“An abandoned cabin … off the Sound Road,” Mrs Moore wailed.
“Along Smith’s Creek? Why two bows, then?” Livesey queried.
“For evenings” she blubbered. “One for mornings … when we’d have time! Oh, God have mercy, have either of you any mercy …!”
“Not for a murderess, I don’t,” the magistrate spat.
“But I didn’t kill him, I didn’t hire anyone, I had no reason to!” Mrs Moore snufflingly protested. “No more, please, I beg you.”
“Any other hidey-holes where ye played balum-rancum?” Marsden scoffed. “A safer place to ‘rock, and roll me over,’ hey? In yer bedchamber, even? Wouldn’t put it past ye,” he disgustedly sneered. And both gentlemen were appalled to see her weakly nod “yes” to that.
“God’s sake, yer own marriage bed?” Marsden marvelled, standing back from her as if repelled. “Damme, that’s gall! An’ Osgoode never smelled a rat?”
“We … we keep separate chambers,” Mrs Moore admitted in a dull stupor, her panic departing after her confession, which, as the reverends always said, truly seemed good for the soul. “He comes and goes at all hours … bad as a physician’s hours,” she sniffled.
“Convenient,” Mr Marsden snickered. “Seein’ as how Harry had a say in settin’ those hours, an’ absences,_/er him. Don’t sound that lovey-dovey t’me. Ye planned t’leave Osgoode fer Harry, did ye?”
“No,” she dully replied. “That would have been impossible.”
“Too much to lose, financially,” Livesey imagined aloud, with a feeling of disgust for her. “Your good names. But would Harry have left Georgina for you? Did he declare that he loved you that much?”
“Love, well…” Anne Moore said with a weary sigh, and a hint of her old arch coyness and condescension. “No, Mr Livesey, I’d no expectations. Love and passion … love is what one plights, to excuse passion.” She dabbed her eyes, blew her nose, and slumped on her elbows, most ungracefully and unladylike. “Harry and I were in passion, for the moment. It was … plea-sureable, and exciting. We might have lasted years, or but a few months more if Harry discovered a fresher challenge. Neither of us had any complaints or lack of satisfaction. So, I had no reason to break things off, certainly not to kill him, or lure him to his death. My only fret…”—she paused in sorrowful thought—”was our lack of… opportunity.”
“Seems t’me, ye shoulda fretted more ‘bout th’ dishonor ye’d bring to all involved,” Mr Marsden said with a snort. “Or fetchin’ up a baby. Or would yejust claim it was Osgoode’s?”
“Mr Marsden, I wager you gentlemen know that there are … devices? … to prevent such a calamity,” Mrs Moore replied, coming close to amusement at their seeming naivety. “With Harry, though … how may one phrase this? … there was no need to employ suchjoyless and cumbersome things. I was grateful for that. And Harry sometimes was, as well.”
“What?” Marsden tried to puzzle out. “Wasn’t a whole man, are ye sayin’? Speak straighter, woman.”
“Harry was wholly a man,” Anne declared, simpering for a little in sweet reverie, “with but one … failing. It was his lot never to quicken a babe, alas. And our world is sadder for it.”
“Damme! Of course!” Matthew Livesey exclaimed, ready to slap his forehead in delayed understanding. Twelve years Harry had been wed to Priscilla, his first wife, with no issue! He and Georgina had not yet brought forth children, either. And Livesey could not recall a single chambermaid or town girl in Boston, nary a camp follower or local girl turning up at headquarters with a “belly plea” on Harry, either! And, sadly, he wondered if that could explain his foolhardy, intemperate lust for women, so many women—his neck-or-nothing lack of fear in the field, on horseback, in combat.
Harry Tresmayne might have begun to suspect that it wasn’t his bed-partners’ fault that he had no son and heir, dear as any man would wish for such; yet all the years he’d tried (and how energetically he had tried, God help him!), only to find that he was the barren one!
“How cruel,” Livesey muttered, “to be so blessed with so many manly attainments, yet…”
“Or,” Mr Marsden sarcastically imagined, “Harry didn’t think he was firin’ mere salutin’ charges. He still thought it was ye, so he dropped ye like a toe-sprung stockin’, an’ found himself some new mutton, and ye weren’t ready t’be dropped.”
“He knew his lack,” Anne Moore wearily insisted. “Evenjaped about it, a time or two. There was no new woman to catch his humors, Mr Marsden. I didn’t do this, I tell you! I’d never have sent a signal during Quarterly Assizes, most certainly, not with hundreds of people in town—so many who could not afford lodgings camped out near our … places. The risk of exposure was too great. I will swear to you on a cartload of Bibles that I sent no flowers.”
“What of Osgoode, then?” Marsden shrewdly queried.
“What of him?” she almost dismissively shot back, too fearful of her comedown in local Society. “I do love him, in a way. Though … when we met in New Bern, I had hopes for better, before he moved me here. He’s one of The Moores, after all! Yet, his faction, his politics, the way he deliberately alienated himself from those who rule, his own kinfolk as well… I fear our marriage did not develop as I expected … though I made him a fashionable home, tended to his social standing, cultivated and espoused his circle.”
“Then went whorin’ behind his back. How cultivatin’,” Marsden commented with a nasty chuckle of mirthless amusement.
“I never meant any harm to Osgoode!” Mrs Moore declared, back completely to her old self, sitting up straighter and impatiently jiggling one silk-slippered foot. “Though our marriage was never of the best, does he have to learn of my indiscretions? Better he filed for a Bill of Divorcement on any grounds but this.”
“Oh, it’ll come out soon as we put ye on trial,” Mr Marsden promised her.
“For complicity in Harry’s murder, at the least,” Mr Livesey added. “And for siccing someone on me and mine last night, who tried to burn us to death in our sleep!” he fumed at her. “Because you saw the gown retrieved and got frightened your secret would come out?”
“No, that wasn’t my doing!” she exclaimed. “You couldn’t think that I could do such a thing! I put the gown in the slops, I looked most carefully for any witnesses, and saw none. I thought it was gone for good and had no reason to fear you’d—”
“Who else, then?” Livesey barked. “The gown, the ribbons, the lace and bouquet, all lead back to you!”
“I can’t imagine. There’s no one!” she desperately insisted.
“Explain yer doin’s, th’ night o’ Harry’s murder,” Mr Marsden demanded, headed for his desk for a fresher quid of’chew.”
“I … I dined with the Lillingtons,” she answered. “Osgoode wouldn’t go, so I went alone. My coachee can tell you that, and my maids who helped us both dress for the evening. I sent no flowers!”
“When was your last… tryst?” Livesey asked. “You and Harry.”
“The week previous,” Anne replied. “I told you it was much too risky during Quarter Days!”
“What time did ye depart? Before Osgoode, or after?” Marsden pressed.
“About half-past six,” Mrs Moore declared. “Osgoode handed me into the coach; he saw me off.”
“An’ then?”
“I don’t know what you mean, sir! We dined! There was music, and ‘ecarte, some dancing and lively conversation … ghost stories of ‘haints,’ hags and such. For Wilmington Society, it continued rather late, nearly to eleven!” Mrs Moore stated, sneering a trifle at the local tendency to retire round nine, to the dismay of gentlemen visitors from more sporting towns and cities. “There’s a round dozen who may vouch for my every minute.”
“An’ yer return home?” Mr Marsden asked.
“Half-past eleven, sir,” Anne impatiently snipped back. “I’m certain of it. We’ve an excellent London-made mantel clock, sir, and it struck half-past eleven as I entered our house.”
So there! Livesey thought, picturing Anne Moore sticking out her tongue to “cock a snook” at the magistrate in spite: the whore!
“Then?” Marsden reiterated.
“Why, I retired. Went above-stairs to my chambers. Must I account for each minute, sir? I was home, as my slaves may attest!”
“Do it!” Marsden hissed, masticating his quid furiously.
“I undressed, if you must know,” she all but snarled. “I donned a bedgown … sent down to the pantry for a demi-bottle of sherry. I lit more candles and read for a while. Does the book’s title matter? After a glass or two, a chapter or two, I had the candles doused, and retired. I fell asleep soon after, nigh on a quarter to one. Alone, Mr Marsden.”
“Was Osgoode home?” Livesey probed, striving to make it sound an off-handed question, though he shared a meaningful look with the magistrate. If MacDougall was most-like innocent, of this crime, at least, and Anne Moore would not confess, then …
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “Nothing new about that, I promise you,” she lightly scoffed. “He stayed late with you and your faction men at Miz Yadkin’s Ordinary, as he ever does. I heard him come in, I think. Before I fell fully asleep. He might have wakened me; I can’t recall.”
“And when was that?” Livesey said, taking up Marsden’s chorus.
“It might have been after one, really,” Anne Moore considered. “I’d had more than my usual share of wine, so … I know he looked in on me. Opened my door for a moment, and I dreaded that he’d … Well, we’d had a bit of a spat earlier, whilst we were dressing, over his not accompanying me to the Lillingtons, and I thought that he would insist on … surely I do not have to relate how married couples resolve an argument, must I, sirs?” She acted almost miss-ish, and coy.
“I feigned sleep,” she admitted, after a moment. “Through my lashes I saw him. He had a candle. He could vouch for my presence, and the hour. Ask him, why don’t you, and leave off abusing me!”
“You’re quite sure he came in that late,” Livesey pressed with a mournful feeling under his heart. “Past one in the morning, or so.”
“Reasonably sure, yes,” Mrs Moore decided. “He closed my door and went ‘cross the hall to his own chambers. Yes, I recall that as I dropped off again I heard the half-hour strike, so it musthzve been half-past one, or near to it, when he came home. Why?”
“Time an’ enough,” Mr Marsden sorrowfully said.
“Time for what?” Anne Moore asked, intrigued by their reticent air. “I’ve accounted for my time!”
“Someone with access to your chifforobe, Mistress Moore, to the gown, the lace and ribbons,” Livesey sadly explained, “someone who had knowledge of your secret lovers’ code, who knew the significance that two ribbon bows implied … knew it meant the glade, knew the route to it that Harry would use … Someone knew every detail of your doings. Watched you, followed you, witnessed …! Someone who tasted the deepest dregs of betrayal, and wished and plotted and schemed to slay him, or you, or both, perhaps …”
“Osgoode, you’re saying?” she gasped in utter amazement. “Shot Harry? Dear Lord, sirs, he couldn’t have! He hadn’t a clue!”
Anne Moore took a moment to picture that premise. And then, to their complete revulsion, she cracked a smile and began to snicker to herself. “Osgoode a murderer? Don’t be ludicrous!” she laughed.
Chapter 29
THEY FINALLY EXCUSED the much-sobered and somewhat repentant Mrs Moore, the magistrate giving orders to the soldiers in the passageway that she was to be kept separate from her husband. Mr Marsden dragged out a brass-case watch the size of a flattened apple, and grimaced at what it showed.
“Past my dinnertime,” Marsden said. “We might leave Osgoode in abeyance ‘til we’ve et, hmm? Care t’stroll down to th’ WidowYadkin’s fer a bite with me, Mr Livesey?”
“I hope you’ll not think me ungracious, Mr Marsden, but I find that I have no appetite,” Matthew Livesey somberly said. “After all we heard from that… woman! I’m not the least bit peckish.” His recent experiment with a breakfast at Mrs Yadkin’s, and the idea of further goggling from the poor mort was enough to put him offhis feed, as well.
“Sillitoe?” Marsden called down the hall, and a moment later his manservant entered. The Marsdens had taken on a married couple’s indentures, one as their cook, the other as their butler and Mr Marsden’s “catch-fart.” Buying indentures was a lot more expensive than purchasing trained slaves, and they were newcome English, hence white, and gave the Marsden house a greater social cachet. “Aye, sir?”
“We’ll head down t’ Widow Yadkin’s an’ eat. ’tis such a pretty mornin’, we’ll stroll,” Marsden proposed, “‘stead o’ coach, an’…”
“Wouldn be a’doin’ that, beggin’ yer pardon, sir,” Sillitoe cautioned with a tooth-sucking wince. “There’s faction men ever’where ye look, an’ their blood’s up, d’ye get my meanin’, sir? Yadkin’s is full of ’em, an’ them full of Yadkin’s drink.”
“Well, damme!” Marsden grumbled, leaning over to spit into his bucket. “Send out, then, along with th’ pris’ners’ meals. I s’pose I can survive a twopenny ordinary, if they can.”
“Uh … yessir,” Sillitoe warily said, realizing that it would be him, patently and recognizably Mr Marsden’s “man,” who would have to risk the streets—and the upset mob.
“I shall return in an hour, sir?” Livesey asked, swaying a bit from a rising urgency.
“Hey? Oh, yes, o’ course,” Marsden said. “We’ll begin again at one.”
Livesey fetched his hat and cane, went out into the hall, and took a left down the corridor that passed the actual courtrooms on one side and the wooden doors to the cells on the other. There was a back entrance beyond, which led to the coach yard, a shell drive and turnaround, and several large shade trees … beneath which, behind a log-cabin shed, lay the Jakes, the “seats of ease.” Livesey put on a little more clumping haste, since by then his back teeth were well “awash.”
Instead, though, he found his daughter, Bess, sitting on a wood-slat bench in the trees’ shade, looking as miserable as a lost puppy, with a cloth bundle by her feet.
“Oh God, Father!” she wailed, springing up to hug him fiercely.
“Dear girl, Bess … what’s amiss?” he comforted, patting her back and attempting to soothe with a few “there, there’s.”
“I’m so miserable, I wish I could die!” Bess declared.
“You do not! Never wish for such!” Livesey cosseted, turning her toward the bench to sit down together. “Now tell me about it.”
“It’s Biddy,” Bess moaned, wiping her eyes. “When the soldiers took her father, she begged us to help them, get them a lawyer. But when she heard you were in there helping the court, I had 10 confess: about my prying and all, and the ribbon, and why they suspected that her father, and …! I couldn’t keep on posing, could I? This is all my fault, and now she won’t speak to me, called me a false friend and a betrayer, and she … flung my new gown right at me, and … !” she gulped, as a fresh onslaught of remorse came over her.
“Dear Lord,” Livesey said with a perplexed sigh. “Well, Bess, it would have come to her, sooner or later, but…”
“I tried to explain, tell her I never meant for her father to be suspected and arrested, but she wouldn’t hear a word ofit!”
“He isn’t,” Livesey was quick to assure her. “He was over the Brunswick the night of the murder, and I’ll wager he’ll soon be free, completely exonerated. Perhaps she might listen to that, if you think it would help.”
“Could … could you tell her that, Father?” Bess wheedled.
“Ermm …” Livesey wavered, wondering if a father’s burden from children—daughters especially—ever eased. “At the moment, I doubt if she’d care to face either of us, Bess. Not listen to a word I—”
“Perhaps not, but could you try, Father? Say you will,please? She’s in her father’s cell, and has to come out this way, so …”
“Well,” he said, sagging in surrender. “Let me study ‘pon it for a moment. A moment only. Excuse me.” He awkwardly got to his feet and fairly dashed to the Jakes. Had Gabriel blown the Final Trump that moment, it was doubtful he could have paused to listen.
“Mistress MacDougall,” Livesey began to say a few minutes later, after he had cozened the girl to join him under the trees and take a seat somewhat near Bess on the bench. “I cannot even begin to express how sad it makes me that you and your father became involved in this. A great wrong’s been done the both of you for which, through Bess’s … zeal… I must and will own a portion of responsibility. Bess spoke so well of you, that I was happily anticipating the making of your acquaintance as a welcome guest in our home. You and your father, did he wish to accompany you. As I understand he would insist, hmm?”
Biddy MacDougall coolly gazed back at him, unmoved by his words and showing only a tiny tic of well-suppressed rancor. Livesey heard that she was striking, but seeing her in the flesh confirmed everything Bess had told him. Well, not the feckless exuberance and cheery, outgoing personality at the moment—and no wonder!
“You must believe me when I say that your father’s arrest was the magistrate’s decision, none of mine. Nor was it ever my daughter’s intent that he should be.”
“But ye were thayr, sir,” Biddy dared accuse, somewhere between dutifully meek to “betters” and outraged. “Qüestionin’ him? Ye were thayr when th’ redcoats hit him with thayr muskets, sir.”
“Mr Marsden had him in to clear up some things, not accuse him as the only suspect,” Livesey extemporized, shading the truth of it, if only to erase Biddy’s angrily cold regardings. “The magistrate made some insulting statements about your ah … honor,” he said with a cough into his fist, “and your father went for him. You know about his temper best, I’m bound? Had he slurred Bess, I’d have leaped for his throat as well, Mistress MacDougall. Your father will be free in a few hours, once we’ve delved into the last disgusting matters anent Harry Tresmayne’s death and those actually responsible for it. He’ll be exonerated, so ease your heart on that score.”
What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 26
