A Tall Dark Stranger

by Joan Smith

  “This is only a sketch. It still has to be painted properly and finished in pen,” I said. It looked a poor enough thing in its unfinished state, but Mr. Renshaw found a few compliments.

  “Very natural, lifelike,” he said, and turned the page to view the monkeyflower. He owned he had seen flowers very like it but had never known their name. Then he turned the page and I heard a sharp intake of breath.

  Looking at the page, I saw my sketch of Stoddart. In the excitement of the murder I had forgotten all about it.

  “Who—who is this?” Renshaw asked. He had suddenly lost his bored drawl. The eyes staring at me were intelligent, alert.

  I told him. “You sounded very surprised when you saw the sketch, Mr. Renshaw,” I said, looking a question at him. “It isn’t your missing cousin, is it?” My unspoken thought was that his cousin might have been using an alias, if he were up to something illegal.

  “No. My surprise was to see a human face amidst the wildflowers. I didn’t realize you did people. I was expecting a daisy and saw this superb sketch. It’s really quite marvelous.” He studied it, tilting his head this way and that. “Almost a touch of da Vinci, the way you’ve shaded in the eyes and mouth.”

  Naturally I was flattered to death at this comparison. When I first began sketching, I wanted to do portraits, but my skill wasn’t up to the task. When I discovered wildflowers, I knew I had found my calling, but I am still a great admirer of Leonardo’s. Lady Hadley has a few of his cartoons, which she was kind enough to show me. The shading, in particular, is so subtle that it can quite bring a face alive.

  There is no definable boundary between the highlight and the shade in those sketches. One blends into the other with such infinite finesse that it is almost magic. My hasty sketch had none of this artistry, but I flushed with pleasure and began to think that Renshaw was really quite handsome.

  “Who is the man?” he asked in a casual tone.

  “That is the unfortunate victim, Mr. Stoddart. I met him in the water meadow the day before he was killed.”

  Renshaw expressed interest and I told him all about that one meeting with Stoddart, who was looking for his relatives’ graves, and so on.

  “Well, it is certainly a marvelous sketch,” he said. “I shall know where to come to have my portrait painted for the family gallery.”

  “I don’t work in oils, Mr. Renshaw. Indeed, I seldom paint people at all except for the family.”

  “Pity. Mama has been after me to have my likeness taken. I should like to send her a sketch, a charcoal perhaps, for her birthday. You wouldn’t consider it...” His dark eyes were fully open now.

  “Mrs. Bliss, in Chilton Abbas, could do a better job for you,” I said, not quite closing the door on doing it myself.

  “Will you give me another chance to convince you?” he asked in a flirtatious way. “I brought my curricle with me and my team of grays. Sixteen miles an hour. Beau is busy this afternoon and I planned to drive into the village. I would appreciate having someone from the neighborhood to show me the sights.”

  I had nothing planned for the afternoon and thought it might be amusing to have a fling in his carriage. “Very well,” I agreed after a suitable pause to show maidenly reluctance.

  “You are excessively kind, ma’am,” he said.

  We agreed on an hour and the gentlemen soon left.

  “I wonder what brought Sommers down on our heads,” Aunt Talbot said, setting the cups back on the tray. The devil would be hard put to find her hands idle. “He doesn’t seem to be dangling after you this time. What did you think of young Renshaw?”

  “I thought he was quite nice. I’ve agreed to show him around the village this afternoon.”

  She looked at me as if I had grown horns. “You’re going out with a complete stranger, and a friend of Beau Sommers to boot? Are you insane? He might be the murderer, for all we know.”

  “Oh, I hardly think so, Auntie. He didn’t recognize Stoddart at all when I showed him the sketch. Besides, he only arrived at Beau’s this morning.”

  “I noticed him emptying the butter boat on you. I expect that hop farm he’s come into is next door to bankrupt. A dowry of fifteen thousand would be useful.”

  “I shall insist on visiting it before handing him my dowry, in the unlikely event that he offers marriage while we are driving into Chilton Abbas. Goose! It is only a drive. Is there anything you need in the village?”

  She decided to try to get up a whist game for that evening and went to write up her notes for me to deliver. I went back outdoors and did a sketch of some red clover that grows in the park.

  I teased Auntie about her concern for me, but I would heed her warning all the same. Any friend of Beau Sommers’s automatically fell under suspicion of being no better than he should be. I remembered the conspiratorial look Beau and Renshaw had exchanged when I invited them inside. Had this been their plan from the beginning, to set Renshaw up for a date with me? He would not find me easy plucking, if it was my fortune he had in his eye.

  Chapter Five

  “Aunt Maude tells me that you have a new beau,” Lollie said over lunch. “If it’s the fellow I saw driving toward Beauvert this morning, I wouldn’t mind having a go in his curricle someday. A bang-up rattler and prads. Sixteen miles an hour, I warrant.”

  “What time did you see him?” my aunt asked.

  “Around seven. I saw him from my bedroom window as I was dressing. He was heading toward Beauvert.”

  “Coming from the east?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Because it sounds like Mr. Renshaw, who’s from Kent. The fellow is visiting Sommers. He says he arrived this morning. If he’s telling the truth, he must have driven all night. Mind you, his eyes were half closed.”

  “I can’t imagine anyone being that keen to see Beau,” Lollie said, spearing a thick slice of ham and slathering on the mustard. “Why is he here?”

  I told him about Renshaw’s being home from India, looking up old friends.

  “Very strange, his arriving on the heels of the murder” was Aunt Talbot’s opinion. The words “fire hand” hung, unspoken, on the air.

  “If you think he’s a wrong ‘un, write to Uncle Hillary,” Lollie suggested. “He’d know if Renshaw has picked up a bad aroma in India. Knows all the fellows they send out there. That’s what his job is, handling recruits.”

  “That’s an idea,” Aunt Talbot said. She writes to Uncle Hillary once a month. As she had just mailed her monthly letter a week ago, I didn’t think she would write again so soon, unless Renshaw showed greater interest in my dowry.

  Lollie had left before the mail arrived and flipped through his mail as he ate. “A dun from Millar,” he said. “I suppose I ought to pay him for those topboots I got last December. I shall visit the bank after lunch and pay our local accounts.”

  Auntie mentioned that she would go through the linen cupboard that afternoon to see what required mending or replacing. She was upstairs at that chore when Renshaw arrived, and as we were leaving at once, I didn’t have her called downstairs but just picked up my bonnet.

  The mirror in the front hall is shadowed by a potted palm and it depresses me to see myself in it, looking like a ghost. I took my bonnet into the morning parlor, which has a friendly light. Practicality told me I should wear a plain round bonnet in an open carriage, but I felt Renshaw’s exquisite jacket merited better and had chosen my second best, a low poke with a modest feather. Renshaw stepped in behind me.

  While I tied on my bonnet in front of the mirror, he said, “I see you have wisely chosen a plain bonnet. I meant to caution you to do so.”

  I saw at once that our notions of fashion were at odds. “A plain bonnet,” indeed!

  He strolled away from the mirror to examine a series of six of my paintings that hung on the wall. Their subject was fruit: a pineapple cut in half, showing the juicy center; a pair of lemons with the leaves still attached; a cluster of green grapes; and so on.

  The framer
had done an excellent job. The narrow mahogany frames suited the modest room. A mat of dark green added contrast to the light paper I had used. Since they were pictures of fruit, I had put them in the small dining room. They hung along the length of one wall, forming, I thought, a pretty little gallery.

  “But these are marvelous!” Renshaw exclaimed in accents of surprise. “So lifelike, the texture of that pineapple! I can almost taste it.”

  They were rather good, but why should that surprise him when he had compared my work to Leonardo’s? “Thank you,” I said.

  Renshaw must have noticed the curious tone of my voice. It was hard to discover a blush beneath his swarthy skin, but he looked as if he was blushing.

  He said sheepishly, “Not that it surprises me! I had thought, when I saw your other nature sketches, that your true metier was the human face, but I see now that you excel in both fields.”

  “Those were preliminary sketches. There’s still a great deal of work to be done on them. I’m glad you like my fruit paintings.”

  “They really are wonderful, Miss Talbot.” I sensed real admiration, or perhaps I was only hearing what I wanted to hear. “How I would love to have such a talent.”

  “Let us hope your talent lies with cultivating hops,” I suggested playfully.

  “Hops?” he asked, frowning in confusion. “Oh, you refer to my inheritance. Yes, one can only hope, but I meant an artistic talent. Everyone needs a creative outlet. I confess, I’m not much acquainted with hops yet, except in ale, of course.”

  “You took no interest in your papa’s work before you left England?”

  He looked surprised at the question. I felt he wasn’t accustomed to sensible conversation from a lady, but he answered readily enough.

  “Youngsters are too foolish for such things,” he said. “I was away at school and university, you know, then I went to India when I was still a young cub.”

  I knew what he meant. Lollie had shown no interest in farming until Papa died and he took over the reins of Oakbay.

  We went out to his curricle. It was what Lollie would call a smasher: an awesome vehicle, gleaming a brilliant yellow in the sunlight, with silver appointments glinting. I felt as dashing as Lettie Lade when he boosted me up into the high seat. Heads would turn in Chilton Abbas when we went racing through town.

  He certainly set a lively pace on the open road before we reached town. He was a fine fiddler, driving quickly but never giving rise to fear. Once we arrived, however, he slowed to half the speed, which greatly diminished the effect and the danger to pedestrians. It was the proper thing to do, but it was not what Beau Sommers would have done, nor any of his usual friends, either. I began to reconsider my first opinion of Renshaw.

  I mentioned that I had Auntie’s invitations to deliver, but first we took one turn along the High Street to impress the locals.

  “We won’t have to go in at each house and chat, will we?” he asked.

  “Are you in a hurry to get home, Mr. Renshaw?”

  “Not at all. I’m in a hurry to get back out on the open road and give the horses their heads. I just bought this team and carriage. They’re still a novelty to me.”

  If he was after my fortune, he would have said he wanted to be alone with me. And if he was not after my fortune, why had he come to call? Why had he asked me out? I was beginning to feel a real interest in Beau’s mysterious guest.

  “How long have you been home from India?” I asked.

  “Two weeks. I’ve had the team for one.”

  “In that case, I shall leave each note with the servant at the door and say I am in a great rush.”

  He smiled a lazy smile. “Kind as well as talented—and beautiful.” My suspicions stirred at this speech. “Even if your eyes aren’t sapphires.” He winced in memory. “That was ill done of me. And to say it to an artist, of all people, one who is finely attuned to shades. You must have thought me a jackass.”

  “No, only disinterested. I expect Beau told you I had blue eyes.”

  “He did, as he told me you drew weeds. ‘Dashed odd filly,’ he called you.” He smiled to lessen the sting.

  I could just hear Beau saying that in his querulous tone. “Then why did you come to call?”

  “I am just back from India. I wanted to meet all the pretty ladies.”

  I mentally translated that to “eligible ladies.” “I shall introduce you to the local ladies at the assembly,” I said.

  His lips opened in a teasing smile. “Tired of me so soon, Miss Talbot?”

  “Have you forgotten so soon that I’m kind? It would be selfish of me to keep you all to myself.”

  “Kind, talented—and a minx. Oh, and I forgot— beautiful. What an intriguing combination. And here Beau assured me you were the veriest provincial. Did I mention that?”

  “You left that compliment out. Odd you were so eager to meet me, in that case.”

  “Oh, but I adore provincials. You mustn’t mistake me for a town buck.”

  My eyes toured his jacket, handsome cravat, and York tan gloves. “It is clear to the most untrained eye that you have no interest in fashion,” I said ironically.

  “That is exactly what my London friends said when they saw what I wore home from Calcutta. You will notice my clothes, like my curricle, are new. As I plan to keep them for some time, I invested in the best. Quality pays in the long run. Where do we take the first invitation?”

  Mrs. Davis was the closest recipient. She came hastening to the door and kept me chatting for five minutes, while peering over my shoulder at Renshaw and asking a hundred questions about him.

  “Sorry,” I said when I finally got back to Renshaw. “But it’s all your own fault. You can’t expect to drive such a flashy rig as this and not have everyone inquiring about you.”

  It was three-quarters of an hour later before we got out of town. Besides delivering the notes, we were stopped by a half-dozen friends and then we met Lollie.

  He came pouncing forward to greet not me or Renshaw but the curricle and the grays. After admiring every glint of silver and every point of the team, he said, “By the way, sis, can you change a tenner for me? I want to pay the cobbler, but he doesn’t have change for a ten,”

  “I don’t carry that much money on me!”

  “Perhaps I can help,” Renshaw said, and drew out a pretty thick purse. He gave Lollie two fives. As he took Lollie’s ten-pound note, I noticed that he examined it in a careful but surreptitious way. He looked at the front, then turned it over.

  “It ain’t a forgery,” Lollie said, ready to take offense.

  Renshaw looked up and grinned. “Nothing personal, Talbot. Didn’t you hear there are forged notes about? Very good ones, I hear. Beau got one last night in a game of cards. As you said you just came from the bank, I was concerned that you might have been given one in error, but this one is genuine right enough.”

  He showed us how the forged notes could be recognized by some irregularity of the printing on the back of the note.

  “I shall be on the lookout for that,” Lollie said. “Thank you for warning me, Renshaw.”

  “As your money is good, you are welcome to join us in a game of roulette at Beau’s place tonight.”

  Lollie’s eyes lit up like a lamp. “By Jove!”

  “Auntie is counting on you to fill in at her card table this evening, Lollie,” I said at once. I was happy to have an excuse at hand. Beau’s games were for high stakes and Lollie is a mere tyro at gambling.

  “Dash it, who wants to play with a bunch of old ladies?”

  “It will not all be old ladies. She invited the Lemons as well. Addie will be coming.”

  “Another time, Talbot,” Renshaw said, and won favor by adding, “You must try the reins of my grays one day soon.”

  “By Jove!” Lollie said again. He soon left, promising to be in touch with Renshaw to arrange a mutually satisfactory day and hour for testing the grays.

  “That was demmed thoughtless of me,” Renshaw sa
id at once. He looked genuinely sorry. “I take it, from your quick intervention, that you don’t like your brother gambling.”

  “The best throw of the dice is to throw them away.” That was one of Auntie’s proverbs. When I noticed Renshaw’s lips twitching in amusement at such an antiquated attitude, I added, “Beau’s games are for high stakes. Lollie is only eighteen years old, Mr. Renshaw. Not quite ready to tangle with the likes of Beau.”

  Renshaw sighed. “I can see Beau has changed somewhat from the days when I knew him. I had hoped to see him settled down—married—but he seems strangely restless. It’s interesting, renewing acquaintances with old friends after so many years.”

  “I don’t think Beau is in any hurry to settle down.”

  “The more fool he,” Renshaw said.

  I looked to see if he was being ironic. He looked only rueful. Was it possible Renshaw was truly interested in marriage as apart from nabbing an heiress?

  We were talking in the carriage. Before we got away, Addie Lemon spotted us and came forward to meet Renshaw.

  “I can’t expect to cause any fuss at the assembly at this rate,” he complained in mock annoyance after she had left. “I’ll be as well-known as an old ballad.”

  “Do you not improve on longer acquaintance?” I asked.

  My question was greeted with a challenging, confident smile. “You tell me, ma’am. This is the second time we’ve met. Am I even more tedious than the first time?”

  Such self-confidence required a good set-down. “That would be impossible, Mr. Renshaw,” I said demurely.

  “Cut to the quick, wretch!” he exclaimed, clutching a hand to his heart. Then he laughed. “That will teach me to go fishing for compliments in a dry stream.”

  “The stream is not dry, sir. You are merely using the wrong bait.”

  He examined me with interest. “Can you suggest a more successful bait, Miss Talbot?”

  “Surely it is not for the prey to advise the predator, but you must not take the notion I am a gudgeon only because I happen to live in the backwaters of the country.”