wife had said. I think he must have been in a passion when he wrote it. Mr Clode’s handwriting is normally far more legible.’

Harriet did not speak and he turned to look at her. The light of the fire and candles brought out the most vivid runs of red in her hair, and he noticed for the first time that the lace on her sleeves and bodice was worked with silver threads, which shifted and shimmered as the flames breathed around her. He felt a pang in his chest in the region he knew from his studies was occupied by his heart.

‘Are you quite certain you do not wish to marry again, Harriet? Are you certain you do not wish to marry me?’

‘Good God, quite certain. We would deal terribly with each other.’ He returned his gaze to the modest fire in the grate and heard her stand and move across the room. She went on: ‘Though I did feel a little abandoned when you left. I believe I thought you could play the dragon at the gate, scaring off anyone who dared come pressing his suit.’ He felt her hand resting on his shoulder and without looking away from the fire reached up to take hold of it in his own and briefly turned to kiss the knuckles by the mourning ring she wore for her dead husband.

‘I deserted you, my dear. I apologise.’

She squeezed his fingers and he released her then watched as she crossed the room to take the chair opposite him. ‘No matter, Crowther. I escaped the Tower.’ She too stared into the fire, her chin in her hand. ‘No, worse than Rachel was Verity Graves. I went to her, full of indignation about Rachel’s machinations, and Verity told me she thought I should marry as well. For the good of the estate.’ She looked thoroughly miserable. ‘My instructions and wishes are unclear. Apparently I pay too much to some of the tradespeople and forget the kindnesses of others. Added to which, William made various arrangements while we were on the continent, and I, not knowing he had done so, set about countermanding him as soon as we came home. I did not realise how much he had been doing on our behalf. I felt a very great fool listening to her, Crowther.’

‘Mrs Graves is a sensible woman, but I do not understand why she thinks marrying you off to that idiot Babington would be of benefit to the estate.’

She looked at him. ‘I thought you rather liked Babington.’

‘Certainly not. I simply disliked him a little less than most of our neighbours.’

She laughed at that, and the sound cheered him. He leaned forward to give her the letter he had received from Rachel. ‘Do not read it, Mrs Westerman. Burn it and forget it.’

She held it between her thin fingers for a moment. ‘What Verity said about the estate hurt me deeply. Am I really so incapable?’

‘Burn it, Harriet.’

She threw it on the fire then stood again and began to walk back and forth along the hearth rug. Mrs Westerman was never able to stay still very long. He watched her with an obscure sense of relief and a certain warmth in his bones that he had learned to interpret as happiness. ‘Come then, Crowther. Complete your brilliance. Tell me then, what did you learn this afternoon?’

He tilted his head back and stared at the elaborate mouldings that wound their way around the ceiling and the various painted scenes and skies they framed. He was enjoying her attention and the anticipation of the effect his next words would have.

‘I learned that Mr Trimnell was not murdered.’

Harriet came to a sudden halt. He examined her sideways; her expression showed a pleasing degree of wonderment. ‘It seems a rather complex suicide,’ she said at last.

Crowther laughed again. ‘He was assaulted, certainly, but if his assailants did mean to kill him, I’m afraid they didn’t have the opportunity to do so. His heart was grossly enlarged. In my opinion it was the shock of the blow across his back that killed him, but in truth he could have fallen at any time.’

Harriet began to walk again. ‘So someone beat him, stripped him to his shift, attached that mask to him, dealt that first blow.’

‘They had no time to do anything else. By the by, those idiots at the Cathedral had thrown his shift on the fire. I do not think they shall do such a thing again.’

‘He falls to the ground and they begin to stake him out …’

‘But before they have finished doing so, they realise he is already dead – and flee.’

‘How
interesting
,’ Harriet said, a light sparkle in her eye. ‘The charge would be manslaughter then. They may not have meant to kill him at all, merely humiliate or punish him. I wonder what they thought when they found they were binding a corpse?’ She frowned suddenly. ‘I still want no part of it, Crowther. Not even if you share your guinea fee with me.’

Crowther sighed and picked up the evening paper. ‘I give my evidence on Monday at the Black Swan at ten, Mrs Westerman. Perhaps you might come along and frown at me if I use too much Latin in my answers to the jury.’

E
VERY FAMILY HAS ITS
own rituals. In Sussex, it was expected that the entire family attend Sunday worship in the village church. In London, Mrs Service indulged her interest in theological fashions and the family never knew until breakfast was over and Mrs Service was giving her orders to the servants which church they would be attending. However, in the weeks that they had been in London she had developed a decided preference for St Mary Woolnoth in the city. It was at St Mary’s she had met Mrs Eliza Smith and she felt it was only proper to see her again and make Susan apologise for running out of her shop.

The Rector at St Mary’s was an attractive, energetic kind of man. Mrs Service was disappointed by most of the Church of England clergy, all decaying and, it seemed to her, careless of their duties, mouthing their way in obvious boredom through other people’s sermons read from a book. Mrs Service would never be a Methodist, but she took her religion seriously so it was a pleasure to see Dr Fischer so engaged, and engaging with God and with his parishioners. She also noticed that Stephen Westerman had paid more attention during Dr Fischer’s sermon than during any other. What Stephen did, the Earl of Sussex did also. Mrs Westerman did not always attend church when they were in town, but Mrs Service had asked her to, in the hopes that she might set an example for Susan.

St Mary’s was a fine church. Where other, older places of worship in the city had been crushed and harried by the new buildings surrounding them, St Mary’s high-columned frontage pushed everything else back from it. The interior was all light and elegance, the columns grouped like groves of silver birch – and best of all, the preaching was full of passion.

The Reverend Dr Fischer was an evangelical and a powerful rhetorician and he had gathered an impressive, wealthy congregation around him with his skills. He had enjoyed an adventurous and dissolute youth until he heard the call of God, he told them, and while caught in a week-long storm in the Pacific, he had answered Him. In the years that followed, he had studied his faith still seeking his fortune on the waves, until an illness had kept him on shore when he had wished to undertake another voyage. That illness had saved his life. A fever that started among the slaves in the hold had spread to the men who guarded them, and killed the man who had taken Fischer’s place on the journey. Seeing the hand of Providence in that, he took Holy Orders. It made excellent matter from which to build his sermons. Faith to him was a storm, God’s love a good sailing wind, doubt was a calm when the water supplies ran low, and salvation was a return to your own shores, your people and their love. It was no surprise then that Stephen, son of a sailor, listened to him with delight.

As Harriet and Mrs Service escorted the children into the church, Harriet was aware of being watched. It was a familiar sensation. She neither dropped her eyes to the marble floor nor lifted her chin to stare about her defiantly, but concentrated instead on appearing entirely natural. The verger showed them where they might sit, and she ushered the boys, Eustache holding Anne’s plump fist, ahead of her and was preparing to follow them when she saw Mrs Service and Susan exchanging greetings with a pleasant-looking woman with slightly untidy chestnut hair. Susan murmured something, upon which the woman with the chestnut hair smiled at her very warmly and put a hand on her shoulder – then, in a gesture that surprised Mrs Westerman – she leaned forward and kissed Susan on her cheek before moving away to find her own place in the growing congregation. Harriet had heard all about Susan and Eustache’s escapade the previous afternoon, so was ready to guess the identity of the pleasant-looking woman.

‘What did she say to you, Susan?’ Harriet asked as the girl slipped in beside her.

‘That the most important thing is to be kind,’ she said quietly. ‘I thought she would be cross, but she seemed to think it was funny. She’s much nicer than her books about virtuous little children.’

Mrs Service settled and smoothed down her black skirts. ‘She is wise beyond her years and had a great many sensible things to say on your education, Susan. I now have a new list of schools.’

Susan groaned loudly enough for a woman in front of them to turn and look at her over her shoulder. ‘Does she think I should spend an hour every day learning to get in and out of a carriage without showing my ankles?’

‘You shall hear nothing of what she thinks until we have that apology from you, my girl. I cannot understand where this stubbornness comes from,’ Mrs Service whispered.

‘I wish someone had taught me that trick,’ Harriet said gently. ‘I think I was twice your age before I managed it, Susan.’ Mrs Service gave her a grateful smile and Susan scowled at her hands.

Harriet looked around at the congregation and noticed with a slight start that Sir Charles Jennings was seated in the front with an elderly lady to his right.

‘I did not know Sir Charles worshipped here,’ she said.

‘Oh yes,’ Mrs Service said. ‘That is his cousin, Mrs Jennings, with him; she has acted as his hostess since he came to London. He is a widower, has been for many years. He and many of the Aldermen and bankers started coming here when Dr Fischer took over the living. Are you acquainted with him?’

‘A very little,’ Harriet said, and continued examining the rest of the crowd. The coroner, Mr Fletcher Bartholomew, was in the centre of the congregation with a wife and two young children alongside him. She had to turn slightly to see him and when they had exchanged civilised nods, Harriet wondered if he still felt the pressure of her hand on his back showing him the way Trimnell had been whipped. As she turned back towards the front of the church, Harriet thought of the many congregations she had prayed with over the years. St James’s in Piccadilly, with its scattering of titles, personages from the theatre and musicians – a living page from the gossip magazines; the country gentry of the village in Sussex, old England all itching to be at table or at sport; and here, here she tasted money in the air. In all of them there was this careful grading of the congregation; the richer you were, the closer to God. On impulse she turned again and looked behind her. There were no black faces in the crowd at all. ‘Is that Dr Fischer?’ she said.

A handsome man in dark robes with a full wig was standing talking to Mrs Eliza Smith. They were too far away to hear, but Harriet thought the conversation looked serious. After a few minutes, Mrs Smith turned her back rather decidedly on the priest and, a little while later, the service began.

There were places in England that were sacred to Francis Glass, and this, the library of Mr Hinckley in Hampstead, was one of them. He was an intimate of the family. The servants smiled at him and Miss Hinckley always shook his hand. Mr Hinckley and he sat by the French windows that opened out onto his lawn and talked. When Francis first began this Sunday ritual Mr Hinckley would study the account books closely; now it was a matter of form, and once Francis had asked whatever advice he particularly wished for, Mr Hinckley would sit back and tell stories from his youth, of his first victories and disasters in the book trade, of the personalities of the authors, of talents squandered or mediocrities made rich. He would apologise, ‘I have reached my anecdotage, Francis!’ Then laugh, but when Francis spoke of something new or different he had read, a hungry light would appear in his eyes. As the younger man, Francis felt it should be Mr Hinckley’s role to counsel caution, but often those roles were reversed. ‘Be bold, Francis! I have no time for fools who wander into our business with no idea of the price of paper and ink, but you have earned the right to trust your instincts. You have enough politeness on the shelves, put a little mustard into it!’