The Dead Songbird (The Northminster Mysteries)

by Smart, Harriet

  “You must come and see my house,” he said, with decision. In his mind, embarking on this conversation was akin to talking of marriage. For what man could marry without a house?

  “Your house?” she said.

  “I told you I think that I am going to be a man of property. Some place belonging to Sir Robert Arden.”

  “Not Ardenthwaite?” she said.

  “You know the place?”

  “I’ve seen over it,” she said. “It is a fine old house – and very large. And the gardens are so pretty. It is all old-fashioned though. Perhaps you don’t like that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t know what I like, to tell you the truth. Well, I did not care for Holbroke. You have seen over that?”

  “Yes.”

  “A great showy soulless monster of a house,” said Felix decidedly. “Ardenthwaite is not like that?”

  “No, not at all. It is as I said, old-fashioned, and romantic. There are mullion windows and stained glass, and some of the floors slope alarmingly. But there is a great gallery at the top of the house which has the most wonderful view over the moors. You can see the sea from there on a fine day.”

  “You liked it then?”

  “Yes, I did. Very much.”

  “It sounds pleasant,” he said.

  “It is. You are lucky man, Mr Carswell.”

  “It sounds like the sort of house that needs a mistress,” he said.

  “I’m sure there will be no difficulty about that,” she said with a smile.

  “We did discuss the question of our eloping,” he said as lightly as he could.

  “That was just a piece of nonsense.”

  “Nonsense can turn into sense. Sometimes?” he said. She looked at him. “It would not be so ridiculous, would it, to consider?”

  “You are pragmatic, Mr Carswell.”

  “Yes, well, perhaps, but you don’t find me objectionable, and I certainly don’t find you objectionable. You would have everything you wanted. I could do that for you – you’d have an establishment, and you’d be someone in the county, should you wish it – Lord Rothborough would see to that – I am sure he would love you as a daughter –”

  “Enough!” she said. “This is nonsense. You cannot make a silly joke into a marriage proposal. You don’t feel a jot for me. You are only tired of being in thrall to Mrs Morgan. Do you think that making love to me will cure you of that?” He could not answer. “And what am I to do if it doesn’t cure you? If we find ourselves in Switzerland on our wedding journey and you pining for Mrs Morgan still? That is not how good marriages are made. There must be mutual passion. There must be mutual love. It is not a business arrangement.”

  There was a silence while he took in what she had said.

  “Forgive me, it was ridiculous,” he managed to say.

  “Of course I forgive you. You are half-mad over Mrs Morgan, that excuses it,” she said. “We cannot expect reason from you.”

  She laid her hand over his, and he was moved to take it up and kiss it, feeling thankful for her good sense and mercy. Another woman could have used such a moment entirely for her own ends, but she had not. When she did marry, her husband would be a lucky man, he thought, and in the spirit of friendship he leant forward and kissed her cheek, just as one might kiss a bride.

  And as he did, he heard footsteps behind them. He turned, and to his horror saw Dean Pritchard accompanied by Lord Rothborough.

  “Katherine, what are you doing here?” Dean Pritchard said. “Did I say you could leave your mother? Did you have my permission to leave the house? And what are you doing here, with this man?”

  “There is nothing going on, sir, I assure you,” Felix said, jumping to his feet and putting some distance between himself and Miss Pritchard. “We were just talking –”

  “Mr Carswell, please, the truth,” said Miss Pritchard. “My dear, it is better that we tell the truth at once.” And she reached out and grabbed his hand. He was so astonished by that “my dear” that he did nothing to prevent it. “Mr Carswell has just proposed to me, Papa, that is what has been going on.” She was now squeezing his hand so violently that he thought she might crack his fingers. Her hand was so strong, he supposed, from all that piano practice. He was obliged to put his other hand over hers in a covert attempt to get her to release him, but she held fast, and the impression given must have been one of a couple hand-fasting in front of witnesses. Which is what she wants, he began to realise.

  “Is this true, sir?” said the Dean turning towards him.

  “Yes,” he managed to say. “I did and –”

  “And I have accepted,” Miss Pritchard said, clear as a bell.

  In Pitfeldry, they would be as good as married after that, Felix thought. His father spent a great deal of time trying to persuade people to come and marry according to the book in church, but the old system still prevailed.

  But this was Northminster, and Scotch marriages were not legal. Neither would the Dean’s daughter and the Marquis’ bastard be allowed to enter into any such contract independently. He felt the depressing truth of that as much as the disapproving eyes of Lord Rothborough on him. They were not free agents. Their position made slaves of them. A farm servant and a maid had more liberty.

  Even before Miss Pritchard had finished saying “accepted” the Dean marched forward and pushed Felix roughly to one side, breaking their handclasp. Felix could not help being a little relieved, but he did not at all like the way Pritchard shook his daughter roughly by the shoulder. He was moving to pull him away for himself, when he felt Lord Rothborough’s restraining hand on his arm.

  “Take your daughter home, sir,” said Lord Rothborough, quietly and mildly. “This is not the time nor the place.” At this Dean Pritchard released her and she turned so that Felix met her glance, which was imploring him. She was begging for his collusion. But why? What on earth was she doing, when only a moment ago she had spoken so plainly?

  “You are right, you are right...” muttered the Dean, gathering his thoughts. Then he drew himself up and turned to Felix. “You, sir, will be so good as to call on me first thing tomorrow morning and explain yourself! Katherine, we are going home!”

  Felix was left alone with Lord Rothborough. There was a long, rather uncomfortable silence, and then Lord Rothborough spoke.

  “What a pretty business,” he said. “And I thought you had learnt your lesson in this department. You understand what I expect of you, I trust? When you speak to him tomorrow you will retract your proposal. You can find some excuse for it. It isn’t pleasant, but you are not marrying that girl!”

  And then to crown it all, in another part of the Minster, Mrs Morgan began to sing.

  “Ah, cara,” murmured Rothborough. He turned and walked away towards the sound of the Siren.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Giles sat with his brother-in-law in the Minster, listening to Harrison and Mrs Morgan sing the duet “Who calls my parting soul from death?” from Esther by Handel.

  Harrison was a transformed man. He had shaved and was now dressed with considerable elegance in a well cut frock coat and immaculate linen. He wore a figured silk waistcoat that would have cost at least three guineas – a discreet and handsome design with which Giles could not find fault. In all respects he perfectly matched Mrs Morgan in both looks and bearing – and he did not look the least out of place. He was every inch the professional singer. Of the disgraced, truculent and resentful clerk there was little sign. Giles found it hard not to be impressed by this, and as for his voice – even though he knew he was no great judge, it struck him as excellent. It was sweet-toned, perfectly controlled and still suitably manly. His performance was full of emotion but did not veer into into an excessive show of passion. In short, it was appropriate for his part as the virtuous hero and lover of a queen.

  When the duet was done, Lambert said with a sigh, “I think we have lost him. He will never stay now Mrs Morgan has heard him sing like that. Northminster’s loss will be Lon
don’s gain. I have never heard him in such good voice before. It is as if he has come into bloom.”

  “He does not seem much affected by his loss,” Giles said, thinking of those letters.

  “He has an excellent technique,” said Lambert. “Look how pleased Mrs Morgan is with him. So she should be. Their voices matched beautifully. We can only hope he will come back to us occasionally,” he added.

  Mrs Morgan and Harrison were looking over their scores together and then she left the platform, and the orchestra began to play again. Lambert was in a sort of ecstatic rapture, following his score as Harrison again began to sing.

  Giles slipped from his place in order to study him better as he sang. Harrison was not acting the least bit like a guilty man, but perhaps that excellent technique allowed him to conceal a great deal.

  Leaning against one of the great Romanesque pillars, Giles turned over in his mind what he knew of the man. Harrison was undoubtedly a risk-taker, already plunged deep into a way of life that was both dangerous and illegal. He was a man who wrote passionate love letters to another man, letters that were also graphic enough in their content to get him hanged for buggery. He was also, it seemed, willing to sell his sexual favours.

  Did this calmness, this remarkable control he was witnessing, indicate that Harrison was amoral? If that were the case, then the murder of Charles Barnes might be just another act which did not much trouble his conscience.

  He was so absorbed in his train of thought that he did not realise until the end of the aria that Mrs Morgan was standing beside him.

  “I am glad to see you,” she said, when Harrison had finished. “I need to speak to you.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “I’ve had another letter,” she said.

  “When did it arrive?”

  “I don’t know. We simply found it in the house.”

  “We?”

  “My sister-in-law found it.”

  “And where was it?”

  “It was lying in a basket in the hall, apparently – the card basket.”

  “And none of the servants took in a letter?”

  “No they say not.”

  “And it was addressed to you in the normal way?”

  “Unfortunately not,” she said. “It was addressed – well, may I show it to you? I have it here.”

  “Let us go into the library,” he said. “I don’t think anyone will disturb us there.”

  He showed her to the south door and they made their way along the ancient cloister until they reached the small nail-studded door that led to the medieval library.

  “How beautiful this is!” she said, looking about her as they went in.

  “I like it better than the Minster,” said Giles, “although that is heretical to say so.”

  “Books are always comforting,” she said, touching the gilded spine of some great old volume with her lavender gloved finger. “I always think so. So much wisdom... the wisdom of all the ages. I would like nothing better than to sit here and read them all. Then I might make fewer mistakes, perhaps?”

  “Great scholars are sometimes the greatest fools, in my experience,” said Giles.

  “Yes, I have met some of those,” she said with a smile. “No, wisdom comes from knowledge and common sense, I think, and experience.”

  “That is the harshest tutor of all,” Giles said.

  “Yes,” she said, with a slight shiver. “Oh yes indeed.”

  He had been carefully objective about her – he knew that much, but in that moment, her soft voice seemed to tempt that part of him he never could entirely control. She was wearing a silver grey bonnet which framed her face, and in the fading light of the room, her pale beauty was eloquent and her companionship seemed infinitely desirable.

  He reached into his coat, fetched out a box of lucifers, and turned his attention to lighting the candles that were arranged in a great branched holder. They sat down on either side of an ancient blackened oak table and Mrs Morgan opened her reticule. She pushed the letter it across the table to him.

  “This is not pleasant,” she said.

  She was correct.

  The envelope was addressed in gummed paper letters and read:

  “To Nancy Morgan, a dirty whore.

  You are all found out. Your wickedness is known. You are a whore and a destroyer of all that is good. You are a stain on the earth. You will fuck any man for a penny. But beware the time is coming that you must pay, and you will pay with your life. A knife will come and give you what you deserve. You will choke on your own dirty blood. A constant friend.”

  “I have to admire your coolness under fire, Mrs Morgan,” he said, laying the letter down on the table.

  “What other way is there to be?” she said. “You heard me singing just then. Handel’s heroines are full of virtuous resistance in adversity. I have learnt from their example.”

  “Did Mrs Ridolfi open the letter?”

  “No, seeing the address was enough for her and she she brought it straight to me.”

  “You have discussed these letters with her?”

  “I have – but in no great detail. I did not want to alarm her. Especially after that business with the bird which shook her badly.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Given that she knew of the other letters and how they distressed you, she might have dropped it in the fire, wishing to spare you the pain of it.”

  “Oh, Paulina would not do that. She knows I would want to see it.”

  He studied the letter, turning it in his hands and then said, “I must say I do find it curious that Mrs Ridolfi discovered both the bird and this letter.”

  “What are you implying?”

  “That she may have been the origin of the letters.”

  “That is a harsh accusation, Major Vernon.”

  “It would not be the first time such mischief has been made by a person close to the victim. It is a possibility that must be explored.”

  “No, no, I cannot agree with that. Not in this case. Paulina is as dear as a sister to me. We grew up together – we were pupils with Mrs Watkins. I would trust her with my life – as I trust her with my child. You are mistaken, Major Vernon. Paulina could not, would not do anything like this.” She frowned at him reproachfully, but he was not to be deterred by that.

  “Was she living in your house London when the first of these letters arrived?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but that is a coincidence. It is nonsense to even think it.”

  “And how long have your brother and his wife been living with you, I must ask?”

  “A couple of years now.”

  “They have no house of their own?”

  “A house in London at a good address is a great expense and Dick is not as prosperous as he might be. He needs to be in the heart of town, as do I. It is convenient for all of us.”

  “So your husband does not object to his wife’s family living in his house?”

  “I don’t see what my husband’s opinions about anything have to do with this.”

  “Is that because he no longer lives under your roof?” he ventured.

  There was a little pause.

  “That is not supposed to be common knowledge,” she said, quietly, “for obvious reasons.”

  “I understand,” he said. “And it is not common knowledge.”

  “I am glad to hear it,” she said.

  “However it would have been useful had you told me of it,” he said. “After all, an absent husband, a difficult man by all accounts – an aggrieved husband – could he not be responsible for this trouble?” he said, tapping the letter with his finger. “That must have crossed your mind, surely?”

  “Perhaps,” she said after a long silence. “Perhaps.”

  “And where is your husband at the moment?” said Giles. “Do you know?”

  “I think he is engaged in Paris at the opera there. That is what I heard.”

  “But you do not know any more than that?”


  “No. I don’t really want to know. I don’t really like to think about him at all.”

  “Naturally. He has obviously hurt you a great deal,” he said, “but in this case – if you wish to put an end to this, you must force yourself to consider it. I know it is painful, ma’am, but –”

  “Yes, yes it is a possibility I suppose!” she said. “It would not be out of character.”

  “How well does he know your sister-in-law?” Giles said. “Does he know that she is afraid of dead birds, for example?”

  “He may do.” She was silent for a moment and then said. “Do you think he might be here?” she said. “In Northminster?”

  “Do you?” he countered, hearing the fear in her voice.

  “I hope not, but... but...” She took the letter from Giles’ hand and looked over it again. “This does suggest, does it not –” She broke off and then after a moment said, quietly, “I have been a great fool. I should have told you. I am sorry, I did not think properly, I suppose. I did not think that he – even he – would stoop so low. I thought we had settled it it. Goodness, I gave him enough!”

  “You gave him money?”

  “Yes, I paid him to go – it was a great deal of money. It was all the money that I had managed to save from my fees over the last few years – money that I managed to keep him from spending. I hid some away, even from the start, because, well, I knew soon enough what a mistake I had made in marrying him. In the end it was all I could do to get rid of him. He discovered I had it – and of course claimed it was his, which I suppose it was by rights, and I that I had no right to hide it from him. So I gave it to him, on condition that he left Harry and me alone for good. I thought it would be enough, but perhaps I have been deluding myself. He is an extravagant man. He could have run through it already. Is that what all this means? Is he trying to scare me into giving him more money? It is a strange way to go about it.”

  “Was he glad to go?” Giles said.

  “I don’t know. I think so. He said he was, but I know it was a humiliation for him. And he had an easy life when we were together. I did everything I could to make it pleasant for him. I tried not to be a bad wife. I looked after his linen and ordered what he liked for dinner. I was too afraid of him not to do my duty, but I wanted to be a good wife to him. I wanted it to be right and straight between us, especially when Harry was born. I thought that would make him happy, but I never could. I could never do enough. There was always this terrible resentment. Professional jealousy of course. He would have liked me to never sing again, but then we would have been paupers. He wanted what I could earn, but at the same time he hated that I could earn so much more than him.”