Instruments of Darkness

7

Patience was waiting for them in one of the upper private rooms which the Bear and Crown provided for travelers who needed a bed, or for those who wished to take refreshment in privacy for reasons of their own nicety, or protection. She stood when Crowther and Harriet entered and bobbed a curtsy to them. Harriet wondered if she would be able to take this woman into her own household. There was a hardness to her looks and manner that made Harriet mistrust her. Caveley, she feared, would be at her mercy. She stepped forward, however, and took the maid’s hand with her usual open manner.

“We meet again, Patience. Thank you for speaking with us.”

Patience smiled a little tightly before retaking her seat. Harriet perched on one of Michaels’s mismatched dining chairs, and Crowther took up a position next to the mantelpiece.

“We wanted to ask you about the events of this Saturday just passed,” Harriet began.

“Yes, ma’am. Michaels said.”

“Do you recall what happened when Mr. Thornleigh and Wicksteed came back from the inquest into the death of the stranger in the woods?”

Patience shrugged. “Nothing much. Mr. Wicksteed dined alone. Lady Thornleigh had been waiting to dine until my master came home. Then when he did, he said he was not hungry and went into his own apartments to drink and play billiards.” Patience smiled a little. “Lady Thornleigh was annoyed.”

Harriet cocked her head to one side. “So Hugh spent the night playing billiards and drinking alone?”

“Mostly, though he has taught me a little,” the maid told her. “Sometimes he teaches me when I serve him.”

“And he taught you some more on Saturday?”

“Yes, ma’am. He said he would make me an expert. We’ve been practicing a little while now.”

Again the slow smile, and it had such a sensual curve to it Harriet was afraid she might blush; she was aware of the catlike eyes scanning her face for a reaction.

Crowther shifted his weight against the wall. Patience blinked and turned her head toward him.

“So you were with Mr. Thornleigh most of that evening?” he asked.

She lifted her chin toward him. “Oh, I had other duties to attend to now and then. Like taking Mr. Wicksteed his tray. I suppose you would like to know what Mr. Wicksteed had with his supper?”

“Would we?”

“Oh yes, I think so. When I took his leavings back to the kitchen he had me fetch back up a bottle of the Aqua Vitae.” She paused to pluck a thread clean of her gray skirt, enjoying the sharpness of their attention. “Though Lord knows what he did with it, because I never saw the bottle in his room again. Madam Dougherty was all spikes in the morning because she could see there was a bottle missing, but Mr. Wicksteed tipped me a shilling not to write it in the book.” She patted her thigh, indicating, Crowther supposed, where her purse lay concealed. “Of course, later Mr. Hugh said he had taken a bottle to old Cartwright, and that sent her quiet again. The old lady miscounted, like enough. Wouldn’t be surprised to know she had her own supply, and has been dipping into that a bit fierce of late.”

Harriet drew in her breath, and leaned forward.

“Patience, think what you have told us. Mr. Hugh was drinking and playing billiards all night; Wicksteed had a bottle in his room which seemed to disappear; Cartwright was poisoned by that liquor. You must tell the squire what you have told us. It could save Mr. Hugh from the noose!”

The girl regarded her with great composure.

“Mr. Hugh must look to himself. I have my own concerns, and have no mind to talk to the squire. I have told you, after all.” Her hand drifted across her belly. “And I have left Thornleigh. I am to go to London. That is why I am here. Michaels’s boy met me on the way down from the Hall.” Her face became a little flushed and her eyes brightened. The word “London” seemed to work on her like a tonic. Crowther looked a little confused.

“You were keen enough to look out for Hugh last night, Patience, when you locked him away from his guns.”

She nodded, and her speaking palm slid back to her thigh and gave it a pat.

“My prospects are much improved today. I am to go into business-my cousin and I have decided to open a little shop. We shall all do quite nicely, I think. But you must let me go now. I am taking a ride to Pulborough to catch the evening stage. George will be wanting to leave by now.”

There was a rattle and shout downstairs. Crowther glanced out of the window to see one of the local farmers’ lads on the front of his cart twisting round and looking up toward them, just as the girl had said. Patience bent down to pick up her cloak, and for the first time Crowther noticed the neat little bundle under the chair.

“Be careful,” he said, watching her gather up the little parcel and annoyed, in spite of himself, at the ease and self-satisfaction in her movements. “From what we hear, Lord Thornleigh’s servants do not always prosper in London.”

She stood and pulled her cloak over her shoulders.

“You mean Shapin?” she asked. “The man that got transported, all those years ago?”

Harriet nodded.

“He was my uncle. He was killed fighting for the rebels in Boston in the end. Mother always said he was a simpleton really, surprised her that he turned thief. She didn’t think he had the wit for it.” She gathered her bundle into her arms, holding it over the slight curve of her belly. “I have wit. But perhaps some day I shall go to America too. They have thrown out all the kings and lords there. You will know where to find me in London by applying to Caleb Jackson’s tea shop in Southwark.”

Crowther stepped forward.

“One more thing, Patience.” He reached into his pocket and brought out the small shard of embroidery they had found on the thorns in the coppice. “Do you recognize this?”

She glanced at it. “I do. Mr. Hugh used to have a waistcoat made of such stuff. Mrs. Mortimer made it up. He handed it over to Mr. Wicksteed in the winter, though. I had to take it in for him. Mr. Hugh is naturally broader in his shoulders.”

She lifted the latch to the door, then turned back on her heel.

“I don’t think Mr. Thornleigh did poison Cartwright, or do for Nurse Bray, but he is probably right when he says that he deserves to hang, you know. Most men do deserve it, I think-don’t you, ma’am?”

She smiled at them again, and without waiting for a reply stepped out of the door and away, leaving Harriet and Crowther staring after her.

“Good God,” Harriet said after a few moments. They heard a laugh outside and then the cart crunch forward on the road. Patience was away. Harriet imagined her holding onto its rocking sides with her smug smile and wide eyes, for all the world looking as if she had just finished licking cream from her lips. Crowther examined his fingertips.

“What do you think-perhaps four months gone?” Harriet nodded. “Hugh’s child.”

“So it seems he believes. I think it not unlikely.” A thought seemed to strike Crowther. “Are you shocked?”

Harriet considered. “Perhaps I am. How upsetting to find oneself a prude.”

Crowther looked at her. “I think it is not your prudery, but the fact you do not like the girl that leads you to be shocked. Come. Let us return to Caveley. Your sister will think us lost forever, and we must decide if we have enough to scare the squire back into Hugh’s camp.”

“I am not sure we will, until Wicksteed’s motive and the manner of his hold over Hugh are made clearer. And Patience was right, we still have to struggle with Hugh’s conviction that he should hang for some reason. Until we can get under that, we have nothing.”

Rachel had indeed been long anxious for their return. She greeted them rather white-faced, and before the room to the salon door had closed behind them she had put a letter into Harriet’s hands.

“I have had one. They arrived just after you left. I am sure just such another waits you at home, Crowther.”

She looked in danger of tears, so Crowther took her elbow and guided her to a seat. Harriet meantime had opened the letter and was reading it. High spots of color appeared in her cheeks. She looked up at her sister.

“Were there any others?”

“Mrs. Heathcote received one, and brought it straight to me as I was reading my own. Said she thought we should burn them, and that she would follow us to the ends of the earth.” Rachel smiled faintly. “I have never seen her so indignant.”

“Good.”

Harriet put the sheet in Crowther’s hand. It was neatly written, grammatically faultless, twenty lines of pure hate. Harriet was an adulteress, a witch; he an evil heathen who cut souls from men’s bodies and ate their flesh. They should leave the area before the populus knew what the letter-writer did and their homes were burned out from under them. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, it ended. Crowther was not surprised to find there was no signature.

“I agree with Mrs. Heathcote,” he said, throwing the sheet onto the side table. Rachel eyed it nervously as if it still had the power to leap up of its own accord and bite her. “They should be burned. Do you recognize the writing?”

Harriet sat down and dropped her gloves on top of the letter with studied carelessness.

“Yes. I think it is that of Thornleigh’s housekeeper. The squire has probably been talking to her, or Wicksteed. She needs very little encouragement to be vicious at the best of times, from what I know of her.” She paused and folded her hands on her lap. “Well, I am glad we have got them.”

“Oh, Harry!”

“No, Rachel, I am. I feel we have been floundering around, discovering any number of unpleasant things, but getting no nearer to the truth. This. .” she looked down at the letter, “seems to show that we are hitting home.”

But Rachel would not be comforted.

“Does it? Or does it mean that the people here are beginning to find us a rather troublesome bunch of neighbors?”

Harriet looked slightly uncomfortable.

“Michaels is with us. Most of the village follow his lead.”

Rachel sighed and stood, walking over to the fireplace and staring down into the empty grate.

“And most of the local gentry follow the squire.” She turned to look at her sister again. “We would have done, Harry, a week ago. If he suggested ill of someone, we would have been guided by it.”

Harriet had no answer to that. Rachel abandoned the fireplace and went to look out of the window where the last light of the summer day struggled to give her a view. “I just hope Mr. Clode has made it to London. If we have put those children out of reach of whatever chases them, I am happy to take the black looks of my neighbors.”

Crowther cleared his throat, then said, “I believe your sister is right, Miss Trench. We are getting close-and as for the letters and our neighbors, I’m afraid the only way out is through the middle of it. We must frighten the truth out of the Hall, find out why the lord is marked with seven wounds, and who should really be held to account for the deaths amongst us.”