by Robin Blake
‘It is an interesting legal point,’ mused Furzey. ‘Who is the bigger criminal, the one who kills two rebels, as a murderer, or the one who turns that killer over to the rebels, as a traitor?’
‘You are always spotting interesting points, Furzey. And I usually find myself in the eye of them.’
TWENTY
Furzey and I were surprised to find Griselda Bigelow waiting for us at the office, wearing a market-going bonnet pinned with flowers.
‘How may I help you, Mrs Bigelow?’
‘I need a lawyer, I reckon.’
‘And you have chosen me!’ I said. ‘I am flattered. What is the business? A civil case, perhaps? I very much hope not a criminal one.’
I looked at Furzey. He made a gesture with his hands, out of the woman’s sight, a tamping gesture. He was telling me to subdue the effects of the wine. Obediently, I adopted a sober expression.
‘Why not come through to my inner office?’ I said. ‘There is a fairly good fire. Furzey, I shall call you if I need any writing.’
We went through the adjoining door and I showed her into one of my two fireside chairs, then stoked the glowing coals until they were comfortably burning. I asked her again how I might help her.
‘Is it right that you made Mr Limmington’s will?’
‘Yes, some years ago. It’s mostly irrelevant now, as he died virtually destitute, though I don’t believe he ever brought the will up to date.’
‘What happens to the house, then?’
‘Limmington’s?’
‘Aye. The house I live in. Until she tries to turn me out, that is. I want to know if she’s got the right. If she owns it.’
‘As far as I remember, he left everything to Mrs Limmington. Unless he made some special provision for the property.’
I went to the door and asked Furzey to fetch Limmington’s will from the basement, where all our old records were stored.
‘That house is my home and I don’t want to leave it,’ said Griselda Bigelow. ‘So I want to buy it.’
‘Have you the means, Mrs Bigelow? The sum poor Limmington’s widow would sell it for cannot be a trivial amount.’
‘I know that. I want advice. What do you think she’d be asking for it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know … a hundred guineas, at least.’
I expected Griselda to be rocked by this, as representing a sum she could never hope to amass. Quite the opposite was the case. She smiled.
‘Oh, all right. We can manage that.’
‘We?’
‘Me and my son. Me, I’ve a few pounds saved, but he has most of the money.’
‘I see. So how can I—’
‘Will you write to her to give her my offer? An’ do all paperwork. Don’t worry. We can cover your lawyer’s fee, if it’s in reason.’
‘Do you know where I can find her?’
‘She’s back at Macclesfield. She left her address with me. Here it is.’
Griselda drew a slip of paper from her purse and handed it across.
‘Very well,’ I said. ‘I’ll write to her with your offer of a hundred guineas.’
‘No, Mr Cragg! My offer of seventy guineas. We’ll see what she says to that in the first place. And I don’t want her to know it’s me. I want to be a nonny-mouse all the time up till she signs. If she knows it’s me, she’ll not sell, or she’ll drive a harder bargain. That woman’s never liked me.’
‘As you wish. There’s no reason why I would say it was you. Will you give me leeway in the matter of money, though? Suppose she comes back with a higher price of asking. Of course, I shall obtain the house for you at the lowest possible sum, but she may want more than seventy. Am I therefore free to negotiate?’
‘Up to ninety, and no further without you asking me.’
Furzey came in with Limmington’s will. It had been drawn up in happier times, of marital harmony as well as prosperity, and it confirmed my memory: all the property, goods and chattels including his dwelling house were bequeathed to his loving wife, Esther Mary Limmington.
‘We will write to her today. But as your son is underwriting the purchase price, I must have his confirmation. Where may I reach him?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. That changes.’
‘Then will you ask him to call on me here at his earliest convenience?’
Griselda Bigelow said she would, and it seemed our business was concluded for the time being. But she had not quite finished with me. She made shift to depart but then hesitated at the door.
‘Mr Cragg, the rebels are coming back to Preston, so I’ve heard. Might they return to Penwortham? Might they come back on the same business as before, helping themselves to the money of respectable people?’
‘I reckon they might go around collecting money, Mrs Bigelow. But there is no reason to suppose they would pay you another visit. They are retreating and will not be here long. The town itself will bear the brunt of them this time, and the outlying places will be spared. My own little son stays with his grandparents at Broughton for the same reason. Much as it pains us to be parted from him, we consider he is safer there than in the town. Penwortham is even further out of their way, so I think you will be safe enough there.’
She seemed satisfied.
‘Thank you, Mr Cragg,’ she said. ‘I’ll say goodbye.’
Sitting alone for some minutes after she had left, I began to think again about the Limmington inquest. The complacency I’d felt at the end, waiting for the jury’s verdict, had entirely left me, and I was filled with new curiosity about the affair, mixed with indignation over the treatment of the victim which the Highlanders would look back on, if they looked back at all, as an unnecessary accident. It was clear Mrs Bigelow was not terribly unhappy about it. Jack Fingers, on the other hand, had forgotten it if he was wise, and was busy plotting new robberies.
It was then that I conceived an extraordinary idea. Like the octopus I once saw when a student at the Inns of Court, in a glass tank at Culkin’s Wild Animal Hall, the idea very soon began to grow tentacles and wrap itself this way and that around the death of Mr Limmington. If this idea came anywhere near the truth, it would mean I must cancel the inquest verdict. I must reopen the case.
I called Furzey in and began to dictate the letter to Mrs Limmington at Macclesfield.
That afternoon the first of the returning rebels, a cavalry unit escorting men from the quartermaster’s troop, clattered into town. The latter quickly got to work, first securing the same officers’ quarters around Market Place that had been pressed into use before, then visiting the inns and taking up all vacant accommodation. This time it was not Captain Lucas but one Morrison who called at the office to inform me that the Marquis d’Éguilles, Madame Lachatte and Captain Brown would each be requiring the rooms they had previously occupied in my house.
I tried to argue that the Marquis, for one, might be better taking himself elsewhere. Morrison, a polite young Irishman with a studious manner, asked why.
‘He abused my hospitality. He tried to take advantage of my wife and I punched him, breaking his nose. In my opinion, he is a scoundrel and no woman is safe in the same house.’
Morrison took this calmly. It was not clear if he knew of d’Éguilles’s sexual behaviour, for he now said, ‘As I am sure you are aware, the Marquis has a reputation as a most religious, devout man. But perhaps it might be best if your good lady were to stay with a relative for one or two nights.’
‘She is doing so. But I have a young maid here, whose virginity she – and I, as her employer and protector – would like to preserve.’
‘May I suggest, sir, if she is afraid, though it be needless, that she lock her door at night? It is too late to make other arrangements for the Marquis. And you yourself, sir, should perhaps avoid any long conversation with him – any occasion for further quarrelling, I mean.’
He was a remarkably diplomatic young fellow.
‘Before you go, Mr Morrison, may I ask you a question about your quartermastering?
’
‘You may ask, sir.’
‘I understand your tax collectors work under the direction of General O’Sullivan.’
‘I am afraid I cannot confirm anything about our senior officers and their part in our operations.’
‘Will you confirm a negative, then, which does not involve your superiors? It is a question of which parts of this area were visited by the Prince’s tax-collecting parties. Am I right in saying that when such a party visited the village of Penwortham, on the south side of the river here, it came away with nothing?’
Morrison thought for a moment.
‘I was one of those who posted the tax-gathering parties, and no, sir, we received no money gathered in Penwortham. We did not expect to. Our intelligence told us that, of the two excise officers living there, one had died and the other retired to some other place. We do not waste time where we cannot profit.’
‘Thank you, Mr Morrison. I congratulate you on your memory for detail. In return for that information – which is of no military significance, I do assure you – I shall try to endure the Marquis’s presence in my house. I shall restrain myself from giving him another bloody nose.’
‘We would be grateful.’
Morrison bowed, collected his hat and left. There had been no mention of my arrest, my having been transported to Wigan and my escape. These actions, I presumed, belonged to another part of the army – those in charge of military execution.
As soon as Morrison had left, I told Furzey I was going to Dr Fidelis’s house to warn him to hide his horse once more.
‘You will let me go home early,’ he said. ‘I must be with Mother when they come knocking. You can never be sure they will be the same pleasant young men as we had before.’
‘Very well, Furzey, you may go now.’
‘I can call at Doctor Fidelis’s for you, if you like.’
‘No, thank you. I shall go myself.’
Fidelis had already installed the horse in his neighbour’s pig-house and was, with the help of Peason and his housekeeper, preparing a cauldron of soup over an open fire in his yard.
‘Turnip and kale,’ he said. ‘I also got twenty loaves at the bakery and five dozen sausages. I reckon if I feed them, they’ll behave themselves. They’ll be grateful. What news from town?’
‘The most interesting news you will hear this week. It may mean I need to nullify Limmington’s inquest and restart it.’
‘Based on what?’
‘Based on the fact that Mrs Bigelow has suddenly got a lot of money.’
We sat in Fidelis’s laboratory, perched on stools on either side of a bench where he carried out his baffling chemical experiments. First, I explained Griselda Bigelow’s visit and her design of buying Limmington’s house.
‘So who is this son of hers who’s so rich?’
‘I haven’t met him. I’ve been told he’s in service. How he can comfortably lay his hands on the balance of a hundred guineas to make this purchase, I wouldn’t know. I’ve asked her to send him to me so I can find out, ostensibly.’
‘The son may just be a decoy. What you’ve told me must mean our Griselda did what we thought – a deal with the Highlanders.’
‘A very advantageous one, Luke. There were two hundred and twenty-seven guineas in that bag of treasure. Griselda told me this morning she would be able to pay a hundred for the house. She must have persuaded four men, tough and armed, to let her keep almost half the loot! Or had she already taken a hundred out of the bag and thought to satisfy the soldiers with the remainder?’
Fidelis drummed his fingers on the surface of the bench.
‘I haven’t mentioned this idea with you, Titus, but I have long thought we should consider whether such a party of Highlanders ever went to Penwortham at all. Whether they were invented.’
‘That occurred to me,’ I said, ‘and I’ve found a bit of evidence to support it. The rebels’ billeting officer who came to my house this afternoon is also in the tax-collecting section of the quartermaster’s office. He says they knew there were no excise officers still active in Penwortham and considered it a waste of time to go there. If that is true, there was no official tax-gathering mission to Penwortham at all.’
‘One difficulty, Titus: Constable Gibbins at the Swan. His account of the Highlanders was detailed and convincing. So was he suborned? Has he been paid to tell the story? If not, there must indeed have been a party of Highlanders that day.’
‘If you ask me, Gibbins is honest. And I can’t see him and Griselda in partnership together. Which leaves what conclusion? Come on, Luke. Point and counterpoint.’
‘The point must be that the rebel party did indeed exist, and did go into Penwortham, but …’
‘But the counterpoint is that it was not an official tax-collecting party sent by the quartermaster.’
‘It was an unofficial gang of soldiers out to make profit for themselves. That sounds right! It is plausible.’
‘It doesn’t explain how Griselda Bigelow is suddenly rich.’
‘Perhaps her son will tell you that.’
‘There’s no knowing if I shall ever see him. But perhaps the rebel army will provide the answer instead.’
‘How will you do that?’
‘I have an idea. When I next see you, I shall know if it worked.’
Before I went home, I called on the home of Pip Simpson, a boy who often ran errands for me. I used him because he was clever enough to hold word-of-mouth messages in his head, and this was one of those. I gave him sixpence to run to Penwortham, then added threepence extra as it would be dark coming back.
Approaching Cheap Side, I found the bulk of the rebels were now arriving, coming into Market Place in informal groups, having been marched up in formation to the Church Gate bar and there stood down with orders to go to wherever they had previously laid their bonneted heads. By comparison with the men who had marched away so bravely two weeks earlier, this lot were dejected and unfriendly. I speak of the ranks. The officers, such as Captain Brown, who had already arrived at the house with his baggage, remained courteous, although he, like all of them, looked harassed and tired.
I sat waiting for Madame Lachatte with mixed feelings, but certainly with a heart beating more rapidly than normal. She was, when she arrived, in a quite different frame of mind from the troops in whose train she had followed. She swept into the house seeming to be full of life.
‘Oh, isn’t it exciting! The Duke of Cumberland is in hot pursuit of us. We are racing him to the border. Have you ever seen the Duke, Mr Cragg? He is said to be vastly fat. If so, we should outrun him as we ourselves are lean and fit.’
I could not help my spirits being lifted by her girlishness. I asked her what had happened at Derby. Why did the army turn around?
‘There was a great war council,’ she said, ‘just like the one they had here, and the one in Manchester. Oh, they went over the old ground again. The generals, especially the Scotch, and most of all Lord George Gordon, were banging the table, asking why there were so few English rushing to the flag. Why had the French not landed its army on the south coast? The Prince was magnificent. He would not retreat, he said, and all we needed was a battle and a victory on English soil, because the people would come over to us as soon as they knew we were truly strong. But this time the generals were having none of it. They all lined up and told him one by one that they must turn back. The men would fight for Scotland but not England. They had had enough and did not want to die so far from home.
‘How did the Prince take it?’
‘I’ve never seen him so angry and then so dejected. He’s a very dear man, an exceptional man, but when people start to contradict him, he hates it. He now says he’ll never trust any of ’em again. He likes only O’Sullivan and his Irish friends, those flatterers!’
She seemed very well informed.
‘How does the Marquis stand with the Prince?’ I said.
‘Badly. Very badly. The Marquis boasts always that King Louis�
�s army is on its way, but it never comes. If the French army would come, he would be certain of victory, so His Highness thinks. But now that we are going back the way we came, the Scotch mostly curse him, and His Highness barely speaks to him anymore.’
‘Good,’ I said. ‘He deserves it.’
‘I know. I hate him for what he did in this house, and what he does everywhere. But voilà! I alone do not satisfy him. He says he loves me above all, but he must have other women.’
‘By force?’
‘La! As I said, he is a disgusting beast. But I no longer care. How is your wife, by the way?’
‘She is not here. She is, of course, extremely upset about what happened.’
I almost confided in her – about Elizabeth’s new coldness, her refusal to sleep with me. I might even have mentioned my feeling that she was being a little disproportionate. We were alone in the parlour drinking tea, but I told myself that Madame Lachatte might think that I was angling for her sympathy if I started talking like that, and perhaps, even, that I wanted more from her than sympathy. And if I looked hard enough into myself, I would have had to own that perhaps I did want that ‘more’. But I could not reconcile this with my love for Elizabeth, and so the subject frightened me. Yes, I am a grown man of middle age, and I am still afraid of a woman’s sexual allure.
The Marquis d’Éguilles came in after I had shown Madame Lachatte her room (into which I was careful not to go). His nose had reverted to its usual size, though it was now a little crooked, and he wore an extraordinary smile, which I could not quite construe. Was it ingratiating or complacent? Either way, he seemed to think, after my first outburst of rage, that I would no longer be terribly aggrieved over Elizabeth. That I would even understand and make allowance for his appetites.
I tried my best to convey to him this was not so, telling him as coldly as possible that he would sleep in the same bedroom as previously, and there he would be provided with meals. If he preferred, he might eat with Captain Brown and Madame Lachatte in our dining room, but that I myself was not prepared to sit down at table with him. He listened to me, still smiling and nodding his head. Was there perhaps a hint of contrition? His eyelids were heavy and folded, and the eyes were watery. I could not tell.
