“My lord, if I might explain …”
“But where a man has expressed certain opinions he has, I think, the right to loyalty on the part of his servants. You knew my views on witchhunts, did you not?” Mr. Farrow swallowed. “Precisely. Yet you left me only to lead one. A perfectly harmless gentlewoman, whose only crime was that she cared more for the village people than you did, was nearly drowned yesterday afternoon. What defense have you?”
“It is well known that the woman is a witch. The way she looks at you is enough to send shivers down your spine. She told old Garroway that he would die before the winter was out, and he did; and him as hale and hearty a man as you could meet. Now Mrs. Barnes’ child is wasting away.”
“I heard all about that from Job, the miller. The child is dying of consumption, brought about by a leaking roof and poor food. If anyone is to blame for the child’s illness it is not Miss Tarrant, who has done what she could to ease the boy’s cough, but you, who diverted money which ought to have repaired the roof. You persecuted Miss Tarrant because she dared to criticize you.”
Mr. Farrow’s mouth narrowed. “Everyone knows the Tarrant women are witches. Perhaps they’ve bewitched you, too.” The Earl opened his mouth to deliver a blistering rebuke, but Mr. Farrow hurried on. “Let me explain, first, why it was that I kept the money back. It was to further your interests. I thought you would be pleased if I could enlarge your property. You must know that I am very friendly with Sir John Bladen, and that he is to buy Tarrant Hall at a knock-down price. He’s got those fools where he wants them; they’re so deep in debt they’ll take any price to settle their most pressing commitments. Sir John is very clever, and he’s going to offer them about half of what the property is worth, and they’ll take it, because he’s going to give the Tarrant women a home when the place is sold.” Mr. Farrow sniggered. “Sooner him than me, married to that termagant, but he says he knows how to break her in once they’re wed. Now Sir John, being a friend of mine, is going to let me buy the mill off him, at a fair price. It’s a fine investment.”
“Thanks entirely to the Tarrant family, who have looked after their tenants better than you have looked after mine. No, Mr. Farrow, it will not do. I daresay you did intend to buy the mill, but the deeds would have been in your name, and not in mine.”
“I swear by Almighty …”
“Pray, do not. I would not believe you, and if there is a God, He might hear you blaspheme. I will not prosecute you, if you compensate me for what you have stolen. I will have Mr. Denbigh go over the accounts with you, and decide what you must pay. Your tenancy of one of my cottages is hereby terminated; you have seven days to pack up and go.”
“Not so fast.” The man’s voice grated. “You can’t turn me out like that. I know too much. I’ve been watching you, I have, and there’s things I could tell that you wouldn’t like known. You’re all alike, you stinking aristocrats, with your fine airs and your back-door intrigues. What if I were to tell the truth about Mr. Philip Rich, eh? What if I were to let it out that the Earl of Rame has been riding around the countryside in disguise, consorting with traitors and witches? That wouldn’t go down well with your high and mighty friends in London, would it?”
The Earl touched the handbell at his side. The butler answered.
“Fetch the man Dodge, and two of your strongest men.”
“What are you going to do?” asked Mr. Farrow, uneasiness taking the edge off his aggression.
The Earl did not deign to reply, but occupied himself with taking snuff. Mr. Dodge duly presented himself, backed by two large footmen. The Earl indicated his former agent.
“This reptile has had the temerity to threaten me. He is under notice to quit for fraud. I need him under my eye for a few days, until Mr. Denbigh has had a chance to go over the accounts with him. Would you be so good as to bestow him in some secure place about the Manor?”
“Now, look you here …” Mr. Farrow lunged forward, to be caught back by Mr. Dodge.
“Moreover,” said the Earl, in the same gentle voice, “The man seems to have threatened some of the villagers with eviction and other unpleasantness unless they do his bidding. I would not wish any of the locally-recruited servants to be exposed to his malice. Would you place a trustworthy, and preferably deaf, guard on duty outside the room in which you propose to keep him? The same man should be present when Mr. Denbigh visits Mr. Farrow, to avoid violence.”
Mr. Farrow spat. “You …”
Mr. Dodge laid a large hand over his captive’s mouth. “There,” he said soothingly. “You don’t want to swear in the presence of your betters. Trust me, your lordship. He’ll be kept on his tod, as the saying goes.”
Mr. Farrow was hauled away.
Chivers glided into the room and hovered. He looked pale, but determined.
“Try smiling,” said the Earl. “This is not the Day of Judgment, you know.”
“My lord, I have served you for twelve years now, ever since you came back with Mr. Denbigh from abroad. You never asked me about my past, and …”
“But I knew, Chivers. Your previous master told me something of your history, and he also said that he could not have wished for a more loyal and discreet servant.”
“You knew I had been in prison? And you never said anything?”
“I thought you preferred it that way.”
“Yes, I did. But when I saw Jeremiah Dodge in that valley, standing over the Frenchman, I thought I’d seen him before. I didn’t remember where until much later, and I’ve been living in dread ever since that he would turn up again and my secret would come out, and you’d dismiss me.”
“Certainly not,” said the Earl. “I wouldn’t dream of doing any such thing. Who else could make me presentable, when I’ve got a black eye? Smile, man. It’s not a hanging matter.”
“You don’t plan to dismiss me?”
“Certainly not. Your presence will be of great assistance to me as a check on Mr. Dodge, who by the way is now a trusted agent working for the Government. If you had any notion that you might have seen him before, either in Newgate, or on a deserted road at night, I think you would do well to forget it. I am certain that he will be equally silent about your past.”
Later that day Mr. Denbigh tried to persuade the Earl not to attend the party at Tarrant Hall.
“Philip, we have known each other a long time now, and you have been kind enough to call me your friend. As a friend I say to you: pause and reflect. I know you well; you have a reputation for good nature which is misleading. You are not tolerant, merely indifferent to most things that happen around you, Only now and again, perhaps once every five years or so, you become obsessed by some idea or person, and then you allow nothing to stand in your way. On occasion, I have applauded your ambition; for instance, I thought you wise to go into the Army. But at other times I have had to stand by and watch while you played havoc with other people’s lives.”
“You are thinking of the little sempstress who drowned herself? Was I to blame for her melancholia?”
“No, but you were to blame for pursuing her when you knew she was a respectable girl. You knew her parents would disown her.”
“Am I any worse than any of my friends?”
“No, but you are more persistent when you really want something. Now I see you want Tarrant Hall. True, it is on the market, but consider that if you buy it, Miss Sophia and Miss Nan will lose their home. Had you thought of that?”
He shrugged. “Sir John will no doubt take his bride and her aunt into his own house. Tarrant Hall pleases me.”
“What of the ideas you are putting into Sir Jasper’s head? Can you send that lad into danger with a clear conscience?”
“I have warned him what to expect. Is it my fault that he is of an adventurous temperament?”
“And Miss Sophia? You cannot mean to marry her, and anything else is unthinkable—isn’t it?”
The Earl held his smile until it became a grimace, and then stood up.
; “I must go out. I have an appointment to meet Jasper at the mill.”
Once more the great coach rumbled through the dusk, carrying the Earl, Mr. Denbigh and Chivers, but this time the Earl was dressed in a coat of dark blue cloth, without patches or paint. Only Chivers knew how much care the Earl had taken with his appearance for an unfashionable country party. Usually he went through the ritual of dressing for a function with the air of one grimly doing his duty, but this time he had shown an anxiety to appear at his best which merely reinforced the valet’s forebodings.
The moon was up—no one would have contemplated attending such a party if the moon had not been available to light them to and fro,—and the lights of the village twinkled through the trees as they turned into the Tarrants’ private road. The sky was cloudless; there was a drift of stars here, and yonder rose the moon, as fat and yellow as cheese.
“It’s no wonder children cry to play with the moon,” said Philip, breaking the silence which had reigned since they left the Manor. “I quite fancy the idea myself.”
His companions regarded him in silence. Philip knew that they guessed what he intended to do that evening, and that they disapproved. He shot his ruffles and smiled to himself.
Seduction was an ugly word, which he had not had to consider before. Women of a certain class had always been willing, and he had not previously been tempted by a woman of his own class to have to think about it. Only, Sophia was not of his class. There was as big a gap between his rank and hers, as there was between his rank and that of the women of the opera whom he had patronized in the past. He wanted her, but marriage was out of the question. Tonight was his last chance to seduce her. A large party … long, boring hours at table … too much to drink … manners slipping away in the country-dances … he could arrange to whisk her into a sideroom and. …
The consequences? She would not make a scene. If she were a virgin now, she had wit enough to fool Sir John that she was still one when they married. He had a reputation for drinking heavily.
The coach drew up in the courtyard, amid a jumble of carts and carriages. The Earl descended and looked around him. He thought the situation of the Hall was delightful, and would be even better if a new approach road were to be made … a new roof … the ancient gateway was also in need of repairs … Like the moon, the Hall was his to grasp, if he wanted it badly enough. He was smiling as he passed through the doorway.
Chapter Five
The third course of dishes was being removed from the top table, and the wine glasses replenished. The food had already been removed from the lower tables, at which the tenants were seated; Philip acknowledged a wink from Job, the miller, who sat at the head of one of these tables. The gentry, seated at the top table, had been served with more courses of food, and had drunk French wine, instead of the beer which was being handed round to the tenants and their wives. Most faces were flushed with drink, and some bore traces of the food of which they had recently partaken. Here was an elderly gentleman with an ear trumpet who boasted to Philip that he had fought with Marlborough, and there a child in petticoats—sex unknown—who slept in its mother’s lap. There were gaps at the tenants’ tables, but the gentry seemed to have rallied to support Jasper, in spite of his aunt’s reputation. Many had come considerable distances to be at the Hall that night and would in consequence be staying the night. Others, like the Bladens, would return to their own homes later.
Marjorie Bladen, all dimples and curves, sat next to Jasper. Sir John had been heard to disapprove of this arrangement in no uncertain terms, but Mr. Carramine had soothed him by saying that it would probably be the last time the two young people met. Maijorie was innocently proud of her new brocade dress which, she said, her father had bought her in anticipation of her making a visit to London. Yet her eyes were shadowed when she spoke of the metropolis, and eager when Jasper lifted her hand to his lips. Others beside Philip noticed the attention Jasper was paying Miss Bladen, and also concluded that the girl would be happier married to a local boy than packed off to London and the marriage market.
Miss Nan presided over the feast with an eye for everyone’s plate but her own. She ate little, drank water, and her eyes seemed enormous beneath her lace cap. By tacit consent, no one referred to her recent experience, but Philip thought that it had aged her. She was resplendent in a black silk dress which had been turned twice, but to which she lent such grace that she made every other woman look overdressed.
Sophia sat at Sir John’s side, playing the part of modest and gracious maidenhood. She bent her head, and smiled at him, whenever he chose to throw a word in her direction; this was not often, for it seemed that Sir John enjoyed his food as much as he enjoyed his wine. Sophia’s hair was tidier than usual, but she had coaxed one long curl to lie along her neck and down over her bosom. This curl fascinated Philip, it was so round and dark and lustrous that he wanted to wind it round his fingers and kiss it. It would be soft and retain something of her fragrance. … She was dressed today in a rose-colored gown of old-fashioned cut, which might once have been her mother’s. It suited her well enough, although it was cut lower in front than fashion decreed. Her bosom was whiter than ever by contrast with that swinging dark curl. He let go of his wineglass, lest he snap its stem.
He had been seated between a deaf old lady and a young girl who giggled whenever he spoke to her. Opposite, however, sat Mr. Carramine, whose conversation had made the banquet endurable.
“A very pleasant wine,” observed Mr. Carramine, who had drunk as sparingly as Philip.
“Imported?”
Mr. Carramine laughed. “You dare not refuse it. Or the tobacco to follow. I know you—you could not be so impolite. Come, now; smile!”
“I was thinking that Jasper had become a man, almost overnight.”
“Yes, the boy told me.”
Philip took snuff, his eyes on Mr. Carramine’s face. This was unexpected. Or was it? “What did he tell you?”
“Of your interest in his future. Of your suggestions as to what he might do.” The Earl said nothing. “He asked my advice. I did not know what to say, and so I took the coward’s part and said nothing. I will not influence him, one way or the other. I am reminded of what happened to our fishpond when someone introduced a pike into its waters; the fish disappeared almost overnight. I know when I’m outclassed.” Mr. Carramine nodded to where Miss Nan sat, ignored by her neighbors. “She’s worried, too. I told her nothing, because the secret was not mine to share, but she is so quick, so intuitive, that I would be careful what I said to her if I were you. She wanted to know if I were in your confidence, and what your plans were with regard to the Tarrants. I told her that you could be trusted to behave like a gentleman.”
Philip hooded his eyes, and felt color rise in his cheeks, but still he said nothing.
“She wasn’t talking about Jasper,” said Mr. Carramine, driving the point home with a sledgehammer.
“Miss Tarrant ought to pay some of her relatives a visit,” said Philip, speaking quickly to cover his discomfort. “Her position here must be most uncomfortable, with everyone declaring they don’t believe in witches, but nevertheless managing to avoid speaking to her directly.”
“I agree,” said Mr. Carramine. “But where could she go? By the way, did you hear the latest? They say that the witch summoned up the devil to rescue her from drowning. …”
The ladies rose and left the hall, with many adjurations to the men not to sit long over the port. Sophia passed behind Philip’s back without a glance. He wondered if anyone else—else—apart from Miss Nan and Mr. Carramine—had noticed how much of an effort Sophia was making to avoid him.
Jasper proposed the loyal toast, to which Mr. Carramine replied with “Sir Jasper!” And then Sir John cried that they should all drink “To the Rose of Tarrant Hall!” There was much laughter, and some coarse comment about Sophia’s marrying Sir John; laughter in which Jasper did not join. He moved round the table to sit next to Philip. He was as sober as Philip, an
d his eyes were everywhere.
“A man brought me a letter this afternoon,” he said. “It is from my uncle, Sir Gregory Midmain. You remember that I asked him if he would help me get a commission? Well, he will not. It appears he wishes nothing further to do with me. He has been informed that I have had dealings with the Jacobites, and that my father and brother fought for King Louis; he is pained and surprised that I should have applied to him under such circumstances. What do you think of that?”
Philip glanced around. Mr. Carramine’s attention had been claimed by someone else. No one else was close enough to overhear them. “I think it might be interesting to know the identity of the man who brought the letter. It did not come by the common post, I take it?”
“No, a stranger brought it. He was fat and smiled a lot, but his eyes were …” Jasper shuddered.
“Ah. I think your uncle’s letter was dictated by someone at Court. I know the knave who brought it to you, and he is in the employ of Newcastle. It seems someone has made sure your uncle does not help you.”
The lad sighed. His shoulders slackened. Then he straightened in his chair and the lines of his face hardened. “Well, it is only what we expected, after all. It is quite clear what I must do. They leave me no alternative. Mr. Carramine said he couldn’t decide whether to applaud my courage, or deplore my folly. You have been good friends to me, both of you.”
“You have faced the fact that if you are caught your life will be forfeit?”
“Mr. Carramine pointed that out, too. So be it. I refuse to stay on here, in debt, with nothing to do except farm and get drunk. If I don’t go this way, I’ll likely be caught smuggling. I don’t mind danger, but I do mind being bored. I am beginning to understand what drove my father and brother away. If I could only have got more money out of Sir John for the sale of the Hall, I’d be happy to go.”
“Mr. Farrow told me that Sir John does not mean to deal fairly with you over the sale of Tarrant Hall.”
The Tarrant Rose Page 9
