Shadow of the Past Read online

  I said nothing, having experienced bullying at Eton – from Toone, no less, though he at least seemed to have forgotten all about it.

  ‘You have not seen boys in the herd, my dear,’ Edmund observed cryptically. ‘But I should certainly question the young ladies—’

  ‘Separately,’ Mrs Hansard declared.

  ‘Very well. And possibly with you, my dear, or Edmund in attendance. I was permitted to do no more than take their pulses and check for feverish symptoms this morning. Their mama fears for their lives after yesterday’s events,’ he explained, in a simpering voice. ‘I tell you roundly, however, that they were a good deal less afflicted than poor Jem. In fact, they were in the very bloom of health. Had I been prepared to dispense with my fee, I should have told them as much. As it was, I shall bill them steeply for my fine words.’

  With other patients needing his attention, Dr Hansard soon declared that he must quit the table. Though his wife was prepared to walk home – even stating that she preferred to do so – he cut short all arguments by declaring, in the most forceful tones, that he insisted on conveying her. She might say her farewells to Mrs Trent while he cast one more eye on poor Jem, and then they would depart.

  Both embarrassed by his vehemence, neither of us spoke aloud our suspicion – that he might be afraid for her safety.

  ‘It is always better to overreact in a case like this than to underreact,’ Hansard declared a few minutes later, as he handed Mrs Hansard into the gig. ‘But now I conjecture that tomorrow poor Jem will find there are not enough handkerchiefs in the world to tackle his streaming nose. Yes, a humble cold is what ails him. You will have the devil of a job to make him keep to his room, Tobias.’

  ‘I have the very thing,’ I said, smiling.

  And I had.

  In the midst of the previous day’s activities, I had forgotten to remove the fragments of paper from my pocket. Now I took them to Jem’s room, where, already weary of all the fuss he had attracted, he was preparing to don his breeches. I stemmed his rebellion by asking humbly for his help. With a sigh, he shrugged on his dressing gown and slippers.

  Together we carefully separated the damp pieces of paper, and set them to dry on the hearth on a cloth I had begged from Mrs Trent. Then I fetched a card table and we tried to piece them together, but it was a fiddly business, like the jigsaw puzzles that afflicted my youth. And now, Jem’s cold – for such indeed it was – had started to break in good earnest, and his sneezes threatened to blow them all into the fire. It was with little reluctance that I bade him a fond farewell and stepped over to the church, where I implored the Almighty to have mercy on all that suffered. At least, knowing I could leave all in His divine hands, I set out once again to show the Hansards what little Jem and I had found.

  ‘All I can report is failure, Edmund,’ I confessed, tipping the newspaper fragments on to his desk. ‘We have toiled over these fragments of paper almost all the afternoon, until poor Jem’s head began to split and my patience wore thin. Alas, the top of the newspaper has been torn off. All we have is half a sheet of advertisements.’ I picked up a couple of pieces and tossed them down again.

  ‘Advertisements for what?’ He was as alert as if he hadn’t done a hard day’s work.

  ‘The usual: haberdashers, horses, hats.’

  ‘Look more closely, man. And turn each fragment over carefully as you read it. If only the light were better!’ He summoned a servant and asked for more working candles. ‘If there is anything to find, Tobias, I resolve to find it before we sup.’

  In the event, I am pleased to report that it was I who made the find. One of the advertisements was for a missing person. Dark hair…tall…military bearing…Such a description would fit Hugo, Viscount Wombourn. It might be that the man who had died in the woods had news of the missing heir. If only we could find the rest of it. But we searched in vain.

  Although we had handled no more than paper, Dr Hansard insisted once more on the hand-scrubbing routine before we retired to change for dinner. Our toilet at last completed, we sat down to an excellent meal. Dr Hansard having spent much time in India, he was inclined to ask for dishes that were strange to an English palate. Tonight’s was a curry soup. This was followed by a raised pie, and a selection of vegetables from her ladyship’s succession houses. Then came a ragout of chicken and a pig’s cheek. Neither of us men had a taste for sweet things, a whim Mrs Hansard always reflected in her choice of dishes.

  As long as Burns and Kate, their maidservant, were in the room, we kept our talk general, but once they had left the Stilton for us, we could discuss what to do next. Mrs Hansard never withdrew when there were just the three of us, Hansard always indulging her with champagne while we drank port.

  ‘How do we break the news to her ladyship?’ I asked bluntly.

  Mrs Hansard regarded us over the brim of her glass with amused eyes. ‘In private?’

  ‘Indeed, the further from the pricked ears of Sir Marcus as possible,’ I agreed with a laugh. More seriously I added, ‘I am happy to speak to her – but should not you, Edmund, as her medical adviser be present?’

  ‘If the two of us approach together, she may draw the wrong conclusion altogether. We have more news for her, but not bad news. Merely the information that someone was making his way to the Court with an advertisement for her son in his shoe.’

  ‘Will she not make the obvious deduction? That someone knows the whereabouts of her son? That he is alive?’

  ‘Did they never teach you logic at that university of yours?’ Thus Dr Hansard, an Oxford man, dismissed Cambridge. ‘You make the same mistake as her ladyship. That may be the obvious deduction, but it is not a deduction at all. All we can deduce is that someone was sufficiently motivated by the advertisement to wend his way hither. With no masthead to the paper we do not even know whence he came!’

  ‘As her steward, Furnival will surely know where – and moreover when – the advertisements were placed.’

  ‘True. Now, my enquiries about the village have failed to produce anyone who admits to having seen the poor man about the neighbourhood. Tomorrow, before we tell her ladyship about the newspaper or interview the young ladies, I suggest we cast our eyes once around the stream in which you found the poor man and see…if he dropped anything.’

  ‘You mean, whether the foxes and other marauding animals that were tearing his flesh dropped anything,’ Mrs Hansard suggested unflinchingly.

  ‘Exactly so. But we will not tell her ladyship that. I hope that Toone will be here about noon. His sharp eyes may observe things that I have failed to notice.’

  ‘So may I suggest a council of war here at one? You gentlemen need your food and I need to hear the latest information. Then you may call on her ladyship.’

  Hansard smiled tenderly at his wife, and reached across the table to take her hand. ‘Take my advice, Tobias – find yourself a woman as good as mine.’

  His tone of voice, his smile, showed how much he appreciated her. She could never have been pretty, but age had added a beauty that no little miss would ever achieve. Age, and her love for my dear friend.

  Though they would have denied it, it was clear that a third person would be de trop in their parlour this evening. I must make my excuses and leave them alone, with, lest I embarrass them, an unshakeable excuse.

  ‘I doubt if I could, Edmund,’ I laughed, knowing that when he laughed he secretly agreed with me. ‘But now I must take my leave. While you hold the health of the village in your hands, I must care for a very important patient – our good friend Jem.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  As soon as the light was good enough, we met the following morning in the meadow, through which a now quiet stream coursed unchallenged, slipping gently under the unencumbered bridge.

  Dr Hansard greeted me with an upraised eyebrow. ‘No Jem?’

  I shook my head. ‘I refused point-blank to let him come.’

  ‘He is no better, then?’ His voice was serious.

  ‘
His throat and chest no longer trouble him, but he is still feverish – and your predictions about handkerchiefs have been fulfilled. His nose veritably glows, poor man. He will be able to read in bed without a candle.’

  Edmund smiled reassuringly. ‘That means he is on the way to recovery. I must ask Maria to send him some of that Indian soup we had at dinner the other night – he’ll be able to taste it and I believe it will clear his head. Now, you know Luke, my gardener.’

  ‘Parson Campion, sir.’ Luke knuckled his forehead. He had brought a wheelbarrow containing a couple of rakes, a shovel and a riddle.

  ‘And this is Joshua, Luke’s nephew.’ A sturdy ten-year-old made his bow. Thereafter, mindful of his company, he was obedient and largely silent.

  At first the implements remained in their barrow. All four of us, walked slowly and solemnly backwards and forwards along the banks of the stream, searching for something – anything – which might be unusual in such a place. Not even the lad’s eagle eyes found anything.

  ‘Very well,’ Dr Hansard said resignedly, ‘we must try harder. A rake, Luke. Lightly, at first, as if you were combing the grass, not fiercely, as if to scarify it.’ He threw the spare rake to me, promising to take over as I tired.

  As we raked an area clear, the lad gathered up and riddled any loose earth and checked thoroughly for anything untoward. We had laboured in vain for the best part of an hour, Edmund bearing a hand as he had promised each time we paused for refreshment. Though the day was chilly, we soon needed to strip to our waistcoats and take long draughts of ale. Luke’s face became more and more set as, no doubt, he thought of the tasks clamouring for his attention in the Hansards’ garden. But at last the lad called out.

  We hurried over. Joshua held in his palm a tiny leather bag, no more than two inches by three. His uncle took it. The drawstring was broken.

  ‘Something gave that a damned good yank, sir,’ Luke said, holding the end.

  ‘Indeed. But let us see what is inside – go on, man, open it.’

  All our heads bent intently over his hands, as he worked at the stiff leather. Either one of us would have seized it from him, but I at least knew I could not match the strength of his fingers and their horny nails.

  ‘’Tis gold! Look, a gentleman’s ring.’ Luke held it in his palm, looking from face to face.

  Hansard took it carefully, holding it with the tips of his fingers at arm’s length, as if it might bite him. He peered at it one way and another. At last, clicking his tongue in irritation, he passed it to me. ‘Your eyes are younger than mine, Tobias. Why, when the Lord makes our eyesight worsen with age, does He not compensate by giving us longer arms?’

  ‘Making them grow in proportion as we get older? We might end up dragging them apelike as we walk.’ I laughed, taking the ring, warm from his hand. ‘Let me see. A gentleman’s signet ring, with a fantastical design both inside and out. But the gold is so worn I can hardly make out the initials myself. Perhaps an S, perhaps a W? We need an eyeglass, Dr Hansard.’

  ‘It’s being old and worn may tell us something in itself,’ he said. ‘My guess is that it is a family ring, an heirloom, if you like.’

  ‘You remember Viscount Wombourn’s broken tooth – would you not remember a ring like this?’ I prompted sharply.

  ‘If he’d worn it regularly. But it’s not the sort of thing you’d wear every day, is it?’ He pressed his fingers to his forehead, as if to help him recall something. He removed them, leaving muddy marks, and shook his head. ‘Her ladyship has to see this, Mr Campion.’

  ‘And she will when we visit her later. We may uncover other information, as may Toone. The fuller the picture we can paint the better.’

  He shook his head doubtfully. ‘I must take some drops to help her to bear all these shocks.’

  ‘Do you not think you should save the drops until she has to deal with the worst blow of all, lest she become inured to them?’

  He looked at me from under his grizzled eyebrows. ‘I sometimes think you would have made a good doctor, Mr Campion.’

  I was about to make a riposte to the effect that he would have made a good parson, but Luke called out again. This time he had found a battered brandy flask.

  Dr Hansard sniffed. ‘Cheap spirits. So the poor man takes one last swig and throws it away. See – it is dented on one face, as if he threw it thus and it landed on a stone. Or someone trod on it,’ he added, screwing his face and stretching his arm to see better. ‘Devil take these wretched eyes of mine.’

  When we walked into Langley Park, there was no sign of Mrs Hansard. Burns, as if by magic, materialised into the hall to relieve us of our coats and hats, and to relay the news that Dr Toone had arrived and was in the cellar. This we understood as a euphemism for looking at the corpse.

  By unspoken consent, not even pausing to make ourselves presentable, we made our way straight to the head of the cellar stairs. Before we could descend, we heard voices, two voices – Toone’s Eton drawl and a light, feminine one. Standing beside Dr Toone in the scullery, her sleeves rolled above her arms, was none other than Mrs Hansard. He was drying his hands, she scrubbing hers. Surely she could not have been attending him as he examined the cadaver. Every feeling was offended. And yet she was wearing a voluminous apron to match his – surely this could not be.

  Even Edmund looked disconcerted.

  Toone turned towards us, his hand, smelling strongly of lavender water, outstretched. Edmund shook it firmly, before it was offered to me. Mrs Hansard, meanwhile, extended her fingertips to her husband, who responded by sniffing them and nodding. Only then did she tip away the bowl of water and tip the bottle of sweet-smelling liquid on to them.

  ‘Shall we go into the parlour, gentlemen?’ she asked, as calmly as if she had just come in from gathering eggs.

  ‘The man did not drown, but suffocated,’ Toone declared.

  ‘And your evidence?’ I demanded. Toone had treated me brutally at Eton and though he had now become an eminent physician, whom Hansard considered his superior, I could never be easy with him. At least Hansard and I were now as neat and sweet-smelling as our visitor, though beside his modish attire our clothes marked us out as country cousins.

  ‘It was my learned colleague who should answer that.’ He made a graceful gesture towards our hostess, and sank his Madeira in one gulp.

  ‘Surely – a lady such as yourself – pray, Mrs Hansard—’

  ‘Dear Tobias, we women are far more accustomed to death in all its forms than you gentlemen. You merely kill the pheasants or rabbits we eat, and, moreover, stand at a distance to do it.’ She mimed using a gun. ‘It is we who skin them and draw them. It is we who deal with their maggots when the meat cellar is not cold enough. So one poor sad corpse holds no terrors for me, nor should it, given Edmund’s interest in the secrets of the dead.’

  Edmund made a valiant effort to smile naturally. ‘And what was it you found, my dear?’

  ‘Earth inhaled deep into his nostrils,’ Toone answered on her behalf, accepting with a careless nod another glass of Madeira. ‘No water in the lungs.’ I did not enquire how he had discovered that. ‘He was dead by the time the water swept him away.’

  ‘Did he simply fall and inhale the mud, or was he held face-down?’ I asked, trying for once not to betray a lack of logic. I did not want to be ridiculed, however kindly, in front of Toone. ‘And if the latter, why did he not struggle?’

  Maria nodded swiftly, as if it were a question that had troubled her for some time.

  For answer Dr Hansard produced the battered flask. ‘I think he drank himself into a stupor and fell asleep. I thought he might simply have died of exposure to the elements, but you think otherwise?’ He asked not his friend but his wife.

  She gave a charming shrug. ‘I merely noticed the mud. You and Dr Toone are the ones to make deductions.’ She shot a mischievous smile at me.

  ‘We found something else as we searched the meadow,’ I said, reaching into my pocket for the leather pou
ch.

  ‘I’ll fetch a magnifying glass,’ Edmund said, suiting the deed to the word.

  Even with the glass, however, we could discern no more than the S and W I had detected earlier.

  ‘W for Wombourn?’ Mrs Hansard suggested.

  ‘That is what we must ask her ladyship.’

  ‘After luncheon,’ she declared. ‘Dr Toone insists he must journey back home immediately. However, I am equally insistent that he will not do so until he has taken refreshment.’ She hooked her hand into his proffered arm. ‘This way, please, Dr Toone.’

  * * *

  We had been correct in our estimation of Lady Chase’s character. Sitting bolt upright, she demanded to know every detail of our discoveries.

  ‘And you believe that this poor soul had come here in response to the advertisement? I wonder why he did not simply present himself to my bank in London.’

  ‘Madam,’ Dr Hansard said gravely, ‘we cannot tell. The poor fellow may have made the journey to break bad news in person. Or it may be simple coincidence. However, you may be able to clarify it a little.’ He dug in his fob pocket and produced the little pouch.

  She gave no sign of recognition.

  ‘Let me show you this, then,’ he said, his tone full of warning. He tipped the ring on to her open palm.

  All colour drained from her face, even from her the lips.

  In a second Dr Hansard had seated himself beside her, smelling salts to hand.

  She waved him away, in a little show of irritation. ‘The ring was my late husband’s. Having some foolish – we then thought – premonition that he would die before Hugo returned from the war, Chase pressed it on to his finger at the moment of departure. Nothing would have separated Hugo from that ring. Unless he was dead,’ she conceded bleakly.