by Anna Jacobs
There was only one thing he was certain of: he wasn’t going to visit Kathleen, had had nightmares about her since he left her at the asylum, hoped he need never set eyes on her again.
The following week Mr Hatton’s young clerk turned up at Ardgullan House, getting down from a cart which had stopped by the gates and then driven on.
Xanthe was looking out of her window enjoying the peaceful February morning, mercifully without rain for once, so she saw him arrive. As he hurried through the gates, carrying a shabby carpet bag, even at this distance she could see that he looked terrified.
She ran into the hall and as she flung the front door open, Ronan came from the side of the house and joined her under the portico.
When Mr Flewett saw them, he ran the rest of the way. ‘You haven’t heard?’
‘Heard what?’
‘Mr Hatton’s rooms burned down early this morning and he’s dead. When I was going to work – I go in early to light all the fires – I saw that the entrance was black and smouldering, but the neighbours had put out the fire by then. I noticed two men watching the house, and recognised them as Johnson’s men because they’d come to see Mr Hatton with him and waited for their master in the outer office with me. So I hid in an alley until they left.’ He paused for breath, looking extremely distressed.
‘Come and sit down,’ Ronan said gently. He led the way inside and saw Mary standing at the back of the hall. ‘Could you fetch us a tea tray, please?’
‘Have you eaten?’ Xanthe asked.
Mr Flewett shook his head.
‘Then bring some bread and ham as well, Mary.’
In the sitting room, their visitor collapsed into a chair, looking white and shocked.
‘I came here because I fear for my life,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Please don’t send me away.’
Xanthe exchanged a quick glance with her husband, but let him do the prompting.
‘Why do you fear for your life?’
‘Because I heard Mr Hatton had been found on the stairs – dead. The fire had started downstairs, you see. People thought he’d fallen and been overcome by the smoke some time around dawn. But I know he sleeps very soundly, because I’ve had to wake him up once or twice and it wasn’t easy. I doubt he’d have been woken up, even by smoke.’
‘Does he live above his rooms, then?’ Xanthe asked.
‘Yes, on the floor above and we store old documents in the attics. I go in every day about seven o’clock to light the fires, then his housekeeper comes in half an hour later. We have instructions never to wake him till nine o’clock.’
‘Perhaps this time he smelled smoke and went to investigate,’ Ronan said gently.
‘Well . . . that’s the other thing. I can’t see any reason for a fire to start. Mr Hatton told me once that when he was younger, he lived in a house that burned down, and he was terrified of the place catching fire. That’s why he didn’t risk servants living with him and acting carelessly. He personally put out the fire every night. He didn’t even leave smouldering embers, but poured water over them. And he had gas lighting upstairs and down, so he didn’t use candles. There was no need.’
As this information sank in, Xanthe looked at her husband apprehensively. Could Mr Johnson really have murdered their lawyer?
‘Can I stay here, please?’ Mr Flewett pleaded. ‘Just until I can think where to go? I don’t want Mr Johnson to find me.’
‘Won’t your family miss you?’
‘I don’t have any family. My parents are dead and I’ve no brothers and sisters. Mr Hatton was a distant relative but he sent me away to school till I was old enough to work for him. I always lodged with his housekeeper. He wasn’t a gregarious man. But he did look after me when I could have been sent to an orphanage and now that he’s dead, I don’t know what I’m going to do without him.’
The poor young man was so distraught Xanthe patted his hand and said soothingly, ‘Well, you’re safe here for the moment and we’ll certainly not turn you out.’
Ronan looked at her. ‘Johnson must have been trying to destroy the evidence, the paper Georgina signed.’
‘Or punishing Mr Hatton for doing it, or perhaps he acted for both reasons. Poor man, he didn’t deserve that.’ She felt a hollow apprehension in the pit of her stomach. ‘What are we going to do? Will Johnson come after us next?’
Ronan was silent for a few minutes, then said, ‘I’m going to talk to the people in the village. They’ll keep watch with me in case this place is attacked. I’d be grateful if for once you would keep out of danger. This is a time for a display of strength. Can you even fire a gun?’
She shook her head. ‘No, but I could learn.’
‘I’ll teach you myself once the present trouble is over. For now, I need to alert our people to the danger.’
She knew this was no time to assert her independence. ‘I’ll stay indoors, I promise you.’
There was a knock on the door and Mary brought in a tea-tray, with a plate of ham sandwiches.
‘I’ll get started. You tell the maids.’ Ronan left the room.
Mary watched him go in surprise and turned to her mistress for an explanation.
There followed what seemed to Xanthe a most amazing time. She found one of the maids nearby wherever she went in the house, unless she was with the young clerk, and for once the doors and windows were all locked.
After a hearty meal, Mr Flewett seemed to have recovered from his panic and when Ronan came in for his dinner asked what he could do to help.
‘Nothing for the moment. It’s dark now, but I have people keeping watch in the grounds. Can you fire a gun?’
Mr Flewett shook his head. ‘I’ve never even touched one.’
‘Then I’ll give you a knife later, just in case you’re attacked. You’d be best staying with my wife. Even if you don’t use the knife, I’ll feel better to know you’re carrying some sort of weapon.’
‘I’ll have one too, please,’ Xanthe said. She locked eyes with her husband until he rolled his eyes and said, ‘Oh, very well. If you must. But I don’t want you getting close enough to use it.’
That evening it seemed as if the clock hands were moving more slowly than usual. Conversation languished and Xanthe found herself listening for footsteps, or breaking glass or some sign that their enemies were close.
‘It’s more like Australia than England here in the countryside,’ she said at one stage. ‘People have to take care of themselves there because there are no police nearby.’
‘We have to take care of ourselves here in Ardgullan, too,’ Ronan said. ‘Each village is a little world of its own. I’m fortunate the local people don’t blame me for my brother’s behaviour. He let them languish, didn’t care whether they starved or not, didn’t do repairs on their houses, was only interested in his investments.’
‘One of the investments has paid off, at least,’ Mr Flewett volunteered.
They turned as one to stare at him.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I forgot to tell you, I was so upset about Mr Hatton, but we got the news late yesterday. Your brother had invested in a ship’s cargo and it was thought that the vessel had sunk, but it hadn’t. It limped into a small port in India and had to wait for repairs, then it went on to sell its cargo at a profit, so it was away far longer than usual. You’ve got quite a lot of money coming to you from it.’
‘Ah!’ Ronan gave a grim smile. ‘That’s another reason why Johnson acted quickly, I should think. He knew that if I had money, I’d keep my home whatever he did, and no doubt he wanted to make sure we couldn’t use his daughter’s statement to have him arrested for fraud.’
As he opened his mouth to continue speaking, Xanthe heard something and stiffened. ‘Shh! Listen!’
‘I can’t hear anything,’ Ronan said.
‘I can.’ Mr Flewett looked at his hostess. ‘Voices in the distance. Faint.’ He looked at Ronan apologetically. ‘I’ve always had very good hearing.’
‘
I’d better go out and investigate,’ Ronan said.
Xanthe grabbed his arm. ‘Don’t! You’ve got men out there. Let them keep watch.’
He lifted her hand gently away, giving her his crooked smile, the one he reserved for her only. ‘I can’t ask them to do something I’m not prepared to do myself.’
‘Should I come with you?’ Mr Flewett asked.
Ronan’s smile became a grin. ‘No. Stay with my wife. You’re not used to the countryside and would soon give yourself away – which I’m hoping our intruders will do as well – if that’s who it is.’ He turned back to Xanthe. ‘I’m going out through our sitting-room window. Wait in the kitchen with the curtains drawn and the outer door locked. I’ll come back into the house that way. Don’t open the back door unless you hear my voice.’
She couldn’t bear the thought of him going out into danger, but she knew she’d never stop him so she did as he’d asked and took Mr Flewett to the kitchen. ‘The knives are kept in this drawer.’ She selected one for herself that felt right in her hand and then, almost as an afterthought, put a smaller one into her side pocket. ‘Now we wait.’
‘That’s hard to do,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve brought trouble on you by seeking refuge here.’
‘It would have come of its own accord, I’m sure. Shh. Let’s keep quiet and listen.’
They heard faint sounds from time to time, but nothing to tell them exactly what was happening. She felt helpless – and angry.
Conn spent most of the day pacing up and down in his lodgings in Perth, or standing by the gate, watching people pass in the street. He’d hate to live in a town, where so many of the smells were unpleasant and where there were too many people to know who the passers-by were. He’d felt like that in Dublin, too.
He was summoned to see the priest later in the afternoon and went hurrying off to the Bishop’s Palace, which might be a ‘palace’ by Perth standards, but seemed small to him. He was coming to hate this place, he decided as he walked through the door.
He was kept waiting for a quarter of an hour by the large, ticking clock, and though he tried to contain his impatience, by the time he was at last shown into a small room to see the priest, his nerves were so tautly strung he had trouble speaking calmly.
‘I’ve been to see the doctor at Fremantle,’ the priest said. ‘I believe in investigating these matters very carefully. You married for better for worse, so we must be sure it was in no way a marriage before we let you loosen the ties.’
‘And?’
‘He says she’s had the disease for some time and if you’d had congress with her at any time since your marriage, you’d also have contracted it. You are therefore to present yourself at the Lunatic Asylum tomorrow so that he can examine you.’
‘And if I don’t have the disease? Which I’m sure I don’t, by the way?’
‘Then we can proceed with the annulment claim.’
‘How long does that take?’
‘From here? Probably two years. Does that matter?’
Conn closed his eyes in anguish. ‘Yes. The woman I want to marry is carrying my child.’
‘You’ve sinned.’
‘It didn’t feel like a sin. I love her dearly and want to marry her.’
‘There is no way to avoid the child being born out of wedlock.’ He bent his head, rustling through the papers on the desk. ‘I’ll send a clerk with you to take the doctor’s deposition about your state of health. Afterwards you should go home. If you’re not diseased there is nothing else you can do but wait for things to take their course.’
Three hours later Conn was on his way home, feeling disgusted by the examination, but not at all surprised to have been told that he definitely didn’t have the disease.
But waiting was sometimes very hard and he was longing to regularise his position with Maia.
When he reached his home the following day, he stopped for a moment to breathe a prayer of thankfulness. Here, the world felt a warmer, kinder place to live. Sean grinned as he took the horse and dared to ask how things had gone, Nancy smiled cheerfully at him as he went into the kitchen and forestalled his question.
‘She’s lying down, sir. No, she’s fine. I just persuaded her to take a little rest, for the baby’s sake.’
He walked through a house that was sparkling with cleanliness to the bedroom where Maia was dozing on the bed. She woke as he went in.
‘You’re back.’ Her smile was a glory of love.
He took off his horsy outer garments and lay down on the bed beside her with a happy sigh, reaching out to take her hand. ‘Just to come home to you makes me feel good.’
After he’d told her what had happened, they stayed where they were for a while, with Maia nestled in the curve of his left arm and the quiet peace of the countryside outside broken only by bird calls and farm sounds.
‘Whatever happens, I love you,’ he said drowsily.
There was no answer. Her breathing was deep and even, and when he looked, her brow was smooth, her long eyelashes casting shadows on her cheeks.
His love for her was so deep he didn’t know how to put all he felt into words. Whatever had happened to him had been worth it because it had brought him to a woman he’d never have met otherwise and who was the perfect wife for him.
Some of the bitterness fell away as that thought sank in and he smiled as he too fell asleep.
25
After he left the house to search for the intruders, Ronan crouched in the shadows, wishing it were summer and there was foliage to hide behind. He had to wait a moment or two for his eyes to grow accustomed to the darkness.
When shapes began to take on clearer form and meaning, he moved cautiously forward. Seeing the outline of a figure standing in the shrubbery about a hundred yards away from the house, he slowed down, moving cautiously from shadow to shadow, trying to ensure the stranger didn’t see him.
When he was as close as he dared go, he pressed himself against the trunk of a tree he’d climbed many a time as a lad to watch what the man did.
The other stood for a time then moved towards the house, passing Ronan’s tree without seeing him. He made more noise than he needed to, which puzzled Ronan. One of the younger villagers he’d asked to keep watch round the house moved out of the shadows opposite Ronan to follow the intruder.
Good! That part of his plan was working as he’d hoped.
Just as Ronan was about to follow them, he heard something else and stayed where he was. Another stranger came out of the shadows, cudgel in hand, cap pulled down to his eyes, again taking little trouble to be quiet. How many of them were there? And why were they making so much noise?
To his puzzlement the first intruder stopped some thirty yards from the house, leaning against a tree, watching, not seeming in a hurry to move on. What was he watching for? Why was he just staying there?
Xanthe heard a noise upstairs. It sounded to be coming from the servants’ quarters. She didn’t recognise the sound and that worried her. The servants were in the cellar, at Ronan’s request, so who could be up there?
When she looked across at Mr Flewett she could see that he’d heard the noise too. She put one finger to her lips and he nodded.
She thought she heard a whisper of sound on the servants’ stairs, as if someone was coming down them very quietly. Looking across at Mr Flewett, she pointed and again he nodded. It would be better, she decided, to wait and let the person come to them.
The light in the oil lamp was turned low and she wished now that she’d turned it right out. If this person could move through the house so easily in the darkness, with little light from the crescent moon getting through the drawn curtains, then he’d find the kitchen relatively bright.
An idea came to her and she gestured to Mr Flewett to move behind the door and went to sit by the table, the knife in her lap, her hands clasped on the surface in front of her. She hoped the clerk would be able to take the intruder by surprise and that between them they could knock him sens
eless.
If not, she’d be in trouble.
The door moved slightly but no one came in.
She rubbed her forehead and feigned a yawn, listening intently but trying not to show it.
It took her by surprise when something whizzed across the room and hit her forehead, sending sharp pain through her so that she didn’t know what she was doing for a moment.
By the time she’d recovered from the shock, the intruder had her by the throat.
‘Not a word or I’ll throttle you!’ he growled.
She kept perfectly still, praying that Mr Flewett was unharmed and would come to her aid.
‘We’re going outside, you an’ me. You’ll keep very silent if you enjoy breathing. Nod if you understand that.’
She nodded and as he yanked her to her feet she saw the knife she’d been holding lying on the floor. He kicked it out of the way with a contemptuous laugh and let go of her throat for a moment as he pulled her towards the outside door.
There was a sudden clatter and Mr Flewett hurtled across the room, clumsily giving warning of his attack before he reached his target.
With an angry roar, the intruder flung her to one side and turned to smash one fist into Mr Flewett’s face, making him yell in pain and shock. But although he was much smaller, the clerk put up a good struggle, giving Xanthe enough time to act.
She picked up the teapot and darted forward to crash it down on the intruder’s head. Surprise and hot tea made him yell out.
Thrusting her hand into her pocket, she took out the other knife to defend herself with, praying it’d be enough.
When crashes and yells suddenly rang out from the kitchen, the intruders started to run forward. Ronan took the second one by surprise, wrenching his cudgel from his hand.
By that time Paddy from the village was there to finish the job and thump him into oblivion. ‘I’ve got him, sir.’
Ronan nodded and ran towards the kitchen, desperate to find out what was happening to his wife. But he had to pause to help subdue the other intruder, who had used a knife to injure one of his opponents. Ronan moved on only when another villager came to join in the fray.
