Beneath me, Metcalfe and Forster had returned to the great hall. They shook hands again. Forster, glancing up to the gallery, offered a hesitant nod and hurried away.
This left Metcalfe alone. He rocked back upon his heels to see me the better.
‘You wish to speak with me,’ I suggested.
A slight bow. ‘I would be obliged to you, sir.’
When I reached the hall, he gestured to the brace of pistols belted at my hips. I unbuckled them and dropped them upon a table nearby.
His eyes flickered to my sword.
I hesitated.
‘I am unarmed, sir,’ Metcalfe said. ‘This is not a duel.’
Oh, but it was. I placed the sword next to my pistols. We smiled at each other, polite and full of distrust. It was a shame. I liked Metcalfe, truly. But if I found he had hurt Sam . . . He might be unarmed, but I still had a dagger, hidden in my coat. One should always be prepared.
We stepped out together into the spring sunshine.
Chapter Nineteen
Metcalfe said that walking helped him to think, and so we strode towards the water gardens. I smoked a pipe, affecting nonchalance. The weather was golden, and I was sorry that Sneaton had not lived to see this morning. Metcalfe walked with his hands in his pockets, and said nothing until we reached the lake, a silver mirror in the sunshine. There were men planting nearby, so we crossed the wooden bridge over the lower cascade, where the roar of the water would cover our voices.
The stone sphinxes confronted one another from opposing banks, locked in an eternal gaze. The one on this side of the bridge was a younger version of her companion, with the same pearl necklace, the same neat blanket of hair spread across her lion’s back. As I studied her imperious expression in the bright sunshine, I realised that this was a statue of Queen Caroline as a young princess. She was staring across the cascade at her older self – water rushing between them like the passing of time.
‘Is it a fair likeness?’ Metcalfe asked.
The queen as a sphinx? A lioness? Yes – I supposed it was.
‘My uncle claims they were made in her honour, but there’s spite in them, don’t you think? The older woman forced to stare for ever at her lost youth and beauty?’
It was true that the queen had grown fat from years of childbirth and a love of sugared confections. But she was still a handsome woman, with one of the sharpest minds in the kingdom. The sculptor had captured this – by chance? – in the sphinxes’ determined expression, steady and unchanging from youth to middling age.
‘The ledger is destroyed,’ Metcalfe observed, running a hand down the sphinx’s back, the arrow tip of her tail. ‘She will be pleased with you.’
Not pleased enough to release me from her service, I’d wager. ‘Mr Gatteker tested your laudanum. He thought the dose of opium might be higher than usual. But you seem quite recovered from it.’
He stopped stroking the sphinx. In profile, I could see the resemblance to his uncle, though his cheeks were hollowed by weeks of poor living. ‘Do I?’
‘You couldn’t possibly recover from such a powerful opiate in one night. You would be shaking and sweating in your coat.’
He shrugged. ‘How is Master Fleet? Will he live?’
‘You’ve been playing Hamlet, have you not?’ I persisted. ‘Pretending madness. Pretending laudanum sickness.’
He gave a half smile, but his soft grey eyes offered no answers. ‘Tell me, did you order him to kill Sneaton?’
My heart stopped, just for a beat. Then I punched him hard in the mouth.
It was a perfect strike. Metcalfe flew off his feet, landing with a soft thump at the base of the sphinx. It was only luck that stopped him from dashing his head against the plinth. He lay on his back in a daze, all the breath knocked out of him. A garden boy dropped his rake and rushed over to help. ‘I’m well,’ Metcalfe said, staggering to his feet. ‘Thank you.’
He wasn’t well: there was a cut on his lip and he’d grazed his hands in the fall, but if a gentleman refused help, so be it. The boy dipped his head and returned to his work, glaring at me over his shoulder.
I leaned out and washed my bleeding knuckles in the cascade, the cuts stinging in the cold water. My hands were already scratched and bruised from my ride through the hawthorn bushes the day before. They did not look like the hands of an innocent man.
Metcalfe spat the blood from his mouth, then untied his cravat and pressed it to his lip. ‘That was uncivil, sir.’
‘You accused me of murder.’
‘I accused you of plotting murder,’ he corrected, ‘with Sam Fleet. A boy you insist on calling your ward.’ He sighed at the notion. ‘I know what he is, sir.’
I frowned at him. Impossible. He couldn’t know that Sam was a killer. No one knew. I stared at him in defiance, heart thudding against my chest.
Metcalfe blinked first. ‘I knew his uncle. Samuel Fleet.’
My jaw dropped. Sam’s uncle, Kitty’s guardian, my cellmate – rising up from his grave. What a long shadow he cast, for such a short man. ‘How—’
‘Our paths crossed when I was a young man. He was a friend to me.’ Metcalfe’s eyes hardened. ‘And then he wasn’t.’
Well, that certainly sounded like Fleet. And now I remembered a phrase Metcalfe had used the first night we spoke, sitting on the marble steps of the great hall. I was sleeping. But now I am awake. I’d thought it was from a play, or a psalm, but in fact it was something Samuel Fleet had said to me in the Marshalsea, rousing himself from his melancholy and into action.
‘It didn’t strike me until this morning,’ Metcalfe said. ‘But then I learned the boy’s Christian name. Sam Fleet. Black eyes. Murder.’ He laughed, without humour. ‘How could it be coincidence? A broken nose would not go unpunished in that family.’
‘So, because he is a Fleet, he must have killed Mr Sneaton? And then – what? – carried him to the water trough? Dragged himself halfway through the estate for no good reason, with a broken skull?’ I stretched out my arm, pointing downriver towards the distant valley where I’d found Sam this morning. ‘It is plain nonsense.’
The truth of this silenced him for a moment. ‘Then you must have—’
‘Don’t you dare!’ I warned, clenching both my fists. ‘I was locked up all night. Sam was attacked because he knew who killed the deer.’ I glared at him.
Metcalfe drew back, astonished to be turned from interrogator to suspect. ‘Me?’ He began to laugh.
‘Do you deny you left the house last night?’
‘For a walk. I came here to the cascades, as I do every night. I find them soothing. The rush of water stills my thoughts. I become . . . nothing.’ He looked wistful.
‘There was no one in the park, save for you and Sam.’
This snapped him from his reverie. ‘That is not true, sir! The house was guarded by twenty men or more. Any one of them could have left his post without being seen in the dark.’
‘Long enough to reach Sneaton’s cottage, and kill him? Long enough to carry his body out to the water trough? All this and return without being missed? With no blood upon his clothes?’
‘This is madness,’ he groaned. ‘What of the stags laid out upon the steps? They—’
‘—came from your father’s estate.’
Metcalfe froze.
‘Mr Hallow rode to Baldersby yesterday. The keeper swears he sent them at your request.’
It took him a moment to find his voice. ‘He spoke with Malone?’
‘If that’s the name of your father’s gamekeeper – yes.’
Metcalfe swayed upon the spot. ‘I think . . .’ He swallowed. ‘I think I must sit down.’ His legs folded beneath him.
‘Do you deny—’
‘Grant me a moment, I beg you.’ He bunched his fists into the grass as if he were gripping the mane of a runaway horse. He took a deep breath, and blew out slowly. ‘I swear to you, sir, upon my soul: I sent no such request to Baldersby. I admit most willingly that I am a lament
able figure of a man. But I would never kill anyone. I abhor violence.’ He touched his split lip with a reproachful air. ‘Mr Hawkins, might I make a tentative observation? If I suspect you of murder, and you suspect me . . . it rather suggests we both consider ourselves innocent? In which case . . . well, I wonder if we might both be wrong in our suppositions.’ He lifted his grey eyes to mine, brows raised.
He was right – assuming I believed him. I didn’t want to. I wanted to grab him by the scruff of the neck, march him back to Studley, and proclaim him the villain. He had every reason to hate his uncle, every opportunity to commit the murder. But looking into his eyes, I knew that this was no act. He was innocent.
I sat down next to him on the riverbank, despondent. The damp seeped into the back of my breeches. A wagtail thrummed into the cascade and out again, ruffling tiny drops of water from its feathers.
‘I am sorry that I punched you . . .’ I said.
Metcalfe tested his jaw.
‘. . . but you did accuse me of murder. And you must admit that your behaviour has been confounding in the extreme. This business with the laudanum. Wandering about the estate at all hours of the night. You have been dissembling, have you not? I mean – what are you about, Metcalfe?’
He gave a deep, exhausted sigh. ‘Lady Judith wrote to me about Mrs Fairwood – asked if I would spend some time here and see what I made of her. In secret, you understand. She knew my uncle would be furious, if he found out. I agreed to a short visit. Rash of me. I was not well, in truth. Not myself.’ He paused, fingers working through the mud of the riverbank. So this was how his nails came to be so filthy. ‘Seeing you hang . . . it affected me more than I can say. Afraid I rather lost my senses over the matter. That he should die and I should live . . .’
‘But we were strangers.’
He threw his hands up in a weary gesture, unable to explain the vagaries of his malady. ‘I came to Studley to distract myself. Thought I’d spend a few days in pleasant conversation with a beautiful woman before revealing her as a fraud and booting her from the door. Metcalfe the Hero. For once.’
‘But why would you help your uncle?’
‘Oh, he’s dreadful in a hundred ways, I know. It would be disastrous if he ever returned to politics . . . But he’s not entirely rotten. And he lost his wife and daughter,’ he added, his face softening in sympathy. ‘I remember Lizzie as a baby. Tiny, merry little thing. Held her in my arms. Can you imagine such a loss? What could be more dreadful? Mrs Fairwood has played upon that grief all these weeks. She has raised his child from the dead. What a wicked, wicked thing to do to a man. What a cruel woman.’
‘Perhaps she too has been deceived.’
He frowned. ‘How so?’
‘Is it not possible that Molly Gaining was indeed Elizabeth Fairwood’s mother? She stole enough from your uncle to begin a new life, far away where no one would know her. Perhaps she married and had a daughter of her own. Could she not have grown confused in her final days? Think of the guilt that must have lain upon her all those years. She killed a young woman and her baby daughter. Would it be so strange if her mind shrank from such a terrible truth – most especially upon her deathbed? Perhaps she took solace in a fantastical tale, one where she saw not her own daughter at her bedside, but Lizzie Aislabie, all grown up. Saved from the fire she started.’
Metcalfe rubbed his temple. ‘Possible. It would make Mrs Fairwood quite blameless. She certainly has no interest in my uncle’s money.’
‘No. She’s repulsed by the very notion of being his daughter. I can’t understand why she has remained at Studley for so long.’
‘Ah – I believe I can answer that mystery at least. She is in love with Francis Forster. Do not look so astonished, sir!’ he laughed.
‘But he is the dullest man on the planet!’
‘True enough!’ Metcalfe was still laughing. ‘My first night at Studley, he sat next to me at supper and never drew breath. Do you know, I felt my brain go numb. A most peculiar feeling.’ He lifted his wig and rubbed his scalp. ‘The more time I spent in his company, the more I became convinced he must be an impostor. I wrote to all the coaching inns along the Nottingham road, seeking proof about his accident.’
I sat up. ‘Did you receive news back?’
‘No, but I’m afraid I had become somewhat erratic by that point. My letters may not have been entirely sensible. Or legible. I am susceptible to dark thoughts, you see. Suspicions. Things become . . . disproportionate.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’ he wondered. ‘I saw Forster with Mrs Fairwood on several occasions, walking around the gardens, deep in conversation. Day and night. Heads bowed close, you know. And instead of thinking, “Aha! Here are two lovers, struck with cupid’s arrows”, I decided they were conspiring to destroy my uncle. Then that terrible note came, wrapped around a sheep’s heart.’ He shuddered. ‘I fell into the abyss, after that. Began to see plots and betrayals everywhere. Couldn’t trust anyone . . .’ He glanced about him, and lowered his voice. ‘I’ve been trying for years to find evidence of my uncle’s South Sea dealings. The depths of his corruption. I thought perhaps he’d learned of my enquiries and invited me here, through my aunt, in order to drive me into madness. Set the entire estate against me.’ His eyes had taken on a haunted look.
‘That would be . . . elaborate.’
He blinked. ‘Yes . . . yes, I suppose you’re right. I walk a narrow path between truth and fancy. I’m afraid I stumbled into the woods and lost myself for a while.’
‘How long?’
‘Oh, who counts the days?’ he said, vaguely. ‘I kept to my room, in the main. Wandered out at night sometimes. I’d sit here by the cascade and try to drown out my thoughts in the roar of the water. Or I’d count the stars. Anything to stop my mind turning about in endless circles. And in the end, I found my path again.’
‘I’m glad to hear it. So why pretend you were still . . .’
‘. . . Mad as a lupin?’ He sighed. ‘It was a useful conceit. I might come and go as I pleased without arousing suspicion. And I knew my uncle would send me away once I was fit enough to travel. It frightens him, you know. His brother suffered from melancholic fits. Hanged himself when he was seventeen.’
‘Mr Gatteker told me.’ I thought of the portrait, banished to Sam’s cupboard room – the young man with the soulful eyes.
‘Then you arrived. And the deer was left on the steps, with its fawn. I feared things were reaching a climax. But I could hardly spring up the next morning as if nothing had happened. I thought if I told you I’d been poisoned, it would explain my somewhat erratic behaviour . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘I asked Mr Gatteker to lie about the laudanum. He knew I was pretending to be sick. He was the only one I confided in.’
‘Oh! Then Marigold is alive after all? Mr Gatteker’s cat,’ I prompted.
Metcalfe brightened. ‘I suppose she is! If indeed he has a cat. Let’s say that he does. We deserve some happy news this morning.’
‘Marigold is alive. And Mrs Fairwood is in love with Mr Forster.’ I shook my head in wonderment.
‘Engaged! Forster confessed all to me just this morning. Begged me not to tell my uncle. He’s determined to secure a position at Studley first, upon his own merit. Poor fellow has no capital to speak of.’
‘What a curious match.’
‘Indeed! But then love is a curious business, is it not?’ He sounded wistful.
I gazed out across the lake. The ducks were gathered close to the bank, dabbing at the water and tipping up to feed with their white tails in the air. The drakes looked proud and handsome, with their glossy green heads and neat white collars. The pheasants pecking at the grass were the same – the hens a dull speckled brown, while the brighter cocks strutted about, trailing their long tails. I thought of Mrs Fairwood in her drab grey gown, and Forster in his bright waistcoat and feather-trimmed hat. I thought of the deep cuffs on his coat, the fashionable pleats and gold wire buttons. And I unders
tood at last.
A curious match, a curious couple, no doubt – but working with a common purpose.
We will seek Revenge.
Chapter Twenty
I leaped up from the riverbank and ran across the footbridge towards the house. Metcalfe caught up with me on the path, panting hard. ‘Mr Hawkins?’
I seized a shoulder, thin and bony beneath his coat. ‘Find William Hallow. Order him to ride at once to Baldersby. I must know who came to fetch the stags. A clear description, mind – age, bearing, clothes. Every detail.’
‘I don’t understand . . .’
‘Forster and Mrs Fairwood. They plotted this together, with an accomplice. We must find him.’
Metcalfe gave a sharp nod. ‘I will ride over to Baldersby myself. Dear God. My poor uncle . . .’
I squeezed his shoulder. Then I turned and raced back towards Studley Hall.
I was almost too late. Aislabie’s carriage waited upon the drive, heavy with luggage. Bagby stood sentinel at the carriage steps, sweating in green velvet. Pugh sat above the horses, reins in hand. The grand front doors swung open and Mrs Fairwood hurried out, tiny and determined in a grey riding hood. She looked like a nun, running home to sanctuary. I left the path and took a short-cut across the deer park, boots sucking into the mud. ‘Wait!’ I cried, as Aislabie and Lady Judith appeared in the doorway.
‘Wait!’ I cried again, waving my hands in the air. I must have seemed quite wild.
It was enough for Aislabie to hurry down the steps towards Mrs Fairwood. ‘What is this?’ he snapped, as I reached them.
‘She cannot leave,’ I said, gathering my breath.
Aislabie bristled. ‘I have made my decision. Elizabeth is not safe here – not until we find the killer.’
Mrs Fairwood dipped her head towards him in gratitude.
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