The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “Henry Proudfoot, sir.”

  “Mr Proudfoot?” Giles amended.

  “Ten years, sir.”

  “And you are satisfied with your place?”

  “Yes sir, very.”

  “I’d heard your master can have a temper.”

  “Not to my knowledge sir,” said Proudfoot. “Is that all sir? I have my work to get to.”

  Feeling a little frustrated let him go, Giles walked back down into the town, intending to visit Mr Earle. How that conversation ought to go he was not yet certain. He had heard a great many slanders against Earle, but he had no solid evidence. His accusers, coming from the servant classes, were liable to be easily dismissed, especially by a clever lawyer.

  He decided he would let that hang a while, and go and see how Carswell was getting on with his second examination of the culvert. It was a bright day, if cold, and he thought the ride out might clarify his thoughts.

  A mile or so out of Whithorne, he met a gig coming the other way. Sitting on the high bench driving the pony was Mrs Maitland. She was wearing a scarlet hooded cloak, the fashion of twenty years ago. Giles wondered if he remembered that same garment on her, worn new. He could not be sure, but the image his mind conjured up, false or real, gave him intense pleasure: he saw her as she had been then, sweeping about in its copious folds, demonstrating to all the company its newly acquired perfection.

  “This is good luck!” she exclaimed as they drew up to one another. “I was coming to find you. I may have something to help you. Well, perhaps – and now I see you I wonder if I’m not inventing things and shall be wasting your precious time, but I had a most strange encounter, earlier today.”

  “Tell me. I’m sure you are not. You have too much common sense.”

  “About this missing woman. Just over at Hentfield, a little group of tinkers have just come onto the common and made their camp. They have been doing so for years, but not usually at this time. The curate’s wife told me they had come. They are rather wretched at the moment – some of the children have the croup, and there is a poor sickly baby, so I thought I would take what I could to them this morning. Which I did, and was well received, which was a relief because such people do not always take kindly to charity. In fact, I was given tea and allowed to sit by the fire with the grandmother, which I think is a great honour.”

  “I believe so.”

  “So I told her about the bones in the culvert and how you thought it was a woman that had gone missing, perhaps last summer or earlier, and had they heard any tales to the effect.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “How could I not?” she said. “We must find who she is, and what happened, surely?”

  He would have reached for her hand and kissed it then, if he did not have his hands on the reins of a hack about whose manners he was a little unsure. And fortunately, she too had her horse to manage.

  “What did the lady say?” Giles asked.

  “She was shocked to hear it, really shocked and then said, her son, who wasn’t there, had told her a thing he saw last summer, about two men he met on the old road, and he was certain he’d seen a pair of demons and she thought he might have done, because she had a vision of his being in grave danger on the way home. Oh dear, that does sound foolish, doesn’t it?”

  “He saw two men he thought were demons?”

  “Yes, foolish!” she exclaimed. “But it struck me, he might have seen something or somebody. Why would he call two strangers demons? What was it about them to make him say such a thing? That was what struck me.”

  “In that there might have been something unsettling about their demeanour?” Giles said.

  “Yes, quite. Something suspicious.”

  “It is true,” he said, “that people leaving the scene of a crime they have committed often do behave in strange ways.”

  “That is what I thought. What if these two demons or men or whatever they were had something to do with the body in the culvert? I know that is a ridiculous assertion, but could there not be something in it?”

  “There might be,” Giles said, “there might not. But given it is the only scrap anyone has yet handed me, Mrs Maitland, we should pick it up and examine it properly. The son was not there when you were there that morning?”

  “No, but he will be back presently. He had gone to do some day labouring for one of our tenants. The light won’t last much longer and he will have to go home for his dinner.”

  “Then we shall go and talk to him, if you will introduce me. It is always better to have an introduction to these people. They do not talk willingly to people like me. And we will gather up Mr Carswell first, if you do not mind? He can have a look at the children. You and he will smooth my path.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Felix had been on the verge of giving up his search of the culvert when Major Vernon rode up, accompanied by Mrs Maitland driving a gig. He was glad to see them. He had ordered the carriage to come and fetch him half an hour hence, but he had got extremely cold and hungry.

  In fact, he had been standing and scanning the horizon, dreaming of lying on a sofa by the fire, his head resting on Sukey’s lap, his stomach full and a glass of sweet, warming Madeira within easy reach. The wine, dinner, warm fire and the sofa seemed possible, but Sukey’s indulgence, less so.

  He was a little disconcerted, then, to be told that they were going on an expedition to a gypsy encampment, but consoled himself that they at least would have a good fire going.

  “You look as if you have had some success,” said Major Vernon.

  “Three more human bones. And this – I think it is part of a straw bonnet. Or it may just be rubbish.”

  He climbed up onto the gig beside Mrs Maitland.

  “You wouldn’t care to drive, Mr Carswell?” she said.

  “No, no, not at all.”

  “Some young men cannot abide to be driven by an older woman,” she said with a smile.

  “Only fashionable puppies,” said Felix, and then remembering himself, and thinking she was attempting to relieve herself of the duty through tiredness, said, “but of course I shall, if you would like me to, ma’am?”

  “No, it is no trouble to me.”

  “That’s a relief. I’m a poor driver.”

  “You have better things to do,” she said, and as they drove off, she began to describe the state of the children in the travellers’ camp.

  The light was fading fast as they arrived at the common land that edged the hamlet. A heavy crop of bracken covered the approach to the camp, explaining its appeal to the travelling people, for it provided fuel, food and seclusion.

  Felix had some experience of the gypsies who regularly came into his father’s parish. His father loved nothing better than to sit and converse with the gypsy elders, and get them to teach him their language. Some of this useful knowledge he had passed to Felix who was able to greet them in their own tongue with the customary: “God bless you!”

  Major Vernon glanced at him, evidently impressed.

  These folk were sadly not half so at ease as the families that he had been used to seeing in Pitfeldry. Of course, that had been at the height of the summer, when their tents in the heather seemed picturesque and life was easier for them. To be camping in such bleak weather and scrabbling for day labour work was miserable indeed. But Mrs Herne, the matriarch of the little clan, welcomed Mrs Maitland as if she were the Queen herself; and when she was told that he was a doctor, he might have been the Prince of Wales. He was a little surprised, because he knew they had medicines and notions of their own, but a sick baby was a sick baby, and any help would not be turned away. He hoped, as he crouched down and followed the old lady into the tent, that the condition was not a serious one. Mrs Maitland had been anxious and that made him nervous.

  The reality was depressing. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lights he could see the child, some six months old, was not thriving, but neither was her mother, Mrs Herne’s daughter-in-law. She looked dangerous
ly thin and exhausted. The comforts Mrs Maitland had brought that morning had ameliorated things a little. The child was carefully wrapped in new flannel, and as warm as could be expected; the rich broth had helped the mother, but the tramping life obviously did not suit her. It was her first child and Felix feared it would be her last if she continued to live in such rough conditions. There was nothing in the way of medicine he could do to help her. What she needed was to be indoors.

  He finished his examination. The other children, the offspring of the eldest Herne son, Jasper and his wife, were not in so alarming a state, and he was able to reassure their mother that their sickliness would pass.

  Emerging from the tent, he drew Mrs Maitland aside for a moment and said, quietly, “Have you an empty cottage where they might lodge for the winter? I don’t give much hope for mother or child unless they get into sturdier lodgings. I should pay their rent if necessary,” he added, thinking of the kindness and respect with which such people had treated his father.

  “I was thinking that myself,” she said. “There is a place in the park, a sort of glorified tea-house. It is very secluded, and it might suit them. I can easily find work in the house for the women, so that no-one will feel offended.”

  “You must take care to tell them that they are free to go at any point,” Felix said. “They hate the thought of settling properly, but it isn’t uncommon for them to go into lodgings to get through the winter, if they can manage it.” She nodded, and went to discuss the matter with Mrs Herne.

  As she did, the Herne sons returned from their work, looking a little wary at the sight of the visitors, but a rattle of words in Romany from the mother put all right.

  Felix, Major Vernon and Mrs Maitland were invited to join everyone by the fire, which was now set up into a mighty blaze, to bring the blackened pot of pease pudding to the boil. Felix was pleased to see that the ailing mother came out with the baby in her arms and settled down by her clearly adoring husband, while he ate his dinner. In fact, they tenderly shared the same bowl.

  “True love,” observed Mrs Herne to Mrs Maitland. “My sons have had good fortune with their brides, yes?”

  “It’s a handsome family indeed, ma’am,” said Mrs Maitland. “You must be proud.”

  Jasper Herne laid down his bowl – he had made short work of his dinner – and said, “Mother says you wanted to know about my seeing those demons.”

  “We would be grateful,” said Major Vernon. “We have the bones of a woman, without a name of a family to bury her. We think someone has done great violence to her.”

  Jasper rubbed his face.

  “It were a strange thing. My mother –”

  “I felt it,” Mrs Herne put in. “I felt it that night – you were looking evil in the face, and then you came back and told me what you saw.” She blessed herself and shuddered.

  “What exactly was it you saw, Mr Herne?” Major Vernon asked,

  “There was two of them. It was dusk time, but in the summer, so later than now, and I’d been helping with harvest at Farmer Gentle’s – you know him, ma’am,” he added, acknowledging Mrs Maitland. She nodded.

  “Is that the farmer you were working for today?” Major Vernon said.

  “Yes, and so we were camped here, as ever, and I was walking back a little later than Ben here because I’d stayed to talk about a sick horse with Farmer Gentle. He reckons my opinion worth something and I was glad to give it. So I walked back alone, on the field road yonder, from the far field – they call it the North Two-acre – and I saw them. And I thought, who is that? For mostly you know all the fellows about in a place, but these were strangers, and they weren’t dressed like gentlemen but they weren’t dressed ordinary. And they were laughing. Not like mortals. That’s what I thought, and they stopped and laughed as I walked towards them.”

  “Can you remember what they were wearing?” Major Vernon said.

  “One of them had a long, white coat on, and a straw stove-pipe – well he wasn’t wearing it, he was carrying it, swinging it as he walked. And the other, he had an old-fashioned riding coat with brass buttons on it, I am sure of that, and looked dirty.”

  “And how old where they?”

  “The white-coated fellow, he was young, and tall and fair. The other, I can’t say, to be honest.” He screwed his eyes shut, evidently trying to remember. “Maybe a bit thin on top?”

  Major Vernon nodded.

  “Clean shaven, bearded? Anything of that nature?” he asked.

  “He had a beard, the one in the riding coat,” said Jasper.

  “And they were laughing?”

  “Like they were drunk, but then not. That was a queer thing and it’s what made me think: that’s a pair of devils that had been up to no good.”

  “And you didn’t speak to them?”

  “No, I know better than to speak to the Devil,” he said. “And I am sure these two were at the Devil’s work. Sure as sure.”

  “You never saw them again when you camped here?” Major Vernon asked after a moment. Felix could tell he was weighing the likely use of this strange evidence. Jasper shook his head. “Thank you, Mr Herne,” he added.

  “Might it be of use?” Mrs Maitland enquired.

  “It may well be,” said Major Vernon. “We have so little at present. And might I ask you others, have you heard any talk of a woman going missing in this district? Perhaps someone running away from home? That sort of tale?”

  There was a silence and then Mrs Jasper said to her mother-in-law, “Didn’t one of the daughters run off from that place up yonder? You know, that house with the black shutters and the thorn hedge. Far side of the chapel.”

  “That’s right,” said Mrs Herne. “Ran off with a soldier.”

  “No, a foreigner,” said Mrs Jasper. “That was it.”

  “Maybe so,” Mrs Herne said. “And who’d be surprised at it? He’s a sour man, and his wife the same. Never even a kind word to spare for anyone.”

  “Do you mean Ash Farm?” said Mrs Maitland. “Mr and Mrs Taylor?”

  “Aye, that’s the one, ma’am,” said Mrs Jasper.

  “Yes, certainly, he is sour,” said Mrs Maitland. “That was quite my impression.”

  “I shall have to pay him a call,” said Major Vernon. He got to his feet. “Thank you all very much.”

  He stretched out his hands to Mrs Maitland to help her from the ground, which assistance she took. At the same time, old Mrs Herne had risen, and was glancing between them, her eyes twinkling. She put her hand over their joined hands for a moment, as if blessing them, and then turned to Mrs Maitland and said, with a wink and in a whisper: “That’s a good man you have, lady, and he’ll bring you good fortune.” Mrs Maitland turned her face away into the shadows and Felix could not tell her expression. The Major looked bemused, but not displeased.

  -o-

  The clock struck ten, and Giles found himself alone with Mrs Maitland, sitting opposite her at the tea table by the fire in her sitting room. This was not by any deliberate contrivance on his part. Carswell and Lord Milburne had gone to bed only a little while before, and he supposed he should also make his excuses and say goodnight. Yet the moment had a sort of enchantment to it and he did not want to stir from his place.

  She too sat still and quiet now, her darning abandoned in her lap. It had long since been put down, for the conversation had been a lively one, in which she had taken the leading part. Carswell had been talking about the German professor and his collection of old stories, a project about which Mrs Maitland expressed great enthusiasm.

  “I have always loved old stories,” she had said. “I always thought they had such truths in them, like the parables in the Gospels.” Then she turned to recalling the ghost stories of her old nurse. This was enough to make even Lord Milburne stir from his sullen silence and smile briefly, for it seemed she had told them to him when he was a child. He admitted that they were still the most terrifying things he had ever heard.

  “Then you should writ
e them down, ma’am,” Carswell had said. “And publish them. Yes, Major?”

  Giles had nodded at that, imagining the pleasure of taking such a volume in his hands, guessing it might capture the piquancy of her character between its boards. How he might enjoy her, without self-reproach, in such a form!

  “I should ruin them if I wrote them down,” she said. “I have no literary talents.”

  “You would do it very well, Mama,” said Lord Milburne, getting up and going to kiss her. “Excuse me, I must go to bed.”

  Carswell left soon after him, and they were alone.

  “I never expected such a compliment from Charles,” she said, breaking the silence. “I thought he would hate such an idea. He is not as progressive in his ideas as Mr Carswell.”

  “He liked the stories,” said Giles. “Who does not love a good story?”

  “A man with no soul,” said Mrs Maitland with a smile. She leaned back in her chair and said, “It’s a relief to me he said that. He has been so difficult, so distant – that’s the first kindness I have had from him for weeks. Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You must have said something to the point to him.”

  “I don’t know about that,” said Giles, trying to work out if Milburne had actually done what he promised and talked to her about his despair and his ambitions for Louisa Rivers’ hand. “I told him he ought to confide in you and I’m not sure he has.”

  “No,” she said, her smile fading. “He has not. About what? Was there something in particular?”

  “I made a little deal with him. He must speak with you about it, and I will not speak to you about it. Forgive me!”

  She glanced away.

  “I suppose that was all you could do,” she said.

  “He gave me his word. He probably has not found his courage yet,” Giles said. “I will have another word with him tomorrow.”

  “He will be angry if he knows you have told me this much,” she said. “Of course. I am the last to be told anything!”

  “I told him that you should be the first to know, always. I was clear about it.”