Death of a Radical

by Rebecca Jenkins

  “Raif, you have such interesting acquaintances,” he remarked.

  Raistrick stood at ease, one arm resting on the balustrade as he towered over Bess Tallentyre. Jarrett watched as the actress threw back her head, showing off the line of her throat in her merriment. Bess had always had a taste for dangerous men. But she was no fool, he consoled himself, and loyal—or had been once.

  “Can’t say I’d want one of my liaisons consorting with that fellow. Unlucky, eh?” Charles was enjoying this entirely too much.

  “Grub?” Jarrett inquired.

  “Tea with the ladies.”

  “Ah.”

  Above on the gallery the Reverend Prattman was addressing Sir Thomas in hushed and urgent tones. They were too far away to catch his words. From the pantomime he appeared to be expressing his concern for the baronet’s health in the chill air. Sir Thomas endured these attentions with the air of a stoical tortoise. Down below, Colonel Ison stood across by the stables, his back to them, elaborating his discourse with the occasional gesture. Lieutenant Roberts listened, his expression intent.

  “Will the meeting reconvene, do you suppose?” Charles asked idly.

  Jarrett’s response was interrupted by a clatter of iron-bound wheels and hooves. A gig turned under the coach arch. A well-fed middle-aged woman encased in lilac satin sat up beside a grizzled old man who slumped over his reins. His mistress wore an extravagant hat fixed at an uncomfortable angle on her carefully pinned blond curls. Round, pale blue eyes swept the scene, coming to rest on Magistrate Raistrick. The pale blue turned to ice as they inspected his companion.

  Raistrick unfolded himself from his lounge against the gallery steps and sauntered over to the gig.

  “What, Amelia, no carriage?” he asked without preamble.

  The lady bunched her plump cheeks into a little-girl moue. “Bedford’s abandoned me,” she responded in a flirtatious voice pitched a shade too high for a woman of her years. “He’s taken the carriage to Leeds and left me to shift for myself. He’s fetching his niece for a visit,” she added as an afterthought.

  “How charitable of you.”

  Mrs. Bedford cocked her head, her expression blank. How could she miss the irony in that voice? thought Jarrett. The lady produced a stack of white cards from the seat beside her.

  “I bear invitations,” she declared gaily. “I am having a select reception Thursday night to mark the opening of the fairs. Do say you’ll come.” She leaned toward the lawyer proffering a card, the action offering him a generous coup d’oeil of her ample bosom. Raistrick took the card, dangling it between finger and thumb.

  “What a shame,” he purred. “I am sponsoring a performance from Sugden’s players that very night. The delightful Miss Tallentyre over there is to give us her Polly Peachum in The Beggar’s Opera.” Mrs. Bedford’s mouth dropped open; she closed it with a snap. Raistrick looked deliberately across at the actress who stood preening herself by the gallery steps. “Shall I introduce you?”

  For a moment Jarrett thought Mrs. Bedford would respond to the unmistakable challenge but she displayed impressive self-control. A smile extended itself from her mouth, stopping just short of her eyes.

  “What a calamity!” she exclaimed. “And what time does this affair start?”

  “Eight, I believe.”

  “Well, that’s settled then!” The lady patted her gloved hands together in a parody of girlish exuberance. “You shall all come to me for your dessert and wine at six and we shall go as a party to your entertainment. Now, say you will come!”

  Raistrick bowed his assent. Jarrett thought he detected in his manner a measure of appreciation at Mrs. Bedford’s management. The lady extended her hand in a regal gesture. The lawyer, taking his cue, helped her down. Keeping his arm extended, he swung her round in an arc and let her go as if unleashing her upon the company. Whether by chance or design Mrs. Bedford fetched up before Miss Tallentyre. The actress contemplated her, a gloss of impertinent amusement on her pale face. Mrs. Bedford spun on her heel and swooped down upon the marquess.

  “Lord Charles!” she trilled, “and Mr. Jarrett,” she added with a degree less warmth. “You will come to my party? Say you will?”

  “You are kindness itself, madam, but I have a young cousin just arrived and I fear—” Charles began by way of excuse. Mrs. Bedford would have none of it.

  “What a treat!” she cried. “You must bring him. You’ll not find better fare. I’m known for my sweets and Bedford never skimps on his wines. And we’ll all go on together to Mr. Raistrick’s theatricals.” She swept gaily on toward the colonel. Her eyes appeared to alight on the young lieutenant for the first time. She advanced upon him with a tigerish look.

  “Is this our young defender? You must introduce me, colonel. You will come to my gathering—will you not? You know I’ll be mortified if you neglect me!”

  “Time we called the carriage,” murmured Charles.

  “Grub will be exhausted,” Jarrett agreed.

  “Should see him home.”

  “Absolutely.”

  They made their escape into the inn.

  Several minutes later, as they took their places in Lord Charles’s carriage, Mrs. Bedford still had the colonel and his lieutenant pinned. The carriage swung out into the street. Jarrett caught sight of a new figure in the background of the scene. A man was gazing at the colonel as if waiting to catch his attention. At the last moment, as the carriage passed, Nat Broom turned his face away into the shadows.

  Favian settled back against the comfortably cushioned upholstery and gazed happily at his cousins. He fingered the ballad sheet secured safe in the pocket of his coat. He thought of his day’s adventures and hugged to himself the promise that there were more and better to come.

  Her view of the gentlemen was obscured by the table top. It was confined to four legs, clothed in dark cloth breeches and black stockings, and two pairs of smooth polished leather shoes with silvery buckles—one pair square and sharp, the other rounded and rubbed. The strangers had arrived that afternoon on the stage from Carlisle. They had taken separate rooms. Such details Hester Teward, the daughter of innkeepers, had noted, but her real interest lay in the paper bag protruding from the rounder gentleman’s pocket. Being five years old she was of the perfect height to notice such things. Her eyes followed the fingers as they reached in to draw out another piece of cinder toffee from the striped paper. The elegance of the wrapping identified the sweets as Hester’s particular favorites—the treat her da would bring her back when he attended the monthly market at Penrith. During the winter months the road across the tops from Bowes was frequently impassable and she had not tasted such sweets for ever so long.

  There was a knock on the door and her mother entered.

  “There’s men asking for you, Mr. George. Say they’re expected. Hester, you come out from under there! Stop bothering the gentlemen.”

  Her mother’s hands reached under the table and Hester was unceremoniously swept up into her arms. The sudden change of perspective on the room and its occupants was entertaining. She looked down on the gentleman with the toffee. He had round cheeks and a bald patch at the back of his head. His hair was cut short and reminded her of the fur of Tuffy, her dog—the thick curling fur on his chest. The gentleman’s eyes crinkled into slits as he smiled up at her. Hester did not like his companion. He was stringy with hard edges. He had the mean look of a man who did not favor children. As her mother carried her out of the room the first man spoke up.

  “Perhaps the little girl would care for some toffee?”

  He did not speak like folk Hester knew, but she understood the offer. She reached down and selected the largest piece in the bag with care. It was solid and sticky in her chubby fist. She sucked on it happily.

  “Thank the kind gentleman,” her mother’s voice insisted.

  But the sweetness in her mouth was too good to remove so Hester smiled around it and giggled at her new friend over her mother’s shoulder, her curls bo
uncing about her radiant face.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  He never slept for long. It was a habit formed during his military service. Behind enemy lines a man who slept too deep risked being captured or killed. Despite the removal of that imperative, in civilian life the habit remained. He relished the peace of the small hours when the world slept. In the chill half-light he could be himself—self-sufficient, self-possessed.

  The stable clock chimed four as he put down the sword he carried and hung the lantern on a convenient hook. Walcheren, his big-boned bay, poked his head over his stall to greet him with a soft whinny. Jarrett ran a hand over the animal’s sleek neck. Walcheren’s breath misted white from his flared nostrils. Outside there was heavy frost on the ground and stars stood out against a clear sky. The shifting lantern light illuminated a straw-stuffed target suspended from a hook. It was crossed with lines marking out seven segments. A black line of tar ran across the floor from a spot midway beneath the bottom of the target. He picked up his sword. Placing his feet either side of the line, he began the familiar ritual.

  It was soothing. He focused on the exercise of muscle and will required to fuse the sword into an extension of his arm. First position, second position, lunge. He moved smoothly, striking the shifting dummy across each segment, body upright, balance correct, his aim true.

  It was pure luxury to be alone. Of all the adjustments of civilian life, it was the unrelenting assault of inquisitive society he found the most difficult. Military life might be boring and dangerous by turn but it had a map, a uniformity that allowed self-containment. He had always considered himself a competent man. It was unsettling to discover existence in a provincial town more challenging than life-threatening exertion and the exercise of set tasks.

  The stars were fading as he finished. He sluiced off the sweat at the stable-yard pump, the freezing water numbing his skin. Rubbing himself dry with a towel he kept for the purpose, he pulled on a clean shirt. In a few minutes the servants would be waking. Walcheren stamped restlessly in his stall.

  They took the western road up into the hills. Dawn had not yet broken. The sounds they made in their progress—hooves striking the hard ground, the creak of leather, the huff of Walcheren’s breath—were intimate within the wider stillness. As the track climbed the hoar frost deepened and the moor opened out on either side. This was land pared down to its primitive bones. The predawn light reflected off the white crystals sharpening each shadow. It was as if he and his horse were lone intruders in an ancient enchanted land, a land that might flick them off into oblivion with a shiver of its crust.

  The Carlisle road ran straight into the blank luminescent sky. He caught movement in the blurred band of grays and purple at the horizon. A shape broke away: a tiny cart growing in size. Before long he could hear the small sounds of its approach. Jarrett’s sharp eyes picked out a single horse and an open cart driven by a mound of cloth surmounted by a hat. A man’s voice carried crystal clear across the expanse.

  “Step up, Larkin. Go-awn!”

  The cart was drawn by a well-fleshed gray mare that picked its way fastidiously over the icy track. As Walcheren trotted up the mound of clothes spoke.

  “Mr. Jarrett!”

  The driver tipped back his hat and drew down his scarf to reveal a man of thirty or so. Jarrett recognized the even features of the landlord of the Bucket and Broom, an inn he patronized further up the road.

  “Bless us!” the man exclaimed, “I’m that glad to see you!”

  “Mr. Teward! What brings you out so early?” Jarrett responded to this unexpectedly fervent greeting.

  “Bad luck, Mr. Jarrett, that’s what. One of me guests, he’s only gone and passed in the night. Found him in his bed barely an hour since, tucked up and cold as stone. Meg tells me—fetch the magistrate!” He expelled the sigh of a burdened man. “Need to do these things right.”

  “Was this an old man? Did he seem in poor health?”

  Mr. Teward shook his head—so far as the bulk of his coats allowed.

  “Couple of years older than you or me but not what I’d call an old man. Mr. George, him that’s traveling with him, or was, he tells us Mr. Pritchard had a troublesome gut. But I had no suspicion.”

  “Strangers, are they?”

  Mr. Teward nodded, distracted.

  “Traveled up from Brough a day back. What luck!” He paused, shuffling the reins between his hands as if gathering up his thoughts. “Mr. Jarrett, you’d not be so kind as to call in?” he asked in a rush. “I don’t like to ask, but just while I’m fetching the magistrate? Ruth, Meg’s sister that lives with us, she’s off on a visit and our man Simon, he’s been called out; his gran’s had a turn and he’ll not be back a while. So Meg’s got naught but a silly maid and the bairn in the house. I left the maid all to pieces,” he elaborated gloomily. “Say the truth, I’m not easy leaving the three of them with a stranger and a corpse.”

  “Of course!” Jarrett assured him. He hoped he didn’t sound too enthusiastic. He had already made up his mind to stop by. His curiosity was piqued. “I shall do so directly. I can have a look at the man and talk to his companion …” he suggested, hoping the innkeeper would not think him officious.

  Mr. Teward was more than happy to cede another man authority. His face blossomed with relief.

  “I am beholden to you, Mr. Jarrett.” Adjusting his scarves and hat Mr. Teward disappeared once more behind his swathes of cloth. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” He slapped his reins on the gray mare’s broad haunches and the cart rolled on toward Woolbridge.

  The room was cold. The fire in the small grate had burned down to embers. The furnishings were simple—a window on one wall, a large press against another. A leather travel bag stood parallel to a chair with a man’s clothes folded over it and, beneath, a pathetic pair of rubbed shoes with rounded silver buckles. The board floor was dominated by a country-made four-poster bed with heavy curtains drawn around it.

  “He’s in there,” she said, her eyes fixed on the bed.

  Mrs. Teward lingered by the open door. She was a little blond woman with delicate blue veins visible under her translucent skin. Her small features were pinched with anxiety.

  “We left him as we found him. I was bringing the shaving water and I could get no answer. I fetched Dan and he took a look and …” She shivered. “He’s just lying there with his hands on his chest as if ready laid out. Who sleeps like that?” She swallowed nervously and began again. “It’s my sister Ruth’s room by rights but the gentlemen they wanted separate accommodations and we were expecting another party.” She trailed off. “I’m right glad to see you, Mr. Jarrett,” she murmured in an unconscious echo of her husband.

  She turned up her face and he smiled down at her, his mouth twisted in a wry expression of sympathy.

  “Very difficult for you.”

  She returned a wan smile. In different circumstances she was a pretty woman. She shifted her weight.

  “Mr. George’s downstairs having his breakfast. I’d better …” She hesitated. “The maid’s not to be relied upon. Not this morning.”

  “Of course,” he responded.

  He shut the door behind her and approached the bed. His hand poised to draw back the curtain, he was visited by the absurd idea that Mr. Pritchard lay in wait on the other side preparing to leap out at him in the manner of a jack-in-the-box. He pulled the heavy fabric back.

  Mr. Pritchard lay on his back, the bedclothes pulled smooth across his body. The waxy mask betrayed no signs of struggle. As Mrs. Teward had remarked, the man looked as if he had been laid out—straight on his back, hands folded across his chest. Jarrett attempted to lift a finger; the hand and arm moved, locked rigid with it. With a silent apology to the soul here departed, Jarrett heaved up the body. The upper torso was stiff but the legs still had some give in them. He displaced the nightshirt sufficiently to glimpse the skin on the back. There were dark purple stains where blood had sunk. The pattern was as might be expected if Mr. Pr
itchard had died peacefully in that position.

  He stared down at the bed. There were two pillows. Only one lay under the man’s head. There was nothing unusual in that. Why should a man not prefer to sleep with one pillow rather than two? The second pillow had been neatly placed along the footboard precisely at the mid-point of the bed. Mr. Pritchard had been a tall man. The pillow touched his feet. Any movement in his sleep would have displaced it.

  “That’s not where I would have put it,” Jarrett remarked to himself.

  He pictured Mrs. Teward straightening the pillow. So much for leaving Mr. Pritchard as they found him.

  The Bucket and Broom was an old house. It had been built to withstand the harsh winds and weather that swept across the tops. Its walls were a good two feet thick. The leaded window attracted his attention. It had a deep sill and that sill was wet. He lifted the latch. The window swung open easily with barely a sound. There was water pooled in the grooved metal of the frame. He looked down. The ground was not too far below. He leaned out as far as was prudent, scanning the rough stone of the outer wall. There were windows to either side, the one to the left shuttered, the one to the right unshuttered. The sun coming up behind the house threw a shadow over the foot of the wall below. He closed the window. He examined the boards beneath, running his palm across the surface.

  “It is winter,” he reminded himself. “There’s damp in the air but still …”

  He walked to the door, pausing to straighten the covers he had disrupted. Mr. Pritchard’s frozen features seemed faintly derisive.

  “Of course, I could be imagining things,” Jarrett remarked, “but I wonder.”

  Down below the hall was quiet and the doors were all shut. He heard voices down the passage. A dog yapped and a child laughed. He slipped out of a side door.

  The rising sun bathed the moor in buffs and pinks. The inn was of regular, square construction with stables and outbuildings to one side. He took a path around the opposite side of the house toward the moor view he had seen from the room above. He walked slowly, his eyes to the ground. The earth was stony and dry. The frost was beginning to melt close to the house but in the dusting of white he could pick out a man’s footprints and the paw-prints of maybe three dogs—two fanning out and one faithfully trotting at its master’s heels. He identified the three upper windows—the one on the end shuttered, Mr. Pritchard’s window in the middle and its neighbor to the left with the shutters folded back. Beneath the first unshuttered window he thought he discerned a stray print from another footstep. It was turned in to face the wall, as if a man had stood beneath the window—but with the hoar frost dissolving he could not be sure. Beneath Mr. Pritchard’s window some animal had dug. At the edge of the soft pile of earth he found a distinct round hole some four inches deep, as if a straight, stout stick had been poked in hard at an angle and then pulled out. He crouched down to take a closer look.