‘Quite so, well said, madam!’ Forster cried. ‘Nothing worse than a fellow who cannot keep his mouth closed. I have always felt . . .’
Lady Judith gave me a satirical look.
The supper continued. No one mentioned the threatening notes, or the deer. Talk returned to the stables, and the gardener’s extravagant bill for seeds, and then worse: politics. I could sense Sam growing increasingly restless. Eventually, he could bear it no longer.
‘Mr Sneaton. How were you burned?’
There was an appalled silence.
‘Mr Sneaton—’ I began.
He waved away my apology with his damaged hand. He seemed unable to speak. Gatteker poured himself another glass of claret, the wine glugging from the bottle in the silent room.
‘There was a fire in my London home,’ Aislabie answered at last, in a flat voice. ‘Many years ago now. My son William was a baby at the time. I tried to reach him . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘I was forced back by the flames. Mr Sneaton ran into the fire and the smoke, and he found my son. I lost my wife, my Anne.’ He grabbed Mrs Fairwood’s hand. ‘But Mr Sneaton saved my son. He almost lost his own life as a consequence. He suffered years of pain. Still suffers now, without complaint. Mr Sneaton is the bravest, most admirable man I have ever met. I owe him everything.’ He glared down the table. ‘Does that answer your question, Master Fleet?’
‘Yes,’ Sam said, reaching for the salt. ‘Thank you.’
The company rose from the table, subdued by Aislabie’s story and his obvious distress. I sent Sam to our rooms, which pleased him very well. He had plans to sketch in his room, using candles he’d tucked beneath his shirt. Sam’s instinct was to steal what he needed, rather than to ask and risk refusal. It would not have occurred to him that he could simply demand what he wanted. Not without a blade in his hand.
I suppose I should have reprimanded him for his behaviour, but why waste my breath? I had tried to explain the subtleties of polite conversation. It was like trying to recommend a complicated gavotte to a soldier striding hard across a battlefield. Sam’s view was that if one must speak, it should be to a purpose – to discover a useful fact, for example, or to offer a plan of action. Sam had wanted to know how Sneaton had been burned, and now he knew. This, to his mind, was a highly satisfactory conversational exchange.
And how could I argue with him? I now knew how Sneaton had come by his injuries, and why he was treated more as a member of the family than as Aislabie’s secretary. After all, servants did not sit down to supper with their masters, in the main. I was certain now that Sneaton had not written the threatening notes. He was loyal, and he was treated with respect – perhaps even affection – by the family. I might not have discovered this if Sam hadn’t ignored the constrants of etiquette.
I needed to think, and to restore my nerves. I needed a pipe. As Lady Judith escorted her guests to the drawing room I slipped away, through the great hall and down the front steps. It was a clear night, the waxing moon a brilliant silver. The front of the house was very still now that the work on the stables had ended for the day. Candles glowed softly in the drawing room and I could hear the sound of the harpsichord through an open window.
I stepped on to the drive, feet crunching on the gravel, then moved further out into the deer park beyond, the grass wet around my ankles. Here the darkness found me, and wrapped me in its quiet embrace. In London, night was day for me: I lived in Covent Garden, surrounded by coffeehouses, gin shops and brothels. I had run headlong into that wild and rowdy city, craving its hectic pace – the perfect tempo for my restless spirit.
But the city had turned on me, in the end. I had suffered many nights of agony and despair these past few months. Chained to a wall in the Marshalsea, with the dead festering beside me and the rats crawling across my body. Sweating with gaol fever as a parson prayed over my fading soul. Those endless nights grieving for Kitty, when I believed her dead. The eve of my hanging and the days after, when I would dream it all again. When I would embellish it in my nightmares: trapped in my coffin as they lowered me into the ground. The patter of soil on wood as I was buried alive.
These were the nights the city had bestowed upon me.
Eyes closed, I breathed in the fresh, cool air. There was no city stink here, but grass and mud, and the faintest whiff of cow dung. I could sense the deer close by, awake and alert to threats in the dark. I thought of the butchered doe and its tiny fawn, killed before it could live. Then I pushed the memory away and enjoyed a moment’s peace, alone in the night.
A moment was enough. I rolled my shoulders, stretched out my back and neck – still aching from my journey. I packed my pipe and struck a spark from my tinderbox, breathing gently on the embers. The flame burst orange, and a gaunt grey face loomed out of the dark, inches from mine.
I gave a shout of alarm and the tinderbox sailed out of my hands, flame sizzling out in the wet earth. The face vanished, the night a velvet black all around me. I could see nothing, except for my breath clouding in front of me. My heart was pounding so hard I could feel the blood thrumming in my ears. So much for the quiet peace of the country.
‘Who’s there?’ I called out. I had no sword. I’d left my dagger and pistols in my room.
‘I watched you die.’
The words drifted through the air, musical and strange.
Metcalfe. I exhaled softly.
Relief turned swiftly to annoyance. What the devil was he doing, creeping about in the dark? I dropped to the ground, hunting for my tinderbox. I watched you die. A fine sort of a greeting. He must have witnessed my hanging. Was I meant to thank him for his attendance? My fingers closed around the tinderbox. I stood up and started for the house.
‘Mr Hawkins?’ he called after me.
I pretended not to hear him, striding back through the grass. He hurried to catch up, breathing hard with the effort.
We had reached the steps, our shoes scuffing on the stone. In the great hall, I plucked a candle free from its sconce and lit my pipe. The first, glorious draw of tobacco sent its soothing message deep into my mind and body. All is safe, all is well. ‘You startled me, sir.’
Metcalfe ran a hand across his bare scalp, fingers rasping against the greying stubble. His nails were black with mud. He was dressed in a once-fine waistcoat, ruined by neglect. His stockings were spattered, his shoes scuffed and coated with grass and mud. If I had not known that he was the heir to a baronetcy, I might have taken him for a poacher – and not a successful one, given his thin frame and hollow cheeks.
He peered at my face, standing closer than was comfortable or civil. ‘Are you alive?’
‘Of course I’m alive,’ I snapped, leaning back.
He gave a curious, strangled sound – an almost-laugh. ‘You will permit me?’ He prodded my chest with a grimy finger, confirming my answer. ‘I saw you hang. They put you in a coffin.’
‘I was revived. Did you not hear the story?’
‘Revived. Of course. Of course.’ He snorted, disgusted by his own foolishness, and sat down heavily on the oak staircase. ‘Forgive me, sir. Sometimes I see things that are not there. At least, there are times when I find it hard to distinguish between truth and fiction.’ His soft grey eyes widened in fear at the thought.
I could see now how he suffered – a disorder of the mind, reflected in the body. The poor devil had watched me die, and now here I was looming out of the night in front of him. It would be enough to frighten any man, never mind one caught in the grip of a violent melancholia. I offered him my pipe.
He took a long draw, and breathed the smoke out with a sigh. ‘Thank you.’
I sat down next to him, stretching out my legs. He was older than I had expected for Aislabie’s nephew. Middling forties, I guessed. He smelled of tobacco and sweat, and his clothes were stained and in need of a wash. Why had he not sent them to be laundered? There were a dozen servants here who could attend him.
He returned my pipe, attempting a smile. His eyes were red-
rimmed and bloodshot.
I held out my hand. ‘Thomas Hawkins.’
He gave me a rueful smile. ‘Metcalfe Robinson.’
We shook hands. ‘Do you not remember me from this afternoon, sir? I spied you up there.’ I pointed to the minstrels’ gallery above us.
Metcalfe looked dazed. He reached a hand beneath his shirt, scratching his shoulder. ‘Was that today? What day is it, again?’
I told him it was a Thursday, wondering if he was sure of the month, even the year. He seemed only half awake. Laudanum, I thought, remembering the bottle Sally had borrowed from him.
Metcalfe lit his own pipe. His hands were trembling a little. What a shock I’d given the poor devil. ‘You’ve come to help my uncle, I believe?’
‘If I can.’
‘ “He has done more mischief than any man in the nation.” Lord Townshend said that of him, did you know? Although, He that is without sin among you, etcetera . . .’ He puffed his pipe, eyes narrowed. He was not himself, he was not well. But he was a shrewd man, beneath it all – from a family of politicians and diplomats. ‘Walpole sent you?’
I shook my head. I had not met the first minister, nor had any wish to do so. ‘The queen.’
‘The queen!’ Metcalfe pulled the pipe from his lips and stared at me, astonished. ‘So he yet has influence at court. That is ill news. He’s always promised he’d return to power one day. I didn’t think it possible.’ He yawned, and stretched. ‘I have been sleeping. But now I am awake.’ He stood up.
Something about those words echoed in my mind. I had heard them before. Not a psalm. A poem, perhaps? ‘You dislike your uncle.’
‘I despise him.’ He gave me his hand, and helped me to my feet. As he pulled me up, he brought his lips to my ear, clutching my hand tightly. ‘Something dreadful is going to happen, Mr Hawkins. Can you feel it?’ His breath was feverish hot in my ear. ‘You were dead. They hanged you and they nailed you in your coffin. And now you are here: the black crow at the window, tapping out its message with its great beak. Death has come. Death is here.’
‘Enough!’ I snapped, breaking from him.
Metcalfe gave a jolt, as if waking from a dream.
His fingers had left smudges on my coat. I brushed them away. ‘I must ask you not to speak of my hanging again, Mr Robinson. It is not a topic I wish to discuss, with anyone.’
Metcalfe wasn’t listening. The light that had burned in his eyes was gone, leaving him listless and dazed. He nodded at the trail of muddy footprints we had left from door to stair. ‘Poor Sally. See what we’ve done to her floor. We shall be in trouble! Well, well. Goodnight, sir.’
I stared after him as he headed up the stairs. It was as if he had been possessed, and now had no memory of it. Indeed it was as if I had met three of him within a few minutes: the shrewd politician, the shattered melancholic, and the rambling prophet. That could not be explained by laudanum alone.
They’re worried about Metcalfe, Sam had said. Now I saw why.
I stood for a long time on my own in the great hall. I was disturbed by how much Metcalfe’s warning had echoed my own fears: that I had become shrouded by death these past few weeks; that it had somehow stalked me back into the living world. And – caught up in such bleak and unhappy thoughts – I missed something important.
Lady Judith had told me that Metcalfe had barely left his room in three days. Now he was wandering through the deer park at night, with mud on his shoes and under his nails. I should have asked myself what he was doing out upon the estate, alone in the dark. I should have asked him.
But as I say – I didn’t think of it at the time.
Chapter Eight
It was late – much later – and the house was quiet.
Someone had entered the room.
With my eyes closed, feigning sleep, I inched my hand beneath my pillow and found my dagger, curling my fingers around the hilt.
It wasn’t Sam. He was downstairs somewhere, hunting for the ledger. And if he wanted to kill me in my bed, I wouldn’t hear him coming.
Footsteps, light upon the oak boards. A slight creak. Definitely not Sam. I opened my eyes into pitch-black, shuttered darkness – the very dead of night. Whoever this was, he had walked through the house without a candle. He knew there were steps down into the room. Bagby? Metcalfe? This was the way my friend and cellmate Samuel Fleet had died: alone in his bed, his throat cut. I pulled the blade free.
The intruder had reached the bottom of the bed. I felt a pressure as he crawled on to the mattress. He was close now, almost close enough . . .
I reached out in the dark and grabbed an arm. With a quick snap, I’d thrown him face down on to the bed. I jumped up and straddled him, my arm firm across his back, my blade pressed to his throat. ‘Who are you?’ I snarled.
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, Tom!’ a familiar voice cried out, muffled by the pillow.
I dropped the blade to the floor. ‘Kitty?’
‘Get off me!’
I grinned, confused but happy. I pressed my knees against her side. ‘No . . . I believe I shall stay here.’
She giggled, and flipped on to her back beneath me. I could feel her gown against my legs, smell her scent. I ran my hand up her waist in the dark, found the curve of her breast. I squeezed it, gently. ‘Is it really you?’
She was laughing now, her chest rising and falling beneath my hand. ‘You know it is.’
I leaned down and kissed her neck, her jaw. Where were her lips, confound it? Ah . . . There. ‘Who brought you here?’ I asked between kisses. ‘How did you reach—’
She stopped my words with her mouth. ‘This first, my love,’ she said, wrapping her legs about my hips. ‘This first.’
Later, I lit a candle and fell back against the pillow, grinning up at the canopy. Kitty shuffled beneath my arm, resting her head upon my chest. ‘I should never have left you,’ she murmured. ‘But I was so angry. I do have a slight temper.’
I didn’t refute this.
‘I thought you would come galloping after me. All the way from Newport Pagnell I thought, he’ll jump on a horse and race back to find me. Only you didn’t.’ She sighed into my chest. ‘And then I began to wonder – because you are not spiteful, Tom, that is one of your better qualities, and you don’t have a temper, at least not a bad one, and you are also impossibly lazy and never do a single thing unless you absolutely must – so I began to wonder, why is Tom determined to go to Yorkshire, when he hates to go anywhere at all if it does not involve drinking or gambling or perhaps a play if there is drinking and gambling afterwards.’
‘True.’
She propped herself on her elbow to view me the better, sweeping her long red hair from her face. ‘And then I thought, well he has not been himself since he was found guilty of murder and hanged, which is to be expected, I suppose. You know, you have been quite gloomy and mournful and distracted these past few weeks.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I forgive you. And it struck me that perhaps you simply wanted to escape London and all the terrible things that have happened to you. I know you still think of the Marshalsea, Tom, and have nightmares sometimes. And now the hanging as well. And the neighbours calling you a murderer, and speaking out against you at the trial, and then being so fickle and deciding you’re a hero once they thought you were dead. Idiots. I should want to run away from all of that if I were you, and the queen did order you to go to Yorkshire, so perhaps you simply wanted to leave London, but didn’t know how to tell me—’
‘I—’
‘But then I thought, Lord, in which case, why would we not go to Italy, as we’d planned? After all, the queen betrayed you in such a foul and sneaking fashion – she would have let you hang, Tom, you must never forget that – and I couldn’t see why in all the heavens you would travel for days to find her stupid ledger unless she had some power over you.’ She paused, and put a hand upon my heart. ‘She threatened to have me hanged, didn’t she?’
I covered her
hand with mine.
Kitty’s large green eyes filled with tears. ‘Why did you not tell me? We made a vow to each other. No more secrets. You promised.’
I slid from the bed, and poured us both a glass of sherry.
‘Walking about naked won’t distract me, Tom.’
I smiled, and handed her a glass.
She sipped the sherry, lips curving about the rim. ‘Well. Perhaps a little.’
I sat down next to her, and nuzzled her neck.
She pushed me away. ‘You broke your promise.’
‘Because I love you.’
‘Oh, you pig!’ She punched my arm. I’d played my ace.
We sat together for a while side by side upon the bed, drinking our sherry.
‘I didn’t even reach London, you know,’ Kitty said, stifling a yawn. ‘I paid the driver to turn around at St Albans. I’ve been chasing you all the way back north.’
‘Who let you in so late?’
‘The butler. Busby?’
‘Bagby. Was he not surprised you travelled alone?’
‘He said he was vastly pleased I’d arrived.’ She mock preened, poking her nose in the air. ‘Are you vastly pleased, Tom?’
‘Beyond measure.’ But how peculiar of Bagby. Why should it matter to him?
Kitty rested her chin upon my shoulder. ‘Let’s leave as soon as it’s light. It’s only a two-day ride to Hull. And then a ship. And then France. And then Italy.’
‘I can’t leave, not yet. I have to find the ledger.’
She sighed, her breath tickling my skin. ‘And what then? Do you think the queen will leave you in peace after that? She will never let you go, Tom. You’re too useful. We’ll be trapped for ever.’
She was right. I had been mulling over the same problem ever since I’d been given my orders – wondering how I might free myself from the queen’s grip. There was one obvious way: a simple if dangerous plan. But I needed Aislabie’s accounts book first.
‘Where’s Sam?’ Kitty asked.
‘Hunting for the ledger.’
A Death at Fountains Abbey Page 9
