Instruments of Darkness

4

Mrs. Westerman’s home, Caveley Park, was acknowledged to be a well-run, handsome estate, flourishing under the care of its new owners. True, it had none of the pretensions to greatness of its nearest neighbor, Thornleigh Hall, but Commodore Westerman was a talented and, still better, a lucky commander of some seniority, and it showed in the size of the purchase, and the care with which the refitting of the house and investment in the estate had been carried out. His wife had acquired a reputation as a capable manager of his interests, and her arrangements were approved of, and often copied, by others in the area.

Harriet Westerman had not intended to remain ashore when the purchase was first discussed, but a number of circumstances had rendered her presence on the estate both practical and necessary while her husband continued abroad, first in the Channel and since the new year serving his sovereign by cruising the West Indies. She had therefore given up life aboard ship, or at some far-flung naval base, dining sometimes with potentates and kings, sometimes with fishermen and the threadbare officers of the more uncomfortable postings around her country’s growing empire, and taken on instead the more settled life of a country gentlewoman.

The first of these circumstances was the realization that an estate of this size would need more close attention than the irregular and unreliable communications from a ship of His Majesty’s Navy might allow. The second was the birth of her son Stephen, who, though now he seemed to be thriving and strong, had been a weak, sickly sort of baby-reluctant to grow fat in sea air. He had been born afloat on his father’s ship as she labored against unseasonable winds home from a posting in the East Indies. The Westermans had already lost one child in the previous year, and the grief of that little boy’s loss was a small burning place between them. He had been born and died on the far side of the world, and lived long enough only to be named. His little body was laid in the ground of the East India Company’s church in Calcutta. Harriet still sometimes saw that little patch of foreign soil under her feet even as she walked her paths of English lavender. She spoke of that time rarely even with her sister. The Westermans would do all they could to avoid such another grief. The question of the little boy’s remaining on land with some respectable family had been touched upon, but Commodore Westerman put the case forcefully for the advantages of a mother’s care.

The third consideration, and perhaps this last was sufficient in itself, was that Mrs. Westerman’s father, an unambitious West Country clergyman already a widower himself for some years, had failed to recover after a riding accident and died, leaving his younger daughter, Rachel, without protection, poor and, at only fourteen, scarcely capable of making her own way in the world.

Mrs. Westerman came home then with her child and gave up any intention she might once have had of going to sea again. She made herself manager and guardian of the commodore’s lands and offered her sister a permanent home. Mrs. Westerman’s and Miss Trench’s arrival was celebrated in the neighborhood, and Harriet became a valued member of local society as soon as her sense, her sound principles and the value of the commodore’s lands were generally known. She could, perhaps, be a little sharp at times, and a little inclined to enthusiasm, even contradicting her older neighbors if she felt they erred in matters domestic or political, but these missteps were put down to her strange experiences following her husband around the world, and allowances were made. The sister was generally thought of as a good, refining influence in the household, and was encouraged by the matrons of the county to regard herself as such. However, her own disappointments had been the occasion of some sad reflections in the past, and her future was still uncertain.

Miss Rachel Trench had heard the commotion of voices in the hallway and the yap of her sister’s greyhound as she drank her breakfast chocolate, looking out at the view to the woods from the salon, but it was the little suppressed shriek from Dido, their maid, that caused her to stand up and open the door. Mrs. Heathcote glanced at her, then shooed Dido away toward the kitchen. William, their footman, nodded to her also, but set out through the main door before she could speak to him, pulling his hat over his ears as he went. Rachel looked at the housekeeper. She seemed very white, and Rachel felt herself pale in preparation for bad news.

“What’s happening, Mrs. Heathcote? My sister …”

“Mrs. Westerman is quite well, but there’s been a body found in the spinney, Miss Rachel. A man with his throat cut.”

Rachel felt the world shift around her and put out a hand to steady herself against the doorway. In the sudden blank of her mind she heard her brother-in-law’s voice. She had once demanded some useful knowledge from him after his years of travel as they dined one afternoon. He had laughed and said, “If there is an earthquake, my dear sister, stand under the doorframe and wait till it is over.”

Mrs. Heathcote took two small steps toward her, shielding her from the view of the retreating maid.

“Miss, be calm. They say it is a stranger.”

The housekeeper laid one hand under the girl’s elbow. Rachel nodded, and not daring to look the woman in the face, retreated back into the salon.

“Where is the body to go? Do you have something in mind?” Crowther asked.

“I have sent a note to the younger son of Thornleigh Hall-Hugh. I dispatched your man, in fact, while I was waiting for you to dress. If this is Alexander, I imagine they will wish him to be taken to the house. If not, we may receive him at Caveley, my home, and wait for the squire.”

Crowther decided not to offer his thoughts on people who gave orders to other people’s servants, merely remarking, “Mrs. Westerman, you know I have made it my business this year to learn as little as possible about my neighbors.”

She smiled sideways at him. “Other than to observe the types that pass in front of your house, you mean, sir?” He looked at her with a frown as she said almost gaily, “Your habit of watching your neighbors go by like exhibition specimens from your parlor window has been noted.”

Crowther felt a little exposed, but Mrs. Westerman did not wish to tease him. She became serious. “I expect you would like to know more about the Thornleigh family? Very well. Thornleigh is not the richest estate in the county, but it is one of the largest.” She pointed with her crop to the north. “Lord Thornleigh is the earl of Sussex, and the extent of the lands reflect his exalted state. Theirs is the land to the horizon there, and they own some of the farms beyond. The house itself is magnificent, hidden from its neighbors in a great park, and full of treasures ancient and modern. A wonder. I have not been there for some time, though the housekeeper gives tours to the curious, and we are told the last king himself has rested there. I understand they have a pocketknife that belonged to James the First in a drawer ready to be displayed to anyone who asks to see it.” The crop flicked back over her shoulder up the hill they had just climbed. “They own all the land to the west of the village, of course. It is a fine estate, though I suspect it to be run these days in a cheeseparing sort of way.”

“Lord Thornleigh is still in residence?”

“Yes, as is his second wife. But he is very ill. He had a seizure of some sort shortly after we arrived at Caveley and has not spoken since. He is very rarely seen and never mentioned. I believe he is cared for by his own staff in the upper part of the building. There are three sons. Alexander-the eldest, and missing heir to the title-and Hugh, whom you will soon meet, are sons of Lord Thornleigh’s first wife. His second wife also has a little boy, Eustache.”

“I have seen her with him driving past my house.”

“Yes.” Harriet paused, as if unsure what further to say. “Hugh served with the army in the Americas, and was wounded. He returned almost four years ago when his father was taken ill.”

Crowther thought of a gentleman he had noticed in the village; he had been searching for the book that had been his company over dinner one evening and from the front parlor, where he found it, he had seen this gentleman meeting friends outside the Coaching House, some little way along the street from his own front door. Or rather, he had heard a loud greeting and turned to see who it was who had reason to be so demonstrably pleased with themselves. He had seen a young and solid-looking gentleman in profile and Crowther had recognized in himself the typical mix of envy and contempt men of his age commonly feel for the young, and was meditating on the emotion in the gloom of his empty house, when the young man turned to greet another-and Crowther saw that the right side of his face from the middle of the cheek to the hairline was badly scarred, and one eye milky and dead. Even in the darkness of the evening the skin looked freshly torn. It was as if some devil had so envied the young man’s looks, he had forced a partial trade.

“A musket misfired,” he said, almost to himself, then catching Harriet’s look of surprise: “I have observed him from my front window,” this with a wry smile, “and the injury is distinctive.”

Almost at once Crowther heard steps coming up the path from Thornleigh. The gentleman himself was approaching fast.

He should, given his features and form, have been handsome, but the wound was violent, his expression was ugly, and his dress a little slovenly. As the distance between them shortened, Crowther took the chance to study him as he would a subject on a table: broken veins around the nose, a high color and darkly rimmed eyes. A drinker. Liver disease in all likelihood already advanced. Crowther would not be surprised to smell wine on his breath even this early in the day. It still surprised him how many great houses could turn out sons who failed, in his opinion, to be gentlemen.

The man began to speak in a hoarse baritone before he had quite reached them.

“Mrs. Westerman, do you know how many times in the years since I came home I have been asked to look at corpses of men likely to be my brother? Four. Two itinerants who decided to die in Pulborough without leaving any convincing address, one unfortunate drowned under Stopham Bridge and dragged up a month later when his own mother wouldn’t know him and one corpse in Ashwell who turned out to be dark haired and a foot shorter than Alexander was when he left home. And now you, ma’am, are scouring the countryside to find me others.”

Crowther glanced across at his companion. For the first time that morning she looked a little shocked, and he thought he saw a tremble in her hand. He stepped forward and bowed-low enough to suggest sarcasm.

“Well, at least, sir, this gentleman had the consideration to be murdered relatively close to your home. So the inconvenience is kept to a minimum.”

The young man started and turned to face him, Crowther realized he had been standing where Mr. Thornleigh’s damaged vision might have missed him, and wondered if he would have spoken in such a manner to a lady if he had not thought she was alone. He looked strong, powerful still in spite of the drink. Riding probably, though youthful bulk was already beginning to turn to fat. Crowther imagined what his muscular forearm would look like with its skin removed. The younger man cleared his throat, and had the decency at least to look a little embarrassed.

“You are our natural philosopher, Mr. Crowther, are you not?”

“I am.”

“I am Hugh Thornleigh.” He bowed and shook his head, and seemed to deflate a little. “My apologies, Mrs. Westerman. I spoke very ill-naturedly. Thank you for your note, and I hope the shock of finding this unfortunate has not been too great.” He paused again, and cleared his throat. “I hope your family is well.”

Crowther could almost like him now. There was a residual charm under the ill temper, a pleasing deference to Mrs. Westerman. It was as if when he had shaken his head it had dislodged a mask, and he had found his own better self beneath it. He was a bear in a frockcoat. A beast-domesticated. Crowther remembered his own brother.

Mrs. Westerman, though, was still angry. Her voice was cold, and she looked through the young man as she spoke rather than at him.

“We are all well, Mr. Thornleigh. Here is the body.” She flicked aside the cloak again from the body’s face with the tip of her crop. Thornleigh sucked in his breath.

“I had thought perhaps a vagrant. You did say murdered …” He stepped nearer. “Was anything found on him?” Harriet dropped the ring into his outstretched hand then withdrew, pulling on her glove again. Hugh shuddered a little as it hit his palm and caught the sun. Then he looked at them again quickly. “Nothing else?”

“We have not completed rifling through his pockets, I’m afraid,” Crowther said. “May I ask, sir, do you know this man?”

Hugh caught his tone and steadied himself.

“I am sure he is not Alexander, though this man is of his age and coloring. Again my apologies, madam. I do not know how he came by the ring, though. That is indeed Alexander’s. I wear one very much the same.” He extended his left hand, showing them the twin of the ring they had found, shining on his middle finger.

“Can you be sure?” Harriet asked. “I think you once said you have not seen Alexander for many years.”

“I saw him last in ’65, shortly before I joined my regiment. But I am sure. If Alexander ever lay before me, I would know him, however many years had passed. This man means nothing to me. I believe, therefore, it cannot be my brother.” He turned to Crowther. “My brother broke his leg badly as a child in a fall. After, he walked always with a slight limp. Would you be able to tell if this man had had such an injury, were you to examine him more fully? But perhaps I ask too much.”

“The injury would show, and I am happy to examine the body further.”

Hugh nodded shortly. “Well, that may serve as confirmation for the coroner and his men, and you have my thanks. But I am sure in my own mind that this is not Alexander. And thank God for that.”

Mrs. Westerman sighed. “Well, I am glad to hear it. I believe the body is just in Caveley Park lands, so I will have this poor man taken into my house till the squire arrives, and we find out what is to be done-unless you have any objection, Thornleigh.”

Hugh looked at her longer than perhaps he should have done before he spoke, and as he looked, Crowther saw an expression of longing and shame that made him think of a whipped dog, pass over his face. Crowther found himself speculating. The young, battle-scarred neighbor, the husband away at sea … Then he smiled at himself. He was turning romantic.

“Of course, Mrs. Westerman. Can I be of any further assistance?”

“No. The men from the park will be here shortly and we will accompany the body.”

“Very well.” And with no more than a bow to them both, Hugh turned and made his way back down the hill again-as fast, it seemed, as he could manage without running from the place.

“He drinks,” Crowther said, as he watched the blue frockcoat swallowed up again by the woodland. Harriet had leaned against one of the ash trees on the edge of the path.

“Yes, I’m afraid he does. The steward, Wicksteed, runs the place while he keeps company with a bottle.”

“It will kill him in the end-and fast, I think, if he is already at this stage in such relative youth.”

“Good.”

Crowther twisted round to stare at her. An unusual woman certainly, but to say such a thing! He had not realized he could still be shocked by the speeches of a gentleman’s daughter. His manners must have remained more nice than he had thought. Mrs. Westerman continued merely to look at the ground in front of her, tapping her crop. It was only moments before he heard more footsteps and saw Harriet’s groom with another man approaching up the path. She sighed and lifted her eyes.

“My poor peaceful copse. It is as busy as Cheapside this morning.” She straightened and gave the men their orders with calm good sense, then turned back to Crowther. “Come over to the house with me, Mr. Crowther. We shall meet with the squire and then examine this man a little more closely.”

As her servants made ready to carry the body to Caveley, Crowther noticed her gaze at the path down which Hugh had disappeared. Her anger seemed to have dissipated, and her face was filled now only with regret.