The Wages of Sin Page 12

  I am about to reach for the magnifying glass left so temptingly beside the pillow. But those are footsteps, and I must run, fast as I can, for the concealed door, making sure I close it silently.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘Goodness me, young lady! Where did you get a bruise like that?’ Dr Page had pushed back Mlle Hortense’s pretty little hat and was peering at her face with obvious concern. ‘Does that hurt? This?’

  I am sure Hortense would have preferred him to conduct his examination in the seclusion of his consulting room, but he had stopped outside the lych-gate and was dealing with the problem in full view of the congregation streaming out of church. Was I surprised that she insisted all she had done was walk into a door? Everyone who saw the black eye and swollen face must have known that doors were more passive than whatever had inflicted the damage.

  ‘I put some of Mrs Arden’s best steak on it, doctor. I am – oh!’ A wince cut off her protestation.

  ‘I think you need something more than steak. Pray, Rowsley, will you give the young lady your arm down to my surgery? The eye in particular must be treated, and urgently, too!’ He bustled off at great pace down the village street.

  Hortense and I followed more decorously. Her fellow servants could not have followed if they had wished – they were due back at the House with Mrs Arden, who had led the morning’s procession. I dare say that most of them, fearful of another attack on their gender, would rather have been elsewhere than church this morning. Mrs Faulkner’s back was apparently still troubling her – though I suspected she might have enjoyed a miraculous recovery, had she known that the sermon, on the subject of the woman who touched Jesus in order to be healed of her constant haemorrhages, would be given by a man almost moved to tears by her plight and then by her faith. Not Mr Pounceman, of course – a middle-aged locum whose name I never caught. Unlike the rector, he was short and spare, his whiskers sliding apologetically across the deep worry crevasses criss-crossing his cheeks. He had prayed briefly for the health of his brother in Christ, without mentioning any particular ailment.

  Once Hortense and I were clear of any other parishioners, I said quietly, ‘Tell me the truth about that injury, Hortense. I promise you it won’t be you who gets into trouble, just the person who did this to you.’ I smiled to interrupt her protest. ‘It wasn’t a door that did that, not unless a human being deliberately pushed it extraordinarily hard. You know that it could have been even worse. I have never known Dr Page so concerned.’

  ‘I cannot. I dare not. As soon as my face is respectable again, I’m off. I’ve got a cousin in Warwick. She’s found me a situation with a young lady in the town, one who likes to travel.’

  ‘Listen – the day you leave, you will tell me the name of your assailant. I know that you will not get the redress you deserve, but at least it may prevent anyone else getting a similar injury. You understand me?’

  Even a slight nod caused her pain. ‘I suppose so,’ she whispered.

  ‘You promise me?’

  Another whisper. ‘I suppose so.’

  Dr Page may have been trying to elicit the information I had failed to gain: I could hear the rumbles of his voice, sometimes insistent. I hoped he would have more success than I did, but I did not expect him to. In time they emerged from his consulting room, her face now bandaged.

  ‘Remember, you may have tea, soup and bread and milk: no solids. I’m sure my old friend Mr Bowman will provide some brandy if the pain gets bad – but no more than a sip, young lady, because of those laudanum drops.’ He patted a tiny brown-paper wrapped package. ‘And however tempted you are to continue, you stop taking the drops after three days – you hear that, Rowsley? And you are not to let Mademoiselle Hortense to go anywhere near doors, inanimate or otherwise. She must spend a few days sitting quite still.’ He winked at me – yes, he shared my suspicions. ‘In fact, I will return you both to the House in my trap so you do not have to exert yourself. Wait here.’

  Once he had escorted Hortense safely inside the servants’ quarters of the House, where I am sure he gave forceful instructions, he returned to me, as I stood fussing his pony in the warm sunshine. ‘That’s a bad business, Rowsley. I fear for the future of some of her teeth. She may be deaf in that ear for some time too – in fact, for the rest of her life. Her skull – well, let us hope it’s thick. Whoever did that should be prosecuted.’

  ‘Even if that were to involve appearing at the Bar of the House of Lords?’

  ‘Good God, man! Is that whom you suspect? I’d no idea he was back.’

  ‘As far as I know his lordship isn’t. But his mother is.’

  ‘But she’s frail – well, I suppose she could heft a scent bottle or something similar. So what do we do?’

  I told him about the promise I’d extracted. He nodded, gravely. ‘Let’s hope she keeps it.’

  He seemed in no hurry to leave, so I said, ‘Tell me, Page, why was our rector absent today? Is he genuinely ill?’

  ‘I fear he’s really very poorly, though he will recover in time. Pounceman suffers from a childish complaint. You will understand that I may not tell you more.’

  I looked sideways. ‘Shall I ask Mrs Faulkner to summon all the women to the servants’ hall so they can add their voices to mine?’

  My reward was a crack of possibly sacrilegious laughter and a friendly clap on the shoulder. ‘I must be off. I want to know immediately if that girl takes a turn for the worse. Immediately, mind. Whatever time of night or day.’

  To leave the bright courtyard for the dimness of the servants’ entrance and hall was like plunging into the depths of the sea. There was the usual bustle, but Mrs Arden and Mrs Faulkner were not part of it. I asked for Mr Bowman, to be escorted to his pantry, where, head bowed, he was staring blindly at an open safe and all the silver he was responsible for.

  He acknowledged my arrival with a nod, no more. Then, as if we had been in the middle of a conversation, he said, ‘I would not have had that happen for the world. Not for the world. I wish I had not spoken to her like that at supper. What if it’s the last thing she heard me say?’

  ‘Dr Page said he hoped her deafness would be temporary,’ I said – though he had implied the opposite of course. ‘My dear Bowman, have you hurt your hand?’

  He looked at it as if seeing it for the first time. He snorted. ‘It looks as if I’ve turned bare-knuckle fighter, doesn’t it? But my opponent had the better of me.’ With his left hand he pointed to the safe, which still bore a trickle of blood. In the face of my silence, he suddenly swung round. ‘Dear God, you can’t think I hurt Hortense like that? I told you, they are like my children! My own children!’

  ‘Children you might wish to punish? No, Bowman, your face tells me otherwise. Let us ask Mrs Arden for some steak for that hand.’

  ‘She’s busy – she’s with Mrs Faulkner sorting out accommodation for poor Hortense. Both ladies are insisting on giving up their own rooms – a competition of kindness.’ I could imagine it. ‘There is also the problem of who should take over Hortense’s duties.’

  ‘You won’t like this question, but I have to ask: do you know who did hit Hortense?’

  He looked grave. ‘She simply will not tell me. It would have taken a strong young man to inflict that amount of damage, wouldn’t it? There’s one explanation – what if she has a follower who did it? Someone here or someone she met in Droitwich? That might explain her reluctance to accuse anyone.’

  I nodded – and the suggestion was corroborated by Mrs Arden when I ran into her. ‘Maybe Mr Bowman’s right: I heard horses last night, after dark – two or three. They woke me, but I’m so used to rolling over and going back to sleep I took no notice.’

  ‘His lordship does what he wants, when he wants, for as long as he wants, and I want no more impertinent questions from you. You are here to run the estate.’ Her ladyship’s hand clenched round the ivory-headed walking stick propped beside her chair. She picked it up and jabbed it at me. ‘Run it.’

 
‘There are some matters his lordship might prefer to authorize before I go ahead,’ I demurred. I was standing before her, in the sunny morning room, with what would one day be a charming view over the lake. ‘Unless, perhaps you, your ladyship …?’ Seeing her colour rise alarmingly, I broke off and started again, with a deep bow. ‘If you wish it, I will make the decisions based on urgency and need, as I always do.’

  ‘So why have you bothered me, a poor, sick, old woman? I am barely back in my own home before you start your impertinent badgering. Get out.’ She reached ominously for her stick again, lifting it to jab me in the chest. ‘And remember: if you ever dare to question his lordship’s movements again, you will be dismissed.’

  I bowed, safe in the knowledge that only his lordship had the power to do that, paying me a great deal if he did it without due cause. My contract had been drawn up by my worldly cousin Mark, and not deeply scrutinized by my master’s lawyer before his lordship had scrawled his aristocratic signature at the foot, closing our bargain with a dab of wax and his ancestral seal.

  Nonetheless, this was not the best way to start a Monday morning.

  Before supper, taking with me flowers selected by one of the gardeners, I went with Mr Bowman to visit our invalid. In the event she had been taken to the old nursery, where her friends could easily visit her, slipping up the miserable back stairs whenever they had a moment free from their duties. They had come throughout the day, Bowman told me, with home-made barley water and lemonade, and even ice cream.

  Hortense managed a feeble smile when she saw the flowers, already arranged in a vase by Mrs Faulkner’s skilful hands. But it was clear she was in a great deal of pain, and I wondered if she had received other blows about the body she’d not mentioned to Page – though I could not imagine that he had not checked for himself.

  ‘Don’t hurt yourself more by trying to speak,’ I told her gently. ‘But remember what I told you yesterday: you are not in any trouble. If you would like one of your family to come and see you, for I fear it will be some days before you are fit to travel, pray tell me, and I will pay all their expenses. Your mother? A sister? Just say the word.’ I took her hand and squeezed it very lightly. ‘Now, I fear the sun will be in your eyes within moments: permit me to draw the curtain just a little. There.’

  Bowman bent and kissed what little the bandages did not cover of her forehead. ‘Good night, my child. Sleep well.’

  He wiped away a tear as we left the room.

  Despite my confidence that her ladyship could not put her threat into action, I spent the next few days travelling around the estate, even some of its further-flung outposts, which I reached by train. Whenever I returned, the news of Hortense was fairly good – her recovery was slow, but Dr Page, who had taken it upon himself to visit regularly, was optimistic. By the time I returned from my last foray, down to Devon, of all places, to a cluster of farms near Honiton, the first fields of hay were ready for cutting, and the weather was set fair. The next few days were extremely busy. All able-bodied men were involved – which included me. Just as the women at the House had prepared refreshment when we were hunting for Maggie, now they worked long hours feeding everyone who turned out. My main task might have been supervising and co-ordinating the teams involved, but I didn’t want to lose the men’s respect by being thought a slacker, so was usually the first out, and always the last in. My life revolved – in a very satisfactory way, as it happens – between sleep, work and food. Sick maids and sick parsons were as irrelevant as an insect bite; I cannot recall giving either a thought except when on the third or fourth evening a boy slipped a note in my hand after the usual hard-fought Saturday cricket match, which had necessarily been reduced to twenty overs per side. Mr Bowman’s compliments and a hot bath awaited me before supper. Would I take a summer suit, to reflect the weather?

  Although I would have loved to regale Mrs Faulkner with my tales of bowling derring-do, half of me would have preferred a bite of cheese in my own parlour and an early night. To decline the invitation, however, would be churlish. So I staggered home, stowed the appropriate garments in a grip, and wended my slow and footsore way to the House. I was ushered to the bedchamber I had used before: sure enough, there was plenty of hot water awaiting me, enough to bath an army. I had the choice of ale or lemonade. I suppose I spared a moment’s pity for the men who only had carbolic and the garden pump at their disposal, but in truth I lolled back like an emperor.

  It didn’t take me long to work out that the conversation over our cold collation was strained. At last I looked from one sober face to another. ‘Pray, what is wrong?’

  ‘Hortense,’ Mrs Faulkner said. ‘No,’ she added swiftly. ‘Her recovery has been remarkable. But she has left us. Just like that!’ She snapped her fingers. ‘She left a note, however, and a forwarding address. And she asked me to apologize to you on her behalf for breaking a promise.’

  It was clear my companions expected me to explain. I was tired enough to snarl that it was no business of theirs – and yet it was. So I summoned a grim smile from somewhere. ‘She promised to tell me the name of her assailant before she left – for a position with a young lady keen on travelling? One living in Warwick, near her cousin?’ Conscious I had passed some sort of test, I smothered a yawn. In truth, I was afraid I should fall asleep at the table.

  ‘She says that as soon as she’s presentable, she and her new employer will be heading to Nice.’

  ‘Excellent.’ My only fear, too base to voice, was that Mlle Hortense might not speak the language. But I detected a flicker of amusement in Mrs Faulkner’s eye: I responded.

  As the table was cleared after coffee, I approached her. ‘I wonder if I might see Hortense’s note?’

  She looked puzzled, perhaps even offended, but I sought and held her eye. ‘Of course. I will look it out for you. Shall I send it down to your house?’

  ‘Some things,’ I said carefully, but blushing despite myself, ‘should not be deferred longer than necessary.’

  Would the others never cease their chatter and leave us?

  XIV

  I am atop the wheeled step-ladder his lordship needs to reach the top shelf of books. If I stretch, I can reach them all with the feather duster. I do all I can, then go down, move the steps, and then go up again. But I do not like being so high. The steps wobble as I shift my weight. I must not look down.

  The task takes far longer than Mrs Baird said it should. I dare not hurry, lest I poke the books with the long cane and tear the ancient binding. But I am developing a rhythm, and there are only two bays to finish.

  The last! But the floor is uneven, and the wheels seem to be slipping.

  The door opens.

  His lordship!

  I should not be here.

  But far from shouting at me he smiles. I hear the rich fabric of his dressing-down whisper as he walks towards me.

  ‘Poor little woman,’ he says. ‘Up so very high. Here. Let me jump you down.’ He holds his arms up. The steps lurch. I am falling.

  I cannot leave his arms. I must run but I am powerless. Suddenly I am pinned against the bookcase, and he is pulling aside his nightshirt.

  There is pain inside me. It goes on. And on. And on. Worse with each thrust. And the next.

  The library is empty. I feel blood running. I see it on my shift.

  I must run to Mrs Baird. To Nurse. To anyone.

  But my legs will not work and I crawl every inch of the way to the back stairs. The pain takes me away.

  FIFTEEN

  The expression on her face troubled me – no, terrified me. Her eyes were saying all I wanted them to say, but it was clear that her mouth was framing words I could not bear to hear. Taking her hands, I lifted them to my cheeks and held them while I reached forward to kiss her. For a long moment she was passive; it was like kissing the cold lips of my niece’s china doll. But at last, my heart leapt as she responded. We clung to each other.

  When I opened my eyes after the wonder of it all,
she was weeping. ‘Matthew, I cannot. I must not.’

  I kissed her again, very lightly. ‘Whatever it is you cannot, must not do, one thing I beg: you will tell me your name. It’s only fair,’ I said, trying to make her smile. ‘You know and can use my name. I do not even know yours.’ Officially, at least. Dare I add that I must, if I was going to ask for her hand in marriage? No, not until she had told me the source of her sorrow. Her pain. From time to time her whole body convulsed against mine.

  Her voice told me the effort she was making to control her emo-tions, as it came out with a brittle laugh. ‘Harriet. Like the Harriet ofwhom you have probably read, “the natural daughter of somebody”.’

  ‘Emma’s Harriet Smith?’

  ‘My title is purely honorary; I took the surname from someone who was kind.’ She shuddered again. ‘I promised you Hortense’s note.’

  ‘Harriet, I do not give the snap of my fingers about your honorary title, though I would like to shake the hand of anyone who has treated you well. I do not care about Hortense, so long as she is safe and happy. All I want is to make sure you are safe and happy. Now and always. And I know,’ I added, trying to keep my voice as controlled as hers, ‘that something has occurred to make you terribly unhappy. Something I have done?’

  ‘No. Not you. Ever.’

  I did not think that that was true. I winced as I thought of her face the night I gave Mrs Arden that rose. I waited.

  ‘Nothing that has occurred this evening has caused me distress,’ she said. ‘Nothing. But in truth, Matthew, you must do as I must. Bury yourself in your work, perhaps find a new situation.’

  I shook my head. ‘There is too much for me to do here, and I find I can only do it if you are by my side. My dear, my Harriet, I want to extract a promise. Hortense wasn’t good at keeping hers. But you will keep your word, because it is in your nature. I want you to promise to come and visit my parents. With or without me, as it happens. That is the only thing I want you solemnly to undertake to do.’