Salt Redux

by Lucinda Brant

  There was an awkward silence. The parallel to Diana St. John’s predicament was glaring. She had invested all her emotional energy in the Earl from a young age. She had expected the Earl to marry her. When he did not, when she finally came to the realization that the Earl loved Jane, she lost all notion of right from wrong in her quest to become the object of the Earl’s singular devotion. It did not need to be said out loud, but all three, Salt, Jane and Sir Antony, were acutely aware that unlike Bonamy Sinclair, Diana was far from harmless.

  Finally, Sir Antony moved time on and lightened the mood, saying with a formal bow of his head to the noble couple, “I would be deeply honored to be Samuel’s godfather.”

  “Sam. We insist you call him Sam.”

  Sir Antony smiled and nodded. “I would be deeply honored to be Sam’s godfather. Thank you… Both of you.”

  Jane kissed his cheek and Salt shook his hand. Sir Antony looked down at his godson sleeping contentedly in his father’s large arms and marveled at such wondrous new life. Overcome with an overwhelming desire to protect, he was also gripped with a sense of urgency to see his sister’s malevolence contained before any harm could be done this infant, his brother and sister. Such dark thoughts sent him to the tea trolley before Jane caught a glimpse of his face, for surely it reflected the apprehension he felt on her behalf.

  “Sam is off to the nursery, where I am very sure his sleepyhead brother and sister will soon wake and ask for their papa,” Jane announced buoyantly, Salt placing their infant son into the arms of the waiting nursery maid. She fussed with Sam’s blanket and, distracted, said to the nursery maid with a frown, “Have you seen Sam’s unicorn rattle, Betsy? It was pinned to his blanket this morning…”

  When Jane had to repeat the question, the girl snapped out of her trance-like state but could not speak, quickly averting her gaze from the handsome guest, who was pouring out tea from a silver teapot, to the sleeping infant in her arms. She shook her head so vigorously the floppy brim of her white mob cap slapped about her flushed face, which caused Jane to smile in understanding. The poor creature was out of her depth in his lordship’s book room and would not recover her wits until returned to the familiar surroundings of the nursery. Locating Sam’s silver rattle could wait. She had far more important matters to discuss with her dear lord and his cousin. So she sent Betsy on ahead and turned to the Earl, who was sipping his claret, and Sir Antony, who was stirring sugar into his tea, and broached the subject that was uppermost in their thoughts but which they were most reluctant to discuss in her presence.

  Knowing Diana had escaped her confinement and was hiding in full view of the world provided the key to certain particulars that had been troubling Jane over the past two months. With the hours of idleness that came with an infant at her breast, she had had the leisure to ruminate: Her husband’s sleepless nights, the intermittent nightmares; the furtive looks of deep concern cast her way by Rufus Willis and his wife when they thought she was not looking; the increase in not only the number but also the sheer physical size of the footmen at Salt Hendon, and now here in London at Salt House, so that she was literally tripping over big burly servants in passageways; Sir Antony’s surprising and unheralded return from St. Petersburg. They all now made perfect sense.

  It also made perfect sense that she be present at any discussion regarding what was to be done to recapture the creature who threatened the very existence of her family, and was not at all pleased at her husband’s efforts, with the cooperation of Mr. Willis, and no doubt Sir Antony, too, to keep her in ignorance. Though she realized his gentlemanly efforts to shield her from the shock of Diana’s escape were done with the best of intentions, where the safety and happiness of her family were concerned she was prepared to grapple any monster, or a demon taking the human form of the beautiful Diana, Lady St. John.

  “Ned and Beth will have to wait the pleasure of their papa’s company,” she said, addressing the Earl, a glance at Sir Antony, “because something far more compelling requires our attention, does it not? I suspect Antony has fretted all the way from ’Petersburg, for the same reason you, my dear lord, have been fretting in your sleep these past two months or more.”

  She looked from one startled face to the other as both men exchanged a telling glance that, had it not confirmed her suspicions, would have made her smile. It was comical to see two large men wearing the same guilty expression as that of a little boy caught out putting a frog down the back of his sister’s bodice. But she did not smile. In fact, she felt queasy and cold with apprehension just saying the name few had uttered in her presence in four years.

  “Magnus. Antony. Something must be done, and done today, about Diana.”

  ~

  “YOU’D BEST LET her see what she wants,” the housekeeper said in a clipped tone, looking from Nanny Browne to Betsy Smith, the nursery maid with chin pointing to the floor. “Though I don’t see why your aunt needs to see you a third time when we’ve only been in town five minutes.”

  “Betsy’s first six weeks with us was in Wiltshire, Mrs. McIntyre,” Nanny Browne reminded the housekeeper. “And this is her first time in London. It’s a good aunt who wants to reassure herself her niece is settled.”

  Mrs. McIntyre scraped back her chair with a huff. She was not convinced.

  “Settled in too well, if you ask me, Nanny Browne. Five minutes as part of this household and her ladyship already thinks the sun shines out of Betsy’s cap! If it were up to me, you wouldn’t get within ten feet of her ladyship’s private rooms, Betsy Smith. You’d stay in the nursery where you belong. It’s as well Dicken is there to keep an eye on you.”

  “And her ladyship’s personal maid has only good to say of her,” Nanny Browne reminded the housekeeper.

  After all, Betsy came under her jurisdiction. She herself might be accountable to Mrs. McIntyre but all the nursery maids were her responsibility. As for the Countess’s personal maid, Nanny Browne did not have as high an opinion of Sally Dicken as the woman had of herself, but she was a good lady’s maid for all that, so she respected her judgment. She gave Betsy’s arm a little nudge, and said,

  “All your hair under that cap, Betsy, and straighten your skirt. You want your aunt to see how fortunate you are to be employed in this noble house.”

  “You remind Mrs. Smith there are hundreds of local girls who’d give a good tooth to be in your position. Remind her that you have work to do and she can see you on your half day off a fortnight. Why Mr. Willis saw fit to employ a will-o’-the-wisp from Birmingham is beyond me. But Mr. Willis is steward and I’m not, so there’s an end to it. Well, girl? Do as Nanny says and tidy your hair and petticoats!”

  The housekeeper waited while Betsy hurriedly adjusted her petticoat, pulled the bodice flat and then shoved a handful of springy ringlets under her bright white linen cap, retying the bow so the cap was secure. When the girl stood tall, hands clasped in front and bobbed a curtsy, gaze respectfully lowered, the housekeeper was satisfied and nodded to Nanny Browne.

  “An hour, Betsy,” Nanny Browne cautioned. “If you’re not returned on the hour, I’ll send one of the lads to fetch you out of that coach, aunt or no aunt!”

  Dismissed, Betsy scampered from the housekeeper’s room and along the servant passageway to the door that opened out into the kitchen courtyard and beyond. At every turn there was a servant, at every door two footmen, and out-of-doors, in the kitchen courtyard with its vegetable and herb gardens, men and women were busily engaged. If they noticed her, they did not look up, but she noticed them. She also noted the gardeners tending the formal flowerbeds and raking the gravel pathways that led to a large square of bright green lawn. At its center, a fountain where water bubbled from an urn into a pond filled with carp, and here, supervised by nursery maids and under the watchful eye of half a dozen footmen, his lordship’s children were permitted to play when there were blue skies and sunshine.

  At the heavy wooden door set into the thick stone of a high garden wall that gave
access to the outside world, two more footmen lounged. They were larger and wider than the footmen encountered indoors, and Betsy’s knees trembled with guilt when they stared down at her and asked her to state her business. Satisfied, they pulled the bolts, but before letting her out into the laneway they showed her the sliding panel in the door that allowed them to see out without the necessity of opening the door. If she did not raise her head so they could see her face under the cap, the door would remain closed to her. Understood? An obedient nod and Betsy found herself in Blackburn’s mews, a lane that ran parallel to the high garden wall and doglegged around a rectangular high-walled building that was his lordship’s royal tennis court.

  It was at the back of the royal tennis court, in a laneway no wider than a carriage, that her aunt was waiting. By her pacing, Betsy knew she was late, and her knees began to tremble again.

  “Don’t waste your breath tellin’ me why! Get in!” Mrs. Smith demanded and opened wide the carriage door.

  Betsy scrabbled up and it was only when seated did she realize the carriage was occupied. She breathed in her ladyship’s heady scent before she saw her, sitting quiet and still in a darkened corner. Light filtered in through a crack in the drawn curtain and fell on her silken lap where an ungloved hand clasped a leather glove, and a diamond winked from the pearl and diamond bracelet about her wrist.

  “Tell me what you know,” her ladyship purred.

  Betsy took a moment to collect her thoughts. It was a moment too long. Mrs. Smith cuffed her over the ear and told her to be quick about it.

  “I-I don’t know much, m’lady. Just that there’s a difficulty gaining entry to the house and garden.”

  “Difficulty?”

  “There’s no-no way to get in without ’em all knowin’ about it; there’s-there’s men everywhere. Big men they are, too. That’s why I was late. It’s as tricky to get out as to get in. There’s always someone askin’ a question if you’re not where you’re supposed to be, and that’s just movin’ from one part of the house to the other. No one who isn’t wanted gets inside the garden gate, much less the house.”

  “Did you bring what I asked?”

  Betsy quickly removed her cap and from the top of her mop of hair carefully untangled a tiny silver bracelet, sized for an infant’s chubby wrist. From the silver links dangled a silver unicorn charm and three tiny silver bells.

  “It was a gift from Mr. Willis,” Betsy offered unnecessarily.

  Diana St. John held it up between thumb and forefinger and frowned, as if it was unclean.

  “Sam don’t put it in his mouth,” Betsy assured her. “It’s always pinned to his blanket, or his dress. Nanny Browne says the bells ward off evil spirits.”

  Diana St. John gave the bracelet a little shake so the bells tinkled, a glance at Mrs. Smith

  “Oh dear, Mrs. Smith!” she said with melodramatic emphasis. “Now I have the bracelet, what will protect the poor dear infant when the evil spirits come?”

  Betsy looked flustered but before she could speak, Diana St. John continued in an altogether different voice,

  “It will do. What about the other brat, his brother? What did you bring me that belongs to him?”

  “Ned don’t have anything I could hide under m’cap, m’lady. There’s a cloth monkey he carries everywhere, and he sleeps with it, too. But it’s almost as big as Sam. And if I took that he’d scream the ’ouse down and it would be turned inside out lookin’ for it!”

  “You had best make certain the monkey is close at hand when he’s taken from the house.” Diana smiled. “We don’t want the little cherub screaming for his monkey, do we?”

  “We certainly do not want that, my lady,” Mrs. Smith agreed. “The quieter the little bastard is, the better.”

  Both women snickered.

  “You’re not meaning to hurt the children, are you?” Betsy asked fretfully, looking from one smug face to the other. “They’re not to blame. They’re just babies.”

  “How fortunate for us they are; the smaller the better. Easy to snatch.”

  “Easy to shove in a sack,” agreed Mrs. Smith.

  “Easy to throw in the river.”

  “Easy said.”

  “Easy done.”

  Both women laughed.

  Betsy was horrified. Disbelief made her momentarily brave.

  “Babies shouldn’t be punished for the wickedness of their mamma. Not even babies born on the wrong side o’ the blanket! It’s not their fault his lordship loves their mamma—Ow!”

  “Love? What would you know of love?” Diana St. John snarled. In one quick movement she had the girl by the wrist, yanked her up off the seat and stuck her face in hers. “You lackbrained drudge! He no more loves that skinny whore as he would a workhorse fit only for the knackery!”

  “Ow! Ow!” Betsy wailed, a glance at Aunt Smith who remained passively in her seat, and then into the dark unblinking eyes of Diana St. John, who held her wrist so tightly she thought it might snap. “M’wrist! You’re hurting me!”

  “You stick to worryin’ about your own kin, Betsy Smith,” Mrs. Smith advised. “What happens to bastard brats conceived in witchery is none of your concern!”

  “But I seen the way he looks at her,” Betsy argued, lip trembling, eyes on her aunt. “It’s not witchery when he looks at her without her knowledge, is it? He’s not under a spell then, is he? He can’t help his’self! He looks at her with such—with such—love… And he loves her children—”

  A stab of pain in her wrist stopped her breathing; it was as if her hand was on fire, and then she yelped, tears in her eyes. Diana let her go with a shove and Betsy crumpled into the seat moaning, holding her limp and throbbing wrist.

  “Stupid, ignorant dolt! I don’t want your worthless opinion!”

  Diana St. John batted the curtain aside to look out the window. She could just make out the corner of the high wall of the royal tennis court. There was a time when she sat pride of place in the spectator boxes to watch the Earl play at tennis with his male companions. Athlete that he was, he always won, and then she would host a dinner for the players and their wives… That was before he brought that skinny Wiltshire whore into his home and into his bed. Why hadn’t he tired of her before now?

  She had hoped in the four years she had been away from London Salt would have grown weary of a singular devotion, that he would have had a new mistress or two, even a casual liaison, any dalliance would do. To arrive at Hendon to the wretched ringing of Church bells proclaiming a second son, and this infant the Earl’s third child, had made her physically ill, as had the knowledge he was the most faithful of husbands and the most devoted of fathers. She did not understand. Faithfulness. Devotion. Sentimentality. These were the characteristics ascribed to weak men, and to cowards. Her brother exhibited such tendencies, but he was a political nobody, and no Salt. It had to be witchcraft; the Earl was bewitched.

  Her stalwart companion agreed that this could be the only reason such a nobleman remained constrained from exhibiting his natural tendencies, and she was prepared to do whatever Diana bade her to see the Earl freed from sorcery. Diana congratulated herself on having recognized Bertha Smith’s sycophantic tendencies and lax moral fiber. From their first meeting, when the woman arrived at the castle to take up the position of lady’s maid, Mrs. Smith was in equal measure awed by Diana St. John’s beauty and her nobility. In less than a fortnight, the woman no longer trusted the guardian’s word; by the end of the first month, Mrs. Smith was Diana’s slave, willing to do whatever was asked of her.

  It would be a shame to lose such a devoted servant to the gallows. But someone had to pay the price for the deaths of Salt’s brats. Mrs. Smith’s niece would also be implicated. The girl was a simpleton to be sure, but even simpletons were strung up at Tyburn for their misdeeds. Surely a very public hanging at Tyburn of aunt and niece would provide Salt with some redress for the tragedy of losing his family. Not that she thought he would care who was strung up. He would be mad wi
th grief, so stricken he would be forever grateful to her for picking up the pieces of his life and setting him back on the path to political greatness—that’s what truly mattered.

  Diana smiled her satisfaction and let the curtain fall, returning her attention to Mrs. Smith and the nursery maid; tractable and gullible servants were so hard to come by these days…

  “It’s lust. That’s all it is, Betsy,” Diana St. John heard Mrs. Smith tell her idiot niece. “The creature who has taken her ladyship’s place is a witch and she’s bewitched his lordship. If you’re not careful she’ll put a spell on you, too! I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she’s done so already. That’s why you’re being foolishly stubborn. That’s why you’re not thinking of your father locked up for debt and your brothers and sisters going about in rags, half-starved. They’re what’s important, Betsy. They’re kin.”

  Betsy whimpered. She stared at her tortured wrist. Blood oozed from three crescent shaped wounds where Diana St. John’s nails had dug deep into her flesh. Somehow seeing those wounds made the throbbing all the more painful. She was incredulous that such a fine lady could inflict such pain. Aunt Smith might be convinced this woman was the true Countess of Salt Hendon, but with the throbbing in her wrist, Betsy asked herself if perhaps it was Aunt Smith who had been bewitched by this beautiful woman who had a black heart, or no heart at all, to want to harm the innocent.

  She was young but she knew right from wrong, good from bad. She had seen enough brutality, known hunger, and watched her father be hoodwinked out of his savings by crooked business partners who had left the family destitute. The past six weeks spent in the Earl of Salt Hendon’s household were the happiest six weeks of her miserable fifteen years of life, and she was beginning to understand why his lordship had thrown off this woman in preference for his mistress. Though, Betsy wondered now about this too.