The Keeper of Secrets

by Judith Cutler

  He pushed himself from the table and took a turn about the room.

  I permitted myself a glance at my watch. ‘There is one man who might possibly oblige, and this evening too. But we are not dressed to see him. Mr King,’ I explained.

  Never had two gentlemen transformed themselves so quickly. Turner had worked wonders, and, despite our protestations that we could walk, Jem had secured the services of two chairmen.

  When we arrived at the Upper Rooms, it was clear that Mr King already had the proceedings well in hand. Chaperons had no need to worry that their protégées would languish unnoticed when Mr King had the business of introductions in hand. The ballroom was aswirl with colour and gaiety when we arrived, and Mr King was looking, as well he might, content with his evening’s work. He was happy to oblige us in our request; we were equally happy to twirl around the floor while we waited for the note of introduction.

  It was agreed that, armed with Mr King’s letter, the four of us should set out betimes the following morning. Strictly, Turner was a supernumerary, but we were persuaded that to leave him at the hotel when the rest of us were abroad would have been cruelty itself. With all his sober ways, it was easy to forget that the man was but ten years older than I, and I knew my feelings had I been similarly placed. Kitted out in a borrowed cape, he insisted on sitting outside, blowing the yard of tin at Jem’s behest, Jem driving Dr Hansard’s carriage.

  If Sir Hellman’s abode was opulent, Sir Thomas’s was little short of palatial, a veritable Gloucestershire Chatsworth. It could have been little more than thirty years old, blending elegance and solidity with beautifully landscaped grounds coming into their full maturity.

  ‘All built on slavery,’ Hansard muttered.

  I must express my horror. ‘Indeed?’

  ‘How else would a Bristol merchant make this much money? When everyone else is making money the same way, moral stances are very difficult, Tobias. My Indian fortune was modest by many men’s standards, and to the best of my knowledge not a penny came from dishonest or immoral sources, but there is a part of my conscience that is glad I lost the greater part. At least now I have the satisfaction of knowing that every penny coming into my coffers is entirely untainted.

  ‘Now,’ he continued, as Jem tooled us to the huge portico sheltering the front door, ‘recall that we are here simply to enquire about Lady Elham’s whereabouts, bearers as we are of news of a family misfortune. Only when we have Lady Templemead’s trust do we speak of Lizzie and why she may have left Lady Templemead’s employment.’

  I nodded. ‘I will become the very pattern-card of an unctuous clergyman.’

  How I wished that I had the benefit of my mother’s interest in, and knowledge of, all the families of the ton. She would have known all about Lady Templemead, from her antecedents to her alliances, her strengths to her Achilles heel.

  A very superior butler, clearly disdainful of our provincial addresses, informed us that Lady Templemead was not at home. On my addressing him as coldly as my father would have done, however, he condescended to accept on a salver Mr King’s letter of introduction, and to show us into the library.

  This was a room of such exquisite proportion that I declare I could have waited all day for a response, especially when I saw that the quality of the volumes on the shelves lining every wall matched that of the furniture and the silk carpets. Here were all the great classical authors, learned histories, volumes of poetry and what looked like a First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays. Dr Hansard, meanwhile, was enthralled by the tomes on the history of India.

  The pretty clock on the marble mantelpiece announced that we had waited a full hour before the double doors at the far end opened, the butler bowing deeply before a lady of Mrs Beckles’ age but with none of the warmth of that lady’s expression that always suggested that the very sight of you had improved her day. Rather Lady Templemead, if it was she, had made such a habit of disdaining her acquaintance that her face was now set in a sneer. Clearly even our best Bath finery did not impress her. Why should it indeed? She was as elegant a lady as I had ever seen, her dress silk, her hair dressed in the latest mode and covered with the tiniest wisp of a cap. She provided two fingers for us to make our bows over.

  ‘Lady Templemead,’ I began, ‘as Mr King’s letter will possibly have informed you, we are here only to make enquiries as to Lady Elham’s whereabouts.’

  ‘So I understand. But I cannot apprehend why you should conceive for one moment why I could help you.’

  ‘Lady Elham has given us to understand that you are cousins,’ I said, ‘and, moreover, close friends.’

  ‘Cousins? Believe me, it is the most distant of connections. Bosom bows with that woman? Indeed no. We may be nodding acquaintances in Bath, but then, one is with so many people one would not wish to meet elsewhere.’

  ‘So you have no idea where she might be now?’

  ‘None.’ Her tone, her demeanour, told us that our interview was over.

  ‘Your ladyship, might I ask if your acquaintance was such that you might employ one of her ladyship’s servants?’ I asked. Was there an etiquette in such matters or had I simply made myself look foolish.

  ‘That would be a matter of convenience, not friendship. There are, however, some whose personal recommendations one would give more credence to than others.’ She did not need to add, that Lady Elham was not one of those. Her cold smile spoke volumes.

  I was about to blurt that Lady Elham was fashionable enough not to have her word doubted, when Dr Hansard stepped forward, with his most charming and conciliating smile.

  ‘Indeed, your ladyship,’ he said with a sigh, as if not just understanding but agreeing with her. I had seen my mother adopt just such a tone, when extracting gossip from uncomprehending acquaintances.

  ‘Such waywardness of manner,’ her ladyship agreed, dropping her voice and indicating that we might sit. ‘One moment in the boughs, the next quite mawkish. At one moment she was talking of remarrying – at her age, Dr Hansard! – the next of taking the veil and retiring to a convent.’

  ‘Is that why she wished to place her abigail with another lady?’ he asked, placing himself at right angles to her on one of the sofas. ‘Because she herself no longer needed her?’

  ‘Abigail? Abigail? What is this?’

  ‘We understood,’ Hansard explained smoothly, ‘that Lizzie Woodman, Lady Elham’s personal maid, had evinced a desire to live in town, and that you, spending more time there than Lady Elham and being in need of a dresser, had agreed to employ Lizzie.’

  She had begun to shake her head even before Hansard had finished speaking. ‘I have been faithfully served by my dresser since the dreadful times in France. Marie has talents a younger woman could not dream of.’ She did nothing so vulgar as to smooth her hair or dress in order to elicit a compliment for either herself or for her dresser.

  I kept my voice as calm as I could. ‘So you never employed Lizzie Woodman in your household?’

  She looked at me with a thin eyebrow indicating that she preferred to converse with the genial doctor. ‘I may have a scullery maid by that name… How would I know?’

  How indeed? Benevolent employer my own mother was, but I suspected the staff she knew by name were far outnumbered by those equally essential to her comfort who remained completely anonymous as far as she was concerned. I accepted the rebuke with a bow.

  Hansard shook his head in apparent sympathy. But I knew that even as he uttered his bland platitudes, he must be as desperate to confer with me as I was with him.

  ‘And what is the news you must so urgently convey to Lady Elham?’ Lady Templemead demanded.

  ‘A family matter only,’ Dr Hansard said.

  ‘A matter serious enough to send you chasing about the countryside in search of her?’ Lady Templemead observed. ‘The very thought gives me palpitations.’

  ‘Palpitations?’ Hansard’s voice was like honey. ‘My dear lady – and spasms, too, no doubt? Permit me.’ He took her wrist,
and solemnly nodded his head. ‘Ah, there is some sign of distress in your pulse. You must not overexert yourself, my lady, or I cannot answer for the consequences. Should the symptoms persist, I must tell you that there is no better man than Sir William Knighton.’

  We rose as one, our sympathy for her almost all she desired.

  ‘But I have been so remiss! I have omitted to offer you poor travellers refreshment. Pray, a little wine?’ She was ready to ring the bell.

  ‘Alas, my lady, we must decline your kind offer. We must continue our search for Lady Elham. Pray, have you no idea where she might be found?’

  She stared. ‘In her home at Moreton Priory, I should suppose.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Jem and Turner deduced from our grave faces and unwillingness for conversation that we had serious tidings. However, our news must wait until we could speak in private. Accordingly, they observed the usual master–servant niceties until at last we arrived at a respectable-looking inn. Although Turner tried to bespeak a private parlour, the best the landlord could offer was the taproom, which, he assured, was always empty at this time of day. For all our sakes we were happy to accept this offer and the refreshment he promised.

  At last, foaming tankards before us, we could open our budget. They listened in silence until the narrative was complete.

  ‘Lady Elham was lying all along!’ Jem breathed. ‘There never was a job in London, or a secret husband, or a journey to Warwick or Leamington?’

  ‘There might have been all three, but not while Lizzie was in the employment of Lady Templemead,’ Hansard replied.

  ‘Why should Lady Elham lie?’ And so wildly? I thought of her words about Lizzie and her babe.

  ‘The usual reason is to protect someone,’ Turner said, applying himself fastidiously to the landlord’s best home brew.

  ‘But who? You tell us it is impossible for Lord Elham to have killed Lizzie because he was locked up in Lymbury Park,’ Jem said, with such anger that he might almost have been blaming Hansard himself for Lizzie’s death.

  Hansard, moreover, might have been accepting the blame. ‘All I can suggest, gentlemen, is that we return to Lymbury Park to see if I mistook the dates, or if there is forgery that it would take better eyes than mine to detect.’ He looked at his watch. ‘We are to dine with Sir Hellman this evening, Tobias, are we not? So stop sipping at that glass as if you were a delicate miss straight from a seminary. We have miles to cover, and fast.’

  Jem wasted no time, but, knowing the horses had to make the return journey, did not force the pace. Suddenly, however, he brought the carriage to a halt on the main road. We peered out. There was no sign of an accident.

  Turner had already leapt down, and was helping someone to his feet.

  ‘I am all for charity, Tobias, and could recite as well as you the story of the good Samaritan, but what the deuce does Turner want with a beggar when he knows that speed is of the essence?’

  Turner returned at a run, putting his face to the window. ‘It is the man whom Jem and I met that inn, sir!’

  ‘The venial man?’ I prompted him.

  ‘Indeed. He has lost his post at Lymbury Park and is walking to Bath to seek employment there. May we take him up, sir?’

  At first my instinct was to suggest that Turner relinquished his place beside Jem and joined us inside himself, Turner knowing the art of companionable silence. However, I soon realised both my selfishness and my folly; in his disgruntlement, there might be much more that the dismissed servant could tell us.

  It seemed that Hansard had the same idea. ‘By all means. Turner, invite him into the carriage, please. We may find he is less venial now. And does he have a name?’

  ‘Sam, sir.’

  Sam was exhausted and hungry. Losing his employment as an attendant had lost him access to the servants’ hall and also his home.

  ‘Sam Eccleshall at your service, gents both,’ he declared with a low as he got into the carriage. ‘I was seen speaking to Jem and whatshisname, sir,’ he told Hansard. ‘And for all I told them I’d been as secret as the tomb, they threw me out. And I’m not used to this walking, sir – I got blisters the size of florins, and I’ll swear my stomach’s flapping in the wind.’

  ‘Jem and Turner will take you to the inn while we speak to Dr Brighouse,’ Hansard assured him, ‘and there you can eat your fill. Then, if you still wish to find work in Bath, we can convey you there the moment we conclude our business at the Park. I wonder why they didn’t want you to talk to Jem and Turner,’ he mused, as if not expecting an answer, which he could in any case have supplied himself. Sam had given away information that his employers had not wished others to know, and by doing so betrayed their trust in him.

  ‘I dunno. I never told them nothing to the purpose, did I? Maybe you kind gentlemen could put in good word for me.’

  ‘Maybe we could. As a matter of fact, we may well be able to do so,’ he assured him, duplicitously. ‘I’m sure good strong reliable men like you are hard to find. It’s not everyone who would care to work in an insane asylum.’

  ‘Indeed, nor would they, sir. The sights you do see would move many a man to tears, I can tell you. But not me, not no more. I’m used to it, see.’

  ‘What sort of thing might move one to tears?’ I asked, not seeing why Hansard should have to shoulder all the burden of the conversation.

  ‘Seeing those young lads crying for their nurses – that’s sad, that is. And seeing old men, swaddled up like babies.’

  ‘Old men?’ Now I came to think of it, all the inmates that we had seen had been young. Even the party working in the gardens had been no more than five and thirty. I had a sudden pang of fear: what if that cordial ex-soldier had been observed as he spoke to me, and he too had now paid the price? There was little enough work for the halt and the lame.

  ‘One or two.’

  ‘And when did they arrive?’

  Hansard went too fast.

  A cunning look crossed Sam’s face. ‘I suppose you gents wouldn’t have a drop of daffy about you? Or blue ruin? ’Cause I’m fair parched, that I can tell you. No?’

  ‘At the inn, Sam, at the inn. And a good beefsteak.’

  ‘Now, you were telling us about these poor old men—’ I leant forward confidentially, receiving for my pains a gust of stinking breath.

  ‘Ah, so I was. Like the others, filled to the ears with laudanum, and such. You’ll know the sort of thing, sir, being a medical man,’ he told Hansard.

  I raised an eyebrow; it was unlike Turner to have been so indiscreet.

  ‘And what else?’ he asked.

  ‘They see things. And sometimes they won’t give them any laudanum and they see worse things. The screaming and hollering they do make. One old guy, he comes in as sweet as you or me, and they’ve got him up on that top floor, through all that snow and frost, and you wonder he survived. No fires, you see, in case they harms themselves, or sets fire to the place.’

  ‘And when did this old man come?’

  He pulled a face. ‘Just as the weather turned cold, sir. A weather-beaten old cove he was, suffering something shocking with his rheumatics.

  ‘And when did you say the weather changed?’

  He smacked dry lips. But he knew he had met his match in Hansard. ‘A couple of weeks before Christmas, gennelmen. Maybe three or four. No, not so long. Three.’

  I could see from Hansard’s expression that he was going through the same mental processes as I. John Sanderson – dear John Coachman – was supposed to have died here in Bath. There was no evidence in any of the parish records of his death. Perhaps, praise the Lord, he might still be alive, and incarcerated in the same secretive asylum as Lord Elham.

  Hansard rubbed his hands as he caught my eye. ‘Thank you, Sam. Now, I wonder how far it is to that inn.’

  I have never seen my friend move so fast. Flourishing an entirely blank piece of paper he had purchased from the landlord of the inn where we had deposited Sam, he burst into Br
ighouse’s book room.

  ‘John Sanderson! In the name of the law, where are you keeping John Sanderson? So help me, if I have to choke the information out of you, I shall have it!’ Hansard grabbed the other doctor by the throat.

  ‘I have no patient by that name—’

  ‘Have you that patient by another name? Speak, man!’

  Brighouse’s eyes were bulging. All he could do was point upwards.

  ‘If he’s dead, by God you shall pay for it!’

  ‘Let him speak, Edmund,’ I whispered urgently. ‘Do not have his blood on your hands.’

  ‘And the blood of how many others is on his hands? Pah!’ He suddenly released his hold, and threw him across the room. ‘On your feet! Lead the way.’ He grabbed him by the scruff of his neck to assist him.

  We found what was left of John Coachman in a cell-like room neither better nor worse than the one in which we had found Lord Elham the previous day. The doses of laudanum had left him vacant-eyed, with a severe tremor. What little hair he had was now snow white; his strong frame, prey once to nothing worse than rheumatism, was reduced to skin and bone; as for his head, there was no sign of the kindly but shrewd mind that had once functioned within.

  ‘What is to be done?’ I whispered.

  Once John Coachman had been moved to a superior room, one adjacent, in fact, to Lord Elham’s, we adjourned to Dr Brighouse’s book room. Now the personification of the obliging physician, with no more than occasional fingering of what must be a very bruised throat, Brighouse summoned yet more refreshments for us all.

  ‘You will not be surprised if I ask you to eat and drink what you offer before we touch anything.’ Hansard smiled grimly. ‘Why did you do it, Brighouse? Connive in the living death of that old man?’