Shadow of the Past Read online

  As she poured, she said quietly, ‘I have been giving the matter of the trunk some consideration, gentlemen. If we suspect that it was stolen because some poor soul was so desperate to buy his family bread, then perhaps a counterattraction might win it back.’

  ‘Are you speaking of a bribe?’ Toone demanded.

  ‘A reward,’ she corrected him mildly.

  ‘Excellent,’ Vernon applauded. ‘We must draw up some notices for prominent display.’

  She shook her head, a twinkle of amusement in her eye. ‘You need to tell only the servants here about it, and the news will be about the village by breakfast time. I dare swear the trunk would be found by noon tomorrow. Though with or without its contents I could not say.’

  ‘I will offer a guinea forthwith,’ Vernon declared. ‘Bid your servants bruit it abroad.’

  ‘They will need no bidding,’ I smiled, as Edmund rang for Burns, who received the news with a smile so superior it almost disguised his eager interest. He might have withdrawn at a funereal pace, but I would wager more than Vernon’s guinea that the news would be in the kitchen within two shakes of a lamb’s tail.

  ‘Once we locate the trunk,’ Hansard murmured, with a smile at his wife, ‘what do we do with it then?’

  ‘Guard it,’ came her crisp reply. ‘Until you have subjected it to the most minute examination.’

  ‘Can you recommend someone?’ Vernon asked.

  ‘What about your verger, Tobias?’ Maria asked.

  ‘Simon Clark? What an excellent idea. Poor Simon could do with some extra occupation.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Edmund agreed. ‘He’s fading away since his wife was taken from him, God rest her soul. It seems to me these days he’s afraid of his own shadow – how he’ll manage to uphold the law I do not know.’

  He voiced my own doubts exactly.

  ‘But the responsibility might be the making of him,’ Maria said.

  And so it was settled. By common consent, we sought our bed chambers.

  But I did not seek my bed immediately. My desire to set forth became stronger than ever, and spurred me to write to the young man who had cared for my dear flock when I had been called away once before. Trusting he would not be offended – and, more to the point, knowing that he could not afford to travel swiftly without some material assistance – I affixed a guinea under the seal. Feeling that I had at last taken a positive step, I slept as I always did in the benign setting of Langley Park, like a much-loved child.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  I had quit Langley Park before the others stirred. My hosts at least would understand that Jem would want to hear all about the previous day’s activities.

  I had already rubbed Titus down and was giving him what I suspected was a second breakfast when Jem entered the stable.

  ‘You’re up betimes,’ he said, unwontedly surly.

  Had I annoyed him? Or, knowing Jem, had he transgressed his own standards of punctuality? ‘But not, like you, risen from my sickbed,’ I said mildly.

  ‘As to that, I am as well as you. And fresh air never harmed anyone as far as I know.’

  ‘Unless I am very much mistaken,’ I observed, finding a wisp of straw to wipe my hands, ‘it seems to have harmed your temper, Jem. Or have I done something to offend you?’

  ‘Nonsense. Who the devil is that?’ He turned as a village lad sidled up, all eyes, wrists and elbows. Since he knew all of the village children, warts and all, as it were, his question was rhetorical.

  ‘Will Pargeter, so please your honour.’ Round-eyed, he backed a couple of paces before he remembered to knuckle his forehead. ‘With a message for the parson, sir.’ He glanced at me, not doubt fearing the same frosty reception.

  With what I hoped was a reassuring smile, I put my hand on his shoulder. His bones, like those of many of the village children, were far too close to the surface. Even Lady Chase’s largesse was not enough for growing boys. ‘And what might the message be?’

  ‘It be from Old Mother Powell,’ Will replied. ‘Her compliments, Parson, and would you be kind enough to partake of her cowslip wine when it suits you?’

  ‘Thank you, Will. Now, pray run back and thank Mrs Powell for her kind invitation, which I shall be pleased to accept.’ I held out a penny payment.

  Temptation strove with honesty; the latter won. ‘Parson, sir, she did say as she didn’t need no reply – that you could drop by when your feet took you that way.’

  ‘Thank you, Will. But please deliver my message anyway.’ I pressed the penny into his grubby palm. ‘Off you go.’ I turned to Jem. ‘It’s best that he should earn it, isn’t it?’

  Despite that being his own precept, his nod was grudging.

  ‘Have you breakfasted yet? No?’ I persisted. ‘Neither have I. Let us adjourn to the warmth of Mrs Trent’s kitchen – I can smell the fresh bread from here, even if your woolly nose can’t – and I will tell you all that has passed since the inquest.’

  ‘You mean Ann Wood’s baby? They both thrive – though I hear that Daniel misliked Dr Toone’s presence in his wife’s bed chamber. All those terrible rumours about him cutting up the dead,’ he explained limpidly, as if he had never so much as looked upon a corpse, let alone used his keen eyes to assist Dr Hansard.

  Without asking how he’d come by all that – truly, I sometimes believed that Rumour was the fleetest of birds, the swiftest of animals – I clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Come on, man: if the Lord had meant us to be cold He wouldn’t have let us have fine closed ranges to warm us.’

  At last I let Jem accompany me and a bemused Titus to the gate-house, since Ben needed exercise and I was persuaded that a short ride would do Jem no harm.

  Mrs Powell greeted him as if he had but lately risen from the grave. He said all that was proper about her wonderful blackcurrant wine, to which he attributed his swift recovery.

  Before we knew it – and despite the earliness of the hour – we were pressed to partake, in Will’s words, of Mrs Powell’s latest brew, elderflower wine. We exchanged warning glances, but could scarce refuse refreshment altogether, for risk of offending the good woman. It was Jem who suggested he might prefer ale.

  In fact, Mrs Powell’s small beer was almost as potent as her wine, so we took very small sips. I knew that it was bad manners – and indeed pointless – to plunge straight into the reason for my visit, since she would know it anyway, and asked what I hoped were intelligent questions about her health, her husband’s health and indeed the health of all her family, close-by and distant. One piece of good news was that Mr Powell’s aches and pains were responding so well to his daily doses of rosehip gin that he had declared himself well enough to walk to market. I resolved to mention this to Edmund, who was always keen to hear of local cures for all too common diseases.

  Without her husband under her feet, she declared, she proposed a proper clean of her kitchen. The clear implication was that we were holding her up.

  So – at long last – I could enquire if she had heard any interesting rumours.

  ‘Funny you should be asking that, Parson.’

  We all knew, of course, that it wasn’t strange at all.

  ‘That young lady governess – Miss Southey. Seems her trunk has turned up. Again,’ she added with relish. ‘It might be to do with the reward that gentleman from Nuneaton offered. The gentleman that put Sir Marcus in his place,’ she explained with some glee. ‘Only this time it’s not likely to disappear. Crowner’s made poor sad Simon Clark a temporary constable. Says if you trust him with the church, he can trust him with the trunk.’

  I said nothing of my part in it. ‘And the trunk is even now in Simon’s possession?’

  ‘Aye, but not at his cottage. They’ve taken it to Langley Park – I dare swear the good doctor will be sending for you as soon as maybe.’

  Hansard had always sworn that the villagers knew what you were doing before you even knew yourself; once again he was proved right. Since I was eager to hear how he had fared at the Hall, I s
et about making our farewells, knowing that they would take at least as long as our greetings. We were almost on our horses when Mrs Powell recalled that she had promised Mrs Hansard a pot of her best damson conserve, and she tripped off to return with two, knowing, as she said with a twinkle, that I was partial to it too.

  ‘But you must mind they stones,’ she added, as I stowed them in my saddle bag, ‘for my eyes aren’t what they were, and I can’t swear as I’ve picked them all out… But there I do rattle on, Parson, and I haven’t told you the real news, have I? You’ll be learning all the stuff about the trunk from the good doctor, won’t you? But what he won’t know, because I’ve not breathed a word to a soul, you apart, is that the poor governess wench was seen leaving the day she went off. Or was turned off. She left in a curricle, Parson, and that’s the truth of it. I never saw her because they went through the other gates. The ones Sir Marcus has had opened up for tradesmen. And I do hear—’ she gestured us closer and dropped her voice, lest the very trees betrayed her ‘—that it was someone very important driving it.’

  ‘Someone very important? Sir Marcus himself, no doubt.’

  She raised her eyebrows at Jem’s tone, but replied, ‘Him! Bless you, no – haven’t you seen the way he handles the ribbons, young Jem? Cow-handed, he is,’ Mrs Powell cackled. ‘There, you didn’t know such as I knew your cant, but I always was a downy one.’ She chuckled, smiling reminiscently at all the young bloods who had no doubt carried on their loud conversations not realising that the good lady had ears. I hoped they had tipped her well.

  ‘So who was it?’ Jem urged, a sneer still spoiling his voice. ‘Turning out in the dark of a November night? For a governess’s convenience?’

  ‘Now, young Jem, I’m only repeating what I heard. And even if you don’t believe me, you’ve no call to take that tone. I’m more than seven! They were saying in the village you were like a bear with a sore head,’ she added, looking at him with concern.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Powell,’ he said swiftly. ‘’Tis true I’ve been blue-devilled these last few days. Indeed, Master Toby rang a peal over me before we set out.’

  ‘Hmm. Well, you get some of that damson conserve inside you, and then we’ll see.’

  I interrupted their by-play as swiftly as I could. ‘If not Sir Marcus, then who was the driver, Mrs Powell? It is truly vital that we know. Possibly a matter of life and death.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’m doing my best to find out for you? You young men, wanting everything yesterday…What you need, Parson, is a nice young lady to take to wife – and you, too, Jem.’

  We tacitly agreed to ignore Mrs Powell’s matrimonial plans for us, and indulged in a boyish race across country, that left us both pleasantly out of breath. As we crossed the water-meadow, we espied Edmund and Mr Vernon bowling back from the Hall, dressed as befitting gentlemen paying a morning call and honouring the occasion with the company of Hansard’s groom, George, in his best livery. Naturally we turned our mounts and fell into step with them as they drove through the back entrance to Langley Park.

  I knew that this would put Jem in an awkward situation. He ought by rights to assist George in the stable. But that would exclude him from our company, as we discussed the day’s news, both from the lodge and from the hall itself. How I could manage it, I did not know.

  I was rescued by dear Mrs Hansard, of course, who despite the chill wind rushed out to greet us all.

  ‘For shame on you, Tobias, bringing Jem out on a cold day like this. Look how flushed he is. Do you want him to catch his death? Jem, off that horse this minute and into Edmund’s study with you.’

  Without prompting, Edmund joined in. ‘Have you been taking that paregoric draught I left with you? I thought not.’

  It would have been hard for Jem to so much as taste the draught since Edmund had left none. Without a word, however, he dismounted, passing his reins into my safekeeping, and submitted to being shooed into the house like a recalcitrant chicken. Much as he would want to do his duty, he would have hated as much as any of us to be excluded from our counsels.

  So George was left to deal with all the horses on his own. Somehow I did not think that he was deceived for one moment by the subterfuge. At least Jem’s dignity was left intact, however.

  Dislike Lady Honoria and Miss Georgiana though I did, I had to admit that the sketches they had made of Miss Southey were excellent. Vernon had laid them with a flourish on Edmund’s desk. We had all joined the supposedly sickly Jem there, with Toone sauntering in as soon as he heard our voices. After his potations of the previous evening he looked far more in need than Jem of Edmund’s professional attention. It was clear that the room would not hold so many in comfort, and Maria swiftly urged us into the library, where a bright fire fought with the greyness of the day. I harboured a hope that Hansard and Jem might return to the study on their own before we left – his current mood was so foreign to him that I was anxious.

  Vernon fanned out the sketches on a petro duro table depicting brightly coloured birds. Smaller than those in my parents’ London house, it was nonetheless my favourite of the genre, for sheer quality of workmanship.

  I picked up a sheet of paper at random and looked more closely. Not only did the portrait give an accurate depiction of Miss Southey’s features, it also gave a hint of the steel I was convinced lay beneath her consciously bland exterior.

  ‘If only young women could be encouraged to keep up their accomplishments beyond the schoolroom,’ Edmund sighed, as he looked over my shoulder. ‘There is true talent in the bud here.’

  ‘Indeed. And, should it be necessary, it will be easy to take an engraving from them to put on public display,’ Vernon said briskly.

  ‘There is still no news of her from Lady Bramhall? She has still not recollected which of her friends recommended Miss Southey?’ Maria asked. ‘I confess that I am reluctant to have the young woman’s face blazoned abroad as if she were a common criminal, not just someone whom we wish to find for her own sake as much as any other reason…’ She tailed off, with a surreptitious glance at me. No doubt we both recollected another young woman. Lizzie, whom I had so much loved, was supposed to have left the district but had been lying in familiar woodlands, murdered and alone. Unobtrusively Maria reached for my hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  ‘Lady Bramhall tells us she has asked Furnival to deal with all the correspondence,’ Hansard said, adding bitterly, ‘as if her days were not filled with idleness and his crammed with as many matters as a man might wish.’

  ‘But Furnival is Lady Chase’s steward, not Lady Bramhall’s personal secretary,’ Maria objected. When she was a housekeeper, she must have been subject to similar impositions on her time from guests with their own servants.

  ‘I hope the pressure of all his other business does not mean he leaves this on one side,’ I said.

  ‘I think after the conversation I had with him this morning he will regard it as a priority, his responsibility or not,’ Vernon declared. ‘I have told him that I shall expect to see all the correspondence by the end of the week.

  ‘There is news of Miss Southey from another source,’ I said quietly. ‘Jem and I have heard Miss Southey did not creep hugger-mugger from the Hall, but was in fact swept away in some style – in a curricle, no less.’

  ‘With “someone important” handling the ribbons,’ Jem added.

  ‘Who might your source be?’ Vernon asked.

  Jem shook his head stolidly, obviously less inclined to trust Vernon than I was. He was right. We must protect Mother Powell.

  ‘Might it have been Sir Marcus himself?’ Clearly there was nothing more that Vernon would have liked that to pick another quarrel with him. He veritably rubbed his hands in anticipation.

  ‘At that time he was supposed to be at dinner with his family,’ Maria said. ‘You remember, Tobias, Mrs Sandys refused to interrupt the meal – and we were too cowardly to insist.’

  ‘No matter. His presence can easily be verified,’
Vernon declared optimistically.

  ‘Would not Lady Bramhall – would not their daughters, in fact – lie if Sir Matthew told them to? And with work so scarce, would not the servants feel it safer to lie too?’ Edmund put in.

  ‘We will question them under oath,’ Vernon declared.

  ‘Our source is sure it could not be Sir Marcus.’ I said at last. ‘He drives so badly he could easily have been identified.’

  There was a short, possibly disbelieving silence.

  ‘If she did not slip away quietly on her own,’ I said, trying to regain the initiative, ‘why should her trunk be left behind, then disappear, then be found abandoned?’

  ‘And then moved from where Matthew found it,’ Jem added. ‘Whoever did that must have wanted it very much, to half-kill Salmagundy.’

  ‘Who fortunately appears as tough as his master,’ Edmund put in, ‘and will be back to normal within a few days.’

  ‘Why do we not look at the trunk?’ Maria suggested. ‘It is here, on the premises, after all, and I am sure that Simon Clark will be delighted to surrender it to us while he adjourns to the kitchen to warm himself.’

  ‘Let it be brought into the scullery,’ Edmund said. ‘It is never warm in there, but at least it is not as cold as in the old pigsty – Maria wanted the porkers moved further from the house,’ he added, as he led the way, ‘so they now have new, far more luxurious accommodation. Better than most of the villagers’, truth to tell.’

  If I feared we would find Simon Clark on the old pigsty floor, laid out cold, as Salmagundy had been, I was relieved to see him in one piece, if not a little chilly. Having deposited the trunk in the scullery, he slipped into the kitchen with alacrity.