‘Mrs Westerman, am I interrupting you?’
Harriet smiled. ‘You are, and I thank you most sincerely for it. Please, come and talk to me for a while if the household can spare you.’
Mrs Briggs bustled in and took a seat near the desk, looking pleased. ‘Oh I am glad! I have come to escape the card table. I believe the Vizegrafin could play picquet for ten hours in every day. If only she would pick up a book from time to time, it would improve her fortunes and her temperament, I am sure. I was forced to claim a headache, which would make Mr Briggs laugh, for he knows I have hardly had one since he married me. I all but fled my own house this morning to escape her requests for a game.’
‘She does not play well, then, Mrs Briggs?’
‘She does not! I can hardly think she and Mr Crowther are of the same blood at times — he so controlled and she so high-handed in her play. And did you hear that Mr Askew called on you this afternoon? He wishes to see you as soon as he might.’
Harriet nodded. ‘We received his note. I fear I am too exhausted by our ride to pay an evening visit, but we shall call on him in the morning. He probably wishes to renew his requests to Crowther to give a talk on the atmosphere. It does continue so close.’
‘So it does! And now with all these disturbances and strange storms, the people around us grow most uneasy. If ever there was to be a revolution in England, now is the time. One good preacher and I believe they would throw us all in the lake to quiet the old gods. And Casper having to hide from Mr Sturgess means he is not there to steady them. The vicar and his daughter do what they can. . Have you heard of this girl going missing, and the Fowlers? You can feel the unease all over town. Everyone is looking about themselves and wondering.’
Harriet picked up her pen and turned the quill between her fingers. ‘The girl I have heard something of; I saw Casper by the lake this morning and he mentioned it. I know nothing more of her than her name, however — and who are the Fowlers?’
‘You saw Casper, Mrs Westerman? Now, why am I thinking that perhaps you have not found a moment to mention that to Mr Sturgess?’ Harriet could hear the smile in the woman’s voice and felt herself colouring a little so she continued to study the transparent body of her pen as she replied.
‘Miss Scales thinks that Mr Sturgess is very quick to judge. She seems to believe that Mr Sturgess resents the fact that the people here are as likely to consult a cunning-man in their disputes as the magistrate.’
‘Mr Sturgess has been a most pleasant neighbour, and it is a shame this business keeps him from playing cards with the Vizegrafin. I am a great believer in Miss Scales’s judgement, however,’ Mrs Briggs said carefully. Harriet wished she had learned to weigh her words so well.
She stood and crossed to the empty fireplace, suddenly tired of her seat. ‘You mentioned the name Fowler?’
Mrs Briggs turned towards her and nodded. ‘Yes, father and son. It is said they have stopped sleeping in their own beds.’
‘That must be who Casper suspects of beating him and searching the Black Pig. He would not give me their names this morning.’
‘He had his reasons, I’m sure. But the matter of this girl troubles me greatly. She is a sharp young thing; her family are good friends of Casper.’
‘How old is she?’ Harriet asked.
‘Sixteen, I think.’
Harriet was examining a painting above the fireplace. It showed a reworking of the scenery that surrounded them. In the foreground grazed a pair of the long-horned cattle the local people favoured, observed by a couple in peasant dress lolling on the grass. They were facing the painter rather than the picturesque landscape behind them.
‘Might she not have run away with the younger Fowler?’
Mrs Briggs laughed. ‘I doubt that! I know the young can develop some unfortunate attachments, but Agnes is a smart girl and Swithun and his father are a nasty pair. I’ve tried to offer them the means to support themselves in the past, but always they reward us with complaints and petty thievery. .’ Her voice tailed off.
Harriet was trying to work out the geography of the painting in front of her; if the small island in the middle distance was in fact the Island of Bones. . She was suddenly aware that Mrs Briggs was getting to her feet.
‘I shall leave you to your letter, Mrs Westerman. Do ring if you require anything, and Miriam will look after you.’
Harriet was expecting to have a longer conversation with Mrs Briggs, but the little woman seemed to have been invigorated with some new purpose and bustled out of the room with great energy. Harriet wished her good evening, wondered for a moment, then turned back to her letter with a sigh.
When Agnes heard the sound of footsteps in the tunnel beyond the barricade again she was feeling stronger. Her scalp was still sore where Swithun had pulled her head back, her shoulder was bruised and aching and her hands stung and complained whenever she moved them, but she had eaten bread enough to stop the pain in her belly and had water, though she would pay any price she could think of for a bucket to wash her face and her scrapes in. There were two beings outside: she could hear voices; one sounded like Isaac Fowler, Swithun’s father. The other was much lower, whispering, and she could make out none of the words. Fowler sounded as if he was apologising for something. No doubt they saw the gap in the boards and guessed that Swithun had visited her.
‘Put your arm out through the gap. We know your hands are free.’ Fowler’s voice.
‘Why should I?’ There was a pause, whispering.
‘Because if you don’t we will open the barricade and kill you.’ His voice sounded uncomfortable and strange.
‘Who you playing parrot to, Fowler?’
‘Never you mind. Just do as you’re told, girly.’ Those words were his own. ‘You won’t get past us. It’s too narrow, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s counting! Do it now, Agnes. He’ll kill you soon as spit.’
She hesitated, but there was just enough panic in the man’s voice to make her believe him, so she stuck one hand through and felt at once a rough hand grip her round the wrist and pull her up against the barricade. He was pulling hard enough on her arm to bring the side of her face to the wood, her cheek pressed to the gap, but she could see nothing but shadows. Something pointed and metal touched her face and she heard a creaking stretch. She gritted her teeth.
‘He wants to know where it is. Who is guarding it now?’
‘Why should I say? You’ll just kill me anyway.’
Fowler answered quickly. ‘No, Agnes. He’s said he shan’t.’ One of his hands was still pulling hard on her wrist, but she felt, strangely, the touch of his other hand on her upper arm. He was patting her. The strange metal point traced the line of her cheekbone. She could feel it now at the corner of her eye.
‘Why does he want it? It’s ours.’
The patting on her arm increased and she heard that stretching noise again. ‘He says it’s his, Agnes, and he wants it back.’
‘All right! Just make him move that thing off me — I can’t think straight!’
There was a pause, the arrow moved up to her temple, shivering, then she felt the pressure behind it unwind and the cold touch left her forehead. She trembled. She had to say something.
‘That German lady. Casper said it’s not safe to keep it here. He’s asked her to take it away a while. She’ll send it back when it’s safe.’
A whisper, then Fowler’s voice again. ‘How could he know? Why her? Why would he tell her?’
She had had time to think on that. ‘He knows things! He feels things coming, you know that. He’s always been a step ahead of you, Fowler. He came to my father’s place to tell me. And he likes her. They went to the Druid stones together, we all saw that. He felt their trust of her, he said.’
There was a long pause. She could almost hear her words being weighed to see if there was truth in them. There was a weakness there. Fowler might believe Casper knew something threatening was in the wind, but would the other man? Silence. She fel
t herself relax a fraction, then that cold tip was on her temple again and, hearing the rapid drawing of the bow, she whimpered. The grip on her hand was suddenly released and she threw herself to the ground. There was a sharp song from the bow and a whistling noise, then she heard a thud as the arrow shot into darkness beyond the barricade.
Isaac’s voice was high and keening like his son’s. ‘You said! She told you! Why did you do that?’
There was the sound of a blow, and she heard Fowler grunt. Then a low curse. One set of footsteps quick into the darkness, followed by the scuttle of Fowler’s feet, and his whining complaints fading up the tunnel. Agnes breathed in and at once felt her stomach clench. She stumbled into the far corner to vomit up what little there was in it, then crawled back to the barricade and lay there panting. She hoped she had done the right thing. She had thought of everyone she knew in the village, but they all seemed too vulnerable, too open. The German girl Swithun had mentioned was at the vicarage, he said, surrounded by the protection of the gentry. Swithun and his father couldn’t get close to her. The story of her taking it away made sense, and everyone had seen Casper being friendly towards the girl. Still, Agnes was afraid she had set something bad on her and was scared. She felt fat tears gather behind her eyes and all of a sudden she was shaking so hard her teeth rattled. She gathered the blanket around her and rocked back and forth. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said to the dark. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to die.’
Harriet was not absolutely satisfied with her letter, but she folded and sealed it in any case. On her way downstairs to the post tray in the hall she heard raised voices coming from the library. The door was closed, and although she could not hear the words distinctly, she thought those arguing were Felix and the Vizegrafin. The door swung open and she stepped into the shadows of the dining room a moment, then peered round. It was indeed Felix. He was in the drawing-room doorway, apparently delivering his parting shot to whoever was within.
‘I have made my decision, Mother. ‘We have been very wrong.’
The Vizegrafin now joined him in the light. ‘Felix, listen to me! You shall be ruined! There is no proof — how could there be?’ She placed her hand on her son’s arm. He lifted it to his lips, then let it fall.
‘You cannot dissuade me.’
For a moment the Vizegrafin looked up at him, her bottom lip quivering, then she covered her face in her hands and ran up the stairs, her shoulders shaking. Felix watched her go, then crossed the hall into the billiard room. Harriet emerged from the shadows, dropped her letter onto the salver in the hall, then returned slowly up the stairs.
From the collection of Mr Askew, Keswick Museum
From The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure, December 1752
Extract of a letter from Paris, 15 October:
Reports reached us yesterday of the death of Edmund de Beaufoy, 7th Earl of Greta, and his wife whom he survived for only three days. His poverty after his exile and his grief over his brother’s execution and the forfeiture of his property in Cumberland has been well-documented, but what is perhaps less known is that in his final two years of life, Lord Greta abandoned strong drink and instead drunk deep of his religion. He developed the habit of spending many hours of each day in prayer at his lady’s side, and it is believed that the fever which took both husband and wife was contracted moving amongst the poor doing works of charity. How much comfort this reformation brought him is difficult to judge: though his friends reported he seemed much more at peace in his final months, the last cogent utterance he gave on hearing that his wife had passed was thus, ‘May she find Heaven; the rest of us shall burn together in Hell.’
PART V
V.1
Saturday, 19 July 1783
There might have been a moon silvering the lake, but the corridor outside Stephen’s room was still so dark he could not make out the shape of his hand when he held it in front of his eyes. He groped his way very gently along the wall, brushing his fingers over the rises and falls of the panelling. This door led to the Vizegrafin’s rooms, then some three yards along was the door to his mother’s chambers. He paused there, and thought how simple it would be to turn the handle and go and shake her awake and tell her what he was about. It was only for a moment though. He knew his mother was clever, but she did not understand everything. Casper had given him a task and he’d perform it as he had been asked.
He continued to trace the panelling forward until it disappeared at the top of the stairs. The atrium of the hall let some of the moonlight in; shadows fell into ashy piles into the corners. Stephen thought of his friend at home, Jonathan Thornleigh, Earl of Sussex. He hated the dark. For the first time Stephen was glad his friend was not with him. Ever since his own father had been killed, Jonathan’s nights were full of monsters. He would have seen creeping cracked faces hiding under the stairs, and thought the witches would be waiting for him in the gardens.
Stephen crept down the stairs and turned towards the kitchens. The back door was unbolted, which he thought strange until he noticed the light coming from the brew house. Even as he watched, he saw Crowther’s narrow profile cross the window. Stephen was comforted that Crowther was awake. He closed the door behind him and, quietly as he could, stole out among the shadows.
The moon just lightened the darkness of the path to the edge of the park. Stephen kept his hand tight round his wooden Luck and trotted down the slope towards Portinscale. The woods seemed to give off stronger scents in the night, and the polished leaves of the ivy glimmered the same silver as the lace on his mother’s sleeves.
Harriet stared at the darkness. She could not think who would have killed Mr Hurst if it were not the young man sleeping a few yards away from her. Or Casper? There seemed to be no alternatives, so she must be wrong about one or other of them. She thought of the great many people there had been at Mrs Briggs’s garden party. Any of them could have disappeared for half an hour, the arrows for the competition on their thigh, disposed of Mr Hurst, thrown branches over him then sauntered down for another ice. Mr Hurst and his daughter had come to Keswick to pursue Felix for debt. Too far, surely? Had they come by coincidence, and Hurst had seen in Felix a way to refill his purse? What then of this letter, and the advertisement from Cockermouth? That could have nothing to do with Felix, surely? It indicated some separate matter. She sat up and hugged her knees. Could Hurst have been behind Casper’s beating, then Casper killed him in revenge? No one other than Sturgess seemed to believe that. She flung herself back onto her pillow with a sigh.
Stephen had received very precise instructions. He crept round the back of the Black Pig and, having checked the windows were dark and quiet, picked his way among the old barrels and broken wood to the grille of the game locker that gave onto the inn cellar. Beyond it he could see the shadows of dead pheasants hanging by their necks, their soft bodies still and warm, their heads falling forward like tired women at the edges of a ballroom. He took the padlock in his hand. It was the size of a coin purse, and light. From his bag he slowly removed the butterknife he had put in his pocket at supper and slid it into the top of the lock, then biting his lip began driving it in where the shackle clicked into its body. His fingers were beginning to sweat and just when he thought the lock might give, the knife slipped and bruised flesh at the base of his thumb. He yelped and the padlock knocked against the bars. He went very still, sucking at the sore spot and glad he had not purloined a sharper knife. He waited, frozen and listening, but heard only the shout of a vixen calling to her cubs and the soft shiver of branches.
Drawing in his breath, Stephen began to work at the lock again. This time he slid the knife in at a slightly different angle. It clicked brusquely and the shackle popped outwards. Stephen grinned and looked about him as if he expected the broken barrels to congratulate him, then slid the padlock free and put it in his pocket. The grating swung open. There was a fierce creak and Stephen gritted his teeth. Still nothing. He checked his bag was secure over his shoulder and crawled
in among the feathery corpses.
Though Crowther was examining the body of Mr Hurst, it was the mysteries of his own past that went tumbling through his mind that night. His imagination was still filled by the portraits of his father and brother that Mr Askew had so proudly displayed to him. He heard some noise at the back of the house and glanced out of the window. It never became completely dark at this season when the moon was large. He could still see the hunkered mass of St Herbert’s Island, dark on the dull silver of the lake. He thought of what he had learned of his father. Where had that first money come from? Had he managed to steal it somehow from the deserted possessions of Lord Greta? Then this follower of Greta’s, the arsonist, had demanded it back in ’45. Why not simply pay him off? Sir William was a wealthy man by that time. Instead he had killed the messenger and, most likely, found de Beaufoy’s location from him before the murder and parlayed that information into more influence with his King and his government. Then events had caught up with him. When had Greta died? If he had learned that Sir William had betrayed his brother, Crowther could imagine that Lord expending all his last resources in pursuing him. After all, he had preferred to see Gutherscale burn than let it fall into Sir William’s hands. And Adair — well, Adair was as practised as any weak character in believing what he wished. It would have been easy to persuade him to lead his now reclusive father into the open, especially if Adair thought his father’s seclusion was a result of grief rather than fear, and Sir William would never have admitted to his children that he was afraid.
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