by M C Beaton
“Now, there’s this house called Fox End…”
Lord Hawksborough’s eyes went quite blank and Lady Mary leaned forward slightly in her chair.
“It’s precious near where the robbery took place, and local report says the people there have a donkey and a horse. Now, I found an old gent resident there who says he’s letting the house from respectable people. ‘Who’s the donkey belong of?’ I asked. ‘A werry ’spectable young lady,’ says he.
“So that’s that, I thinks. Then I sees in the pasture beyond the house, a bully-fellow striding up and down and slashing bits off the hedge with his stick.
“‘Who’s that?’ I asks. ‘That,’ says the old gent, ‘is a dreadful man called Brotherington. I have managed to make his life just as unpleasant for him as he has made everyone else’s, and if he don’t stop cutting that hedge, I’ll have him back in court.’
“‘I’ll tell him,’ I says, having found, my lord, that a sore and angry man is a great source of information. So I outs and speaks to this Brotherington. Well, I find the name of the owners of the horse and donkey are Miss and Master Colby and that’s the lady and gentleman who are staying here, and so I was about to give up and go away.
“Suddenly this Brotherington, he says, ‘Waren’t there a report that them highwaymen was wearing wigs and masks?’
“‘Yes, black or red wigs,’ says I, your lordship not being sure, what with it being dark. There’s the remains of this bonfire on t’other side of the hedge in the garden of Fox End, and this Brotherington leans over and points with his stick. I lean over the hedge and this is what I find.”
He picked up a canvas roll from beside his chair and slowly opened it and spread it out on the table.
Lying on the canvas were various charred and blackened objects. They had not burned completely. Three strands of bright red wool adhering to a piece of canvas were pointed out by Mr. Townsend’s stubby finger. Also, an edge of a mask with the ribbon still complete, and one charred and blackened tricorne.
Lady Mary held her breath. All at once she remembered Betty Barrington saying that Richard had called at the seminary at Bellingham to find out at what time the Hawksborough coach was leaving for London.
Lord Hawksborough suddenly smiled. “Well done, Townsend. You have worked hard. But I fear you are on the wrong scent. Give me a day to think about this. It was not, of course, the Colbys. They would never do such a thing. But this Brotherington may have found these objects elsewhere and placed them in the garden at Fox End out of spite. Perhaps I shall send you back to question him further. Miss Colby is a young and gently reared lady. You have met her yourself. She is totally incapable of such an act.”
But, almost unbidden, a picture of Amanda ruthlessly shaking Lady Mannering sprang into his mind.
Lady Mary slipped quietly from the room.
Lord Hawksborough had failed to tell her the jewels had been returned. He had told his mother, Susan, and Aunt Matilda, but he had been so busy explaining away to Lady Mary his strange behaviour with respect to Amanda on the night the jewels were returned that he had forgotten to tell her about the recovery.
Lady Mary was on her way to search Amanda’s room. One jewel would be enough, she thought savagely. Miss Amanda did not have any jewellery at all, so the presence of just one jewel somewhere in her room would be proof enough.
She quietly pushed open the door of Amanda’s room. Quickly she began to search. Finally she began to tear everything apart. She slit the lining of cloaks and pelisses, she ripped open the pillows so that feathers flew about the room like a snowstorm, but not one single jewel did she manage to unearth. She looked around the wreckage of the room, clenching and unclenching her hands in desperation. She must find evidence or her violent search of the room would be regarded as mere spite.
The curtains fluttered in the wind and a dancing sunbeam flickered over the top of the tallboy.
With an exclamation, Lady Mary dragged over a chair and stood on it, her fingers searching the top of the tallboy.
Her first feeling when she found only a book was one of intense disappointment. But she opened it anyway. A diary! A pulse of excitement began to beat at her throat as she quickly turned the pages.
The recent pages contained only an occasional sentence: “Today I went to supper at Lady A’s,” “This evening, went to the opera,” and so on.
But earlier in the diary, there was one full page of writing. Lady Mary sat down to read, and as she read, she began to experience a sweet feeling of triumph. It was all there. All Amanda’s guilt and worry about the robbery, and her hopes that Richard would be able to restore the jewels.
She hurried back into the library, clutching the diary.
Lord Hawksborough rose to his feet and looked at her gravely.
“I am glad you have come, Mary,” he said in a gentle voice. “Sit down. What I am about to say—”
“Read this first!” cried Lady Mary, fumbling open the pages of the diary until she found the incriminating one.
He frowned at her, but, seeing her excitement, he sat down and began to read.
At last he looked up, his face grim and hard. “So it was them after all,” he said in a flat voice.
“It’ll be transportation at least,” said Lady Mary, her eyes bright with malice.
“I will handle this without the law.”
“Oh, no, you won’t,” cried Lady Mary. “I shall take that diary to Bow Street.”
With one abrupt move he hurled the diary into the fire, and held her back, as she would have snatched it out of the flames.
“I have been mistaken in the Colbys, Mary,” he said in a cold voice, “and I have been equally mistaken in you. Your desire to expose Miss Colby to me was perfectly understandable in the circumstances. Your raging malice is not. I was… much taken with Miss Colby. It is a bitter fact to face that I do not understand women at all. This does not alter the decision I came to last night. In fact, it strengthens it. I cannot marry you, Mary.”
“I’ll sue you for breach of promise,” she said viciously.
“Oh, Mary,” he sighed, with an awful kind of pity. “To be jilted once was bad enough for your reputation. Screaming at me in the courts for wanting to behave in a similar way will ruin you. There is no need to sue me. I am quite prepared to make you a handsome settlement. I am prepared to let the world think that you have jilted me.”
“How much?” demanded Lady Mary flatly.
And in those two words, Lord Hawksborough saw with a sad wonder that she had never loved him.
“My lawyers will deal with the matter. Do not worry. I will be generous and my lawyers will be discreet.”
“And you are going to let the Colbys get away with it? What about the jewels?”
“They returned them long ago. But, no, I am not going to let them escape unpunished. While I decide what to do, it would be better if you leave this house.”
“I shall stay long enough to see the look on that minx’s face when you tell her.”
“Then you will be disappointed. For I shall not breathe a word until you are gone.”
Lady Mary stormed to the door, but his voice stopped her. “Mary!” he said. “I would like to point out that you must not speak about this, or you will not receive one penny from me, and you can sue to kingdom come for all the good it may do you.”
When she had gone, he sat for a long time looking at the fire.
Amanda sensed the uneasy atmosphere in the house as soon as she arrived back with Susan. She sat eating luncheon in the dining room with Susan, Aunt Matilda, and Mrs. Fitzgerald. She had gone to Susan’s room to wash and comb her hair and chat, since Mrs. Fitzgerald said there was no need to change their dress for an informal family meal.
And so Amanda did not see the wreckage of her room or know that the diary was missing.
At one point during the meal, Lord Hawksborough strode in. He did not look at Amanda, but addressed his mother direct. “I want you all to stay at home until I send
for you,” he said harshly. “Do not go out.”
“But Charles,” protested Mrs. Fitzgerald, “we were to call on—”
“I said do not go out of this house!”
He swung on his heel and marched out.
“What on earth…” began Mrs. Fitzgerald.
Susan ran to the window and looked out. “Mary is leaving,” she cried. “All her trunks are being put in the coach.”
Amanda lowered her eyes. Her feeling of elation was mixed with guilt. What if Lady Mary had really loved Charles! But then excitement and anticipation took over. Soon he would propose. She would be married to the man she loved.
Perhaps one day she might even have the courage to tell him about the robbery.
But her feeling of happiness began to fade. Mrs. Fitzgerald kept saying she had never known Charles to be so upset or so testy. And then, even with the departure of Lady Mary, the air seemed thick with tension and unease.
Then Lord Hawksborough threw open the door of the dining room. This time his eyes fastened on Amanda. “Miss Colby, come with me,” he snapped, and without waiting for her answer, he turned on his heel and marched into the hall.
“You had better see what Charles wants,” sighed Mrs. Fitzgerald. “But count on’t that it’s only his spleen that is disordered.”
Amanda hurried out into the hall.
Lord Hawksborough kept his back to her and addressed the front door. “We are going driving, Miss Colby. Now!”
“Perhaps I should change,” volunteered Amanda breathlessly.
“No, you will do as you are.” He opened the door and stood aside to let her pass.
For a brief moment their eyes met, and Amanda’s fell before the steel-cold contempt in his.
Frightened, she said, “Perhaps Susan would—”
“What I have to say to you, Miss Colby,” he said in measured tones, “is something I do not wish overheard by anyone.”
The jewels! thought Amanda in sudden blind panic. He has found out we took the jewels.
She simply nodded and climbed into his curricle and stared straight ahead while he picked up the reins.
Numb with misery, Amanda was only vaguely aware of the passing houses. They went up to Oxford Street, then along High Holborn, and turned off at Gray’s Inn Road. He is taking me into the country to wring my neck, thought Amanda with a sort of miserable satisfaction.
All the long length of Gray’s Inn Road, she tried to find her voice, tried to speak, but each time the grim set of his face made all her courage melt away.
He stopped at last outside the Angel at Islington, which, despite the growth of the suburb, still presented the appearance of an old-fashioned country inn, with its double galleries in the yard supported by columns and carved pilasters with caryatids.
He called to an ostler to hold the reins, sprang down, and vanished inside.
He was back a few minutes later, saying, “I have bespoke a private parlour. We will not be disturbed.”
The ostler leered, and got such a savage look from his lordship that he changed the leer quickly into a sycophantic grin.
Amanda allowed herself to be helped down.
All the way upstairs to the private parlour, she watched the rigid set of his shoulders and wondered why she could not find the courage to flee.
Once they were inside, he turned the key in the door.
“How did you find out?” asked Amanda through white lips.
“Oh, the devil take it!” he said, tossing his hat on the table and running his hands through his hair. “All the way here, I was praying I had been mistaken. I was praying that that diary was not yours but merely a forgery on the part of Lady Mary. But the first words out of your mouth condemn you. Why did you do it?”
“I… we… needed the money.”
“Money!” he ground out savagely. “Is there no such thing in the whole wide world left like the honest love of one woman for one man? Are you all harpies? Lady Mary turned out to want only my wealth. But at least she did not hold me up at gunpoint to get it!”
“We hardly knew you,” choked out Amanda. “You do not know what it is like to be poor and—”
He ruthlessly cut across her faltering words, his voice acid with contempt. “Had the pair of you been two waifs from some thieves’ kitchen who had never known the decencies of life, then I would have forgiven you. Your brother is young and strong. Did it never occur to you to make shift and find work? No, of course it didn’t. There’s bad blood in the pair of you. You are not only immoral, you are amoral. Do you know, if my mother’s elderly coachman had not spoiled my aim, I could have killed you? Do you not realise if she had elected to travel with any other than those aged servants she regards as pets, you would be in a pit of quicklime by now?
“The sheer immoral folly… the sheer selfishness of it. But by the time you and your brother found yourselves in my well-feathered nest, you realised there was no need to keep the jewels. Not when you could have the lot. Not when you, you doxy, could entrap me.
“I accepted your explanation for stealing your aunt’s beau. And Susan’s, I may add. I should have listened to the voice of my common sense, which might have told me you were nothing more than a grubby adventuress.
“Yes, a harpy, thoughtless of anyone else’s feelings, using me, your aunt, my mother, and Susan as if we were so many chess pieces. Well, checkmate, Amanda.”
“What will you do with me?” asked Amanda through white lips.
“Aye, there’s the rub. Do with you?” He gave a harsh laugh. “I can’t do anything with you, you jade. To tell the truth at home would kill your aunt and distress my mother beyond reason. But there is one thing I can do to keep a contamination like yourself away from my family. I have a friend who is a physician. He will diagnose a highly dangerous and infectious disease planned to last to the end of the Season. You will stay confined in your room, seeing no one.”
“And Richard?” said Amanda, putting a hand to her head, which felt burning hot.
“Young Colby will be sent to sea. It will be years before you see him again.”
“Oh, God, if you would only listen, only understand!” cried Amanda.
“You will do as you are told,” he said in a hard voice. “If you do not, you will be transported to Botany Bay and your brother will hang.”
He seized his hat and crammed it on his head. He grasped her roughly by the arm, and unlocking the door with his free hand, bundled her roughly down the stairs.
Amanda cried dismally the whole long journey home. When they arrived at Berkeley Square, he looked at her woebegone face with bitter satisfaction.
“Good. You look ill,” he said. “Go straight to your room and let me make your excuses to my mother and your aunt. Then I will send for young Colby.”
Amanda fled to her room. Although a squad of housemaids had put everything to rights, she could see it had been searched. The diary was gone, and all her belongings were in different positions. She was now beyond tears. The clothes, which had had their linings slit, were lying in a neat pile, ready for repair. She felt cold and sick. He would never understand that it was two romantic children who had planned the highway robbery. Two children who had been humiliated so much at the assembly that he had seemed fair game.
Two children who had grown up too late.
There came an urgent scratching at the door. “It’s me, Susan. Open the door.”
Wearily Amanda walked across the room and tried the handle. But of course! Lord Hawksborough had locked her in.
“I can’t, Susan,” she whispered back, her mouth close to the panels. “It’s locked.”
“Wait! Oh, the key’s on this side of the door.” There was a click as the lock opened and Susan strode into the room.
“Look here, Amanda,” she said gruffly. “I called on Lady Mary because I wondered why she had left without saying good-bye. She said Charles was not marrying her because of you. I said you were a trump and it was all ridiculous. She told me to ask you.
So here I am.”
Amanda was all at once overcome with the desire to unburden her woes to a friend. And so she told Susan the whole story of the highway robbery and of Lady Mary finding the diary.
“You must help me explain to Charles,” ended Amanda. “You must get him to understand—”
“I can only get him to understand what I understand,” said Susan harshly. “You are a common, greedy little thief. I agree it should be kept from Mama and your aunt. But I wish you had an infectious disease. You are an infection, a veritable pox! As for Richard Colby…” Susan’s voice cracked and large tears began to roll down her face. “I had thought… had hoped… Oh, what does it matter now. Mama is right. ‘There will be plenty of suitors gathered round your dowry,’ she said. I wish I were dead. I hope Richard goes to sea, and I hope… I hope they keel-haul him!”
