The Almanack

by Martine Bailey

  ‘Ha! A thief would like to know such a man.’

  He made a play of pulling his pockets inside out. ‘So plunder me.’ He leaned back in his chair, eyes narrowed, challenging her.

  ‘You have not climbed your great tree yet, you wastrel,’ she said, unable to suppress a smile. ‘Will you help me solve this puzzle?’

  Putting the almanack down, he pulled out a large handbill; uncurling it, he fetched his ink and quill.

  ‘Who, then, could be this “D”, do you reckon?’

  She bit her lip and looked out of the window at the darkening sky. ‘Darius. Parson Dilks. All of the De Vallory family, of course: Sir John, Lady Daphne, and the doctor. Then there is Mistress Nell Dainty, who begrudged my mother’s position as searcher and her cottage. But I find it hard to picture her wielding a bloody scythe, never mind compiling an almanack.’

  She stared hard at the list of names he had inked on to the back of the playbill. ‘None of it makes sense. What of D for dairymaid? Or here is another I had not thought of before – the dogman up at the kennels, Willis.’

  Nat added Zusanna and Willis to the list. ‘Certainly, the dogman must be worth a visit – we must learn how Towler died.’

  She nodded. ‘Nat, I still cannot comprehend how the coming year is described with such accuracy. Last Thursday there was a rain shower, just as predicted.’

  ‘That is merely a random event. Loose enough arrows, and some will strike home.’

  ‘But all this – this blood and doom and mischance? The prognostication for December is that the year will reach “A violent and bloody end.”’

  He picked up the almanack and perused a few pages, then looked at her keenly.

  ‘You almost persuade me of your case: that someone has written this with a malevolent purpose … that this De Angelo appears to predict the future, but in fact brings these awful events to pass.’

  ‘But who could do so, here in Netherlea? Who could conceive, and then write, such an almanack? Darius is not sufficiently educated. Dilks is unlikely – and he claims he was away from home when my mother was murdered. It is not in the doctor’s character, and neither would he kill his own nephew. And as for Sir John, why would he murder his heir? Lady De Vallory I cannot believe capable. True, there is a dark stranger who wanders the woods, but he, of course, may be … you. And so, I’m afraid, may the compiler of the almanack.’ She turned to his writing desk and picked up a freshly scribed page: ‘The Bloody Tragedy of the Monster of Newgate’ complete with a stomach-curdling description of the execution.

  He snatched it from her hand. ‘Don’t look at that nonsense.’

  Then came the question he was dreading.

  ‘Nat, what business did you have with my mother?’

  He reached for his tankard, knowing that she, of all people, would not swallow an easy lie.

  ‘She was an old friend of my own mother’s. I told you my mother was born in Netherlea. And I knew she was the searcher.’

  ‘You knew she was the searcher?’ A stony cast settled on her features. ‘What did you want from her?’

  ‘Information.’ His mouth was dry. He took another long draught of ale, his mind in a jumble. The silence that followed forced him to add: ‘About my own mother.’

  She continued to watch him.

  ‘And about me,’ he heard himself muttering. Oh, this was too bad; she was drawing him out like an eel from a basket. And what if she was Saxton’s informer? What if he had sent her to seduce him into error with her honeyed tongue? A sensation like liquid ice filled his veins.

  ‘What was your mother’s name?’

  ‘Hannah Dove.’ He raked his fingers through his hair. ‘Tabitha, truly, I would rather not speak of it. Your mother helped me with a matter that was pertinent to me alone.’

  ‘But it may have caused her death,’ she protested. ‘Are you the man whom the sexton saw reading the parish book in the vestry a while back?’

  ‘Me?’ He did have a dim recollection of being disturbed in his perusal by a grimy, bent-spined fellow. ‘It may have been. They are public documents?’

  ‘No, they are not.’

  ‘Then I was ignorant of the custom – that is all.’

  ‘I am sorry, Nat. Forgive my ill temper. I am still grieving for my mother.’ For an instant, she looked so heartbroken that he seized her hand in sympathy. She squeezed it softly in return. Instead of matters of suspicion, they broke off, and talked a while of London; of the lamplit alleys leading off Covent Garden’s piazza, where they had both frequented the same coffee houses and taverns.

  ‘Your conundrum was not so very difficult to solve. “Where fodder is traded”; that is the Haymarket. So when did you see me there?’

  ‘Last season, at the opening of The Modish Couple. Seeing you here, without your silks and jewels, I did at first wonder if it were truly you. But there is something remarkable about your face.’ He cocked his head to one side and appraised her. ‘I might even like you better now, without your paint and feathers.’

  ‘You perverse creature.’ Yet she looked pleased. ‘That was a remarkable night. My friend Poll had strung pearls in my hair, and I had a new gown of flowered silk; I was quite in love with it.’

  ‘You were standing beneath the great chandelier. Every eye was on you. I swore never to forget you – and now, like a miracle, here you are.’

  She pressed his fingers and leaned forward very close, her lips parted – but, like a blockhead, he prattled on. Later, he calculated that was the exact moment he should have kissed her. ‘You had that old fellow always with you then – that naval-seeming man.’

  ‘Robert Tate.’

  ‘Was that the old goat’s name? He was in no wise good enough for you.’

  She shook her head good-naturedly. ‘Of course not. And, no doubt, you are?’

  ‘I am.’

  With a quick movement she raised his hand to her lips.

  ‘Nat, you are just what I need at present. And I confess: it was Robert Tate I was to meet in Chester on Friday; yet I came home with you instead. But before we are distracted – and you are a most distracting fellow – I need you to apply your clever brain to determine whether any crime was committed against my mother. And, when you have done so … perhaps a reward may be due?’

  ‘I will do all I can to help you,’ he said. ‘I swear it with my heart.’

  They looked directly into each other’s faces; he felt a little breathless. He had now a task to perform for her and told himself he would not fail. As for waiting for her to oblige him, he would wait until the Last Judgement. She looked on him with her frank brown eyes; then, without a word, she withdrew her hand and stood to fetch her cloak, and went to the door, refusing his offer to escort her back to the cottage.

  ‘I wish you would not go alone. Do take care, Tabitha.’

  ‘I will. I am taking care. You see,’ she said, ‘the only suspect capable of all these enigmatical intrigues is you, Nat Starling – or might my mother more rightly have known you as another “D”, Nathaniel Dove?’

  EIGHTEEN

  A Riddle

  At once to describe my name and my race,

  I often attend on the huntsman at chase;

  I also can find it is equally pleasant

  To wait on the squire, or even a peasant;

  But when I conceit myself most highly blessed,

  Is when by a lady I’m fondly caressed:

  Yet many a child seems to take a delight

  To treat me with constant ill-humour and spite.

  On me you may always for safety depend,

  And consider me both your protector and friend.

  The 24th day of August 1752

  St Bartholomew

  Luminary: Sun rises 22 minutes after 5.

  Observation: A trine of the Sun and Saturn.

  Prognostication: Men’s chief practices will be fraud and deceit.

  ‘Perhaps Towler left us a trail to follow,’ said Tabitha two days later, as they pa
used to survey the palatial extent of Sir John’s kennels. These were grander by far than many of his tenants’ homes; a range of brick buildings backing on to a high-walled exercise yard, with drinking fountains and feeding pens. Reaching the iron gate, Tabitha cautiously peered through for any sign of Sir John. Thank the stars, he seemed not to be about.

  She had decided it was time to test Nat as an ally. The name of Dove still worried her – and he was clever, too, which made him dangerous. ‘Would you take the lead in questioning the dogman?’ she asked him. ‘Invent some tale or other about the pack.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ He gave a confident little bow. He looked quite the gentleman, too, in russet-brown velvet and glass-polished boots.

  Nat rang the bell, and a short, skew-eyed fellow in a leather jerkin admitted them into a circling mass of barking hounds. He stepped into the thick of them, with the manner of a gentleman not to be refused.

  ‘Willis, is it? I come to take a tour, on behalf of Lord Robbins of Cambridgeshire. You have heard of the Cam Valley Pack? He has a fancy to make a cross with one of your lord’s best hounds.’

  Willis commanded the hounds to stay back, and began to show their points, while Nat complimented every facility, from the great stove that warmed the interior in winter to the maze of sleeping and feeding rooms. Tabitha at first stepped warily, but every inch of the kennels was cleanly swept and swabbed. In any case, her mother’s rough skirts were rags beside Nat’s gold-buttoned coat; she had made a dozen trials of ribbons, kerchiefs and ruffles that morning, but there was nothing for it but to stiffen her backbone and hold her head high.

  In the she-dogs’ straw-room, Tabitha watched with distaste as the brood-bitches placidly panted, pups suckling and squirming over their bodies. Nat called the dogman over.

  ‘Lord Robbins has heard report of a celebrated hound. Towler, is it? He is considering a cross with one of his own dams.’

  Willis’s seamed face looked suddenly cast down. ‘You come on a goose chase then, sir, if you be looking for Towler. He were destroyed last Easter.’

  Nat shook his head incredulously. ‘How so, if he was such a valuable hound?’

  ‘Poisoned he were, sir. Some’ll tell you otherwise, but that’s the sworn truth. A king of dogs, he were – could follow a scent faster than the wind. Whoever done it is as wicked as any man-murderer.’

  ‘Yet how might such a deed have been accomplished?’

  ‘Someone must have fed him a poisoned titbit, sir – that’s my reckoning. Towler was too friendly a fellow, see. And his Lordship kept him half-starved so he always showed fine form, with his ribs on view.’

  ‘But if a stranger came to such a well-guarded kennel,’ Nat asked amiably, ‘surely the alarm would have been raised?’

  The old fellow wiped his brow with a rag. ‘That’s just it, sir. The day Towler died there was a heap of visitors, on account of the new litter. They was all here, family, neighbours, even blood connoisseurs – all come here to look the litter over and raise a toast to old Towler. Aye, even your mother come along, Miss Hart. The bitch what whelped, Gladsome, was in poor fettle, so we fetched Mistress Dainty to bring a poultice, and Mistress Hart come along with her.’

  Tabitha smoothed away all expression. ‘My mother?’ she repeated. ‘I did not know she helped Mistress Dainty tend the dam.’

  ‘Aye, they saved her life,’ answered Willis.

  Nat picked up a wriggling pup and inspected its muzzle. ‘That fellow Darius, who has been arrested over Master Francis’s death. Did he ever come here?’

  ‘Him? I shouldn’t let a rascal like that near my dogs.’

  ‘You are sure it was not a sudden rupture or distemper?’ Nat set the puppy down.

  ‘No, sir; you see, Towler had a queer smell to him when I found him. Poor old fellow, he were perfumed like a Duchess’s lapdog.’

  Just then, the bell at the gate jangled insistently – with a plummeting inward sensation, Tabitha caught sight of Sir John pulling impatiently at the bell-rope. What poxed luck! As Willis hurried off to admit him, she urgently grasped Nat’s sleeve. ‘I should rather Sir John did not see me.’ She noticed the door to a storeroom standing ajar and, stepping inside, she motioned silence to Nat with a finger to her lips. Ignoring his bafflement, she pulled the door to.

  Such was the outbreak of barking and yelping in the yard that she scarcely heard Sir John enter the kennels, but, after Willis had commanded the hounds to be still, Sir John’s voice rang out in his usual bombastic tone.

  ‘Nathaniel. What brings you here?’

  Nathaniel? She tensed to listen, intrigued by this intimate form of address, as Nat recited his tale of searching for new blood for Lord Robbins’ pack. He was playing his part well, she granted him that, sounding remarkably easy as he spun his lies to the master of Bold Hall. Soon the two men’s conversation grew less strident, and she could no longer catch every word – no matter, as the conversation dwelt only upon Towler’s merits. Then the word ‘Francis’ reached her, and she crept an inch closer to the door and, moving too quickly, banged against a shovel. Flustered, she reached out and caught the handle mid-fall.

  ‘I suppose you believe Francis’s loss advances your own cause,’ Sir John said testily.

  ‘No, sir. Not one whit.’

  ‘You left the funeral early. It was not respectful. And I hear bad reports of you.’

  ‘That pains me, sir.’

  ‘Understand this, Nathaniel: my wife is near mad with grief – and my brother has a sickness that even he cannot cure. The timing is crucial, do you hear?’

  ‘I do, sir. I leave for London soon, and can stay away until you send for me.’

  Tabitha almost flung wide the door. London? The arrant fellow was deserting her – after all she had done for him by postponing her own escape.

  There was a long pause.

  ‘No need for that. Come and go as you will. But don’t speak a word to anyone, mind? Remember your oath.’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘Good day, then, Nathaniel.’

  ‘Good day, Sir John.’

  After a long silence, Nat tapped at the door and she emerged, dusting off her gown. He attempted a tight smile. ‘Well, lady? Your antics continue to astonish me.’

  She laughed, but it sounded hollow. ‘I assure you the surprise is mutual. Here am I, attempting to avoid your most particular friend, Sir John.’

  He raised his brows quizzically.

  ‘He will not leave me alone. He seeks an assignation,’ she confessed, with self-mocking humour. ‘But it won’t do. I will not see him.’ She expected him to be amused, but instead he turned upon her a glance of absolute coldness. Grasping her arm and steering her to the gate, he muttered, ‘I need a drink.’

  Tabitha had vowed never to set foot in the inn’s parlour again. She claimed it was too warm within, and they took one of the benches on the High Street instead. They both drank deep, and she puzzled over his change of temper; then, unable to bear the silence, she could not resist baiting him a little.

  ‘I did not know you were so well acquainted with Sir John.’

  He answered gruffly: ‘I might say the same of you. I am his tenant; we converse when I call on him.’

  ‘Be wary of the old scoundrel,’ she said with sincerity. ‘“Serve a great man and know sorrow”, as they say.’

  If she had hoped to invite a confidence, this strategy failed: Nat’s chin lifted and he looked the other way. ‘I find him cordial enough. And, as for what I believe you overheard – I support his bid for Parliament, that is all. It is a matter of my private business.’

  She felt chastened, and unfairly too.

  After a long, churning silence, he asked, ‘So, what do you know of Mistress Dainty?’

  She felt dispirited, feeling her trust in him ebb away. ‘It could be that my mother witnessed her harming the dog; she may be the mysterious “D”, I don’t know. She distils remedies too – but why would she poison a hound?’

  Once aga
in, they both lapsed into silence until, at last, he broke it.

  ‘I had meant to tell you I must leave for a week or two. But first I must hear Darius’s committal at Chester assizes. Are you going?’

  She still found it hard to stomach his departure; especially after she had given up Robert, and a new gown and hat, for his sake.

  ‘Yes. Joshua believes I may be questioned as a witness to the condition of Francis’s body. When is it?’

  ‘Michaelmas. Only remember, soon we shall lose the eleven days; the second of September is followed by the fourteenth.’

  ‘Is it not all nonsense? To confuse everyone thus.’ She looked over to the large notice nailed to the door of the Estate Office, where, as usual, two or three estate workers were slowly spelling out the proclamation. The steward of Bold Hall had given a rule for every particular case affected by the calendar: how wages would be paid and tenancies arranged, and the terms by which apprenticeships should be drawn up.

  ‘The nonsense is that we are eleven days adrift from most of Europe,’ said Nat. ‘A man might travel abroad and change his time on six occasions in a day. But as for confusion – yes, that is inevitable.’

  At the barmaid’s approach with a jug, Tabitha waved her away and stood. Villagers were arriving on the High Street as dinnertime approached. God forbid that Joshua should see her in company with Nat Starling.

  As they strolled in silence to the river, she picked up a branch and swatted at the foliage. The hedgerow was full of signs of the summer’s end: the green nubs of blackberries, tired tansy, a froth of campion. How dare he treat her so casually? They reached the point where she must take the path into the woods while he continued to Eglantine Hall.

  He turned to her, asking testily, ‘How long can you avoid Sir John?’

  ‘I am doing my best – but he carries great authority hereabouts.’

  At that he sighed, as if he carried the weight of the world.

  ‘What troubles you, Nat?’

  He looked away irritably. ‘May I borrow the almanack?’ he asked. ‘I should like to make a fair copy.’