The Path of the Wicked

by Caro Peacock

  ‘Yes, indeed; I know the vicar there. He runs a charity which does what it can for these unfortunate people. If you like, I’ll write you a note of introduction.’

  I thanked him and he wrote the note there and then, on hotel notepaper at the table.

  ‘What’s that about, then?’ said Tabby later, with her usual suspicion of the written word.

  ‘A vicar we’ll be calling on first thing tomorrow.’

  The vicar was quite a young man, but almost completely bald with only a tonsure of sparse hair. His voice was deep, his eyes kind but weary. His small church and vicarage, both of raw-looking brick, in a poor area near the docks, was not the most desirable of livings. The plain curtains and modest furnishings in his study at the vicarage where we talked suggested that he was a bachelor who didn’t spend much thought or money on his own comforts. Judging by the notices in his church porch, the Prisoners’ Gospel Mission was only one of several charities his parish supported, along with Indigent Seaman and Relief of Dock Labourers’ Widows. It seemed close to his heart, though, and he was happy to tell me about the work he and his volunteers did – mostly prison visiting. He showed no surprise when I said my interest was in a prisoner who’d been deported.

  ‘Yes, they’re heart-rending cases. We’re allowed to see them as they’re taken away and give them a small parcel of comforts for the voyage – a blanket, a cake of soap, a Bible. I’ve seen hardened sinners crying like children when they’re put into the coaches to be driven off to the hulks. Even men who’ve been sentenced only to seven years away know they might not see their homes and families again. As for the poor wretches who are transported for life, I’ve had some of them say to me that they wished they’d been hanged instead.’

  ‘The person I’m interested in was for life, and she was a young woman,’ I said.

  A pained look came over his face. ‘Joanna Picton?’

  ‘You know about the case?’

  ‘Of course. It was notorious here. And there aren’t so many women deported.’

  ‘When was she sent away?’

  ‘The end of May this year. The men, they’re sent down to the hulks at Woolwich to wait for the deportation ships. The hulks have no accommodation for women, so they’re conveyed to Woolwich just before the ships are due to sail. Joanna was the only woman this time. They sent her off on the London coach, wrist-shackled to a warder.’

  ‘Shackled?’

  He looked down at the table, obviously uneasy with what he was telling me.

  ‘We did suggest that it was hardly necessary in Joanna’s case. The poor girl was sobbing and so distressed she could hardly walk to the coach. But the prison governor insisted it was the rule. I think up to the last minute they feared there’d be some desperate attempt to rescue her.’

  ‘We? There was somebody with you?’

  ‘A woman. A remarkably good-hearted and determined woman.’

  ‘Was her name Mary Marsh?’ I said.

  ‘I never knew her name. She said Joanna Picton had been employed in a household where she lived.’

  ‘You thought her remarkable?’

  ‘Decidedly. She came to me the day before Joanna was to be taken away and asked if there would be any chance to speak to her. I explained that the authorities would be unlikely to allow it and that in any case the scene was likely to be too distressing for somebody not used to such things.’

  ‘But Miss Marsh wasn’t convinced?’ I said.

  ‘She was immovable. If her motives had not been so kindly, I might even have said stubborn. She said she had a message for the unfortunate girl from her brother. I offered to deliver it, if I could, but that didn’t do. Nothing would satisfy her but she should be there when Joanna was put on the coach. For better or worse, I gave in.’

  ‘And did she talk to Joanna Picton?’ I asked.

  ‘She did, but for no more than a minute or two. I wouldn’t want to impute any wrongdoing to your friend, but I think it possible that she even passed some money to a gaoler to look the other way while he was sorting out the shackles.’

  ‘Do you know what they talked about?’

  ‘No. I stood quite close, so that I could protect your friend in case of any difficulty, but not so close as to overhear. I presume the message from the brother was passed on. As I say, the girl was distressed and crying.’

  ‘Crying too much to talk?’

  ‘Not entirely. There were several occasions when your friend had clearly asked her something and she lifted up her head and spoke quite sharply. I thought perhaps your friend was asking her if she repented of that she’d done, which would have been quite understandable. If so, I’m afraid she didn’t get the answer her kindness deserved.’

  ‘Joanna spoke sharply? Angrily?’

  ‘From the expression on her face, I think so.’

  ‘Angry with Miss Marsh?’

  ‘In my opinion, no. When the men came to put the girl on the coach, she clung to your friend and buried her face on her shoulder. They had to drag her away.’

  ‘Miss Marsh must have found that distressing.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. When the coach had driven away, she seemed dazed, not speaking, I supposed from shock at what she’d witnessed and I regretted having given in to her. I brought her back here and some of our ladies brewed tea. After a while she seemed to recover and I realized I’d been wrong. She’d been simply dazed with anger.’

  He stared at me, eyes as puzzled as they’d probably been at the time. I thought that anybody of feeling might be angry at what she’d seen, but I guessed there was more to it than that.

  ‘Why was she angry?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I do remember what she said to me. “Hypocrisy should be one of the deadly sins.” She said it very decisively, as if it were somehow my fault as a man of the church that it weren’t. I began explaining to her that it was bound up with other sins, like pride and bearing false witness, but she interrupted me, almost rudely. “It seems to me that it’s the one thing that should be unforgivable.” I tried to remind her that nothing is unforgivable to our Saviour, but I think she was sunk in her own mind, not hearing. She was like a person who’d received a bad shock, almost stunned by it.’

  ‘A shock from what Joanna Picton had said?’

  ‘It must have been. Perhaps it was the girl’s lack of repentance that shocked her.’

  I didn’t believe that for a moment. I don’t think he did.

  ‘And she didn’t explain what she meant?’

  ‘No. After a while she recovered and apologized for being sharp with me. She said hastiness was a great fault. I said it was indeed, but it was often a fault of generous natures. Like hers, I meant, wanting her to feel better. She said she’d wronged somebody by being hasty. I asked her what she meant, thinking she might want to confide in me, but she shook her head and said it was up to her to put it right. I said I’d pray for her. Then she thanked me and left. I often think of her. I hope she’s well.’

  That came as a cold blast to me. Mary Marsh had seemed so alive when he talked about her that I’d forgotten he didn’t know.

  ‘I’m very sorry to tell you she’s dead,’ I said.

  He rocked back in his chair.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Just over a month ago.’

  ‘Was it sudden?’

  ‘Very sudden.’

  He looked so shocked that I couldn’t bring myself to tell him she’d been murdered. He might find out for himself in time.

  ‘And you . . . why . . .?’

  ‘I suppose when somebody dies suddenly, you think of all the things she might have told you and didn’t,’ I said. ‘Finding out things you didn’t know is a way of coming closer to the person.’

  It was true enough, but I was still deceiving him, letting him think she’d been my friend. I wished she had been. I wished too that I could tell him more, but I didn’t know where that would end. Mary Marsh had made a deep impression on him. Perhaps he’d hoped to meet her again
in happier circumstances. I thanked him and said I must go, uncomfortable at receiving his condolences. The couple of half-crowns I dropped into one of the many collecting boxes on his window sill did nothing to ease my conscience. He showed me out and said I’d be welcome to call again. I knew I wouldn’t call again.

  Tabby was waiting outside. As we walked back to the hotel together, I gave her a pretty full account of what the vicar had told me.

  ‘What’s hypocrisy?’ she said.

  ‘Wanting people to think you’re good when you aren’t.’

  ‘Nearly everyone, then.’

  ‘The question is: what can Joanna have said to her to shock her so much? Mary knew the whole story already – the fair, the workhouse, the baby dying. How could there be anything worse for Joanna to tell her?’

  Just a few sharp words, almost certainly the last Joanna would speak in her native county, before the coach took her southwards at the start of a journey that would convey her like cargo to the other side of the world. Somehow they’d turned Mary’s whole view of the case upside down. She’d been hasty. She’d wronged somebody and must put it right.

  ‘There’s one thing Joanna hadn’t told anyone,’ Tabby said.

  ‘Who the father was? Yes, that’s what I’m thinking, too. Everything’s lost, so she tells Mary the name at last. But why not before?’

  ‘Because she was hoping he’d do something to help her, right up to the last. So when she finds he isn’t going to, she might as well say it.’

  It was always a good test of my ideas, trying them against Tabby’s commonsense. Again, she and I had come to the same conclusion.

  ‘So Joanna says a name, and Mary’s angry and shocked by it,’ I said. ‘We at least know what the name wasn’t, don’t we?’

  ‘Paley.’

  ‘Yes. Everybody suspected Peter Paley was the father, including Mary and Jack Picton. So if Joanna had simply confirmed it, Mary wouldn’t have been so shocked. Then there’s this hypocrisy word. Even people who don’t like Peter Paley or his father admit they’re not hypocrites. So neither of them was the father.’

  ‘Who was, then?’

  I didn’t answer at first. A name was in my mind and I didn’t want to say it. Tabby started scuffing her feet as she walked, which meant she was puzzled.

  ‘It has to be somebody with a good reputation,’ I prompted. ‘Somebody Mary respected.’

  ‘Colonel Kemble?’

  We were about to cross a road at the time and I nearly stepped in front of an oncoming donkey cart in sheer surprise.

  ‘Colonel Kemble?’

  ‘Why not? He’s rich, he was in the army and goes to church and so on. Is that what you call a good reputation?’

  ‘It was the son I was thinking of, not the father.’

  ‘Rodney again?’

  ‘Yes. Imagine how angry she’d be. When she first finds out about Joanna, she wants him to help her, but he won’t. If he were the father, naturally he wouldn’t want to do anything in case it started tongues wagging. But Mary doesn’t know that and thinks he’s just being cowardly. Then, at the very last minute, she finds out the truth.’

  ‘So she tells him what she’s found out and he kills her – is that it?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tabby said. ‘But it would work the same with his father.’

  ‘I don’t think so. She really cared for Rodney, in spite of the quarrel. That would make it worse.’

  Tabby didn’t look entirely convinced.

  ‘There’s a problem of time, though,’ I said. ‘She finds out the day Joanna’s sent away, in late May. But she’s not killed until July, six weeks later.’

  ‘Perhaps he was trying to screw himself up to do it.’

  ‘But if he intended to kill her, he’d have to do it before she had a chance to tell anybody else. In six weeks she could have told the whole world if she’d wanted.’

  ‘Perhaps she didn’t go and tell him straight away. She wanted to find out if Joanna was telling the truth.’

  ‘But she believed Joanna; otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so angry and shocked,’ I said.

  ‘She believed her at first; then she started wondering if it was true.’

  That made some sense. In talking to the vicar, Mary had accused herself of being hasty. Perhaps she’d gone to the other extreme and looked for more proof before speaking out. But where would she have gone for proof? In any case, could she have lived under the same roof as Rodney for six weeks, knowing what she knew, and not speak out? We discussed those two questions for the rest of the way back to the hotel but came up with no answers.

  SEVENTEEN

  I paid our bill and collected Rancie from the stables. As I intended to get all the way back to Mr Godwit’s house that day, we gave her an easy time on the return from Gloucester to Cheltenham. By early afternoon we were on the outskirts of the town. We found a trough for Rancie to drink and I burrowed in the saddlebag for a comb and a clothes brush to tidy myself up. We had no mirror, so I asked Tabby if I looked fairly presentable.

  ‘You’ve got a smudge on your cheek.’ I dipped my handkerchief in the trough and gave it to her to wipe it off. ‘But I don’t know why you’re bothering,’ she said. ‘We’ll only get all dusty again on the way back.’

  ‘I’m paying a call first.’

  ‘Who on?’

  ‘Can’t you guess? The same gentleman Mary Marsh would have called on.’

  ‘Mr Paley?’

  ‘That’s right. The old one, not the young one.’

  ‘Am I coming with you?’

  ‘No. Go and find something to eat and drink. I’ll meet you back here at three o’clock.’

  She held Rancie while I used the edge of the trough to remount. I knew the Paleys’ house – an imposing one behind a high wall on this side of town – and could easily have walked there, but both Paleys had an eye for a good horse. I’d need any advantage I could get to persuade Colum Paley to talk to me. The gates at the top of the drive were open. I rode straight through and round the side of the house to a stable yard large enough for an important coaching inn, but more orderly and restful. A dozen or more thoroughbred heads looked out from the boxes that surrounded it. A lad was sweeping up the few straw wisps that spoiled the perfection of the flagstones. When I asked him where I might find Mr Paley, he propped the broom against the wall and bolted into a room at the end of a row of loose boxes. I stayed in the saddle as Colum Paley strolled out, taking his time, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. From the way he was dressed, he might have been mistaken for one of his own grooms, in gaiters, moleskin waistcoat and jacket, although clean and tidy like the rest of his yard. He was saying something to the lad behind him and didn’t look pleased to be interrupted, but his face changed when he saw Rancie.

  ‘Oh, so you’re the one, are you?’ he said.

  I wasn’t sure if he was speaking to my mare or to me, so I thought I’d better introduce her. I gave him her full name, Esperance, and a summary of her pedigree. He listened, giving a few quick little nods, approving her.

  ‘She’s the one that was giving a race to the lads up on the course?’ he said.

  ‘Only a pipe-opener,’ I said. ‘She’s not in training for racing.’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘You should be breeding from her. I’ve got a stallion might suit, Whalebone line, not great lookers but the speed’s there.’

  This talk of breeding, from a gentleman to a lady when we hadn’t even been introduced, was hardly delicate, but his manner was direct and unembarrassed. Even at a disadvantage, on foot when I was on horseback, there was a presence about him. My only sight of him so far had been outside the assembly rooms. Seen close to, he was as broad-shouldered as Amos, though not quite as tall, with a good, squarish head and dark hair worn long enough to show the slight wave in it, giving him the air of a person who followed his own tastes. He was probably in his fifties, but with the energy of
a man twenty years younger. I said that I hadn’t thought of breeding from Esperance yet, making a mental note that if and when I did, I’d find something more amiable and better-looking than Whalebone’s bloodline.

  ‘Shouldn’t leave it till too late,’ he said. ‘So, have they found the girl?’

  He must have recognized me and heard of my connection with Barbara Kemble’s disappearance. It was a reminder not to underestimate Colum Paley.

  ‘Not as far as I know, but I’ve only just got back from Gloucester. I want to talk to you about Mary Marsh.’

  From his face, it took him a moment or two to remember who she was.

  ‘The governess?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He’d been relaxed when we’d been talking about horses; now his voice and face were hard.

  ‘You’d better get down, then.’

  He helped me down without fuss, called to the stable boy to look after Rancie and led the way to the room at the end of the row. He opened the door to let me in first. It was a plain room with whitewashed walls and looked like a combination of a gentleman’s study and a head groom’s quarters. A reproduction of Stubbs’s painting of Eclipse was the only picture, with various bits and bridles hanging from pegs on either side. Under it, a pine table crowded with feed bills and race schedules and an inkwell made from a horse’s hoof. A sagging armchair containing a dozing spaniel stood by the fireplace. The smell was masculine: leather and brandy. A smaller table with two plain wooden chairs drawn up to it supported a decanter of brandy and several glasses, one of them half full.

  ‘You’d better sit down, I suppose,’ he said in that same hard voice.

  Not wanting to disturb the spaniel, I took one of the wooden chairs. Colum Paley sat down in the other and glanced from the decanter to me.

  ‘Like a drink?’

  The tone seemed deliberately coarse now – a gentleman jockey’s drawl. After the ride I’d have been grateful for a cup of tea or even a glass of hock, but brandy was the only thing on offer. I shook my head.

  ‘Mary Marsh came to see you,’ I said. ‘It was earlier this year, sometime between May and when she died in July. She came to apologize.’