Yield Not To Misfortune (The Underwood Mysteries Book 5)

by Suzanne Downes

  It should have been impossible for the woman to go any paler, but at this Mrs Woodforde blanched so that even her lips looked bloodless and Underwood and Toby felt sure she would faint. She took another sip of wine and after wiping her mouth with her handkerchief she asked bitterly, “Is he really dead, or is this another of his cruel tricks?”

  “He is dead alright, ma’am. He died in my arms of fever not ten days after we arrived in Barbados.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise, “When you arrived? Are you telling me that my husband has been dead for some time?”

  “All of twenty years.”

  “Twenty years!” She rose to her feet and leaned on the table, so that her face loomed over his, “You unspeakable wretch! You kept this news from me for twenty years. I could have remarried and had more children had I known I was a widow!”

  For the first time Brodie lost his self-assurance. During all his plotting and machinations, this aspect of the sorry tale had evidently not occurred to him and he was now faced with the tragic consequences of his actions.

  “I’m sorry,” he muttered, “But I was only doing what Silas had begged me to do.”

  “He begged you to assume his identity and keep my child from me for twenty years?” she asked, contempt and sarcasm flavouring her words in equal measure, “Why should he do any such thing? Would it not be truer to say that you realised that one day Lydia would be worth a very great deal of money and you were determined to take control of it and of her.”

  “No,” he protested, “I’m telling the truth. Silas was determined that Lydia never returned to you. By God, that man hated you!”

  Mrs Woodforde sank back into her seat as though he had struck her. She looked utterly bewildered, “Why? What had I ever done to deserve that? I know our marriage fell apart, but there were faults on both sides. Why should he hate me with such passion?”

  “It was something to do with your father. He said that you had sent your dear papa to threaten him with Debtor’s Prison if he didn’t take himself off and in the fullness of time give you a divorce.”

  She shook her head slowly, “I never ceased to love him and to hope that our differences could be resolved. If my father did any such thing, it was entirely without my knowledge. All I ever wanted from Silas was that he ceased to gamble and settle down to family life.”

  “Well, I’m here to tell you that he thought you were behind the entire plot. That was why he took Lydia, to punish not only you, but your parents too.”

  “He was granted his wish. They both died broken-hearted at Lydia’s loss.”

  “You have to understand,” said Brodie in a conciliatory tone, “that had I known you personally I might have acted differently, but Silas was my friend and I merely abided by his last wishes.”

  “Do your excuses sound as pathetic to your own ears as they do to mine, Mr Brodie?” asked Mrs Woodforde coldly, “Can you honestly say that any of your actions have been those of a gentleman – or even a decent human being?”

  “If I could change things, I would,” he replied, but insincerity dripped from his lips.

  “Words are easy, sir. Match them with actions and I might find it in my heart to forgive you.”

  “What do you want of me?”

  “Tell me the complete and unvarnished truth. Is that girl really my daughter Lydia?”

  “I can only tell you that she is the child Silas Woodforde left in my care when he died.”

  “And does she know that you are not her father? She was only five when he died, she could have been convinced over the years that you are indeed Silas.”

  “She thinks I’m Silas,” said Brodie flatly, “It was better for her to think it, when one careless word could have undone me completely. I told her to call me father and within months I swear she had forgotten he had ever existed. I suspect the shock of so many tragedies falling upon her in such quick succession caused her to forget many things, rather than remember and suffer.”

  Tears rose in Mrs Woodforde’s eyes, “I wish I could believe you, but something does not ring true. I need more proof.”

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you, madam.”

  “Nothing. I would not believe a word of it, anyway. You have shown yourself to be thoroughly untrustworthy in every possible way. The courts must decide, for I cannot. And as for you, I shall be reporting back to Sir George Gratten how you have deceived me. I feel sure that you will be spending some time in prison for your perjury.”

  It was Brodie’s turn to pale, “Come now, Mrs Woodforde, there is no need for him to be involved. After all, I have restored your daughter to you, albeit somewhat late in the day.”

  “And for that I am supposed to be grateful?”

  He rose to his feet, “Look, I see that you are angry and not thinking clearly. Do you not understand how all this could damage your future relationship with Lydia? She thinks I am her father and has already been raised to view you with deep suspicion. Let me fetch us another bottle of wine and we can come to some amicable arrangement for my departure that will not distress Lydia further.”

  Mrs Woodforde was evidently wearied by the whole experience and tiredly nodded her head, “Very well. But do not think to escape from this inn tonight. Toby will accompany you whilst I discuss the situation with Mr Underwood.”

  “There’s no need, madam. I assure you I have nowhere to go and very little money. Fleeing on this occasion is not an option. I am what they call ‘an empty-handed traveller’, I have brought with me only what I needed to get by and no more.”

  With that he went off to fetch more wine and Mrs Woodforde turned tragic eyes upon her companion, “This is quite a tangle, Mr Underwood.”

  “Indeed it is, ma’am – and I suspect it will take all our ingenuity to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion.”

  *

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “Ubi Solitudinem Faciunt Pacem Appellant” – They create desolation and call it peace

  Brodie came back with the wine and though they all politely partook of a glass, there was no real enthusiasm. It was as though the discovery of his deceit had changed the entire atmosphere in some subtle way. It was obvious to all that Mrs Woodforde no longer believed that Lydia was her daughter and every vestige of joy and hope had faded away. Such was the depth of her despair that it could not but affect them all. Even Brodie had lost his brashness and self-assurance. Underwood could only hope that he was finally coming to understand just exactly what suffering he had inflicted with his lies and omissions, but he was inclined to be cynical and supposed he was crediting him with an emotion he was incapable of feeling.

  How true that was became obvious later. On the journey home Toby was forced to stop the carriage. He was overtaken by nausea so great and stomach cramps so painful that the sweat poured down his face and stung his eyes. He staggered to the carriage door to explain and apologise to his companions and found them both similarly afflicted. There could be no other explanation but that Brodie had dosed them all with some noxious substance for why else would all three be so ill? Even bad wine would scarcely have such a virulent effect.

  Toby never knew how he managed to recover himself sufficiently to deliver them all safely back to Hanbury. Mrs Woodforde seemed the least affected, but Underwood vaguely recalled that she had merely sipped her wine, whereas he and Toby had both felt the strain of the situation and had drained their glasses to the last dregs – though when he thought of it, Underwood did not recall seeing Brodie ever refill his own glass.

  Having ensured that the lady was delivered home and that Lady Hartley-Wells, with whom she was now staying in preference to the hotel, had sent for a doctor, Toby took Underwood back to Windward House to find Verity frantic with worry. Some instinct had told her that Brodie meant to harm them and ever since she had read the note explaining their destination, she had been pacing the floor in agitation. Her joy and relief at their return was tempered when she realised that her fears had a very real foundation. Toby had st
opped the carriage and had forced himself to vomit in the hedgerow, but Underwood refused to follow his example and as a result he was looking and feeling ghastly by the time they reached home.

  As sick as he now was, Toby still managed to carry him up to his room, where he was forced to abandon his dignity and fill a chamber pot with his own evacuations. Verity looked almost as white as he did, “Dear God, Toby, I have never seen Underwood this ill. We must have the doctor.”

  Toby tried to reassure her that he felt considerably better since his own expulsion, but she was seriously worried and nothing could comfort her, “Toby you are so much bigger and stronger than him. What if he took a larger dose? I cannot bear the idea that he is so very ill.”

  “I’ll fetch the doctor to him,” Toby assured her, dreading the idea of having to remount the carriage, but determined to do it for her and for Underwood.

  “I’ll not hear of it,” she declared at once, “You are ill too. I shall go myself.”

  Nothing would dissuade her and pushing Toby indoors to be ministered to by the housekeeper, she hoisted herself aboard and whipped up the horses as though she had driven a carriage every day of her life.

  Within an hour she was back, bringing the Dr Herbert with her. He assured her that Mrs Woodforde was already feeling better after the application of a mustard plaster on her stomach and a strong dose of emetic. He forced Toby to endure a similar cure, but over Underwood he shook a worried head. The man was already half unconscious and delirious and it became obvious that he had taken a larger dose of poison than either Toby or Mrs Woodforde. He had not drunk more wine than the other two, so the only conclusion they could draw was that he was probably more susceptible or that Brodie had somehow managed to slip him more poison – not a difficult task when his victims were as trusting and unworldly as they had been. Toby lashed himself into a frenzy of guilt, knowing that he should have realized that Brodie was a very dangerous man. Anyone who had done what he had, was hardly likely to risk losing everything now, after waiting twenty years for his wicked plans to come to fruition. As soon as Underwood was settled into a tormented sleep Verity sent word to Constable Gratten of what had occurred, but to no one’s surprise, the Walnut Inn was bereft of its guest. The bird had flown, though they had no doubt he would reappear again should the day ever dawn that Lydia came into her inheritance.

  Underwood lay at death’s door for two days and nights, but on the third morning he opened his eyes to find his wife, pale and with dark-ringed eyes, asleep in a chair by his bed. He said her name softly and when she woke and realized he was back with her, she flung herself on him in a frenzy of weeping. He patted her ineffectually, still feeling like the very devil, but at least now compos mentis which he knew he had not been for some considerable time.

  “I thought you were going to die,” she said at last, when the worst of the storm was over, “Cadmus, I was so afraid.”

  He managed to smile, though he had a pounding headache and all he really wanted was a cup of tea, “No need to be frightened on my account, my love, I’m made of stern stuff. It would take more than a glass of bad wine to kill me.”

  “It wasn’t just bad wine,” she told him, horrified that he was taking his brush with death so lightly, “that dreadful man tried to poison you!”

  Underwood was determined to disabuse her of that notion right away – if she thought his life was endangered by his activities, she would never countenance his continuing. And since he could not endure a life so curtailed, there would be a most appalling disagreement, which he was far too lazy to contemplate.

  “Nonsense. Why should the fellow risk his neck to do any such thing? Killing me would avail him nothing. The simple truth is that the Walnut Inn was the filthiest place it has ever been my misfortune to enter and I was a fool to trust the landlord not to sell us the rubbish from his cellar which no other chuckle-head would drink.”

  He sounded so plausible that Verity hesitated, “But Toby said that Mrs Woodforde and he were ill too – Dr Herbert was sure ...”

  “You’ve been fed Grub Street News, my dear! Toby and the lady over-reacted because they were shocked by Thomas Brodie’s lies and the fact that Silas Woodforde has been dead for years.”

  “Is that really true, Cadmus?” she asked, still tearful.

  “Of course it is. Now be an angel and fetch me some tea, I’m parched, and prodigiously hungry too, now I come to think of it.”

  “You may have some toast, nothing more,” she said severely, “you mustn’t overburden your system after that awful illness.”

  “Toast would be wonderful. How are my girls? It feels like an eternity since I saw them.”

  “Shall I bring them in to see you for just a few minutes?” she offered and he nodded, delighted to be feeling well enough to cope with his children, but also that he had managed to distract his wife from her questioning. He hated to dissemble, but the truth was, he could not be sure Thomas Brodie had poisoned them. It seemed likely, but without firm evidence, there seemed little point in worrying Verity or trying to have him prosecuted for the offence. For the moment, Thomas Brodie was going to remain a free man.

  Verity returned presently, not only bearing a tray of tea and toast, but followed by Horatia and Sabrina carrying the baby. On the tray was a pile of letters. It would seem that the postman had been busy whilst he had been unwell.

  He kissed his little girls and allowed them to crawl over him on the bed for a few minutes whilst he sipped his tea, exchanging a questioning look with Verity at the presence of Sabrina in his room. She shook her head slightly, to discourage him from speaking about it in front of the girl and the children.

  It did not take him long to tire of being jumped on by his daughters, so Sabrina took them away, promising that they could see their Papa again a little later, when he got out of bed.

  As soon as the door closed behind them, he asked about the young slave girl, being careful to give no hint of annoyance at her looking so very at home under his roof. He had a very unpleasant suspicion that he had just acquired another of Verity’s ‘lame dogs’.

  “Sabrina appears to be helping you with the children,” he said, brushing toast crumbs from the front of his night shirt.

  “She’s been very good with them,” Verity assured him earnestly.

  “I’m sure she has, but that is not really the point, is it? I’m rather more intrigued to know why she has been helping you with the children – I’m very sure it is not because you have missed my assistance with their wants and needs.” Underwood was under no illusion that he was in any way useful to Verity where the two little girls were concerned. He loved them dearly, but was honest enough to admit that until they grew old enough to have an intelligent conversation with him, he found them very slightly tedious.

  “You must understand, Cadmus, a great deal has happened whilst you have been so poorly.”

  “Tell me,” he invited shortly.

  “Mrs Woodforde had decided to take the matter of Lydia to court, so Lydia and Sabrina found themselves without a place to stay, for, of course, they could not continue to take Lady Hartley-Wells’ hospitality – she is, after all, Henrietta’s friend, and has never really approved of Lydia.”

  “Scarcely surprising,” commented Underwood, “but that still does not solve the mystery of why I have suddenly acquired two house guests.”

  “Well,” said Verity reasonably, “I could not see them on the street, could I?”

  Frankly Underwood did not see why not. Lydia had a father – or at least a father-figure, staying nearby, so surely it was his responsibility to care for the young women. Underwood certainly felt under no obligation, but he knew his wife’s soft heart would not accept this harsh truth, so he shrugged, resigned to his fate, “Very well, I see no harm in their staying for a short while – but I warn you Verity, the English Law Courts work exceedingly slowly and I will not have those two women here indefinitely. My nerves couldn’t stand the strain!”

  She smiled
at him, grateful for his forbearance, for he had every reason to send Lydia about her business, especially after the lies she had told and the possibility that her father had tried to kill the man who now stood as her host.

  “It won’t be for long, my dear, I promise. I am doing everything I can to bring about a reconciliation with her mama.”

  “I wouldn’t hold your breath on that,” he said cynically.

  “Ah, but I feel sure Mrs Woodforde will thaw towards Lydia once she has had time to view the matter clearly. Just because the Brodie fellow is not her husband, it does not necessarily follow that Lydia is an impostor too. He said himself that he took the child in when her father died.”

  “If you can believe a word the man says, then that much is true, but tell me, Verity, what is the likelihood of a child surviving a fever serious enough to kill a man when she has been in close proximity on board a ship for weeks on end?”

  Verity looked thoughtful, “Stranger things have happened,” she countered, but there was not the same conviction in her voice as there had been before.

  “Very true, but we shall probably never know the truth, so let us leave it to the courts to decide, and now, I shall get up, if you don’t have any objection.”

  “None at all, if you feel well enough, but you must promise to take things carefully for a few days, at least until I’m sure you are fully recovered.”

  “I’m well enough,” he replied, “And I have things to do, so my recovery had better be a swift one.”

  “What do you mean, ‘things to do’?” asked his wife warily, “You are not doing anything for a week at least.”

  “Nonsense,” he said robustly, swinging his legs out from under the blankets, “I need to be on my way to West Wimpleford in the next few days. I’ll rest when I get back.”

  Verity looked stubborn and he knew she was about to gainsay him, so he pulled her into his arms and kissed her in such a way that she quite forgot anything else for several minutes afterwards, by which time it was far too late to protest, even if she had recalled what it was she wished to protest about.