When the sugar decorations had to be coloured, Tabitha returned to favour. One busy morning, when Jane was packing up a box of cordials, she was allowed to pick up a tiny brush, dipping it into the palette of edible pinks, greens and yellows with a steady hand. She had worn no paint for almost two weeks, but these colours reminded her of the sooty eye-paints and rose-tinted rouges of which she had been robbed in Chester. When Jane complimented her work, she confessed that her talent with brush and paint was only from long practice at a mirror. Her spirits reviving, she began to regale Jane with an account of how women wore their paint in London.
‘First the face is made very pale with almond powder; the very height of elegance. Then carmine is doused on a piece of swansdown and coloured just here – on the centre of the cheek. Then take a black patch shaped like a star, or even a coquettish heart, and apply it just beneath the eye. Or even,’ she giggled, ‘set it high on the curve of the bosom. You can imagine how that draws the gentlemen’s eyes.’
The room had fallen suddenly quiet. Tabitha looked up from the flower she was painting to see that Jane was sitting very stiffly, with her head held exceedingly low; the girl cast her a sideways glance of severest warning. She craned her neck and looked around.
Parson Dilks was regarding her with such concentrated loathing that it fair knocked the breath from her lungs. Shrinking back, she also bowed her head low over her work, and fell silent.
‘And, behold, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot, and a subtle heart,’ Parson Dilks pronounced, beneath his breath. Then, picking up his box of cordials, he turned on his heels and left them.
In the evenings, Joshua called at the cottage and repaired the door. He also brought gifts for her and Bess: a loaf of white bread, a length of cotton thread, a crude poppet doll. Yet he continued ill-tempered, no closer to finding Darius.
‘I reckon he’s disappeared down those secret peddlers’ paths to Manchester, or upriver to Liverpool,’ he complained. Tabitha wasn’t so sure, but she kept her notions to herself, watching Jennet sitting silently by the fireplace. The next day, she was not surprised to see the girl stealthily hiding a bundle under a hawthorn bush. Returning later, she found it packed tight with bread, cheese and bacon. Telling herself to leave well alone, she watched both father and daughter, and pondered the perils of interfering.
As the days passed, she packed up the few of her mother’s well-loved goods she wanted to take with her to London. It was then that she came across the macabre pocket watch she had pilfered in Chester. She swung it gently on its silver chain, repelled by its likeness to a laughing skull. Yet there was some very fine etching on the silver, illustrating a dozen reminders of life’s brevity. Though she tried to wind it, she could not restart its mechanism. Nevertheless, it had to be worth a considerable sum and she itched to be rid of it.
There was so much that she wanted to be free of. Life as a cottager did not suit her: the tedium of tending the fire, hauling water from the well and boiling all their food in the pot made her want to throw the heavy pail at the wall. She wished to be rid of Joshua’s jealousy, too. Surely her departure would be a deliverance for him as well.
‘Who was that letter from?’ he demanded, on the eve of the harvest feast. ‘It bore a very fine seal.’
‘I am surprised you did not open it,’ she replied wearily. He had followed her into the back chamber, where she was trying to pack up her possessions. Striding towards her, he grasped her wrist so tightly that she cursed him. She tried to pull away but he had twice her bulk and strength.
‘Why should I have opened it? Should I suspect you?’
As he stared fiercely into her face, such a fit of exasperation boiled up inside her that she stepped up to him, pushed her elbow up to his and forced his arm out of joint. It was a common streetwalkers’ trick that Poll had taught her, to shake off unwanted admirers. With a little whimper of pain, Joshua moved back.
‘Oh, Joshua. Why do you not just find a village maiden to marry?’ When he glared at her in sullen silence, she added, ‘Or take a ride to Chester and pay for a tumble?’
‘I hate your filthy mouth.’ He scowled. ‘I wish you were not so … worldly.’
‘And I wish you were not such a damnable prig.’
‘I shall go, then.’ Still he stared at her, until a little flame of her old fondness overcame her, and she touched his arm. At once, he trapped her against the wall and kissed her as if he wanted to devour her alive. When he released her, he looked dazed and angry.
It was hopeless. She knew she had to stop this folly, to tell him she was leaving.
He looked at her, unrelieved misery clouding his face; then he left, banging the door so loudly that Bess woke and started to wail.
Alone, Tabitha slumped down on the bed and stared out at the moon, shimmering and mysterious behind a curtain of light rain. She blamed her contrariness on the monthly courses that always troubled her at the month’s midward point. Each night, the moon had waxed ever brighter, until now it was a silver doubloon, hanging so low it looked close enough to grasp in her hand. It was a bad omen, she remembered, to gather the last of the harvest in the wet. When she went to bed that night she remained restless, and so was Bess: the child toddled in and hauled herself up beside her on the bed. Mostly the child was a damnable nuisance, though she had to admit there were times when the little chit had her charms. With an insistent squeal, Bess stretched out her arms for Tabitha to hold her close. She guessed her own mother must have embraced her on many such a lonely night.
No, Tabitha told her sternly. She was leaving soon, and it would be a cruelty to indulge her. True, she had not yet found a place for the child, for the moment never seemed apt to begin enquiries. In the meantime, she had decided to leave Bess with Jennet for a few days, and then post her a good sum of Robert’s money from London. After all, Jennet preferred the cottage to her own home, and had a natural affection for Bess. And surely it would be best if the child stayed on in Netherlea?
On a whim, Tabitha got up and lit a candle from the embers. She leafed through her mother’s almanack from St James’ day, to St Lawrence’s, to the Harvest Moon. It told her that the morrow was the fourteenth day of August, when for one day of the year human clocks and watches would run true to the minute with the heavens. She frowned over the coming day’s motto, ‘There shall be blood on the harvest corn.’ Well, there had been plenty of rabbits for the pot that week. Tomorrow, the last panicked creatures would be trapped in the stands of corn before the sharp scythes cut them down. Sowing and reaping, ploughing and gathering, birthing and butchering: it was all Mother Nature’s way.
On the morning of the harvest feast, the sky was bright and clear again, and the bustle at Bold Hall reached dizzying speed. The great barn was hung with flowers and corn dollies, and the trestle tables were set out in rows. All the hoard of produce laid by throughout the summer was at last broken out of jars, boxes and baskets. Tabitha’s great-aunt called at the stillroom every few hours, to give a report on events upstairs. There was a final panic when a De Vallory sugar crest cracked in half, at which Nell made a silent sign against bad luck.
‘And Master Francis has gone off again,’ Sarah tutted. She sidled in a little closer. ‘What with the wet corn stooks, Sir John was as sharp as a wasp at breakfast.’
‘So where’d they think Master Francis has gone?’ Nell asked.
‘The doctor told him that most likely he is drunk in a ditch. Her ladyship ran off to her chamber, crying as ever.’
Tabitha had noticed the same derisive tone whenever they spoke of Lady Daphne.
Nell began her usual lament. ‘To have but the one son, and that one such a—’
‘Watch out.’ Her great-aunt looked meaningfully down the corridor. In a moment the doctor himself strode in and, after a kindly nod at the women, went to busy himself at the shelves. Tabitha watched him slyly, admiring the plush velvet stretched across his broad back and his fine curled wig. With graceful assurance he i
nspected the bottles ranged across the top shelves: pennyroyal, peppermint and laurel waters, and cordials of lavender and violet. His brother had overindulged and needed a purge as well as his usual dose of ratafia, he told her great-aunt, asking for some senna and rhubarb as well as nutmegs and Lisbon wine. His clean pink fingers worked deftly, pouring coloured waters into vials and holding the mixtures up to the light.
He smiled at Tabitha. ‘Miss Hart. You make yourself busy?’
She rose and bobbed. ‘Yes, thank you, Doctor.’
‘You look somewhat improved since our last meeting. Grief is no handmaid to beauty.’
He took a few paces over to the table and inspected the board of sugarplums Jane was modelling from red and green preserves. Tabitha had the written recipe in front of her and had been reading the instructions aloud with great care.
‘My brother has a tooth for those childish morsels. I confess I am more fastidious. Man produces only two sets of teeth in a lifetime, and I wish to keep mine.’
She smiled up into his clear, intelligent eyes.
‘Perhaps when your work here in the stillroom is finished you could help me put order in my papers?’
‘Perhaps, sir. But I still hope at some point to return to London.’
He watched her for a few more moments, and she caught sight of Nell tittering at Jane behind the doctor’s back. It was no surprise that they scoffed. If he had not been in every way the model of a fond old bachelor, she might have believed the doctor had designs upon her, too.
As the morning passed, Tabitha was kept busy fetching porcelain for their confections and laying them out in precise geometric fashion. There were other errands to be run, too, collecting fresh powdered sugar from the larder, and a special gilt tray from the housekeeper’s quarters. At the tail end of one of these forays, Tabitha stole a few minutes to persuade the hall boy to take her letter with the post.
‘Here, take a whole sixpence,’ she cajoled. ‘And no one will know how you earned it.’
The gawky youth had just agreed to put the letter in the post box when a familiar loud male voice made the lad nearly jump out of his braided coat.
‘Boy! Go, tell my groom to saddle Acteon.’
The lad scampered away and Tabitha found herself alone in the cubbyhole with Sir John De Vallory himself. He was little changed since their last meeting, nearly two years earlier. His hair was perhaps greyer, and his belly even larger, but the braggadocio he wore like a suit of gold was unchanged. He approached her with a wolfish expression.
‘Tabitha. My brother said you were back. Good.’ He slipped his arm around her waist. ‘We must meet soon, and in private. Christ above, Tabitha, you don’t know how glad I am to see you. I have—’
Before he could continue someone bayed out from the hall, ‘Sir John! Has anyone seen Sir John? The farmer has ridden here, all in a lather, and will speak to him alone.’
Pressing his tobacco-stained fingers to her lips to signal silence, the master of Bold Hall turned and disappeared through the door.
‘Damn, damn,’ Tabitha muttered, striking a fist against the wall. What a nincompoop she’d been, to think she could come here to Bold Hall and Sir John would not learn of it. His presence, powerful and musky, still filled the tiny room. Oh, Venus, oh, Cupid; how soon could she make her escape?
No more than an hour later, a different boy in the De Vallory livery pushed his way inside the stillroom.
‘A message for Tabitha Hart. You must come at once to Riddings’ field.’
Both Jane and Nell turned to give their full attention.
‘Who sent you?’ Inwardly, she groaned to think that Sir John must already be plotting an encounter.
‘Constable Saxton.’
‘What does he want now?’ She glanced at the boy and noticed for the first time that he was agitated and beaded with sweat.
‘You are the searcher, miss? That’s who I must fetch.’ The boy reached out for the edge of the table to steady himself.
‘Whatever’s the matter, lad?’ demanded Nell.
‘There’s a dead body been found, hidden in the corn. It’s the worst thing I ever seed, ma’am. Some fellow’s been hacked to death, right here in our own Riddings’ field.’
THIRTEEN
A Riddle
My weapon is exceeding bold,
Of which I think I may well boast
And I’ll attack old Colonel Gold
Together with his mighty host.
With my sharp tongue they can’t compare
I’ll conquer them both great and small,
Though thousands stand before me there
I’ll cut but get no harm at all.
The 14th day of August 1752
Harvest
Luminary: The Harvest Moon at Full.
Observation: Mars, Mercury, Saturn and Venus all direct in motion and very active.
Prognostication: Changes at hand either by death of displeasure.
Tabitha ran towards Riddings’ field, her thoughts turning somersaults. Who had been killed? It could not be Joshua, if he had sent for her – in spite of their last caustic meeting, she felt giddy with relief. Could it be Sir John? The grumbles against high rents, the muted accusations of his overreaching his position – all suggested the villagers’ violent opposition. And the Devil take her for a sinner, but she would feel a moment’s relief if Sir John conveniently disappeared.
As she pelted along the lane, a cart rattled up in her wake. After gasping out her mission, she was hauled up on to the board and jogged along in a hail of golden chaff. In the distance, the twisted chimneys of Eglantine Hall poked up behind the trees. A little snag of anxiety caught at her mind: she did not want the victim to be Nat Starling, either.
The Riddings’ cornfield came into view, and she leapt down, only to slow again as she spotted a tableau of men huddled at the field’s edge. After long hours working indoors, she could not help but notice the sky, shining cornflower blue above a row of hayricks as neatly thatched as miniature cottages, while poppies fluttered their venous petals underfoot. Yet there it was, something partly obscured, an object slumped and scarlet against the biscuit-golden corn. She marked the members of the assembled group off as she began to hurry towards them. Joshua was there; even from a distance he looked unsteady, as if drunk on punch-gut beer. The doctor was leaning over what she now saw was a bloody corpse with its face obscured. There was a labourer too, clutching his hat, gaping from a respectful distance, whom she guessed must have discovered the body. And there, kneeling on the stubbled ground, was Sir John himself. Gone was the puffed-up pigeon of a man – he was doubled over, his head bowed, like a broken version of his former self.
The shape was at first unknowable: a punctured sack of torn clothes twisted into an unnatural form. The victim had been kneeling, it seemed, when he died, but had toppled sideways so his face was deep in the standing corn. At least a dozen black-red gashes sliced through the remnants of his shirt, and a terrible wound lay open on his marble-white shoulder. Flies circled above him; Joshua nervously tried to bat them away with his hat. Coming closer, she saw a pair of lifeless eyes like two beads of pale jade. It was Francis De Vallory, heir of Netherlea.
Sir John was crooning over his son. ‘You did not deserve this, Francis. How in God’s name will I tell your mother?’
Then, turning round and seeing Joshua at his back, he cried harshly, ‘Find who did this! I’ll see the dog hang high.’
The doctor patted his brother’s shoulder, but Sir John lashed out in reply, pushing him so hard he almost stumbled.
‘Who the devil could have done this?’ he cried, his face pink and his breath wheezing. Looking about herself, Tabitha comprehended a great truth; that the murderer had not only severed the life of one man but diverted the whole community from its ancient course. Quiet, dull, predictable Netherlea had been destroyed forever.
A farmhand now entered through the gate, and Joshua went to meet him. The constable returned a few moments la
ter, and a horrified murmur rose as they identified what he carried. ‘The weapon,’ Joshua said huskily. He lifted aloft a straight-handled scythe with a cruel, crescent-moon-shaped blade. It was brown-stained, marred with what might have been cotton threads or whitish hair, all congealed along the length of it.
Sir John blanched. ‘Who do you suspect, Saxton? Who?’
‘I’ve a warrant out for that tinker they call Darius. I’ll pull him in.’
‘The tinker?’ Sir John’s voice trailed away. ‘Go and get him. Go on, man.’
Joshua left with the scythe swinging in a sack, as the doctor concluded his gentle examination.
‘When did it happen?’ Sir John asked his brother.
The doctor pulled out his pocket watch and glanced up at the sun. Tabitha was just close enough to see the light sparkling on the tiny hand that moved inexorably around the elaborate dial.
‘This morning. No more than two or three hours ago. Men must be fetched now, to take Francis home.’ Then he turned to Tabitha and announced quietly to all present that she was the searcher now, as her mother had been. ‘She must go with Francis and do what is right.’
He patted her arm. ‘Well done for bearing up. Get back to the hall now and see to the body.’
Rather than wait to accompany the men, Tabitha slipped away through a gap in the hedge, to a path she knew led directly to the hall. As she walked, she listed the items she needed to lay out Francis: rosemary and other sweet herbs, warm water, clean linen. The sounds of men and horses gradually subsided until the sensation of being entirely alone overcame her, bit by bit. The folly of her wandering solitary along this path, perhaps the one the murderer had taken, made her pause mid-step. She looked around at the familiar meadows: all was quiet, save for a couple of magpies watching her from a post. She glanced down to see footprints in the mud, heading in the opposite direction, back to Riddings’ field. Three sets of footprints, she noticed. Fearful of meeting three strangers, she walked on even faster.
The Almanack Page 8
