The Path of the Wicked

by Caro Peacock

  ‘Not before time,’ I said.

  ‘You could say so. He works out that half of his plan’s gone pretty well right, though not the way he intended it. He’s disappeared and his father will be starting to get worried about him. But the other half of it’s not going well at all.’

  ‘You mean eloping with Barbara Kemble?’

  He glanced sideways at me. ‘You knew about that, then?’

  ‘Yes, but too late. So the plan from the start was that she should join him?’

  ‘Yes. He was going to ride the horse to London, sell it, arrange the special licence, the clergyman and so on, and then send word for her to come and meet him.’

  ‘To London, on her own?’

  ‘There was a friend of his supposed to be bringing her.’

  ‘Name of Postboy?’

  ‘That’s the one. The idea was that his father would be pleased when he heard about the marriage, because the girl’s a good match, all things considered, and her father would just have to put up with it. So there he’d be, blushing bride on his arm, debts paid off by dad, all songbirds and rose petals. And thinking it over, it still seemed to him a good idea in spite of what had happened. The problem was letting his friend know where he was. There was nothing like pen and ink available, and in any case the old fellow never went more than three fields away from where he lived, so it was no use asking him to carry a message. So that was the state of affairs when I found him.’

  ‘And how exactly did you manage that?’

  He smiled, not trying to hide the fact that he was pleased with himself. ‘Wasn’t difficult, once I’d worked back to where the horse had been found in the first place. I got the lad to take me to exactly where they’d first seen him, and stood there for a bit to get my mind on how a horse would see things. Once you’ve done that, you can take a fair guess at where he’d have to have been to get to where he was. I’d guessed by then that the rider must have taken a pretty bad tumble, so I walked round the fields, having a look where it might have happened. There was a wall with hoofprints on the take-off side, a bit smudged but you could see where he’d skidded going into it. Then there were a couple of stone blocks on the other side he’d dislodged and the brambles flattened down from a man and a horse landing on top of them. From there it was just a matter of looking round to see where a badly hurt man might have been taken, and there weren’t many houses in that part of the country.’

  All this a month after it happened. Amos had reason to be pleased with himself, but he still had some explaining to do.

  ‘So you found Peter Paley,’ I said. ‘Why didn’t you tell his father? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I sent a message to his father as soon as I found him, letting him know he was all right. I couldn’t do more than that without breaking my word.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  He seemed surprised at the hurt in my voice. ‘I thought you’d have worked it out. Then, when I saw you talking to Postboy and his friends, I was sure you had.’

  I thought sadly that this was a measure of the distance that had already grown between us.

  ‘And you gave your word to Peter Paley to say nothing. You’ve even been helping him with his plans to elope. Why?’

  He was crestfallen now. He’d brought his triumph to me and I was spoiling it.

  ‘I was sorry for him, I suppose. He was so pleased to see me, after all that time on his own with the old fellow. And he was worried about his horse and his young lady.’

  ‘Was he now? Which of them did he ask after first?’

  Amos looked away. ‘I can’t rightly remember.’

  So I had my answer. Not that Amos would have thought any the worse of him for it.

  ‘He asked you to help him, and you agreed?’

  ‘Not straight away. My first idea was to get him back home. Then he told me the story of how he’d let his young lady down and she’d be mad with worry, not knowing if he was dead or alive. So, in the end, I agreed I’d fetch his friend, the one they call Postboy. He and young Paley and I talked it over. Paley was dead against going straight home before the business with the young lady was settled. Postboy knew of this old farmhouse up in the hills where he’d camped out sometimes when he needed to get away from the duns. Paley’s leg was set enough to be moved by now, so we fetched a cart and took him over there.’

  ‘I hope he said thank you to the old man.’

  ‘He did, fair enough, and left him the money he had in his pocket. It wasn’t a lot, and from the look on the old fellow’s face it was as much use to him as teacups to a camel. Still, it showed willing.’

  We were close to Cheltenham by now, the horses walking out easily, Tabby leaning forward round Amos’s back, so as not to miss a word of the conversation.

  ‘And you agreed to collect Barbara Kemble’s trunk,’ I said. ‘Weren’t they lucky, having you to help with their elopement plans?’

  I knew I sounded bitter, but I couldn’t forget the long hours of panic and the useless search for Barbara. I thought I could guess why Amos had fallen in with the plan so readily. The prospect of his marriage had made a romantic of him.

  ‘The fact is we did get galloped away with,’ Amos said defensively.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘The arrangement was that Postboy should carry a letter to Miss Kemble from young Paley, letting her know the situation. We’d agreed that he’d wait until he heard back from her and then let his father know what was happening. Only she didn’t wait. She wrote straight back to Postboy, saying she was running away and to meet her at a certain house in town on Monday. It was the Sunday by the time we got the message and there was no stopping her.’

  ‘The house?’

  ‘Where one of her friends lives.’

  Near her dressmaker, I guessed. And the comings and goings of Postboy in a variety of vehicles would have caused no comment in Cheltenham. Had Barbara been hiding under a rug on the back seat of a carriage? No matter. She’d thoroughly outmanoeuvred me.

  ‘So, where is Barbara Kemble now?’ I said.

  ‘Up in the old farmhouse, with young Paley.’

  I said nothing to that. Her reputation was well and truly gone now.

  ‘Respectable, like,’ Amos said. ‘She sleeps upstairs; he’s downstairs on account of the leg.’

  ‘The perfect knight,’ I said sarcastically. ‘His drawn sword between them.’

  ‘And me sleeping on the landing,’ Amos said.

  I said things couldn’t go on as they were and we’d have to let both fathers know, whether the two young troublemakers liked it or not. Amos didn’t argue. You could see that the responsibility had been weighing on him. In Peter Paley’s case, there’d be little harm done. His father seemed prepared to accept things. Barbara was another matter. I supposed she’d have to marry Paley, which was what she’d wanted all along – or perhaps only convinced herself she wanted. But it was too late to worry about that now. The problem was that there might be yet another family grief confronting her.

  ‘We have to decide what to do about her brother,’ I said.

  ‘He’ll calm down in the end,’ Amos said.

  He sounded remarkably tolerant about a man who’d recently been chasing him with a shotgun, but then he didn’t know the full story. I told him as concisely as I could, but even so we’d reached the town centre by the time I’d finished.

  ‘So you think he killed the governess. What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I don’t know. In all honesty, I just don’t know. When I asked him to meet me where she died, I hoped I might jolt him into admitting it.’

  ‘Not likely, was it?’

  ‘What else was I to do? The trial’s three days away. There’s no hope of getting convincing evidence in that time.’

  ‘Even if you could, would you want to hang the poor lass’s brother?’

  Clearly, Barbara had been working her charms on this newly susceptible Amos. The misfortune of Joanna Picton and the bravery of Mary Marsh w
eren’t as stark in his mind as in mine.

  ‘If I could only get him to admit to fathering Joanna’s child, it might be something,’ I said. ‘At least we might be able to stop Picton damaging his case in court even more by naming the wrong man.’

  I could see from Amos’s expression that he thought it was a faint hope, and he was right. His mind was still on the eloping couple. We’d agreed that we should go straight up to the farmhouse and talk sense to them. It was up a track just past the beer house where Amos had collected the trunk, so we turned on to the road out of town.

  ‘Whatever they decide to do, I want a chance to talk to Peter Paley,’ I said. ‘He was right at the centre of what happened at the fair. He might have some idea of what became of Joanna after she was arrested. He has no reason to like Rodney Kemble. If he’d seen him taking Joanna off on her own, he’d surely say so.’

  ‘He hasn’t up to now.’

  ‘Because nobody’s asked him up to now. Nobody in all this has cared enough about Joanna to worry, except Mary Marsh.’

  ‘She’ll be nearly there by now,’ Amos said. ‘Three months, it takes them.’ I glanced at him, surprised he should know. Three months to Van Diemen’s Land. ‘I’ve heard some people do all right there.’ He was looking between the ears of the skewbald cob as he spoke. ‘New country, good climate. She might even find somebody and marry.’

  He was trying to console me and, by implication, telling me to stop worrying about something I could do nothing to alter. It was good advice. I might have no choice but to take it.

  We said nothing else until we came within sight of the farmhouse, a tumbledown place in a dip, with a wavering line of smoke rising from the chimney.

  Amos slid off the cob and helped Tabby and me down.

  ‘I’d best go in first and warn them they’ve got visitors.’

  We gave him a few minutes and followed. Peter Paley was on a bed by the wall. The bedstead was carved oak and might have been handsome a hundred years ago, before the woodworm got to it. The man lying on it, propped up on one elbow against a rough pillow, might have been handsome more recently. He had the same square head and dark hair as his father, but his hair was dull and dusty, his skin tightly stretched over the bones with a greyish look. Weeks of confinement indoors and a diet of oatmeal and turnips do nothing for a person’s complexion. He’d been shaved quite recently – by Amos perhaps – but bristles were beginning to show. Somebody had managed to find him a shirt that was still reasonably clean and a pair of old loose trousers, slit up to the knee on the left leg to accommodate the splint. He made some effort to stand up when I came in, reaching for an ash stick propped beside the bed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘How is your leg?’

  I hadn’t intended to show any sympathy, but he looked so thin and apprehensive. I guessed Amos had told him who I was, so he’d know about my connection with Barbara.

  ‘Mending, I think. But I suppose I’ll always walk with a limp now.’

  I think he was trying to be stoic, but he sounded like a regretful boy, aware for the first time in his life that some things went wrong that could never be put right.

  ‘Where’s Miss Kemble?’ I said.

  ‘Upstairs.’

  ‘She bolted up there when she knew you were here,’ Amos said. He’d stoked up the fire and was bending to tidy the grate. ‘I don’t think she wants to face you.’

  ‘I’ll go up to her later,’ I said. ‘I want to talk to Mr Paley first.’

  ‘Miss Lane, will you please do something for me?’ Peter Paley said. He spoke urgently, like a man galloping too fast at a fence. ‘Will you go to Barbara’s father and tell him that he has nothing to reproach her for? She is still exactly the virtuous and dutiful daughter that she was when she left his house.’

  He must have spent the last few minutes working out a delicate way to put it.

  ‘We’ll discuss all that later,’ I said. ‘There are some things I want to ask you first.’

  Peter Paley subsided back on the bed. Amos glanced at me and the open door, asking if I wanted him to leave us alone. I shook my head. Tabby would be listening outside, in any case. There was a rough stool by the wall. I pulled it up and sat beside the bed.

  ‘I’d like you to think back two years,’ I said. ‘To the Cheltenham race fair the year before last.’

  His face twisted and he groaned, possibly from pain in his leg because he’d moved sharply. ‘Not that again. It’s poisonous gossip from people who hate my father and me.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’ve spoken to your father. He’s quite certain you did not father Joanna Picton’s child.’

  His mouth opened and he looked up at the ceiling, panic-stricken, though I was speaking quite softly.

  ‘You haven’t discussed all that with Barbara, then?’ I said.

  ‘She knows there have been unjust rumours. She believes in me.’

  ‘All the same, she might not like to hear you were kissing and playing forfeits with a drunk scullery-maid.’

  He glanced at Amos’s back, as if appealing man to man for help, but Amos was busy with brush and pan.

  ‘I was much younger then. There were a lot of us. It wasn’t only me.’

  I took pity on him. ‘It’s not that I want to talk about. It’s what happened afterwards.’

  ‘Squaring up to Kemble, you mean?’

  ‘That for a start. Why?’

  ‘It . . . it was about the girl. He got the wrong idea. I should have tried to explain, I suppose, but the others were cheering me on and before I knew it . . . well, you can’t back down, can you?’

  ‘But you didn’t fight.’

  ‘We didn’t get the chance. Police, magistrates and clergymen all over the place.’

  ‘And Joanna Picton was arrested.’

  ‘That wasn’t my fault. They rounded up everybody who couldn’t run fast enough.’

  ‘But you could run fast enough. So, I suppose, could Rodney Kemble. He wasn’t arrested either.’

  He smiled for the first time. The smile had a touch of malice in it. I waited till it faded, knowing the next answer might go a long way towards proving my theory.

  ‘Did you happen to notice which way Rodney Kemble went?’

  This time he actually laughed. ‘Did I notice? We all noticed. Back to his daddy, fast as a ferret down a rabbit hole.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘After we’d all got back together and found none of us had been picked up, some of them were egging me on to find Kemble and have the fight elsewhere. There were quite a few bets riding on it. All for me to win, of course; it was just a question of what round I floored him in. Only he didn’t wait. We spotted him at the bottom of the hill, riding at a good canter for home.’

  Confidence had come back in his voice as he was telling the story, making him the swaggering boy again.

  ‘You’re sure it was him?’

  ‘Certain. He was riding a showy grey you’d spot three fields away, and in his shirtsleeves because he’d taken off his jacket when he thought he was going to fight me and he’d not stopped to pick it up again. He must have lit off the first instant he got a whiff of Holy Fanny and the rest. We hallooed after him, but he was too far away to hear.’

  ‘And the women and the others who’d been arrested, where were they at the time?’ I said.

  He had to think about that, puzzled as to why I should want to know. ‘They’d got them herded into two carts by then – men in one, women in the other. Then they rolled away downhill into town. I remember somebody saying there’d never be room in the lock-up for the lot of them.’

  ‘Was Joanna in the women’s cart when it went away?’

  ‘Yes. She . . . she was being sick over the side. Some of the other women were laughing at her.’

  Perhaps there was the slightest hint of shame in the way he said it, or more likely I imagined it because I wanted it to be there. The man who’d kissed and laughed with her wanted nothing more to do with
her. Her employer’s son had ridden off and left her as soon as his blood cooled and he realized he’d made a fool of himself in public. To be honest, though, my sorrow at that moment was less for Joanna than for the collapse of my theory. Rodney Kemble had not rescued Joanna from arrest and then brutally claimed his reward. She was in the cart under police guard when it rolled away. Some hours later she’d arrived back at her place of work, exhausted and distressed. In the last few minutes before she began her journey to the other side of the world, she’d told one person what had happened in those hours, and that person was dead.

  I probably sat there, saying nothing, for some time, because Amos broke the silence.

  ‘Are you thinking of going upstairs and seeing the lass?’

  I climbed a flight of stairs so steep that it was more like a ladder and pushed open the one door leading off the landing. The room inside was so steeply triangular that it was just possible to stand upright on one side of it, and the opposite side had space for a window no more than eighteen inches high. It had so many timbers that it was like being on board a ship. Within it, Barbara had made a kind of disorderly cave of the things from her trunk, with dresses in a rainbow of colours hanging from nails in the walls, shawls heaped on the low pallet bed. A bonnet was tied round one beam by its green ribbons. A range of cut-glass jars and small silver containers, including the toilet water flask, ran along the top of another beam. The contrast between the things Barbara had thought she’d need on her elopement and the place where they’d ended up was pitiful. She sat on the bed, face pale among all the colours, looking at me with an expression halfway between defiance and tears. I waited for her to speak.