by Caro Peacock
‘Can you do it?’
The true answer was that I didn’t know, but I said I hoped so. He nodded, but didn’t ask how I intended to set about it, which was just as well. When I said I had a note to write, he offered me the use of his study. I sat at his desk and wrote a couple of lines. When I looked out of the window, he was standing in his garden in the twilight, waiting for his old spaniel to do its business in the shrubbery. I folded the note, addressed it and took it up to bed with me.
It didn’t seem any better a plan in the morning than it had the night before, but it was the only one I had. It was no surprise to find Tabby down by the paddock at first light.
‘We going somewhere?’
‘Cheltenham again, but I want you to do something first.’ I gave her the note and a shilling. ‘Take this over and give it to the vicar’s boy. He’s sure to be up early. Tell him it must be delivered today, as soon as possible. Then come back here and I’ll tell you what next.’
While she was gone, I brought in Rancie and gave her a small feed while I did my best with tack cleaning. I couldn’t find sponge or saddle soap and the leather of the saddle flap was stiff and beginning to crack. Amos would be annoyed when he saw it, but that was the least of my worries. Tabby was back before I finished and helped me tack up. We went at a walk for the first mile, with Tabby on foot alongside, to give Rancie time to digest her breakfast. Then I hoisted Tabby up behind and we were in Cheltenham before the invalids had even left their hotels. I dismounted and helped her down.
‘The business of today is to find Amos Legge,’ I said. ‘I’m going to ride round all the livery stables and coaching inns I can manage on both sides of town. I want you to stay in town and ask at the hotel stables and anywhere else you can think of. But whatever happens, meet me back here at four by the church clock.’
She nodded.
‘Another thing, keep your ears open for anything to do with Barbara Kemble,’ I said. ‘It seems strange that nobody has found any trace of her going out of town. I’m beginning to wonder if she ever left town at all. You might have a look at that dressmaker’s house I showed you.’
Another nod. I gave her some money, remounted and rode out of town on the road westwards, for no better reason than that way I shouldn’t have the sun in my eyes. In the next hour and a half, I inquired at three inns, two livery stables and a tollgate, with no useful result. One of the inns remembered a man of Amos’s description from two or three days ago, but that was no help because I knew he must have been in the area then, in any case. I went back through the town and rode out for nearly two hours in the other direction towards the Cotswolds, with only one doubtful sighting and that on Tuesday, two days ago. I began to wonder whether he’d ridden back home to Herefordshire and his fiancée, but why would he go without seeing me? More to the point, why hadn’t he told Colum Paley where to find his son? It wasn’t like Amos to leave a job undone. With no answers, I turned back towards Cheltenham, hot, dusty and worried. I’d made my plan relying on finding Amos. Without his swiftness and physical strength, it would involve much more risk and might not work at all. I realized now that I’d relied on him too much. I’d assumed, wrongly, that he’d somehow manage to appear when I needed him. Amos, the married man, wouldn’t be there in future and I’d have to become accustomed to a large empty space. I only wished it hadn’t been today.
I arrived back in town with time to give Rancie a long drink at the water trough before meeting Tabby. There was another thing to consider. Without Amos, I’d have to take Tabby as a hidden witness when I kept the appointment I’d made. The problem was she wouldn’t stay hidden if she thought I was being threatened. She’d be out of hiding and fighting like a terrier, whatever the odds. I rode on to the place where I’d told her to meet me, wondering how to prevent that happening and finding no answer. I arrived a few minutes before four. No Tabby. Four o’clock struck. No Tabby. Half past four. No Tabby. By now I was annoyed. In spite of Tabby’s refusal to learn reading and writing, she was capable of telling the hours and reasonably punctual. The exception was when she was on the trail of something or somebody. If she’d picked up a scent of where Barbara might be, she’d follow it, oblivious of what the church clock said. My fault. I should have impressed on her how important it was to be here. Even more important now there was no Amos, although she couldn’t have known that. I asked some loitering lads if they’d seen her. Not since she was with me in the morning, they said. At half past five, I distributed small change and a message to give to her if they saw her.
‘Tell her I can’t wait and I’m going home. She’s to catch up with me if she can.’
Time was pressing, but I rode as slowly as I dared, turning in the saddle every few minutes in the hope of seeing a small figure in a dust cloud behind me. Mr Godwit was away on some errand to a neighbour when I arrived and he had left a message saying he’d be back in time for dinner. I was glad of his absence. I left Rancie in the gardener’s care, fetched pen and ink from the study, and spent some time in my room writing a note, using the marble top of the washstand for a desk. It was quite short, addressed to Mr Godwit, and told him where I was going, whom I was seeing and why. I left it on my pillow, where it was unlikely to be found until tomorrow morning. If I came back in time to reclaim it, so much the better. Mrs Wood was surprised to hear I shouldn’t be joining Mr Godwit for dinner. She offered tea and cake instead and I ate and drank sitting at the kitchen table in my riding clothes, suddenly hungry.
‘If Tabby comes back, tell her to wait for me here,’ I said.
The problem of how to prevent her from trying to rescue me if it came to it had solved itself, though not the way I wanted. I walked along the now familiar road, the sun low in the west and stretching my shadow out across the fields. It looked as lonely as I felt. If there’d been more time, even a day or two more, I shouldn’t have kept the appointment. Perhaps the other party wouldn’t be there. That thought was comforting, even though it would mean that my plan had fallen at the first hurdle and Jack Picton would probably hang. Let him. He was an ungrateful man at best. Innocent men were hanged quite often and I couldn’t worry about all of them. A sudden incongruous memory came to me of Mr Disraeli in his evening finery sitting by the fish pond, and I was angry with him for his part in setting me swimming in these waters. I was angry with everybody, myself included for not managing things better. I was walking too fast. Half past eight, I’d written in my note. That would be just as the light was going. No point in being there too early.
I took the first turning off the road, the way to the servants’ entrance. They’d all be occupied now, clearing up after dinner. From the side of the house, a smaller track to the left led towards the woods. Still no sign of anybody, but the other party might be watching me from the house. I walked quickly along the woodland track, determined that our meeting should be at the time and place I’d chosen. When I reached the shelter of the trees, there was no sign of anybody following me. My heart was thumping as I followed the faint track. When it came on to a wider path, with deep ruts where timber had been drawn out, I turned right. There was mud in some of the ruts from Monday’s rain. It squelched into my left boot through a split I hadn’t known was there, sliming my stocking and toes.
Through a space where a big oak had fallen, I could make out the back of the house – a solid block against the dusk, a few lights in the windows. A dog barked from the stable block, too far away to be anything to do with me. Mary Marsh would have come this way forty-four days ago. I was walking in her footsteps and the thoughts in my mind were her thoughts. Being the person she was, she’d have worked out in advance what she was going to say. The word ‘hypocrite’ would be in there somewhere. It had been the main thing on her mind after that last meeting with Joanna. And at some point she’d have asked, as I intended to ask: ‘So, what do you intend to do about it?’ If she’d been allowed to get that far. Perhaps she had – and then received her answer in a blow to the skull with a lump of iron. The d
ifference between us was that she wasn’t expecting it. I hoped that would be enough.
In the glade the weeds seemed to have grown taller. The willow-herb was going to seed, streaks of white fluff and a few faded pink flowers. The birds had gone quiet and not so much as a field mouse rustled last year’s leaves. I took out my watch, with just enough light coming through the branches to see the time. Twenty-three minutes past eight. I’d decided that I’d behave as if Amos was really where I wanted him to be, behind the oak at the far side of the clearing. I’d say my piece, and if the other party tried to attack me, I’d shout out and then run towards the house. I thought he wouldn’t attack. Everything I’d seen of Rodney Kemble suggested a man under almost intolerable strain, with no savagery left in him. When I next looked at my watch, only three minutes had passed. I wondered if there was time to take my boot off and twist the stocking round so that my toes weren’t sliding on mud. Odd, the tricks the mind plays. I counted slowly to two hundred, to keep my breathing steady. It must be time now. Perhaps he wasn’t coming. Then I was annoyed with myself for feeling so relieved. I wanted him to come, didn’t I?
Nearer dark than twilight now. He wasn’t coming. I’d give it five minutes more and then walk back. But something would have to be done about the stocking. I sat on a tree trunk, pulled my boot off, loosened my garter and eased the stocking round. Then the footsteps came. In the few seconds it took to get my breathing back under control, I lost the sound and thought I must have imagined it. Then they started again, faint as if from several hundred yards away. They weren’t coming from the house as I expected, but from further away behind the stable block. Something about them was wrong. They were coming in my direction, quite rapidly judging by the sound. It was the rhythm that was wrong. Somebody was taking long strides, too long for what I remembered of the way Rodney Kemble walked and too urgent. Why should he hurry to a meeting that he’d have wanted to avoid if he could? The only explanation was that he’d screwed his courage to the sticking point and was coming to deal with me before it deserted him. These weren’t the steps of a man who’d stand and listen to reason. I fumbled at the garter and struggled to push my foot back into my boot, cursing my stupidity. I wanted to run now, but he’d hear me, even see me in the last of the light. All I could do was stand up and keep in my mind what I’d intended to say to him – if I had the chance.
I still couldn’t see him, but I could hear his breathing, steady in spite of his hurry. Then suddenly I could see him, much closer than I’d thought. He’d been invisible against the darkness of the trees until he moved into the glade. I gasped, both from the closeness and the height of him. I hadn’t remembered Rodney so tall. The words I’d prepared wouldn’t come. He spoke first, stopping suddenly a few yards away.
‘Well, I’m duthered! How come you knew I’d be here?’
The voice and the hay-and-leather smell of Amos Legge were so unexpected that I thought I’d imagined him. Even now, I couldn’t find words.
‘You gone lame, then?’ His voice was concerned. Even in the near dark, he could sense that I was standing awkwardly, boot half on. ‘I’ll carry you, only we’ll have to hurry because he’s chasing after me.’ He jerked a thumb back in the direction he’d come.
‘Who’s chasing you?’ I got words out at last, even though my brain was buzzing like a disturbed bee hive.
‘The brother.’
‘Rodney Kemble? But he’s the one I’m waiting for.’
‘I wouldn’t, if I were you. He’s not in the best of tempers.’
‘Why? Have you told him . . .?’ I couldn’t grasp what Amos knew or didn’t know, but there was no time to think about it because he was bending, ready to pick me up.
‘Amos, there’s no need. It’s only my boot. Just give me a moment.’ I bent and wrenched it straight.
‘I could wait and fight him,’ Amos said. ‘Only if I did, I’d have to knock him down and I reckon he’s got enough troubles without that.’ Then, as an afterthought: ‘And he’s carrying a shotgun.’
‘He killed Mary Marsh,’ I said.
‘We can sort that out later.’ Amos made it sound like a matter of course. ‘Only, if you’re sound on your legs, we’d better move.’
There were other steps now, distant but determined ones coming quite rapidly along the path from the stable block. Rodney Kemble knew his woods. I might have insisted on standing our ground and having it out with him after all, but that would have made a fight inevitable and even Amos was not shotgun-proof. I took the arm that he offered, hitched my skirts up with the other hand and we moved rapidly back along the path. As soon as we’d cleared the back of the house, Amos steered us aside under the trees. He gripped my arm as a warning to keep quiet and we stood listening. After some time we heard the footsteps again. Rodney Kemble came striding past us, only yards away, making for the side entrance of the house. It was too dark to see his face, but his whole posture was jagged with anger and hurry. Instead of going back on the track, Amos found a way through the trees and back on to the road. As we walked towards the village, my heartbeats steadied enough to make talking possible.
‘Amos, what had you said to Rodney Kemble?’
‘I didn’t get much chance to say anything. I was in their stables, talking to a man I knew, when he came in and saw me. From what he said, he reckons you’ve made off with his sister and I’ve been helping you. He doesn’t seem to like you very much. I thought if I stayed, it would only lead to unpleasantness, so I went.’
‘But what were you doing in the Kembles’ stable yard in the first place?’
It was too dark to see Amos’s face, but I sensed an awkwardness.
‘The lass wanted a few little things she’d forgotten – bracelets, something with feathers. Then there was a note to be delivered to her maid. I was coming out this way anyhow to see you, so I said I’d do it.’
‘Lass? You mean you were running an errand for Barbara Kemble?’
‘That’s about the size of it.’
‘Amos, what have you been doing?’
He took a few steps before answering. ‘Well, it’s a little bit of a story.’
NINETEEN
I heard most of it next morning, when we were riding back downhill towards Cheltenham, Tabby perched behind Amos on the big skewbald cob he’d borrowed from somewhere. The night before he’d had supper in the kitchen and slept in the hayloft, another puzzle for Mr Godwit, who by now was dazed almost beyond questions and harassed by preparations for the formal opening of Gloucester assizes next day. The three of us set out after breakfast on a fine morning.
‘So, it was follow the horse,’ Amos said. ‘I came back on Monday by way of Ledbury and had another little talk with the man who was trying to use Paley’s thoroughbred to pull a cart. As I guessed, he knew the fellow he’d had it off better than he wanted me to think he did, in payment of a debt for some weaners he’d had off him, and, as it turned out, the other fellow had a half-brother who worked at a farm not far off the racecourse here, so that begged the question of why he’d gone all the way out to Ledbury to sell a good horse, but then the brother’s not what you’d call a full peal of bells . . .’
I rode close and half listened, knowing Amos wouldn’t be hurried and we’d have to go through this trail of doubtful horse dealing until we came to what mattered. It had a calming effect after the alarms of the night before, like the buzzing of the bees in the traveller’s joy that looped the hedges we rode past.
‘Any road, I came back here and went to the farm where the brother worked, and got the story out of him, promising I wouldn’t make trouble for him if he told me. He and a friend were out poaching rabbits early one morning, middle of last month, and there’s this horse grazing by a path, reins broken and saddle gone. I daresay the horse had rolled until the girth buckles broke. Some of them will. He had enough sense to realize it must belong to somebody, but he says the friend persuaded him to take it over to his brother to sell and split the money. Which they did, though
there wasn’t a lot left to split after the cut the brother took out of it. So I say goodbye and thank you to my man and start thinking. The only reason for a good horse like that to be wandering on its own is that the rider’s come to harm. And the most likely way for a rider to come to harm is by falling off at a jump.’
‘The reapers saw him galloping across a stubble field half a mile from the racecourse,’ I said.
‘Some fields have stone walls in these parts and a half-mile is a long way for a horse to gallop that’s already had a race.’
‘So young Paley came a cropper?’ I said.
‘Must have. But all he remembers of it is waking up with his head against the wall, sun high up in the sky, bird shit on his face and no horse.’
‘He told you this himself?’
‘He did. He says he was lying there for a long time even after he came to, not capable of moving. He’d hit his head a right crack, broken a leg and a few ribs for good measure, plus his nose had bled and there were bramble scratches all over his face. As the sun starts to go down, it occurs to him that he’ll be dead if he spends the night outside as he is, so he manages to get himself upright against the wall and then drags himself along to a farm track, with his nose starting to bleed again. By the time the old fellow found him, he must have looked like something escaped from the slaughterhouse.’
Even though I had no particular feeling for young Paley, I couldn’t help wincing at Amos’s breezy account of it.
‘So he was found. Why didn’t he get word to his father?’
‘From what he says, and I’m inclined to believe him, he wasn’t capable of anything for a week or more. The old fellow manages to get him along to the cottage where he lives – more of a hovel by the sound of it – and then Paley passes out again. He comes to, lying on an old sheepskin on a plank with a sheepdog licking his face. His leg’s been put in a splint, quite handily all things considered, and he feels as if he’s been asleep for a hundred years, though it probably wasn’t more than a few days. He’s still not capable of doing anything, but he says the old fellow looks after him as well as he can, considering he must be around eighty years old, bent double with arthritis, and a cleft palate so Paley can’t make out half the things he’s saying. Not that he says a lot. He feeds Paley on oatmeal porridge and boiled turnips, which is all he has to eat himself, and slowly but surely he returns to the land of the living. By then he’s had the chance to do some thinking.’
