Cheating the Hangman Read online

  ‘Sounds a damned havey-cavey business to me. And next time I see that bishop of yours in the House so I shall tell him.’ Reaching for his stick he tried to struggle to his feet.

  ‘Sir?’ I gave him my arm. He had never leant on it so heavily before.

  He steered me to the window. The grey day had turned to the sort of thick, mizzling rain that never knows how to stop. The drenched view gave him no pleasure, but he stared out like a prisoner gasping for any view but the bars of his cell. ‘So what did you want me to do?’

  ‘As I said, sir, I know of no one else with your wide range of acquaintances in the ton. And I know of no one whose request for information would be responded to with such alacrity. Whichever spa Mr Coates – my absent colleague – has taken himself to, the British consul or better still ambassador there will know. Might I ask you, might I beg you, to use your good offices to find any information about him?’

  He reeled off a list of names – those of his cronies and the cities where they represented His Majesty. ‘Any one of those would oblige you if you mentioned my name … No, we were known to be at odds, were we not … Damn me if I do not write to them myself. Hasbury’s secretary shall assist me. Just jot down a little memorandum for Brentford or whatever he calls himself. Everything you know about the man. Excellent. Now, my boy, you’ll join me in a little wine?’

  ‘Only if the wine comes from that carafe,’ I assured him, pointing at Toone’s coloured water. ‘How might I imbibe if you may not?’

  Supporting himself on his stick, he turned to face me, nodding slowly. ‘You may come and visit me again soon. When your parish work permits, of course,’ he added with a mocking inclination of the head. ‘As I recall, you play a halfway decent game of chess …’

  This was not the time to protest that he was mistaken, and that my eyebrow still bore the scar from when he had thrown the board at me in his rage at my stupidity. ‘I should be honoured, sir, and will send you word.’ But I must make sure that Edmund was at hand to interrupt the game.

  My father consulted his watch. ‘I’d best set that good-for-nothing secretary of Hasbury’s to work. Burntwood. Ring the bell for him, if you please.’

  Walker, a conspiratorial smile on his discreet face, was at hand as I left the room, going so far as to invite me to join him for a mug of ale in the servants’ hall. I gladly accepted his invitation, happy to reminisce with him if not for my own particular pleasure, certainly for his.

  Silence fell as we sat at the broad, scrubbed table. No doubt many of the servants were disconcerted to see a fellow servant, even one as distinguished as valet to a duke, entertaining a gentleman in their midst. Mrs Heath was almost outraged, bustling up to offer the use of her sitting room, but as she recognised me in my new guise her curtsy was more amused than obsequious. She herself brought us a jug of ale, but, summoned elsewhere, she had to beckon a maid to bring us tankards. She happened to pick on Sally, the girl I had cross-questioned and caused to be further interrogated. Perhaps she had reason to be sullen, but she was bright and happy, responding to our thanks with a smile and toss of her head as I slipped her a coin. What she did not do, I would swear, was recognise me. Even though she could see my full face, and I was facing the window, not a glimmer of acknowledgement entered her eyes. Even when I spoke to her by name, her expression was blank, though she responded politely as she bobbed another curtsy and resumed her usual duties.

  It would be wrong to interrupt Walker’s stream of recollections by mentioning it, and soon we were laughing at yet another of my childhood follies.

  Soon, however, his bell rang, and he prepared, with some haste, to part. However, I followed him, asking him to hand me over, as it were, to Hasbury’s butler. I needed to be conveyed to his master.

  I had had some fifteen minutes to make a further exploration of his underused library when my host appeared. Hasbury’s coat, exquisitely cut, fitted him so well that his valet must have had to ease him into it inch by inch. His snowy neckcloth fell into such intricate folds that I was grateful that Binns and then Walker had taken such pains with mine. Even so I was a country bumpkin alongside a master, a comparison he did nothing to allay in his manner.

  ‘You have put me to a great deal of trouble,’ he said, playing with his quizzing glass, ‘you and that damned corpse. That self-important man Vernon is insisting on holding the inquest here’ – he waved a letter before me – ‘despite all Beresford’s letters representing how inconvenient it is. What do you pay a secretary for, if not to persuade people of the rightness of your opinion, eh? And moreover, Vernon wants me to bring witnesses to the inquest. Holds me responsible, he says! What is any of this to do with me? A bit of poaching, I can deal with that, or someone pilfering someone’s chicken. But this is beyond reasonable!’

  ‘Indeed, I understand your anger, Hasbury. But imagine the chaos if Vernon had asked Wychbold to provide a suitable room.’

  He laughed, to the imminent danger of those neckcloth folds. ‘But surely an inn is the usual location – surely there is one in Clavercote?’

  ‘My experience of the Dun Cow is limited to the worst ale it has ever been my misfortune to taste. If the accommodation resembles that in any way, then I cannot think it would be remotely suitable: more a byre than a place for humans to assemble. I believe your excellent housekeeper, Mrs Heath, and her team will transform whichever room here is selected to host the occasion to a courtroom and back again in the twinkling of an eye, with minimum inconvenience to you. As for any hoi polloi wishing or required to attend, they can surely be directed via a backstairs route,’ I added ironically. Why should the Sareys of this world go through their brief lives without ever seeing the first-class works of art hung on walls or standing on tables like those in Orebury’s entrance hall?

  Despite his penchant for using irony himself, this morning Hasbury was not a man for subtlety. ‘Quite right. I suppose I must tell Beresford to convey my gracious permission.’ He reached for the bell pull.

  ‘I fancy you will find Mr Beresford is heavily engaged with my father just now.’

  ‘Your father?’ Taking me by the arm he spun me round to face the window. ‘Great heavens, you’re Hartland’s son! Hardly recognised you in that rig.’ He did not intend a compliment. ‘First you turn up looking like a tramp that had seen a ghost and now you’re masquerading as a small-town lawyer. What does your father say? A man of the ton, always such a stickler for … No wonder he cast you off without a penny.’

  ‘If he cast me off, sir, it was not because I patronised a provincial tailor.’ I would have taken my leave had I not recalled that it was I who had wanted to speak to him. ‘Now, My Lord, has your steward had sightings of any miscreants on your land? Because there have been further … disturbances … in Clavercote. Not once but twice my life has been in jeopardy. I have put enquiries in train, as you may imagine, but I lack your authority, of course.’

  He sighed, an action to which his waistcoat took exception. ‘I suppose you want me to press once again for the appointment of a parish constable. Well, I tell you straight, sir, that my steward informs me that there is no man in Clavercote reliable enough to take on the task, not a man whom he would pay in beans, let alone shillings and pence. Such was your man Coates’s view too, I gather. I suppose I could send for the man from Claverbourne. But he has no great reputation. Best you carry on yourself.’

  ‘But I am a clergyman, sir, not a man in need of a shilling a day. Furthermore, and possibly more germane, though I beg you not to mention this to anyone else, I am currently most reluctant to return to the village where a determined attempt to lynch me occurred but two days ago. Perhaps I have won them over – but it is not something I would wish to put to the test.’ And I would certainly not make the attempt without Mrs Trent at my side – though I cannot think Lord Hasbury would appreciate my taking my housekeeper as a bodyguard.

  ‘Lynch you? Campion, the details if you please. Let me summon Beresford to write everything down. He would p
robably rather serve the son than the father, especially one as Friday-faced as yours.’

  ‘He has much cause to be in a fit of the blue-devils: he comes here expecting the hospitality for which you are famed, sir, and is confined to his room in great pain with none of the diversions he expected.’ Had I ever defended my father before? If so I could not recall it. ‘I understand that Dr Hansard will permit him a little exercise in the fresh air very soon.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘For a duke’s son you keep some strange company. Look at Hansard, a man who gambled his fortune away twice or even thrice and is now reduced to being a country quack. And Toone, with his predilection for cutting up cadavers. Where on earth did you find him, Campion?’

  ‘He found me at Eton, sir. And were you to have the deepest purse in the country, I warrant you would not find a physician more able than my two good friends.’

  He brought the quizzing glass into play. ‘No need to fly into the boughs, sir.’

  Yes, there was – every reason. But I contented myself with an imitation of my father’s chill hauteur. ‘Indeed not, sir. I will trouble you no longer. But I will be visiting my father within the next few days to play chess, a game at which I am sadly inadequate. Perhaps in the meantime one of your other guests might find it in their hearts to challenge him. It would be a kindness. And now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.’

  As he pulled the bell rope, he stared. ‘Work?’

  ‘My Father’s work, sir.’ Next time I visited, the clothes I wore would make it quite clear to which father I alluded.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  What Maria had said to Toone I know not, but to my amazement he was far more sanguine than Edmund about Dan’s ability to travel into Worcestershire. However, equally to my surprise, he offered to accompany in his curricle the farm cart carrying his patient. No doubt such a handsome vehicle would draw many eyes en route. Good, kind Binns would go too, of course, both to keep horse and master looking respectable and, should a crisis arise, be at hand as a nurse.

  Mrs Trent, whose second cousin was providing the accommodation, begged the favour of being allowed to spend a few days with him and his family in a village a few miles from Pershore, provided that I promised not to venture anywhere near Clavercote or its environs while she was absent. I did not want to give such an undertaking. However, Jem and Robert promised on my behalf, and she felt able to leave me. When Toone, all courtesy, offered her a place in his curricle, her cup was clearly ready to overflow.

  As Mrs Trent told me, the problem arose of what to do with Susan and Robert. Clearly the Hansards expected me to take advantage of my chamber at Langley Park, and were more than happy to offer hospitality to them and to my horses too. But emphatically they did not want me to leave my home unattended – ‘Remember that outbreak of housebreaking,’ Maria said, with some exaggeration.

  To my surprise, Jem dealt with the problem without even referring to me. Meeting my churchwardens on the village green as they practised for the new season, he asked to borrow some of their strongest outdoor servants, all twice the size of my poor Abel, who was so afflicted with rheumatism I dare swear a snail might outrun him. Young and ripe for an adventure, but so far prevented by the earnest prayers of their parents not to take the King’s shilling, apparently the young men had been delighted to prove their excellence at something other than hitting a cricket ball out of sight. Four of them would act as guards, patrolling the gardens, checking on the stables and, if the weather were inclement, setting up their camp in the hallway itself. Mrs Trent, who had admitted to last-minute qualms, pronounced herself delighted with the scheme, donned her newest clothes and finest bonnet, and set off like a queen.

  My heart as light as on my extravagant trip to Coventry, I let Robert lead my little entourage on Titus, with Susan pink with pride as any villagers we passed doffed their hats or tugged their forelocks to us – to her, I rather think, because Mrs Trent had mysteriously found a length of apple-green cambric, very much Susan’s colour, and together they had sewn it in time for her visit to what she called the great house. I did not mention another young woman who might be patiently waiting for largesse from Mrs Trent: Sarey would have to wait until her kind patron’s return.

  But some things would not wait. The chess game with my father was one of them. In my vanity, I was thinking of asking Marsh to cast a critical eye over my apparel, though this time I would prefer to look like a member of my calling than a provincial lawyer. I was on the point of asking for a note to Papa to be sent warning him of my imminent arrival when Burns appeared, looking uncommonly grim.

  ‘’Tis a message from Clavercote, sir,’ he told Hansard, with a sideways glance at me. ‘Seems there’s someone there needs your help. Dying, his friend said. And to be honest, his friend – that’s Ethan Downs – doesn’t seem to have much longer for this life either. Sir, forgive me if I speak out of turn, but what if it’s a trap, like the one for Mr Toby?’

  ‘Mr Toby will no doubt be finding out,’ I said grimly. ‘If a man is dying he needs his parish priest – and in the absence of Mr Coates and the rejected curates, who else is there but me?’ How fortunate I had not fixed a date for the chess game.

  ‘You have a desire for premature martyrdom?’ Maria asked, so crisply that I suspected she might be trying to stop her voice shaking.

  I touched her hand lightly. ‘Not at all. I should imagine that all our minds are pondering how this can be accomplished with no loss of life.’ I looked at Burns’s broad shoulders – he would be handy in a mill. But he was no stronger than Jem, who had been powerless in the face of the lynch mob. At length I smiled. ‘Edmund, why do we not put this conundrum to the man asking us to help his friend?’

  ‘He’s out in the scullery, sir, on account of he – to be honest, he stinks, sir,’ Burns told Hansard.

  ‘Maria, my dear, will you excuse us while we speak to this man?’

  Her lip trembled. ‘I know you have your callings – but for God’s sake do not put yourself in harm’s way – or you, Tobias. Please!’ She turned from us, dashing tears from her eyes.

  Leaving Edmund to comfort her, I motioned Burns from the room and followed him to the scullery, the door of which someone had hopefully propped ajar. He had not exaggerated when he said that the messenger looked ill.

  Nonetheless, I kept my voice stern when I addressed him. ‘Ethan Downs, when I came to Clavercote the other day, my friend and I were nearly lynched. By rights I should have summoned the militia and had the ringleaders executed for their pains on the tree meant for me. I am a charitable man, Ethan, a man of God – but I will not put my head into another noose of your making, and I will do all I can to keep my friend Dr Hansard safe too, even if this means refusing your request to visit a dying man. So tell me, as you hope to be saved, if you can guarantee our safety if we come. If, and how, please.’

  ‘It was them young hotheads – and they’ll all be in the fields today.’

  ‘Not good enough. One breath of a whisper that I am about my work and I give not a click of my fingers for our safety.’ How dared I vent all my anger on this helpless old man? But I could not back down and take Edmund to his probable death. For a wild moment I thought of taking our pistols and shooting our way out of trouble, but I could not conceive such an act. I stared at him – all skin and bone. ‘How did you manage to get here, Ethan? Did you walk?’

  He mumbled something about a lift from a carter.

  ‘And how do you propose to get back? It is a good three miles, maybe more.’ Despite myself, I was so overcome by pity for the poor old man that I softened my voice.

  ‘May I make a suggestion, Dr Campion?’ Edmund had stepped up behind me. ‘Let us send for the worthy churchwardens, and ask them to guarantee our safety. And one of them could return our friend here to the village. I dare swear you could manage some bread and cheese while you wait? But I think,’ he added tactfully, registering the foul odour and holding open the scullery door even wider, ‘that you mig
ht be warmer in the herb garden – it gets all the morning sun, and as you see there is a seat and table there. Our maid prefers to sit there to shell peas. I’m afraid the crops will be very late this year, will they not?’

  He joined Maria and me some minutes later, smelling strongly of the lavender water he and Toone had such regular recourse to in the sickroom. ‘Ethan has less than six weeks, I’d say – it must have taken a huge effort of will for him to get here. I have told William to return with Boddice or Lawton – both, for preference. They will convey him back.’ He added with a half-smile, ‘I have given him a verbal message, which I think he would die sooner than forget – or pass on to anyone else. Now, Tobias, do you have all you need?’

  ‘When I decamped here I thought of every eventuality,’ I assured him. Less blithely I added, ‘But I am anxious, I will not deny it. I fear betrayal.’ I found my fingers creeping to my neck, where the assailants’ bruises were now yellowing reminders of the first attack on me. ‘I cannot carry a pistol,’ I said. ‘But is there any reason why you should not?’

  He exchanged a long glance with his wife. ‘I have promised Maria that if I sense danger, I will turn back. And so, my friend, should you.’ In a different voice, he continued, ‘Where is the best place to receive these wardens of yours? My study? Or here, with Maria as a witness?’

  ‘I don’t know why you wanted us, and I don’t know why you wanted us to come in a gig, not on horseback like any Christian,’ Lawton said truculently. His eyes fell on the pistol that Edmund had been cleaning, lying on his desk. He mouthed something, then stopped.

  ‘Ethan Downs is not well enough to walk back to Clavercote: we rely on you to get him there,’ Edmund said firmly. ‘More than that, we require you to guarantee our safety should we agree to visit Mr Downs’ sick friend. I repeat, guarantee. There shall be no repetition of Saturday’s unfortunate events, for instance – and no one to ambush us as we return home. Is this clear? No bluster, please, gentlemen.’