by Peter McAra
A week later, a tired Harry had his footman carry an assortment of bags to the chariot. He’d spent much of the night sifting through the drawers in his father’s commodious writing desk. Besides a modest cache of golden guineas, he’d found a small bag of uncut jewels. Though he had little notion of their worth, he guessed that his father would hardly have saved them if they’d been cheap imitations. Into his bags they went, along with the gold, some family documents, and a miniature of the mother who had died giving birth to him. At a respectable hour of the morning, he spoke to the housekeeper.
‘I leave for Southampton on the morrow, Mrs Hawkins. Now that the funeral is over and my father buried, you will understand that I am now but a landless pauper. I intend to travel for a while. Soon the bankers will take charge of the estate, and Mr Thurber will likely own it in a matter of days. I sincerely hope you and all the servants will find a place in Mr Thurber’s household.’
‘My condolences, sir,’ the housekeeper said. For the whole of Harry’s life, Mrs Hawkins had been the competent manager of the Great House, yet nurturing a warm heart beneath her businesslike exterior. ‘Your father was a benevolent master at heart, sir. There are those who will miss him.’ Harry took the kindly woman’s words to mean that she was not one of them. Understandable. For too many years she’d been the butt of the viscount’s drunken outbursts, his endlessly bellowed orders to her to deliver the impossible.
‘Southampton, sir?’ she said as he stepped towards the door, eager to visit the stables.
‘Yes. There’s nothing to keep me here now,’ he said. ‘I plan to take ship to Botany Bay. I hear there are fortunes to be made there.’
‘I believe so, sir.’ Her wan smile betrayed her sadness at the loss of the young master she had known since his babyhood. ‘Indeed, some of those fortunes were made at your father’s expense, it would seem. That fine merino wool quite destroyed his plan to make enormous wealth from his sheep.’
‘Indeed it did,’ Harry said. ‘And I may live to redeem some of those losses.’
‘Then Godspeed, sir. I wish you well.’
Harry walked to the stables. He climbed into his chariot, heard Roberts flick the reins. As he began his long journey to Southampton, he felt at least a little fulfilled. He had taken the first step towards his escape from the England, which in a few days hence would summarily reject him as useless bric-a-brac.
He reached Southampton late on the evening of his second day of journeying. When Roberts found him an inn a respectable distance from the wharves, he farewelled his coachman, instructed him to return home, gave him a guinea, and went to his room, pleased that it was clean and quiet. He had no wish for his sleep to be disturbed by drunken sailors and their strumpets lurching past his room throughout the night.
Next morning he took a path leading to the wharves. As he followed it, he passed a string of ships moored close by. Surely one of them would be bound for Botany Bay. It was not until late afternoon that he encountered a bo’sun who showed at least a little interest in his question. Yes, they might consider taking another passenger to Botany Bay.
‘We sail by The Azores, Cape Town and Bombay. And perchance a berth at the Spice Islands,’ he said. ‘You wish to take ship, sir?’
‘Indeed I do.’
‘Then might I suggest that you lay in some warm clothes, a pair of sea boots, sir. And as much rum as you can afford. T’will likely be close to midwinter when we arrive at Botany Bay. It be a terrible long voyage, sir.’
‘Midwinter? But that’s only three months away.’
‘Not in the southern lands, sir. Midwinter falls in June in the antipodes.’
‘I see,’ Harry said. Eliza would have known that. He must discipline himself to stop thinking of her every second minute of the day. As he stood at the gangplank, he looked up at the curved wooden timbers of the ship, took in the name painted on the bow — Lady Caroline. He must look forward to a long friendship with the portly lady. His mind made up, he pulled the now slender pouch of sovereigns from his pocket and counted the fare into the bo’sun’s gnarled hand.
‘Thank’ee, sir,’ the bo’sun wheezed. ‘We weigh anchor at full tide next Thursday week forenoon. That’s if’n we has a hold full of cargo and all our stores is on board.’
‘But that’s an age away,’ Harry grumbled
‘T’will be more than an age on the journey, sir. Ye’d best enjoy your last days ashore while ye can.’
Harry walked back to his inn, thoughtful. Over dinner he would toast his departure with a celebratory tot of rum. Then he would dream of finding Eliza in the strange upside down land called New South Wales.
CHAPTER 32
As soon as the door clicked shut after Eliza’s exit, Obadiah Shaw took pen and paper and wrote.
Miss Louisa De Havilland
Great House, Morton-Somersby,
Marley.
My dear Miss De Havilland,
You will recall my years of service to your esteemed father. And doubtless you will also remember my appearance in court on your father’s behalf, when a certain Eliza Downing was found guilty of creating unlawful assembly and administering unlawful oaths. She received a sentence of one-and-twenty years transportation beyond the seas.
It has now come to my notice that Downing has escaped from New South Wales and returned to England under the false name of Mrs Alice Bentleigh, widow. It occurs to me that you may wish to have her brought to justice for these matters, and also for her escape from lawful custody. I understand penalties for this are severe, perhaps involving hanging.
You will understand that certain costs are involved in forging a lawsuit to cover the foregoing matters. If you wish to pay an advance towards said costs, I will commence proceedings immediately. If we delay too long, Downing may escape from my surveillance and be lost to justice.
Your obedient servant,
Obadiah Shaw
He called to his clerk to take the letter to the post, and filled his pipe with a generous wad of tobacco. God willing, Miss Louisa De Havilland might soon become the source of rich pickings for a humble lawyer committed to upholding British justice.
Three days after his clerk had posted the letter to Louisa De Havilland, she knocked at the door of Obadiah Shaw’s rooms early in the morning. She wasted no time in addressing her enthusiasm for the lawyer’s suggestion. It would be most satisfying to bring to justice the upstart child who had inveigled her brother into a disgusting liaison.
‘Downing!’ she ranted when Shaw raised the subject. ‘That disgusting trollop. Lying naked with my brother in the grass. Knocking my poor father off his chaise longue so that his back was near broken. He limped for the rest of his life from that injury. And, and…causing riots among the farmhands. I demand that you arrange her arrest immediately!’
‘Thank you, my dear Miss De Havilland. But several legal matters remain to be solved. First we much catch the woman. If she can escape from New South Wales, she must be, er, light on her feet. Then there is the matter of identifying her to the judge’s satisfaction.’
‘Identifying her? I can take care of that.’ She smiled as she recalled a satisfying moment in her past. ‘A certain scar.’
Louisa did not want to risk having the golden-haired blue-eyed wench stand before some naïve judge unfamiliar with her dark past. With a wiggle of her hips, a smile, she might well bias his judgement.
‘Can we arrange that Judge Fortescue be assigned to the case?’ she asked. ‘He was my father’s friend these many years.’
Shaw reminisced. He recalled the judge’s evident bias towards his friend John De Havilland when the matter of Eliza’s assault came before him. Any red-blooded male would have taken advantage of the situation in which De Havilland found himself, would have groped the pretty young maid’s thigh as he lay on the chaise longue and she stood close to him, frightened, disempowered. That her fleeing from his grasping hand had made him fall to the floor was…amusing. Shaw remembered the guffaws of his legal friends
as they discussed the judgement over their ales after their day in court. At least the judge had later dismissed the charge of assault against Downing. Why might he have done so? But then the sentence of one-and-twenty years transportation for administering unlawful oaths, like those upstart farmhands from Tolpuddle, was a mite severe.
‘Do you know,’ one of his cronies had said as they drank, ‘These days they are calling them the Tolpuddle Martyrs?’
Shaw looked into the eyes of the aggressive, scowling woman who sat opposite.
‘Well, it is a matter of timing, Miss De Havilland. Judge Fortescue makes a circuit of the various Dorset assizes. We must plan the case so that he is on the bench here in Dorchester when Downing is tried.’
‘How do we do that?’
‘I will send my man to the court, ask the clerk of the court.’
‘When shall we know?’
‘Well,’ Shaw must manage his intercourse with Miss De Havilland so that he extracted as much money from her as possible. ‘With a little…encouragement of the court officials, we may be able to bend them to our will.’
‘How much encouragement?’
‘Oh, let us say twenty guineas.’
He watched as he reached into her reticule, withdrew a handful of coins.
‘Here.’ She counted the coins into his outstretched hand.
‘Carruthers!’ He called, and his man appeared. ‘Take this to the clerk of the court. Ask him when Judge Fortescue will next sit on the bench.’ He winked. ‘It would suit Miss De Havilland’s purpose if it were soon, quite soon.’ As Carruthers departed, he smiled at his new client.
‘Could I suggest, Miss De Havilland, that we should have an answer in an hour or so? Perhaps you could take coffee meantime? There is an excellent coffee house nearby, hard by the church.’ He pointed, and she left the building.
Carruthers returned soon afterwards.
‘Sir, Judge Fortescue sits next week.’
‘The money, Carruthers.’
‘I asked the clerk, and he told me of the judge’s schedule. I thought that a week would suit you well enough, sir. I kept the money, sir.’
‘Give it me.’ Shaw reached for his already-bulging money pouch and squeezed in the coins.
On the hour, Louisa returned. Carruthers ushered her into his master’s office.
‘Great news, Miss De Havilland. We prevailed upon the appropriate officers, and now Judge Fortescue will sit next week.’
‘So my, er, encouragement worked.’
‘Indeed, Miss. It now remains for us to arrange a certain arrest.’
During her first night at the Bull Inn, Eliza considered ways to progress her quest. She hired a coach and four and bid the driver visit Marley for the day. Making sure her best dress was immaculate, that the brim of her large hat shaded her face so that it would be difficult for anyone to see her eyes, she walked round Marley’s village square. Surprised at her welling emotions, she wiped away a disobedient tear. How could the sight of a gaggle of shops, a duck pond, have cut so deep into her feelings? Then she remembered. Many a time she had sat by the pond, or near the shops, and waited for Harry to ride by. And on those rare happy days that she saw him, she had wept. But now was no time for tears.
She stepped into the milliner’s, surveyed the rack of hats. A young woman approached, smiling. Eliza scanned her face minutely. No, she was not one of the village girls who had grown up with Eliza, nor attended the village school where she had taught. It would safe to engage in casual gossip.
‘May I help you, ma’am?’ The girl curtseyed, evidently sizing up Eliza as a wealthy, fashion-conscious lady.
‘Elisa pursed her lips into a kiss. Her accent must sound perfectly gentlewoman.
‘Thank you. Perhaps this apricot hatband?’
‘Yes, ma’am. We have others as well. Excuse me.’ She bent behind the counter and began shuffling through a large box.
‘I wonder,’ Eliza let the words float forth casually. ‘A Mr Harold De Havilland from these parts. Do you know of him?’
‘Indeed I do, ma’am. We all do. Mr Harry be the viscount’s son. A handsome lad, if ever was.’
‘I ask because for a while, a friend of mine, Miss Myrtle Forsyth of Piccadilly, she went on outings with him. She told me he came from these parts.’
‘Ah, yes, ma’am. For some years now, he has graced the London Season.’
‘Oh. And I expect he is happily wed by now. I should like to tell Myrtle.’ She smiled. ‘I should confess something on her behalf. She was rather smitten with him. Asked me to visit these parts during my time in Dorchester.’
‘Oh, no, ma’am. Mr Harry has not wed. There’s been many a girl eager to marry him, but it seems his heart is already lost to another.’
‘Oh. So should I tell my friend that he…?’
‘I shouldn’t, ma’am. We hear he planned to take ship for Botany Bay. T’is said his true love went there, perhaps a couple of years ago. I think her name be Eliza Something-or-other, from what the old gossips say. Not that he should have much chance. They say as marriageable women in the colonies are scarcer than hen’s teeth.’ She laughed. Eliza caught her breath. She swallowed her shock and wound up her courage, following suit with a polite giggle.
‘Er, I should like the lilac headband,’ she said, pointing.
‘Thank you ma’am. That be five shillings. All the way from France. Pure silk.’
‘Here.’ She pressed a guinea into the young woman’s hand. ‘The change is yours.’
So Harry planned to take ship for New South Wales. Mayhap he remembered their love, their blood vows…
‘Excuse me, ma’am.’ The shopgirl’s voice stopped Eliza as she stepped into the street. ‘Mr Harry — I might have been wrong about his taking ship.’ Eliza turned, her recollections of the man she would always love suddenly cut short. ‘We heard tell he planned to visit a friend before he departed. Sir Maynard Hailsham of Aveleigh. A day’s drive from these parts. And indeed, Sir Maynard stepped into this shop this morning, asking after his friend Mr Harry. He said as he might return this afternoon and — but wait. He’s here!’ The shopgirl smiled and curtseyed as a young gentleman stood in the doorway.
‘And have you heard aught of Mr Harry?’ he asked.
Eliza turned as she heard the cultured male voice. The man stood before her, dressed in riding habit, his fair hair catching the sun. Eliza took in his face, his body. Certainly he was not Harry. He stood shorter, a little stooped, his shoulders narrow. Certainly, the sight of him did not cause her to melt at the knees. He smiled as they stood face to face.
Excuse me, sir. But madam,’ She waved in Eliza’s direction. ‘She also seeks Mr Harry.’
‘I might have guessed.’ The man smiled. ‘A beautiful young woman enquiring after Harry. T’is only to be expected.’
‘But why do you…?’
‘Ah.’ His smile widened. ‘Harry and I, we were friends at Oxford. Then he…quit. He told me at the time that the daily servings of Greek philosophy and irregular French verbs were not good for his health. Then we corresponded. And he lately visited me at my home, not more than a day’s ride from here.’
‘Thank you.’ Eliza curtseyed, clamping her jaw to hide her excitement. ‘I happen to be visiting these parts for a day or so. I sought him because of a friend of mine. Miss Myrtle Forsyth…’ She launched again into the fiction she had woven for the shopgirl.
‘And pardon me, I should have introduced myself. I am Mrs Alice Bentleigh, but recently widowed.’ She struggled to affect a moment of sadness.
‘Delighted to make your acquaintance, ma’am.’ The man swept off his hat, bowed low. A tangle of pale curls fell across his forehead. ‘Maynard Hailsham, viscount apparent, at your service.’ He bowed again, smiled, and continued. ‘To my surprise, Harry has lately developed an interest in gardens. He has given me but the vaguest of hints as to why. Perhaps to do with painfully lingering memories of a lady lost to him, a lady with whom he took romantic walks in a ga
rden. Perhaps a vain hope that if he created fine gardens he might entice her back. Like a bee to a sweetly perfumed flower, so to speak.’
‘Mmm. I must confess to a liking for gardens,’ Eliza murmured. ‘I have recently read some of the works of Capability Brown.’
‘Capability Brown?’ Hailsham raised his hands in mock horror. ‘Why, his works are positively archaic. Before ever you put spade to turf, you must see gardens á la môde. The gardens of Brierley Hall, my family’s seat these last few centuries.’
Eliza smiled to herself at the young man’s passion. She was rather more interested in Harry’s whereabouts, but she could hardly say as much to Hailsham.
‘And is this Harry De Havilland, your friend, where is he now?’ she asked, tweaking her voice to sound off-hand.
‘Mayhap somewhere close to Brierley Hall. I gave him rooms — a cottage close to the Hall. We spent some time together in London, taking in the sights.’
‘So, perhaps he is in residence at your cottage as we speak?’ Eliza hardly dared to breathe. She watched a slow smile spread across his face, as if he had just conceived a wonderful idea.
‘Indeed.’ The man’s smile grew. He cleared his throat and spoke, if a little diffidently.
‘How can I frame my suggestion in a gentlemanly way?’ He cleared his throat again. ‘I should be delighted for you to visit Brierley Hall, and perhaps meet Harry De Havilland. But I understand that a newly widowed lady might not wish to travel so far with a stranger.’
‘Mmm.’ Eliza weighed her options, torn between decency and opportunity.
He smiled again — a frankly opportunistic smile. ‘I have a coach and four stabled at the inn. I leave on the morrow. Early.’
CHAPTER 33
‘Indeed.’ Eliza had made up her mind. If a day’s ride in a coach and four with a gentleman she hardly knew brought her to back into Harry’s arms, she would do it. Besides, Hailsham looked and acted the epitome of the well-mannered gentleman.
