The Hanging Cage (The Northminster Mysteries Book 4)

by Harriet Smart

  “In what possible way could you have helped, ma’am? Throwing yourself into danger like that?” The mixture of pain and exhaustion had made him speak far more plainly and strongly than he should. He saw her flinch and regretted it. Yet at the same time he could not at once put down his outrage at her stupidity. That was not too strong a word for it. “He might have killed you! He nearly did!” he exclaimed. “What were you thinking, for the Lord’s sake? I had you down as person of good sense!” he said. “Someone one might rely upon, not some feather-brained fool!”

  Now she turned away and he saw her swallowing down her tears.

  “You should try and finish your soup,” she said, in a strangled voice walking away to the table. He would in fact happily have hurled the wretched bowl across the room, especially as he was forced to watch her sit down on a wretched little three-legged stool. Or rather she collapsed onto it, as if she had been punched by him. Her tears overcame her and she sat sobbing, with her hands pressed to her face.

  He leant back on his pillows, riding a wave of pain, both physical and emotional, the cooling soup bowl still in his exhausted hands. He knew she was punishing him with those tears, forcing him to see her misery, making him regret everything he had said. Another sort of woman would have run from the room, but she sat there, brazen in her wretchedness, allowing him to feel it all, and more.

  “Do you think,” she said, at length, having apparently mastered herself, “that I have not regretted every moment of it for myself? I do not need you to point out my errors, sir,” she finished. She drew herself up to her usual elegance, the bow from her shoulders now quite gone, and returned to the bedside, and took the bowl of soup from him without another word.

  He stared up at her and their eyes met. She sighed and shook her head.

  “You seem, sir,” she said, “to unlock a seam of stupidity in me that I didn’t know I possessed. Or rather that I have deliberately locked up and attempted to forget. But we are all capable of goodness knows what in unusual circumstances. I have thoroughly lost my head, and that’s the cold plain truth of it – just as I did before.”

  She walked away with the bowl, her back to him.

  “Before?” he found himself saying. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t only admire your hair, Major Vernon,” she said. “I was a foolish girl, remember, and what do foolish girls do when in the company of sympathetic, charming, kind young men?”

  “But you were married,” he said. “Happily married. Surely?”

  “So you thought,” she said, her back still to him.

  “And I did not...” He paused. “Did I?”

  She turned back to him, shaking her head.

  “No. No, you did nothing wrong. It was all my fancy, my foolishness. My feather-brain. And I will pay again as dearly for my honesty as I did before.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was foolish enough to tell my husband. I never learn, do I? I see the same bewildered disgust in your face, now. God forbid a woman ever raises the subject of her affections unprovoked! She should rather seal up her lips for ever!” He searched for words to respond to this, but she went on. “And now I have lost you, just as I lost him. If I ever had you, of course. I am only softening my fall with the hope that you may have felt something, however slight.”

  He rubbed his face with his hands, feeling his head throbbing now.

  “This is too much now,” he could not help saying. “Forgive me, but...”

  “Of course it is,” she said. “I shall give you some laudanum and leave you in peace. I can do that much for you. The landlady here, Mrs Prince, is a kind woman. I will give her all the necessary instructions, and of course Mr Carswell will be back before you know it. Then I shall go and take my leave of your charming sister.”

  She handed him the little glass of tincture mixed with brandy. He was moved to catch her hand, but she pulled it away with a brisk shake of her head.

  “C’est fini,” she said.

  -o-

  Felix found Sukey in her favourite chair by the fire in her little sitting room at Silver Street. She glanced up as he came in and then bent her head back over her work. For a moment he hesitated at the threshold, enjoying the sight of her, and at the same time nervous of breaking the silence.

  “You should give yourself more light when you are doing such close work,” he said at last, coming in and turning up the lamp.

  “I was trying to save oil,” Sukey said. “We are still a little short.”

  “You shouldn’t be up at all,” he said.

  “I am resting,” she said. “Look! Just as you told me.” She pointed to her foot which was resting on a stool. “And it doesn’t hurt much now.”

  After they had got Major Vernon to the Moon and Sixpence, Sukey’s damaged ankle had given way again, and he had sent her home.

  “May I have a look?” he said, pulling up a chair close to her.

  “If your hands are warm,” she said, and he could not help smiling. It sounded like her old playfulness. He reached out and pressed his palm to her cheek.

  “Is that warm enough?” he said.

  She pulled his hand away.

  “Get on with it, will you?” she said.

  So, as before, he pushed up her skirt, and loosened her garter before rolling down her stocking. He did it as gently as he could and as he took her foot in his hand and touched the swollen joint with his fingertips, she winced.

  “Not that much better,” he said examining it. The swelling was still prominent and livid. “We need to get this up a little higher, and another poultice.” He reached for a cushion and raised it up. “I’ll go and make something up. Before then, you will just have to make do with this.” He bent and kissed the reddened flesh. “There is no evidence that it will do any good, of course,” he added and kissed it again, “but it is worth the experiment. Yes?”

  He glanced up at her, trying to read her expression, but at that moment the door opened.

  “Excuse me!” Felix exclaimed. He was, he thought, the only person allowed to enter her sitting room without knocking and he highly resented this invasion. His words did not stop the intruder, however.

  “What is he doing in here?” said Mrs O’Brien, sweeping into the room. “Sukey?”

  “He was looking at my ankle,” Sukey said.

  “Oh, are you now?” she said to Felix. She went and pulled Sukey’s skirts back down over her bare leg. “That isn’t at all how it looks to me.”

  “I was just going to make up a fresh poultice,” Felix said. “I didn’t know you were here, ma’am,” he added.

  “Clearly you didn’t. Major Vernon’s man came and told me that I was needed. I didn’t hear you coming back, sir. Do you make a habit of coming into my sister’s private room?”

  “I came in to examine her ankle,” Felix said. “As you can see, she’s had a nasty sprain, and –”

  “What I can see is what I have suspected all along,” Mrs O’Brien said. “Oh, saints in Heaven, Sukey, how could you allow yourself to do this? Haven’t you any self-respect at all?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” said Sukey.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t guess?” said Mrs O’Brien. “Do you think I am such a fool? Well, perhaps I am, for giving you the benefit of the doubt for so long, but from the moment you took this house, I have been wondering, and praying it wasn’t so, that it couldn’t be that my own sister would be so wicked! But it seems you are.”

  “Ma’am –” Felix began.

  “Don’t you ma’am me, you dirty rogue,” Mrs O’Brien said, waving her finger at him. “Don’t you dare open your filthy mouth!”

  “When I spoke to your husband –” Felix went on, as steadily as he could.

  “You told him a fat packet of lies!” she cut in. “All that talk about marriage, when I know that someone like you would never marry someone like Sukey. Never.”

  “I would marry her, ma’am,” Felix said. “I have ask
ed her a hundred times. She won’t have me, and that’s the honest truth!”

  “What?” Mrs O’Brien turned to Sukey. “You chose this? You chose to be his mistress when you could have got him as a husband?”

  Sukey did not answer for a moment, and then, pulling herself out of the chair and putting the weight on her good ankle, said quietly, “Marriage would have been misery for both of us.”

  “And this is better?” said Mrs O’Brien, grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her. “To be living in sin? To be fornicating? Have you lost your reason, Sukey? Don’t you care about your immortal soul?”

  “I didn’t care to put myself in bondage again!” Sukey said, pushing her sister away. “You wouldn’t know about that, Bridey. Your husband is a good man, not a... You don’t know what it is like to be a slave! Why should I ever submit to that again?”

  “You’re more brazen than I thought,” she said.

  “I don’t know why you are so surprised,” Sukey said. “You’ve never had a very high opinion of me.”

  “But you could have married him, Sukey!” Mrs O’Brien exclaimed. “You could still, yes?”

  “Yes,” Felix said.

  “There’s no reason to be talking about bondage and slavery, you stupid girl,” Mrs O’Brien said, in tears now. “He’ll take you, and no-one need be any the wiser about all this. You can save yourself still.” She stretched out her hand to Sukey. “Otherwise, what can I do but never speak to you again? I can’t let the children near you and – oh Sukey, just be sensible for five minutes, and sit down and think straight for once! Please?”

  There was a silence and Sukey sat down again, and folded her hands in her lap.

  “You’re right,” she said after a moment. “I can’t go on as I am. I can’t. I can’t marry you though, Felix. It wouldn’t work.”

  “We will make it work,” he said, going towards her.

  “No,” she said. “Everything that has happened tells me it won’t. We are better ending it now. I’ll go home, Bridey. Mother and Father want me back now he’s not so well. I can make myself useful there.”

  Chapter Forty

  “It’s such a pity you could not come to the christening, Mr Carswell,” said Mrs Yardley.

  Little Felix Yardley lay sleeping in his Gothic cradle while his mother gazed lovingly at him. Ostensibly she was wearing mourning, but it was like no mourning Felix had ever seen: her black silk might have been in the requisite dull weave, and her cap ribbons crêpe, but she had not stinted on her black lace. Felix was no expert but it looked extremely expensive.

  “Did he behave himself?” asked Lord Rothborough, looking down into the cradle.

  “Yes, he did,” said Mrs Yardley.

  “He is certainly a handsome lad,” Lord Rothborough said, touching the boy’s forehead with his forefinger.

  “He suits his name, does he not, my Lord?” said Mrs Yardley, smiling across at Felix, in a way which made him uneasy. He felt that the only way this situation might be considered bearable would be if he still had Sukey to discuss it with later.

  I should be the one in mourning, he thought, failing to smile back. I have lost everything, and you, ma’am have got everything.

  He turned away and went to the other side of the room, where Miss Yardley was sitting at the tea table. Behind her was a great fireplace, the mantle of which was dripping with evergreens, ribbons and red berries. The castle had been decorated with the same lavishness with which Mrs Yardley had applied the lace. He was glad to see that much of Yardley’s collection had also been removed. Gone were the stuffed animals, the gruesome paintings, the weapons and the instruments of torture. Had they lit a great celebratory bonfire in the courtyard? It would have been tempting.

  “Come and sit down, Mr Carswell,” said Miss Yardley, “and have a glass of wine. You look pale and cold, I must say. It is all this business – it has knocked the life out of you. Lord Rothborough, you should send him to Italy,” she said. “For his health. He has lost weight, I am sure of it.”

  “We were thinking of going to Italy,” said Mrs Yardley. “Would it be safe to take little Felix, do you think, Mr Carswell?”

  “I can’t think why not,” said Felix, accepting a glass of sherry. “He seems in perfect health.”

  “It is certainly doing my wife a great deal of good,” Lord Rothborough said. “I would not have come back if I did not think she was improving daily. I shall be going back just after Christmas, of course.”

  “Is there much society in Florence then, after New Year?” Mrs Yardley asked.

  “A great deal. I’m sure you would find many friends there,” said Lord Rothborough. “The Hamiltons, I think you know, and Mrs and Mrs Gilisland?”

  “Oh yes,” said Mrs Yardley smiling. “They were great friends of my father’s. I didn’t know they were there still. I have directed my letter wrongly. How annoying. Do you know if they intend to remain there long?”

  “Indefinitely, as far as I know,” said Lord Rothborough.

  “I knew I was right to think of Florence,” said Mrs Yardley. “I had a dream about it, that I was there. Now we shall go, Amelia; I am decided.”

  “Very well,” said Miss Yardley, and added, “and we cannot persuade you, Mr Carswell?”

  “I have my work,” Felix managed to say.

  “I have had so many curious dreams lately,” Mrs Yardley went on. “It is as if I have not had a dream for years. Perhaps I was too frightened to dream or had never been sleeping properly, but now...” She made a delicate gesture with her hands, that shook her lace ruffles.

  “Only pleasant ones, I hope,” said Lord Rothborough.

  “Oh yes,” she smiled. Miss Yardley nodded. Then Mrs Yardley shot out her hand and laid it on Felix’s. “I still cannot believe how everything is changed. That we can think of going to Italy! I never thought I would be able to leave this house, and if it had not been for you, sir, and Major Vernon, then who knows how long this misery might have gone on!” And she squeezed his hand and her eyes filled with grateful tears.

  “It is Mrs Maitland to whom you really owe the most,” he said, gently taking back his hand. “She was the one who shot the wretched beast.”

  “Ah yes, indeed,” said Miss Yardley. “It hardly surprised me to hear she was a fine shot.”

  “But,” said Mrs Yardley snatching back his hand, “you and Major Vernon found him out. You saved us all and gave me my beautiful boy.”

  -o-

  “She’s a charming young woman,” said Lord Rothborough when they were driving away in his carriage. “But I suppose that is wasted on you at the moment.”

  “Somewhat,” Felix said.

  “It will pass,” Lord Rothborough said.

  “Oh, will it?”

  “Eventually, yes.”

  Felix pressed his hands to his face.

  “How could she be so cold?” he said. “That is what I can’t make any sense of. As if there was nothing between us. As if we had never –”

  “Oh, I don’t think it is so cold. She will be wretched too.”

  “I hope so! And since she has consigned herself to a miserable penance, it’s likely enough. But why, for the love of God?”

  There was a pause and Lord Rothborough said, “You probably won’t thank me for this, but I have made the usual arrangements for her. It gives her a little independence should she need it.”

  “The usual arrangements?”

  “Yes, the custom is that those intimately connected with the family should be recognised for their service. It’s not a fortune, but as I said, it provides independence. I would not want her to suffer unduly, and neither would you, I think, in the long term.”

  “She won’t want that,” Felix managed to say.

  “Then, it will quietly accrue and perhaps one day she will need it,” he said. “It can’t go amiss.”

  “When nothing I seemed to give her was good enough? When all I seemed to do was make her unhappy? Why would she want anything to do wit
h that?”

  “It is a custom I like to keep,” said Lord Rothborough, airily. “And she is a sensible woman when all is said and done.”

  “You agree with her?” said Felix.

  “I did not say that,” said Lord Rothborough.

  “To say she is sensible when –”

  “She has your interests at heart, as well as her own,” he said. “She...” he hesitated. “She did write to me. It was a poignant letter, I must say, and you should console yourself as best you can, put aside your fury, and look to the future.”

  “May I read it?”

  “No,” said Lord Rothborough. “She was clear on that point and I agree with her. I burnt it.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That will not help you, Felix. Yes, you are wretched with it now, and angry, but God knows, we all have disappointments in love, and we survive them. If we are wise, we learn from them.”

  “I do not have the stomach for homilies, thank you very much, sir!”

  “No, of course not,” said Lord Rothborough. “And I am quite used to you only listening to about a tenth of what I say, but I shall not stop my tongue because of that. One day, who knows, you may find yourself speaking to your own son like this, and you will remember what it was to be young and broken-hearted, just as I do, and try, out of affection, to put some kind of salve on the wound. However inept that might seem.”

  “Most unlikely,” said Felix. “That would involve my trusting a woman with my feelings and if a woman I thought so much better than all others can still treat me with such contempt, then I am better off without one!”

  -o-

  Mrs Edward Latimer, lately Mrs Rivers, was now possessed of a drawing room and all the elegant objects that went with it. The silver candlesticks that had been the only ornament of her frugal house in St John Street, however, were not in evidence.

  Her beauty was not diminished by the luxury of her surroundings. Rather she seemed perfectly placed, at last, as did her younger daughters who no longer played with wooden spoons on the kitchen floor, but had the command of a new property of their own: a large doll’s house.

  Louisa sat near them on a low stool, turned towards the game but not involved in it. In her lap she held the doll dressed in red silk that Bel had given to her sisters. Although she appeared much restored in terms of health and looks – her clothes smart new ones, and her wild hair carefully tamed and arranged – she did not seem to wear her new-found prosperity at all comfortably. She looked both haunted and hunted, and her smile of acknowledgement when Giles had come in was brief and barely polite. Then, when he had gone to shake hands with her, she had seemed to flinch, almost as if he had hit her.