Shadow of the Past Page 9

  I grinned like the schoolboy she treated me as. ‘I’m sure you will and I thank you for it.’

  She patted my hand – it might just as well have been my head. ‘We see alike, Mr Campion. Now, tell Jem to dose himself on that blackcurrant wine, regular as clockwork, and pray send my very best compliments to Mrs Trent on that fine cake…’

  My late arrival at the Hall went unremarked since the Hansards were even later, if only by a minute. While not exactly saying that I had accompanied Hansard to his patient’s sickbed, I let it be assumed that that was the case. Edmund and Maria rose handsomely to the occasion, as if they guessed that I had been doing something I would rather not disclose. As always in dress they were truly the gentleman and lady: his evening wear was at least the equal of Sir Marcus’s, and she looked rather better than Lady Bramhall, possibly because she held herself like a queen.

  We were received, as before, in the bitter damp cold of the entrance hall, and for what was to be no more than a family gathering, too. However, the moment our outer garments were respectfully borne away, Lady Chase descended the stairs and in person requested the pleasure of all the company in her salon. Sir Marcus was inclined to bluster, but she quelled him with the merest lift of her eyebrow and within moments we were ensconced in the warm and gracious room.

  To the surprise, no doubt, of her family, but not of her three guests, she had provided her best champagne, occasioning an ill-stifled exclamation at the expense from Sir Marcus. The girls were provided with ratafia. If we conspirators minutely lifted our glasses in a secret toast, no one remarked on it – except for Lady Dorothea, tonight in the most vivid pink, the button holes picked out in gold, who appeared to assume that I was honouring her. With hardly a blush, she curtsied deeply, and then raised her glass quite particularly to me. Perhaps rumours of my family’s rank had at last reached her brother, and he now wished her, in the common phrase, to set her cap at me. How should I respond?

  Would I – should I—? I knew not what I should do, other than maintain the dignity of ordinary polite behaviour. That was how I had always behaved here at the Hall – and, I hoped, elsewhere. But until I had had a period of quiet – and prayerful – reflection, I resolved to avoid what papists call, I believe, the occasion for sin.

  So I moved into the neighbourhood of her nieces, determined to extract as subtly as I might the details of their treatment of Miss Southey. Would they be prone once more to unseemly giggles? Or would what they had witnessed have brought them to sobriety?

  ‘I trust you are none the worse for the distressing events of Monday?’ I asked, in the low voice I reserve for invalids.

  Lady Honoria responded with a simper. ‘Indeed, sir, we have hardly had a wink of sleep since.’ She added a great deal more, as if she were an ailing Bath dowager, not a strapping schoolroom miss.

  Since both young ladies looked in the rudest of health, I suspected that this was a mere conversational gambit designed to elicit a compliment it gave me no pleasure to offer. ‘Permit me to say, however, Lady Honoria and Miss Georgiana, that whatever you suffer within, without you are in the best of looks.’

  Both bowed, concealing their faces behind matching fans – chicken skin, far too extravagant for girls not yet out.

  ‘I was sorry not see Miss Southey before she departed,’ I continued. ‘Was it the shock of what she found that impelled her to quit the place?’

  One shot a look at the other. ‘It was found – she did not suit,’ Georgiana managed.

  ‘For what reason?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice light. The last impression I wished to give was that I might be interrogating them.

  Miss Georgiana gave a minute shrug of her silk-clad shoulder. My mother would have sent her back upstairs to change into sprig muslin, far more suitable for a girl her age. ‘She did not suit,’ she repeated. Her voice was as cold as her father could have wished.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that. But I trust that her absence will not mean that your accomplishments will lapse?’

  ‘We are to have a London dancing-master,’ the elder sister informed me languidly. ‘And an art-master from Leamington.’

  I bowed. They were to construe that I was satisfied, even impressed, by the likelihood of their future attainments. ‘I trust you will not let your more scholarly accomplishments lapse.’

  ‘Pooh, as to French and the globes and such, we are no longer in the nursery, Mr Campion. We are to come out in the spring, provided that Aunt Chase will—’

  Her younger sister cut in swiftly, ‘Family circumstances being appropriate, Mr Campion. Now, if you will excuse us, I believe our mother requires our presence.’

  I could conceive of nothing less likely, but rose and bowed them on their way. So the Bramhalls were hoping that Lady Chase would fund the extremely expensive business of a society launch. It was hardly surprising. What was surprising, however, was that both daughters were to be brought out at the same time, when the custom was for the elder to shine and catch her husband before the younger was allowed out of the schoolroom for anything more than informal dances. I wondered what Lady Chase would make of the idea when it was broached.

  In the absence of the girls, I found a more pleasant situation beside Mrs Hansard, who, despite all her accomplishments and indeed her personal friendship with Lady Chase, was being patronised by our insufferable host. He surrendered her swiftly to me, and disappeared from the room.

  She said quietly, ‘May I suggest that you gentlemen agree to linger over your port this evening? It may well be that I might winkle out more of a girl’s secrets than a young gentleman like yourself.’ She patted my hand in a most uncharacteristic way with her folded fan, as if she had aged twenty years into an old lady like Mrs Powell and was treating me as an honorary son. ‘But tell me, Tobias, how does our friend Jem?’ she asked, almost under her breath. Clearly one did not speak warmly of the lower orders under the long faces of the Lely portraits of Lord Chase’s ancestors.

  I responded in kind. ‘He compares his nose unfavourably with a pump. He keeps to his room, apart from sorties into my study for reading matter, and looks forward to your curry soup. I have hopes that he will be ready to return to the world by Friday.’

  ‘Excellent. Ah, our hostess – our aspiring hostess, I should say – is preparing to gather us up for supper. Now, what will be the order of precedence, I wonder?’

  ‘Order of precedence? For a family dinner?’

  ‘You mark my words,’ she said darkly, turning with a simper to Lady Bramhall.

  Naturally, Sir Marcus led in Lady Chase. Then I was asked to give my arm to Mrs Hansard, whose husband led in Lady Bramhall. On any other occasion I would have been delighted by the arrangement, but on this occasion I feared it would limit my ability to interrogate the family subtly.

  Even though we were dining en famille, the table had not been much reduced and the hideous epergne squatted determinedly in the centre of the table. As often before, I wondered why Lady Chase tolerated such intrusions into her routine. Did she not care? She had the authority to do anything in her late husband’s home until the law decreed that her son was dead and that Sir Marcus was indeed the new Lord Chase. Or was she saving her powder for a more significant engagement? If that was the case, when might the next skirmish be?

  A glance along the table told me that Dr Hansard was deeply involved in conversation with Lady Bramhall, who was for once waxing quite loquacious. For all her faults I had not considered her a lady who indulged in imagined ill health, but from his expression of deep concern I could not imagine that she was doing anything but listing symptoms. With a blush I realised how little I knew about either of the Bramhall ladies.

  My lapse in manners drove poor Mrs Hansard to seek conversation on her other side, a fact for which apology was certainly due – until I realised I might have afforded her precisely the opportunity she sought to speak with Lady Honoria. Without wishing to appear ill-bred enough to try to eavesdrop, I wished I could have heard the conversation
, which was no doubt to elicit information that the young lady did not realise she was revealing. I prepared to concentrate on what was on my plate and in my glass. The former was excellent, as you would expect from Lady Chase’s French cook; the latter, despite the care with which Lord Chase had laid down his cellar, was thin and sour. I suspected Sir Marcus’s hand. I left it undrunk.

  It became apparent that Lady Dorothea, seated the far side of the table, was preparing to flout convention, and even the epergne, to converse with me. My heart bubbling uneasily within my breast, I responded. I tried to persuade myself that had she been present the afternoon of Miss Southey’s immersion in the stream, she would indeed have tried to comfort her. Soon I was listening to the latest musical news from London, and we had undertaken to attempt a new duet together.

  Despite my desire to return to the drawing room and the piano as soon as possible, as the covers were removed, I recalled Mrs Hansard’s advice that I must dawdle over the port. Since Hansard helped himself to a regular bumper, I assumed he was acting under similar instructions. My suspicions were soon confirmed. When Sir Marcus stepped from the table to relieve himself, the moment he was behind the screen, Edmund was on his feet too, emptying the greatest portion of his port into a convenient hothouse plant. A jerk of his head told me to follow suit.

  I know not whether the wine benefited the health of the gaudy specimen. But at least we both kept clear heads, and encouraged our host to dip deep.

  ‘Come, Bramhall,’ Edmund urged at last, his speech a little slurred, as if he were half-sprung, ‘tell me, man to man, what passed between you and that little governess of yours. I can’t believe that either of your lads gave her a slip on the shoulder,’ he added with a leer, implying that they would not have succeeded while an attractive older man might.

  ‘That bracket-faced female,’ he sneered.

  ‘No need to look at the fireplace when you poke the fire,’ Edmund cackled.

  ‘Never had an eye for an ape-leader,’ Bramhall declared conclusively.

  ‘So you’ll be looking for a prime article to replace her?’ I suggested.

  ‘No. Girls too old for a governess, they tell me. Two daughters. Glad to have them off my hands. Not in the basket, you understand, but not too flush in the pocket.’

  ‘Good job her ladyship’s full of juice,’ I suggested. ‘Keeps the duns at bay, at least.’

  ‘Don’t like living on the expectation. Don’t like swimming in the River Tick.’

  ‘So will you pursue a law case to have her son declared officially dead?’

  ‘Why bother? Living here like lords, eating the fat of the land – any that’s left, when her ladyship’s fed the five thousand. And I blame you for that, Campion – all these charitable works of yours.’

  I did not need Edmund’s kick on my shin to keep my tongue in check. ‘So you’re just biding your time?’

  ‘After seven years – declared dead. Why bother feeding those gull-gropers of lawyers? Just stay here. Sit it out.’

  ‘Her ladyship will no doubt sponsor your daughters when they come out?’

  ‘Swimming in lard – why wouldn’t she? Both of them, with luck. Use her London House. Grosvenor Square, good enough for me.’

  ‘But you have your own establishment in town?’

  ‘Indeed.’ He set his glass down on the table with a sharp rap. Drunk or not, he would not admit its location.

  I made great show of leaving the table and then changing my mind. ‘Damn near forgot. Friend of mine wants a governess for his girls. Wife says she’s got to be fubsy-faced. Suppose your Miss Whatshername wouldn’t want the post?’

  He spread his arms widely, to the imminent danger of the decanter. ‘How would I know? Upped and offed. Just like that. No idea where she’s gone.’

  ‘You did not dismiss her?’

  ‘Wife did. Well, girls did. Gave her a month’s notice. Got to do the right thing. Next I knew, she’d gone. No more idea than the man in the moon where she’s taken herself. Honest truth. Honest truth. Where are you off to?’

  Hansard had also risen to his feet.

  ‘You said we were to join the ladies,’ he lied. ‘Been making indentures, Bramhall, all of us. Mustn’t dip too deep or they won’t like it, you know.’

  ‘Me? Bosky? Never!’ He lurched to his feet. The expression on his face changed with almost comical speed, and he covered his mouth with his hand. ‘Damn me, if I’m not going to shoot the cat.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I was surprised that even the considerable amount Bramhall had sunk had caused him to cast up his accounts, and to my shame wondered if Edmund might have slipped something into his glass to bring the interminable repast to a close. He, however, seemed as surprised as I by the sudden attack of vomiting, if rather less alarmed.

  Bramhall himself dismissed any suggestion that he should retire to his chamber to recuperate, saying he would be well in two shakes of a bee’s ankle. ‘If I went to bed every time I spewed I’d be a poor fellow indeed – nor do I want physicking, thank you all the same, Hansard.’

  ‘You are often indisposed like this?’ Hansard asked quietly, taking the man’s pulse, and insisting on looking at his tongue.

  ‘Good wine, rich food,’ Bramhall replied, waving a dismissive hand. ‘A sip of brandy and I shall be as right as ninepence.’

  It seemed he was. Having straightened his neck cloth and mopped his sweating forehead, he seemed improved rather than chastened by the bout of illness. His language became more suited to the drawing room than the stable, and we were soon able to join the ladies with a smile that must at least appear sincere. In the drawing room a sensible conversation about Miss Southey – not to mention about the man in the stream – was not possible, of course. It was as if death and disappearance had been written on a schoolroom slate, and wiped completely clean, lest the very notion disgust.

  Accordingly, while nothings were quietly murmured in the rest of the room, Lady Dorothea, dazzling in that extraordinary gown, sang to my accompaniment, and appeared willing to sit apart from the others when the card table was suggested. Hansard, I knew, was so averse to gambling – or so addicted to it – that he would not expose himself to even the mild temptations of a domestic game of whist. As if eager for the privilege, I offered myself in his place, partnering Lady Bramhall. To my amazement, she was a very shrewd player, as acute as Mrs Hansard. Apparently now quite sober, Sir Marcus played with great verve. Much as I would have wished to pursue certain avenues of conversation, I was obliged to concentrate on the cards themselves. At last we lost, but not disgracefully.

  The tea tray brought a further general exchange of trivia, and I for one was heartily relieved when we could at last say our farewells. We drove in tandem down the drive, Hansard’s groom George attending to the gates himself to save disturbing Mrs Powell. As he closed them behind us he slipped round to my gig. ‘The doctor’s compliments, Mr Campion, and would you be kind enough to follow him and Mrs Hansard to Langley Park? I understand your bed chamber is ready for you there, sir.’

  I saw no reason why I should accompany my good friends, but would never willingly offend them, so I acquiesced. We arrived to find a good fire still cheering the drawing room, and Burns at hand with the decanters.

  As soon as he had dismissed him, Hansard rubbed his hands together less with the cold than with satisfaction, I fancied. ‘What a very useful and interesting evening, was it not? Including our soi-disant host’s sudden bout of nausea, of course.’

  ‘Useful? Interesting? You joke me.’ I must, despite myself, have imbibed enough to make me forget my manners. ‘In what way?’ I added more humbly.

  ‘We have learnt a very great deal we did not know before,’ Edmund declared. ‘I would never have thought that Lady Bramhall had any power behind the throne, for instance. I had her down as a mere cipher, but Bramhall insists it was she who selected Miss Southey and she who dismissed her.’

  ‘So she will be able to tell us where her family liv
e?’

  He spread her hands. ‘Let Lady Bramhall be asked to recall as simple an item as that and she reverts to her usual dizzy state.’

  ‘But at least she will write to the steward in charge at their London house to ask him to find all the papers about the girl? Miss Southey must have come with recommendations – surely from ladies of Lady Bramhall’s acquaintance. She must remember their names,’ I declared.

  ‘Alas, she has regrettably forgotten them too. But no doubt the London steward will have even those.’

  ‘For someone so forgetful, she plays a remarkably cool game of cards,’ Mrs Hansard said quietly, accepting with a smile a small glass of Madeira from her husband, who presented me in turn with his usual excellent brandy.

  ‘Do you really think she knows nothing of what has happened to Miss Southey?’ I asked. ‘Sir Marcus assured us that he did not and I am inclined to believe him.’

  ‘I do not think that she does, either. She seemed to think it a natural part of a governess’s general awkwardness that she should decide not to work out her notice, and claims to have been surprised when she did not present herself in the drawing room as usual that evening. As for Miss Southey’s trunk, she assumes it must now be housed in the attic – it would, she said, be too heavy for Miss Southey to have carried it away with her. But she did wonder that the poor young woman could possibly have left anything behind that she had always regarded as precious. Apparently soon after her arrival Lady Honoria and Miss Georgiana had decided that it would be amusing to ransack the trunk for garments for a schoolroom play and she fell into the strongest hysterics.’