“Mrs Connell, as she now is, received me very graciously. Naturally, I enquired if Mr Herbert Huntly had been married, but she assured me he had not.”
“What!” Judith squeaked. “She denied my very existence? How despicable!”
“Indeed it is!” Mr Willerton-Forbes said with energy. “Despicable indeed! And I confess myself completely taken in. It did not occur to me for one moment that so respectable a lady would lie to me blatantly.”
“I wonder why she would tell such a falsehood,” Annie said, puzzled. “Are her circumstances such that the sum of one thousand pounds would be a great inducement to deception?”
“Not at all. She seemed most comfortably situated, to my mind,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “A fine house, and everything of the best. Not a great deal of land, perhaps, but she lives in some style. It is inexplicable, quite inexplicable. So you see, Mrs Huntly, we knew nothing of you at all.”
“But I wrote to you,” Judith said. “Lady Dillington helped me to compose the letter and Lord Dillington gave me your direction in London.”
Mr Willerton-Forbes stroked his chin, his expression a picture of embarrassment. “I daresay you did, but…” Another sigh, another sip of claret. “Let me explain the situation to you. When we first began to make known the intentions of the Benefactor to bestow a thousand pounds on the next of kin of every person lost in the sinking of the Brig Minerva, there were those who refused to believe in such generosity, and indeed, it is hard to credit, is it not? But then, when the first recipients had the money in their hands, there was… how shall I put this? Hmm, let us say that a number of unscrupulous persons saw a possibility of pecuniary advantage. We were besieged by those claiming a share of the largesse, and my office in London received a veritable deluge of letters. To my shame, I confess that I have not yet examined all of them. Your letter, my dear Mrs Huntly, is no doubt amongst them, opened by one of the overworked clerks and filed in a box in date order awaiting my attention. You may be sure that I shall be less dilatory in the matter when I return to London.”
“Oh, but you are here now,” Judith said gaily. “You need not worry about my letter any more.”
“But there may be others,” Annie said, before she could stop herself. “Oh… I beg your pardon, Mr Willerton-Forbes, I meant no criticism. You have been charged with an exacting task.”
“It is exacting,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said, turning to her with a smile. “That does not excuse my laxity, however, and as you so correctly point out, there may be other widows or orphaned children in desperate straits now because of it. No doubt the vast majority of those letters are spurious, but if there is even one legitimate case such as this one, it must be identified and the situation made right. That is my solemn duty, and I have failed, utterly failed.”
He shook his head despondently.
“You must not take it to heart,” Judith said gently. “I will not deny that a thousand pounds will be most welcome, but I have not been in desperate straits. My husband’s brother ensured that I and my daughters had a home.”
“That is Mr Rupert Huntly, I believe?” Mr Willerton-Forbes said. “He inherited this property through the entail after his brother’s death. So Mrs Connell told us. He is away from home at this moment, I assume?”
There was a long silence. Annie took a sip of water, then carefully set the glass down on the table.
“My husband is dead, Mr Willerton-Forbes. Two weeks ago he left his Vestry meeting as usual to walk home, and somewhere on the footpath he met an unknown assailant who shot him twice through the heart.”
Mr Willerton-Forbes gave a tiny whimper of distress. “My dear lady!” he began, but Captain Edgerton dropped his piece of plum and held up one hand, eyes glittering with excitement.
“An unknown assailant? The murderer has not been apprehended? Ha! How fortuitous that we should arrive at your door in your hour of need, Mrs Huntly, for we have some considerable experience in such matters. Never fear, dear madam, for Mr Pettigrew Willerton-Forbes and Captain Michael Edgerton are here now, and all will be well.”
19: Reassurance And Guilt
Annie was not sure which amused her more, the captain’s excitement at the discovery that he had walked into the midst of a murder, or his unshakable conviction that he and his lawyer friend could do what Sir Leonard had not yet managed, and track down the culprit.
She suppressed her smile, however, and said politely, “You are very kind to take an interest, but the local magistrates, Sir Leonard Fairbrother and Squire Thornton, have been investigating the circumstances most diligently and have not yet found the murderer. Indeed, it is hard to imagine who might want to kill my husband.”
“If we but knew a little more of the situation…” the captain began eagerly, but Annie shook her head with a smile.
“You must hold me excused, Captain Edgerton. My husband’s death is yet too fresh for me to discuss it readily, but I am sure that Cousin Adam will be pleased to give you what little information is known to us. Ladies, shall we withdraw?”
They all rose, and Mr Willerton-Forbes opened the door. “Forgive my friend’s most inappropriate enthusiasm,” he said in a low voice as Annie made to pass through. “It arises purely from a wish to be of service to you at this difficult time, but we would not for the world have imposed our presence upon you if we had understood the situation.”
“If Captain Edgerton can identify my husband’s killer, sir, he will have my undying gratitude,” she said. “It would bring me great comfort to have an impartial mind brought to bear on the problem, for Sir Leonard’s efforts have not as yet borne fruit.”
He bowed low in acknowledgement, and she passed out of the room, even as Captain Edgerton rushed enthusiastically round the table to claim the seat beside Adam and learn more of the murder. Judith went off to check on her daughters, so Annie and her mother retreated to the peacock chamber alone.
“So reassuring, is it not, dear one?” her mother murmured.
“What do you find so reassuring, Mama?”
“Why, having gentlemen to depend upon,” she said, surprise in her tone. “You are very capable, Annie, and I greatly admire your resilience in the face of all the difficulties you have been required to deal with these past weeks, but there is no denying that it buoys one up to know that there are gentlemen taking care of all the unpleasant aspects of poor Mr Huntly’s death.”
“You do not find it reassuring that Sir Leonard is taking care of things?” Annie said, genuinely curious.
“Indeed it is, and Squire Thornton and Mr Adam Huntly have also been helpful. But Mr Willerton-Forbes and Captain Edgerton are of a different class altogether. London, dear one! So refined and sophisticated! One can see the difference immediately.”
“Can one?”
“Certainly! There is such a distinguished air about them. The manners, the cultivated mind, the courtliness! So agreeable to a lady. One so seldom sees it when one lives amongst the lower orders, like ourselves, for although your dear papa was a wonderful man, there was no denying that he was not exactly from the upper echelons of society. Even dear Lavinia — Lady Dillington, I should say — does not quite have that indefinable something that marks the illustrious highest ranks of our society. Lady Charlotte Litherholm — now there is true greatness! And I see something of that in Mr Willerton-Forbes.”
“And Captain Edgerton?”
Mrs Dresden could not quite bring herself to assign the flamboyant captain to the ranks of greatness, and for a moment she was confounded. She soon rallied, however, and said firmly, “The captain is an eccentric, perhaps, but if he is willing to add his efforts to those of Sir Leonard in order to apprehend the villainous murderer of poor Mr Huntly, then I for one shall not hear a word said against him. That poor man! Accosted as he walked home from church! How unspeakably evil the world is!”
She reached for her handkerchief, and settled down for a good cry. Annie was relieved when Judith returned and she could decently change the subject to something more
cheerful.
Not surprisingly, the gentlemen were a long time making their way to the peacock chamber. They looked guiltily conspiratorial, and Annie wondered exactly what Adam had been saying. With a spark of anger, she realised that he might well have shared information with them that he would not deem suitable for her ears. Then she reminded herself that there were some unpleasant details she would not care to know. She must curb her resentment towards Adam, for who else had done more to help her? If he chose to keep some sordid aspects of her husband’s death from her, it was done with the highest motives, she was certain.
Mrs Dresden’s delicate sensibilities forbade any discussion of so unsavoury a subject as murder in the drawing room, so she at once drew Mr Willerton-Forbes into a lengthy discussion of his journey from London, the state of the roads and inns, and was his room to his satisfaction? He rose to the challenge, and after exhausting the experiences of travel, he became the polite guest and enquired about the house and the neighbourhood.
Annie could see that her mother needed no assistance, so she made her way to the window, where Adam and Captain Edgerton were conducting an animated yet low-voiced conversation. Adam broke off with a wide smile as soon as he noticed her.
“Ah, Cousin Annie! Just the person we need. Edgerton is keen to investigate Rupert’s murder, and has requested my aid in tracing his movements on the fatal day. I am perfectly willing to do it, but I would not for the world do anything which would cause you distress. You must tell me at once if such a scheme would not be acceptable to you.”
“It is hard to see what Captain Edgerton may discern that was not obvious to Sir Leonard Fairbrother and Squire Thornton, but he is welcome to try, with my goodwill. It is the most uncomfortable sensation to know that a man shot and killed my husband almost within sight of this house, and yet remains at large.”
“My dear lady, it must be disturbing indeed!” cried Captain Edgerton. “It is my earnest wish that my humble efforts can alleviate your concerns to some small degree.”
“You are very good, sir. Please feel free to seek whatever information would aid your quest.”
“May I speak to the servants?”
“By all means, and to anyone else you feel may be of use. Goodness, what is that noise?” They were standing close to the window, and as she spoke she realised that it must be rain beating against the panes. Lifting the curtains a little to peer out, she saw the windows awash with water. “It is pouring! Adam, you cannot go home in this weather. I shall tell Mrs Cumber—”
“No, no,” he said quickly. “It will pass off soon, and if not I am not too grand, I hope, to bed down in the hayloft for the night.”
“But it is no trouble, I assure you.”
“No trouble to you, but a great inconvenience for the servants.”
“May I offer a solution to this conundrum?” Captain Edgerton said with a smile. “I shall share with my friend, and you may take my bed, Huntly.”
“That would greatly inconvenience Mr Willerton-Forbes,” Adam protested. “But if you are minded to share with me, I might yet be preserved from a night in the straw.”
They continued to argue the point with great politeness for some time, and only the intervention of Mr Willerton-Forbes, who declared that he had once shared a bed with Captain Edgerton at an inn and would not repeat the experience for a dukedom, finally settled the matter.
Annie was restless that night. She tried to convince herself that it was only because of the rain rattling against the window panes, but deep inside she had to be honest — she was unsettled because Adam was in the house. And then she had the difficulty of explaining this peculiar response to herself. When she thought about it, she realised that, almost from the first moment she had known him, he had exerted a powerful effect on her spirits. Their earliest encounter, when he had taken her by surprise as she played at the instrument, had not been propitious, but his unfailing good humour had quickly won her round. He was a dreadful rattle, of course, but it was impossible to take offence at his teasing manner, which never stepped beyond the bounds of what was seemly. It had distressed her when they had fallen out, and pleased her greatly when their previously friendly accord had been restored. Now she was absurdly glad that he was sleeping in the second best guest room, and would be there for breakfast.
In this she was to be disappointed, for Adam and Captain Edgerton had risen with the dawn, Sheffield informed her, taken a few victuals with them and set off from the garden door on foot.
“How keen they are!” she said. “At least the rain has stopped, but it will be so wet underfoot, and every bush and tree dripping. They will be soaked through.”
“The gentlemen were very well shod, madam,” Sheffield said. “They wore heavy cloaks as well. I myself went to the Manor at first light to bring suitable clothing for Mr Huntly, so he is very well attired.”
“Nevertheless, tell the kitchen to be sure to have plenty of hot water ready for baths whenever they return.”
Mr Willerton-Forbes, happily, was not such an early riser, arriving late for breakfast and wading steadily through an improbable array of food for a man who was not at all plump. After breakfast, he asked to speak with Judith, but with Annie present too.
“Not that Mrs Huntly requires chaperonage,” he said, eyes twinkling, “but I must ask her a number of questions and she may find it reassuring to have another lady present.”
Annie invited him to use the hunting room for his interview, for that was the only downstairs room other than the buttery with a fire lit. He at once spotted Jerome’s many lists and diagrams spread over Rupert’s desk. Annie explained Jerome’s methodical search for the will.
“He has looked everywhere on the upper floors, so now he is working through the rooms on the ground floor,” she said. “Then it will be the cellars, the stables and the ice house, I suppose.”
“You are not optimistic of success, Mrs Huntly?”
“My husband was a very organised man, Mr Willerton-Forbes. I cannot believe he would have left his will in such a hard-to-find place. If it exists, this room is where it would be, for here is where he kept all his important papers, annotated and sorted and filed. It is not here, and therefore it does not exist. Or at least, it does not exist any longer, for we know he wrote a will shortly before his marriage. I am convinced that he has burnt it.”
“And yet… why would he do so? A man of such order as you describe, and trained as an attorney, I believe you said… he would understand very well the necessity for a will.”
“The estate is entailed and my settlement is secure, so perhaps he saw little need for a will.”
“There is always a need for a will,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said severely. “But perhaps it may yet turn up. I knew of one old gentleman who kept his will between the pages of a book.”
“Oh no!” Annie cried, gazing around at the shelves all around her. “Poor Jerome!”
“Fortunately, in that case the particular book was known, but it would be quite a chore in a room like this to examine every book. Master Jerome is very thorough,” he said, lifting a picture to examine it more closely. “A plan of the house, I see.”
“Yes, it usually hangs in the great hall, but Jerome has been examining it in some detail,” Annie said. “He will stare at the plan, then dash off somewhere, then return to repeat the exercise. He is looking for secret passages or a priest’s hole, I believe. It has been explained to him that such secret places would hardly be shown on the architect’s drawing, nor has anyone ever heard of such things here, but he will not be convinced. He spends a great deal of time tapping walls, in case one conceals a hidden place.”
“Ah, the optimism of the young,” Mr Willerton-Forbes said.
Judith arrived at that moment, so she and the lawyer took the chairs beside the fire for their discussion while Annie worked on her correspondence. When they had finished, and Judith had gone back to the nursery and Mr Willerton-Forbes to his room to write letters, Annie restlessly abandoned her
own letters and went to the window. The hunting room was at the back of the house, with views over the garden towards the river. The sun was shining, the rain-washed clear air tempting her out of doors, and there was no Mr Huntly to frown disapprovingly at her abandonment of her usual routine. If Adam and the captain had returned, perhaps she would have stayed, but there was nothing to keep her indoors on such a fine day. It was the work of a few moments to fetch an old cloak and bonnet, and then she was free.
She walked, as so often, through the kitchen gardens, noting the progress of her herbs. The gardeners were not about, so she passed out through the arch at the far side of the walled garden and onto the path that wended its way through the shrubbery and into the wilderness. Here the bushes were heavy with raindrops still, and the air steamy from the heat of the sun. From there she crossed the deer pastures and thence in time came to the hazelnut grove on its small hill. There would have been a fine view looking back to the house from there, but it was obscured by overgrown brambles and dog roses.
If she had mentioned the idea to Mr Huntly perhaps he would have had all the brambles cleared away and a seat placed for her to enjoy the view, as he had done at the river. It was a happy memory to have of her husband and the kindliness he had sometimes shown her, yet she could not forget the way he had wrapped her tightly about with restrictions. She had always hoped that suffocating hold would loosen in time, but there had been no sign of it, rather the reverse. Would she have rebelled and been punished for it, or would she have become a timid little mouse, terrified to cross him? Equally hideous prospects. She could not help revelling in her freedom now, yet nor could she suppress the guilt that swept her when she thought thus of her husband.
If only he had been more like his cousin… She had once thought Adam too frivolous, but she had seen his serious side, too, and the unstinting kindness he had shown her was the greatest comfort. That was a happy memory, too — the unheralded arrival of her mother, aunt and uncle, and solely at Adam’s instigation. All her memories of Adam were happy ones, excepting only their one disagreement, but the scales were overwhelmingly weighted on the positive side. So many times he had rushed to her side when she needed him, or his lightness had lifted her spirits, or he had relieved her of an unwanted task. Even the thought of his generosity warmed her inside, so that she raised her head to the gentle rays of the sun filtering between the branches overhead, and smiled.
The Apothecary (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 3) Page 19
