Shadow of the Past Read online

He shook his head. ‘If only nature were as straightforward as that. I have seen babies with hair so fair as to be white growing up into people as dark as our late friend. But we know – we suspect – a child to be involved.’

  ‘The Larwoods’ child was dark,’ I mused. ‘And, according to the servant I spoke to, the father as ginger as the mother.’

  ‘Really! So the child is at very least a sport of nature. It would be interesting to meet this little family. Now, there is something else concealed in this mess of crossed lines.’ He turned the pages in irritation.

  ‘It could be that she was being cautious,’ I said. ‘Anyone rapidly scanning the letter might miss the information.’

  ‘Exactly. But this was negative, not positive information. It was that Lady Bramhall’s steward has been unable to lay his hands on the papers pertaining to Miss Southey’s appointment. It seems he claims not to have access to her private papers. So now – now! – she is sending him express authority to search her escritoire. God knows when we shall have everything made clear…Ah, is this Drummond’s?’

  It was – but there was such a press of carriages it was minutes before we could be set down outside the august premises, minutes that clearly irked my friend. ‘All this rainbow chasing, Tobias, when we both have our daily work to do.’

  But he was happier when we were shown straight into Mr Drummond’s sanctum.

  ‘Good heavens, ’tis Master Toby.’ Mr Drummond greeted me warmly, as if it were only last week that he had found sugar plums for me in the depths of his great safe. ‘I beg your pardon: I should say—’

  ‘You could call me Parson Campion,’ I said, wringing his hand. ‘But I would be just as happy with Master Toby.’

  He looked my up and down in that familiar appraising way. ‘So the story is correct, that you have become naught but a country vicar.’

  Naught! ‘I did what I had to do,’ I said mildly, but, I hoped, firmly.

  ‘A life of poverty, when as a lad you liked nothing better than sitting on my lap making heaps of golden guineas into shining little towers…Well, well.’ He turned belatedly to Dr Hansard, and I effected introductions, soon sealed with a glass of fine sherry and some excellent biscuits.

  It was a matter of minutes before Mr Edwin Thorpe entered Mr Drummond’s office, a cautious but not quite apprehensive expression on his face. Without Mr Drummond’s assurance that we were eminently respectable, and asking for the best of motives, he was able to supply us with the ghost of an address.

  ‘All I know is that they have spent holidays at a farm in Devon. Between Newton Abbot and Dawlish, I think. He has mentioned both towns. I am sorry that I cannot be more precise, gentlemen,’ he said with a bow and half an eye on his employer, ‘but the address of a friend’s parents-in-law is not something one normally requires.’

  ‘You have been more than helpful,’ I declared, with more enthusiasm than I truly felt.

  There was a general shaking of hands before we quit the building.

  * * *

  ‘Somewhere near Teignmouth,’ Hansard mused as we strode to the hack still waiting for us. ‘Well, for my part, Tobias, I say we inform the Runners of the Larwoods’ possible whereabouts and leave them to do their work. We cannot be haring hither and there when it is just as likely that the Larwoods are in Tunbridge Wells or in Timbuktu. To Berkeley Square, if you please.’

  The jarvey nodded, his eyebrows saying quite clearly that if these eccentric countrymen wished to be ferried haphazardly about the capital it was none of his business – so long as they came up with the dibs. His horses returned to what I suspected was their usual dawdle.

  I could not argue. My friend was right. Furthermore, if we left London, we would leave Jem alone, an idea quite insupportable. Pray God we would soon have news from him, and we could all return to Warwickshire together. From the way my dear friend kept fingering the letter in his pocket, it could not come too soon.

  Mrs Tilbury had provided a light nuncheon in the morning room, Wilfred announced as he took our hats. Since I knew that the simple declaration carried a great deal of import, I thanked him and declared that we would take sherry beforehand in my room.

  ‘It seems we have but just eaten,’ Hansard grumbled as he joined me there a few minutes later. ‘Thank you, Wilfred.’ He gestured with his glass.

  ‘Wilfred knows the amount of effort it has cost Mrs Tilbury – and possibly Wilfred himself – to set the room in order,’ I declared, also taking a glass. I looked at the young man enquiringly.

  ‘Indeed, Master Tobias, she has set on three extra servants to help her. That chandelier’s come up something lovely, though I says it as shouldn’t.’

  ‘So you assisted too? Thank you very much.’

  He bowed low. ‘Not a sign of a Holland cover will you find, nor any drugget on the carpet. She’s done you and the doctor proud, sir. And you’ll find the Crown Derby set and the Stourbridge crystal on the table, sir.’

  ‘Pray tell her that we are on our way down.’

  I waited until he had bowed himself out. ‘And now we must prove good trenchermen indeed,’ I said. ‘The poor lady is all but blind, Edmund, and this represents effort and devotion in equal measure.’

  ‘Blind? The least I can do by way of thanks is to look at her eyes, then. I know a very good man in London, Tobias—’

  ‘I am glad of it. My mother has been pressing her this age to consult someone. We must see if your charm will do the trick.’

  My ribs veritably squeaking after the repast we had consumed in the august setting in which dear Tilly had placed us, I sat back with the newspaper to savour a last glass of wine alone as Edmund disappeared backstairs to work his magic on her, preferring to do it in private, he said. I had hardly perused more than the first pages of the Morning Post, however, when an urgent peal of the bell made itself heard, as did Wilfred’s scurrying feet.

  I declare I was already on my feet, my hand held out, when, after a most perfunctory tap, he came in with a salver bearing a folded, unsealed note.

  You wreaker, it declared.

  I threw it swiftly on the fire – not even Edmund would ever know Jem’s problems with Greek – and rang the bell, Wilfred returning in an instant, as if he had been hovering outside the door for such a summons.

  ‘Summon a hack, please, Wilfred. I will find Dr Hansard myself.’

  With no more than a nod, he was on his way. I would suggest to my mother, next time I wrote, that she found a way of ensuring that such a quick-witted and willing young man found speedy promotion.

  The inevitably sluggish horses took us to the Franes’ vicarage with a speed that suggested they might have sensed our urgency. Mr and Mrs Frane received us with cool politeness and the news that Mr Yeomans – not Parson, I noticed – was out. A lad whom they had left kicking his heels on the scullery step was much heartier in his welcome, when we identified ourselves as ‘the bang-up coves what he was wishful to take to the God-botherer down Marsh Lane way’.

  ‘Willum, at your service, gents.’ He even managed a jerky bow.

  Just as we were about to follow him, however, Frane emerged, with a turn of speed I had not seen in him since he escaped from an irate Cambridge bag-wig.

  ‘Tobias, Dr Hansard – pray return instanter.’

  Had Mrs Frane been taken ill? We dashed back to him at full pelt.

  ‘Inside – both of you. Now, divest yourself of your valuables.’ He produced a large box. ‘For God’s sake do not attempt to take more money or property than you need. Even a handkerchief is a desirable object, to be unpicked and sold.’

  Astonished, we did as we were told, Frane locking everything in his box, which he took off with him.

  It was clear the lad reckoned he deserved another vail for the delay, but we urged him on, promising him fourpence on our arrival.

  ‘A groat? Go on, guv, make it a sow’s baby.’

  ‘Done,’ I agreed, not at all sure what I had promised.

  Our way lay through alley
s hardly worthy the name, they were so narrow and full of stinking matter I for one did not care to look at lest my stomach revolt.

  ‘Green about the gills, ain’t you, mister? Tell you what, we’ll stop at the next boozing ken and you can have a ball of fire. No? A drop of daffy? That’d go down well.’

  ‘Just get us there, lad,’ Hansard said with authority.

  The child shrugged, his thin shoulders emerging briefly from the holes in his shirt and subsiding again.

  At last, after twists and turns that so disorientated me that I doubted I could ever find my way back to the vicarage without his assistance, clearly worth at least a florin, he came to a halt outside a rooming house. It must once have been a farmhouse, perhaps two hundred years old, but now it was cheek by jowl with lowbuilt slums, already falling into desuetude. From inside came the sound of rough swearing, of feminine tears, and the wail that children give when they are almost beyond hunger. It was into here that Willum wished us to proceed.

  The stench of unwashed humanity and its detritus assailed us, like a physical force. Dr Hansard had no compunction in pressing his handkerchief to his nostrils, so I did likewise. We followed the child up a staircase that could have been grand, had not someone purloined the newel post and half the banister rail, presumably for firewood.

  ‘You there, Bess?’ Willum yelled.

  ‘And where the hell should I be?’ came a squawk of a reply.

  ‘It’s them nobs for you. Nah, that reverend’s cronies,’ he said, overriding a comment so lewd I cannot repeat it. ‘After Lanky.’

  ‘They’d better come in then. Come on, Lanky, perk yourself up a bit.’

  By now we stood in the doorway. We were greeted by the sight of Jem, at the barely open window. Sleeves rolled up, he was applying a wet rag to the face and hands of a tall young man, whose dark hair sprouted at odd angles from his head, who was cowering away from the door. Jem dried them with his own handkerchief, the object, it was soon clear, of Bess’s cupidity. She, wearing what was left of a crimson and black velvet robe some ten years out of fashion, was squatting on a pile of rags that might have concealed a mattress. Although she was much thinner, there was no doubting her relationship to the poor man who had made his way to Moreton St Jude – her hair was as black as his, with the same kink, and her features broad. The skin was an attractive pale olive, but marked by the small-pox and far from clean. As to her age, she might have been anywhere between twenty and thirty.

  ‘That’s Bess,’ Willum said, adding, ‘Miss Bess Monger, sister to ’Enry Monger, deceased.’

  ‘Parson Campion at your service, ma’am. And Dr Hansard,’ I said, not quite knowing how to greet a woman in such a position but nonetheless holding out my hand as if she were a duchess born.

  While Hansard made his bow, she gripped my hand and I found myself not engaging in a social courtesy but levering her to her feet.

  ‘This ’ere’s my brother’s mate,’ Bess declared, with a jerk of a curling thumb. ‘’Enry. The one what’s dead, ’e says.’ She showed no immediate sign of grief. ‘Looked after Lanky there ever since he was hurt in Spain.’

  ‘How very good of him,’ I breathed.

  ‘Not just you toffs as have debts of honour,’ she said sharply. ‘Seems Lanky saved ’Enry. What must ’Enry do but nurse him back to health and then bring him here. Then he sees this advertisement about him, and does as he’s told and goes off to the country to claim his reward and there he goes and snuffs it. And left me without support,’ she added, pointedly.

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that,’ I said.

  We stood like an ill-mixed tableau, all staring towards the window.

  Jem stepped forward. ‘Gentleman, may I introduce Hugo, Lord Chase?’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Having achieved what we had set out to do, we all, I suspect, felt a similar sense of anticlimax. In the thrill – or otherwise – of the pursuit, none of us had considered what to do next.

  ‘I am sure you are right, Jem,’ Hansard said. ‘But we must have evidence. Sufficient to convince any lawyers Bramhall has engaged to have him declared dead.’

  Without a word, Bess crossed to the fireplace and shoved a hand casually up the chimney. She dusted the soot from a small box before handing it to Edmund. ‘Your mate there took it on trust, but if you want to cast your beadies on that lot, feel free.’

  A miniature of Lady Chase; a letter from his father; a pencil sketch of a building I did not know; a note from his commanding officer.

  Acting as devil’s advocate, I made myself say, ‘I fear the lawyers will say these could have been stolen.’

  ‘There is one piece of evidence that cannot have been stolen,’ Hansard declared. ‘My Lord, will you smile, please?’

  It took a word from Bess to produce the desired result.

  ‘Look at that chipped tooth, Tobias – it is Lord Chase indeed. Or, as Hamlet might have said, a part of him.’

  It was Bess who spoke next. ‘Dunno where you’re planning to take him, gents, but I doubt if he’ll go quietly. He’s hardly shifted from the room since poor old ’Enry left. And he won’t go nowhere without me, I’m telling you.’

  That turned out to be the simple truth. The barest hint from Jem that Lord Chase might quit this foul place was greeted with a terrified wail. The poor man dashed to the shelter of Bess’s arms as a child might seek comfort of its nurse, despite the nits visible in the tangle of her hair.

  Reaching up she stroked his cheek with remarkable tenderness. Now we could see why the hair grew strangely – a network of scars, some horribly deep, crisscrossed his scalp.

  ‘Miss Bess,’ I asked, ‘what would your advice be?’

  She reflected. ‘You could leave him here and pay me to look after him. The only time I leave him, see, is to go and earn enough for our bread. Isn’t it, Lanky? I goes and whores for you, so you can have your bit of supper.’

  I could not meet Edmund’s eyes. I said, my voice cracking, ‘Miss Bess, you could have raised a great deal of money had you sold that miniature.’

  ‘Wasn’t mine to sell, was it? Nor that great ring my brother took with him.’

  Somehow my stuttered promise of a reward was deeply inadequate.

  None of us, I was sure, could imagine taking Hugo, stinking and rough-dressed as a beggar, or Bess, in her tawdry rags, back to Berkeley Square, no matter how poor Mrs Tilbury’s eyesight. Even Frane, and perhaps especially Frane, would baulk at their presence, no matter how temporary.

  But it was more than time that someone said something. ‘Madam, I promise you that you will never again have to whore to buy your supper,’ I declared flatly. ‘Indeed, you may have to quit this room for a while, but it is only to buy yourself and – er – Lanky – some decent clothes.’ I might have used the word in its general sense, but indeed she showed far more of her flesh than can have been seemly even in this part of the world.

  Her eyes gleamed. ‘And how am I to pay for them? You tell me that.’

  I turned to Willum, who had occupied himself with chasing down vermin and squashing them between two overgrown thumb nails. ‘How much would it cost, Willum?’

  ‘A couple of yellow boys, your honour.’

  Bess protested. ‘Come on! Them parsons’ pal looks full enough of juice, even if they don’t!’

  ‘And a few hogs’ change for you, Reverend,’ he declared inexorably.

  ‘Will you go with her?’ I asked humbly.

  He weighed me up, observing that I had not offered him money, no doubt.

  ‘You may keep two hogs for yourself,’ I said. ‘And Bess may keep the rest.’ If only I knew how much a hog might be.

  The two exchanged glances.

  She acquiesced. ‘Now, you stay here with these gennelmen for a bit, Lanky. They won’t do you no harm. And Bess’ll bring you back a nice glass of porter.’ She pushed him away, chucking him under the chin.

  We took advantage of her absence to strip the rags off him, washing him in the cold
water Jem fetched from a pump in the yard. I would have set to myself to pare his toe– and fingernails, but my knife had unaccountably disappeared from my pocket.

  ‘I fear Frane was right,’ Edmund observed. ‘My spectacles have disappeared too.’

  Jem, with a dry smile, produced a knife from his boot. In the absence of eyeglasses for Edmund, I knelt on the floor and got on with the job. Jem attacked the nits. At last, having done the best we could, we swathed the silent and unprotesting man in my greatcoat while we awaited the return of the others.

  At least in their absence we were freer to talk.

  Hardly to my surprise, Jem took the lead. ‘A cheap but respectable tavern is the answer, I think,’ he said, although the question had not been spoken aloud. ‘I will stay with them until you decide where to take them next.’

  I nodded. ‘You are right. It must be them. See, he is already getting agitated. Presumably she has not left him alone for such a long time before.’

  The moment we had released him, Hugo had pressed his face to the filthy window panes, and was now tearing his hair in an anxiety so great it was almost madness. He slapped away Edmund’s gentle reassuring touch.

  ‘And it cannot be back to Moreton Hall,’ Edmund said. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You fear the effect on her ladyship of seeing him like this?’ I asked.

  ‘She will do whatever is needful, I warrant you. No, I fear the effect on him. Consider the end of his strong and healthy friend, Henry. Hugo would be as vulnerable as a baby. I will stay with Jem, at whatever inn young Willum suggests. You, Toby, will return with all speed to the village.’ He clicked his fingers in irritation. ‘No, not the village. To Leamington. Thence you will make a calm and unhurried journey to your home, and when you have seen Maria and Mrs Trent, then you will pay your respects to her ladyship. She must make no sign whatsoever that she has received this news. Instead, she will decide to make a trip to one of her other estates – a distant one. And she will tell no one, no one at all, why she is going. I would rather they did not even know where, but I can see that secrecy might in itself arouse suspicion.’