“But yair Bess come spyin’, an’ arrested he woz, sir,” Biddy sharply reminded him, serving Livesey some well-earned “sauce.”
“Aye, she did,” Livesey confessed, wondering if anything could heal the rift. “Not at my bidding. To discover where that particular sort of ribbon came from, certainly, but even more importantly, where it went, d’ye see! To find her Uncle Harry’s murderer. Would you not do the same in Bess’s place, Mistress MacDougall? After that, we had to call in everyone with even the slightest involvement with that gown you made for Anne Moore, to discover the ah… trail, wherever it led.”
“If ma father’s innocent, why d’ye not release him now, Mr Livesey?” Biddy said, after a long, silent contemplation of his words. “A puir man or not, he dinna deserve such.”
“It wouldn’t be safe for him ‘til we can definitely name the one, or ones, who did it,” Livesey assured her, sensing that she was coming ‘round, at last. “Harry Tresmayne’s murder’s been the talk of the whole Cape Fear, and you’ve seen the faction firebrands, surely. Barons’ men, Levellers and Jacobites, Harry’s supporters, all ready to boil over like an unwatched pot, and lynch someone for revenge. Your father’s much safer in cells for a time more, believe me, Miss.”
Biddy nodded her head slowly, grudgingly understanding him at last. She tossed back her lustrous long hair, with her chin up, and prepared to rise and go.
“Biddy … may I so name you?” Livesey said, to hold her there longer, to say all of his piece. “I know my Bess, and I swear, there isn’t a mean bone in her body. She’s a sweet and caring girl… but for being a trifle too clever for her own good sometimes, hey, Bess? She came back from her first visit with you in the highest of spirits … not because she thought she’d found evidence to convict your dad, but because she’d found a friend. And when Bess pledges friendship, she means it! I know ’tis hard for you to accept, but she is heartbroken that her actions caused you such pain and turned you against her. Her invitation to you of our house and hospitality is genuine, and still stands,” Livesey assured her. “Though … that may not be quite so fine as Bess intended, after someone tried to burn down our house last night, and us in it. Because we’d found the gown with the ribbons and lace on it, had it hidden in our house ‘til—”
“Burn ye out?” Biddy gasped. “Och, I walked right past eet an’ dinna see! Sae busy with ma own fears … sae selfish of me.”
“Hurt as you were, Biddy,” Bess felt confident enough to chime in, with a warm tone of comfort, “it wasn’t selfish, at all.”
“Sae Mizziz Moore’s gown had somethin’ t’do with eet?” Biddy marvelled, tentatively accepting Bess’s shyly offered hand.
“Ah, I regret to say that Anne Moore and Harry Tresmayne were, ah …” Livesey stammered, clearing his throat. “Your pardons, Miss, for crude speech, but there’s no other way to phrase it. They were having an … affair, d’ye see.”
“Gawd!” Biddy breathed in awe. “Mizziz Moore an’ him?”
“I fear so,” Livesey almost blushingly confirmed.
“Laird o’ Mercy!” Biddy gushed, her lips pursed for a moment; then, to their surprise, she began to beam, to silently chuckle!
“There’d been a few salacious rumors, but…” Livesey hesitantly allowed. “You know how cruel people—women especially—can be, Biddy. Rumors ‘bout you and your father, too, that led some to think that your father might’ve …”
“What?” Biddy gulped, quickly turning red-faced. “‘Bout met”
“That Harry had been, ah… going ‘cross the Brunswick.” Mr Livesey blushed some more as he treaded warily round that point. “To ah … visit some younger lady, not his wife, d’ye see how you—”
“Me an’ Mr Harry Tresmayne?” Biddy exclaimed, cocking her head over, stupefied by the outrageousness of such an idea. “Och, I canna believe folk’d say such a thing; Mr Harry… Gawd, he woz sae auld a feller!”
“Not that old, surely …” Livesey harumphed, reminded of how semi-ancient he was becoming.
“Och, I’m sorry, Mr Livesey,” Biddy quickly amended. “Beg yair pardon, for I ken ye an’ he were of an age t’gether, but… th’ verra idea! Mr Harry woz auld enoo t’be ma father!” Biddy found the rumor so ludicrous that she began to giggle, throwing her head up and laughing right out loud. None of which did Matthew Livesey’s own bruised, elder, feelings a whit of good, especially when Bess hooted right along with her,just as loud.
“Well, I will leave you two to sort things out, howe’er y’will,” Livesey said, levering himself afoot once more. “As friends, I hope.”
“I thankee for that, Mr Livesey,” Biddy said, getting to her own feet and dipping him a grateful curtsy. “An’ for assurin’ me that ma father’ll soon be free.”
“Tell your father he’s welcome in our house, ifhe finds it in his heart to forgive us our amateurish meddling, Mistress MacDougall,” Livesey offered one last time. “And express to him my regrets for any hurts he took today. They were not my intention, or my wish.”
“Aye, I’ll tell him, Mr Livesey,” Biddy more-soberly said. “Though for all th’ guid that’ll do, I canna say, for he’s strong when eet come tae grudges.”
Livesey departed, and Biddy and Bess sat down on the bench in slightly closer proximity. They shared a sheepish glance, then a second. They looked separately at the slow coach yard’s doings: a horse staling ‘twixt a cart’s shafts, the birds, the high-piled clouds borning to the east beyond the barrier islands, the fluttering leaves …
“I …” Bess tried to start, clearing her throat and flopping her hand in a helpless gesture on the bench between them.
“Ye swear ye meant nothin’ by eet?” Biddy tentatively asked.
“Cross my heart and hope t’die!” Bess vowed, turning to face her. Biddy reached up to sweep back her hair, and returned her hand to the bench, beside Bess’s. “Aw, Bess!” she sighed, at last, taking hold of Bess’s hand as she did so.
“Forgive me, please, Biddy, for I never …!”
“Aw, Bess, o’ course I do!” Biddy declared as they fell on each other’s shoulders, back-patting and sniffling. “’tis hard, I’ll grant ye, but sometimes, makin’ guid friends is. Ijust wish when ye came th’ feerst time, ye’d been able t’say what ye were after.”
“I wish I knew that I could have, too, Biddy!” Bess swore.
“That damnedMizziz Moore!” Biddy sniffed in aspersion as she leaned back at last, holding both of Bess’s hands. “Carryin’ on with Mr Harry, an’ shamin’ Mr Osgoode? I knew ‘twoz guid reason to dislike her from th’ beginnin’. Is thayr nought that woman’ll stoop tae, sendin’ someone t’burn ye out, try t’murder ye an’ yair father? Howe’er did ye lay hands on that gown I made for her, anyway?”
“You know of Jemmy Bowlegs? Aye, he does reek a tad. Him and a friend of his …” Bess brightly began to lay out, right chipper to her new friend. “Well, I set him to watching her house, and—”
Her clever tale was interrupted, though, by a stirring in the courthouse halls, the jangle of large iron keys on a ring, a stout lock being opened, and the scraping of a thick wood door on the plank hallway floor, the creaking of unoiled hinges, and Biddy hopped up, hoping it would be her father Eachan being released, but… it was Osgoode Moore the redcoats were fetching out of confinement, and Bess felt Biddy’s hand contract and claw into her own, heard Biddy’s gasp of fevered breath.
“Och, I dinna ken, Bess!” Biddy all but whimpered in a sudden dread. “If ‘twoz Mizziz Moore th’ culprit, why’s th’ magistrate still wish tae hold Mr Osgoode?”
“Well, I suppose …” Bess flummoxed, trying to find a gentle way to suggest that if Mrs Moore, whom she’d witnessed striding out of the courthouse homeward, in high dudgeon and without any soldiers or bailiffs for escort, might not have been the guilty party, and if that was so, then where else could they look but to Mr Moore? He was that witch’s husband, and an offended party, Bess realized. Her uncle Harry and Anne Moore hadbttn … well
!
God, could they think Osgoode killed Harry? Bess thought, with a sudden lurch under her heart. Betrayedby his wife andone of his bestfriends, both?
Mr Moore turned his head to look out at the coach yard with a desperate intensity, like a felon on his way to the gallows might for his last sight of this Earth, and Bess cringed to imagine that he had done the deed; he was too cultured, too civilized, so genial, and …
Yet Osgoode Moore lowered his gaze to Bess and Biddy, his mouth opened as if he would say something to them, as if to plead innocence or curse Bess for snooping—but how could he have known that?—just as the brace of redcoats turned him about and led him down the gloomy hallway towards the magistrate’s office, and Bess was grateful for his gaze to be forcefully averted, for she could not meet his. Not with a murderer, not with a fine man she might have accidentally betrayed and publicly shamed, if he wasn’t the killer!
“Why do they want Mr Osgoode, Bess?” Biddy pressed, again.
“To … ask of his wife’s doings, I think,” Bess finally could stammer. “See if he knew anything going on ‘twixt his wife and Uncle Harry, perhaps? About last night, too, when she threw the gown away. Whether she saw Jemmy Bowlegs take it and fetch it to our house, then set fire to us, even!”
“Och, o’ course. That mustbe eet!” Biddy exclaimed, sounding nigh-giddy with relief. “Cairtain-sure, no one could think that Mr Moore had anythin’ t’do with eet! He’s t’nail th’ coffin shut on that evil wife o’ his, an’ thayr’s nae tellin’ but eet might’a been her did set yayr fire t’cover her tracks, did she think someone’d caught her out! Aye, that must be the right of eet. But, ye’d think they’d shew mair courtesy to a gentleman as fine as Mr Osgoode.”
“The way soldiers are, I expect,” Bess was quick to assure her, “soldiers from down below Brunswick, who know nothing of his standing.”
“Redcoats!” Biddy all but snarled, expressing her father’s long-held hatred for the barbarian “Sassenach” horde that had ravaged dear Scotland. “English redcoats, aye!”
Yet … her father had said that the trail would lead inexorably to the guilty party, step by logical step, and that they’d soon name the murderer, and that suddenly made Bess fearful that Uncle Harry’s death lay very close to home. She squeezed Biddy’s hand at that troubling thought, finding that Biddy was squeezing back just as hard. The day might end with both their illusions, and their respect for that genial and seemingly gentle and erudite man, in tatters.
Chapter 30
THAT’S … IMPOSSIBLE!” Osgoode blanched as they presented him the last of their proofs. He stared at the gown, the ribbons and the bouquet in abject horror.
“Don’t play-act with me, Osgoode,” Marsden snarled. “Seen ye in court do much th’ same fer yer clients. Mean to tell us ye never had a clue ‘til now?
“No.” He sighed. “Never! It’s too …”
“Knowin Harry well’z ye did, really?” Marsden scoffed. “Don’t tell me ye’re that big a cully! Harry Tresmayne would’ve mounted an alligator, if somebody tied down th’ tail, an’ well we all knew that. Wish us t’have yer wife in to repeat her confession?”
“No,” Osgoode Moore stated, heaving a bitter sigh. “All this time, they … how long, did she say?”
“Nigh on a year,” the magistrate bluntly told him.
“Lord,” Osgoode breathed, shaking his head in wonder, though with less surprise this time. “All that time she … ha!”
Livesey suspected it was something about being a Moore. Anne had found amusement at the most inappropriate moments, and now, here did Osgoode!
“Ain’t funny, Osgoode,” Marsden cautioned.
“I know,” Osgoode replied, though he looked as if he was biting his lips to keep from breaking into a braying, hysterical laugh.
“Your marriage wasn’t of the best, she told us,” Livesey felt bound to ask, no matter how loath he was to tread on such a topic.
“No, Matthew, it wasn’t,” Osgoode answered, after he’d managed himself. “Anne, well … I suppose she expected better, but the Cape Fear, and Wilmington, were just too raw and small for her. Had to go down to Charleston or up to New Bern at least once a year during the social seasons to keep her happy.”
“Didn’t care for your politicking …” Livesey coaxed.
“Though, ’twas politics that threw us together,” Osgoode said. “She’d seen me speak in the Assembly, and … you know how it is when visiting assemblymen lodge on the kindness of the New Bern residents? I stayed at her kinfolk’s, and people were praising me to the skies as the newest up-and-comer … pardon my boasting … and, one thing led to the next, d’ye see.”
“And she’d heard how grand King Roger Moore and his kin are,” Livesey suggested with a slightly sarcastic tone.
“Another disillusion for her, I fear,” Osgoode said, chuckling a little. “She expected to dine at Orton Plantation, at least once! Didn’t see she was marrying into the poor side of the family. Might have done better had she taken up with the Ramseurs! A traitor to my class, she told me! As if we were peers of the realm.”
“Resented your many absences …?” Livesey posed.
“Oh Lord,” Osgoode rejoined with a mirthless snort. “Anne resented a great many things, those being but a small part, Matthew. But I never thought she’d be so base asto…!”
“Kept sep’rate bedchamber,” Mr Marsden luridly pried.
“Our personal arrangements I would prefer to remain private, your honor,” Osgoode said, stiffening with prickly pride. “There is no relevance.”
“Too damn bad,” Marsden pitilessly griped, “fer ’twas private doin’s led to Harry Tresmayne’s murder.”
“You actually suspect met” Osgoode objected. “Why? I didn’t know, I tell you, sir!”
“An’ all those bouquets in yer hall never made ye suspicious?”
“There were always flowers in our hall, Mr Marsden. Coming in, going out, the salver piled with invitations and chatty notes, I don’t know what-all,” Osgoode countered, shaking his head.
“And the gown?” Livesey prompted.
“That one, out of dozens?” Osgoode Moore carped. “I never gave her wardrobe much thought, but for the expense. Anne loved one, one day, then despised it the next. Next I know, her body-slaves had ’em on, they went to church raffles or the rag sellers, to charities …”
“Own a double-barrel coachin’ gun, Osgoode?” Marsden enquired.
“A single-barrel fowling gun, sir, from Philadelphia,” Osgoode answered. “But then, so must an hundred gentlemen, hereabouts.”
Livesey was disappointed that Osgoode Moore had recovered from the shock of his wife’s, and Harry’s, betrayal and the accusation leveled against him, and was now becoming the organized attorney, ready with cogent explanations for everything.
“What d’ye carry, then,” Mr Marsden asked, “when ye’re abroad on faction bus’ness on th’ lonely wilderness roads?”
“I own a brace of pistols, your honor.”
“Double-barrel ‘barkers’?”
“Yes, they are, but—”
“What caliber, Osgoode?” Marsden snapped.
“They’re sixty-seven caliber, French-made. Harry …” Osgoode paused, the memory shaking his serenity. “Harry brought them back as a gift from the war.”
“Sixty-seven … wide enough t’load with buckshot, or a paper twist o’ fifty-four caliber balls,” Marsden mused aloud, ruminating on his fresh quid. “Saw a fifty-four caliber fusil-musket over to your house once, as I recall. Still own that fusil, Osgoode—its bullet mold?”
“Yes, I do, but I swear to you, I—” Osgoode insisted.
“That’d be pretty damn ironic, wouldn’t it?” Marsden hooted. “Killin’ Harry with his gift pistols.”
“Why would I, though, Mr Marsden? I didn’t know, and even if I had known, I’d’ve—”
“Sure of that, Osgoode?” Livesey interrupted, leaning on that side table to ease his aching leg, too eager
to end the sordid affair to sit. “Your dearest friend in the whole world, going behind—”
“Yours, too, Matthew,” Osgoode reminded him.
“Aye, mine, too,” Livesey sadly agreed. “But your mentor and confidant in the faction. Faced with such a betrayal, you still say you’d not have felt a murderous … whatever?”
“Matthew!” Osgoode gasped to have the accusation come from him. “You know me! You must know that I’d never murder anyone, no matter the provocation. Were he still with us, had Ijust learned—”
“Yes?” Marsden drawled.
“Well, I’d deny him my hand, my house,” Osgoode fussily said, clutching his turn-back lapels closer together. “Make an open break with him! Damn his soul to the fires o’ Hell, and Anne with him, I would! Divorce that … ! and bedamned to her, too. That’s ruin, and shame enough in my life and career, Matthew!”
“Shootin’d a lot more satisfying though,” the magistrate slyly commented. “Keep yer name outta th’ muck. Anne’s name.”
“Was it shooting I wished, your honor, I’d have done it face-to-face in a duel not waylay him,” Osgoode declared. “As for a fear for Anne’s good name, hah! Our marriage was pretty much a sham, and why deny it? Better I’d have shot her, ifl wished revenge.”
“Fact remains, though, Osgoode,” Mr Marsden pointed out, “ye had both motive an’ grievance. An’, it would’ve been easy fer ye to discover what they were up to, figure out their sparkin’ places, how they sent their messages, an’ plant a lure t’get Harry out in that glade that night. Who else has enough access t’yer household to’ve done it? Who else close enough t’Anne could’ve? An’ for what cause?”
“But I didn’t!” Osgoode cried, sounding exasperated.
“Anne says you looked in on her when you returned home that night, Osgoode,” Livesey said, trying to fill out the missing pieces of the mystery. “Half-past one in the morning, as she recalled.”
“Hmm, yes?” Moore hesitantly answered, swiveling around on the hard-seated ladderback chair. “I s’pose I could’ve been out that late. Assizes, political talk …”
What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 27
