by Issy Brooke
She bid the last of the guests a goodnight. As the late night dancing had been cancelled, there was no need for a grand ball supper to take place after midnight, and by one in the morning, she was at last able to retire. When she slid into their suite, she found Theodore standing by the window, the curtains open, clutching a very large tumbler of spirits. His jacket was cast untidily on the back of a chair and his cummerbund was in disarray. He stared out into the night. He heard her come into the room but he didn’t turn to face her. He just started speaking. Smith came out of her side room to assist Adelia with her hair but she was dismissed as soon as Adelia was at a point with her toilette that she could cope with the ties and buttons on her own.
Theodore was telling her about what had happened and he was not pleased at all.
“Mondial’s fled,” he said. “Gone. Disappeared. We were all focused on Taylor and Sir Henry Locksley, and when I looked around, the dashed cad had made a run for it. I said to Anderson, surely this above all else simply confirms the man’s guilt?”
“I agree. I assume that men were sent out to fetch Lord Mondial back?”
“That’s the thing!” Theodore said explosively. “Anderson simply replied that we have nothing to stick to him. All the evidence points nicely to the valet.”
“Does the judge not believe that Lord Mondial was involved at all?”
“He does! I am riled beyond all measure, Adelia. Anderson as good as told me that he thinks Mondial is guilty. He even said to me that ‘knowing the truth and applying justice can be two different things’. Can you believe that?”
“I can. Men of Mondial’s class are often beyond justice.”
“That is utterly reprehensible. Indefensible. Unspeakable. I am ashamed of my fellows.”
“That’s awfully noble of you, dear, but this is the reality. And try to see it this way: the man that pulled the trigger and killed Philippa Lamb has been caught and he will feel the full force of the law upon him.”
“It is a consolation but a scant one,” Theodore said. “I cannot bear the thought of this criminal Marquis walking free – and he is my own son-in-law! I feel sick at the thought. He was the driver behind all of Taylor’s actions. It is on his head that all blame must ultimately lie.”
Adelia agreed. She was in her nightgown by this point and feeling so tired she could have cried. And what of her, and all that she had done that evening to keep things running? And what of Dido?
But Theodore was fully wrapped up in his own misery, and she understood it, and anyway she was far too exhausted to instigate any kind of righteous argument. She poured herself a very large glass of wine and took it to bed.
Twenty-eight
In spite of her late night, Adelia rose early the next day. She’d only slept fitfully at best. Theodore muttered something unintelligible and rolled over, burrowing under the covers. Smith appeared, as if summoned by a servant’s sixth sense, and set about helping Adelia to dress with the absolute minimum of fuss and noise, for which Adelia was very grateful.
“Has anything happened overnight that I ought to know about?” she asked Smith quietly once she was dressed and ready to meet the day.
“No, my lady. One young maid was found asleep in the scullery, under a stone bench, and was shaken so roughly by the cook that she burst into tears and could not be consoled. She was simply overtired. One guest, a certain Mr Hanratty, had far too much to drink, could not find his own room, and consequently tried to sleep at the foot of Lady Montsalle’s own bed, which caused some hilarity. He was carried out by two men and dumped in a corridor. Lady Mondial and Lady Mary slept in the same chamber according to Cobbett but I have not heard if they are yet awake.”
“Thank you. I hope they are still both sleeping.”
“If you don’t mind, my lady, I suspect you’ll find Lady Mondial awake just as early as you. She was always an early riser and she has attended every morning to the children while we have been staying here.”
Of course, thought Adelia; Smith knows everything. She thanked her servant and went off in search of her daughters.
The castle was quiet, but there was activity humming away in the background as the maids and footmen busied about their tasks. Many things had to be completed before the household was up, so that everything appeared to be perfect and clean, as if the hard work had been done by invisible hands – indeed, there was to be no suggestion of work ever having taken place at all.
There was a room on the first floor which had been designated as the family chapel though it was not in any way consecrated for the purpose. Here, she found Dido sitting with her children. The household prayers were not to take place for another hour or so. She smiled at Dido, trying to appear light and normal in front of the two boys.
“You are awfully early; getting a head start before everyone else comes in?” Adelia said, sitting down on a wooden chair.
“Mama says there are to be no prayers today on account of the party,” the eldest boy told her with careful enunciation of his words, trying to sound educated. “She said that people would be generally indisposed which I think means tired, is that right?” He looked at his mother with anxious eyes.
“You’re a good lad,” Dido said vaguely without meeting his gaze. “Both of you are. Why don’t you run back upstairs now? I wish to talk to grandmamma.”
“You’re sad,” said the eldest, standing up with a studied confidence. “But we will take care of you.”
That was the point that someone should have said, “No, that’s your father’s job.” The silence swallowed up the unsaid sentence and the boys left.
“Please don’t talk,” Dido said once they were alone. “Let us just ... be. Just for a moment. Let me pretend that I am a girl once more without a care or worry in her head.”
Adelia took her hand and they sat in mutual contemplation until it was time for breakfast.
DIDO PRESIDED OVER breakfast and this meant the guests were quiet, humble and did not fall into gossiping ways. The servants, though tired, had laid on the very best of spreads, still clearly determined to show the best that Mondial Castle could offer. Footmen scurried from the sideboard to the main table, ferrying mountains of freshly baked French rolls, Vienna rolls, muffins, crumpets, oatcakes and scones. There was the ubiquitous eggs and bacon, the eggs being offered boiled, poached and scrambled. Sausages were piled up, brown all the way around, neatly grilled to show no white line – the tell-tale evidence of an inattentive servant. Baked mushrooms were alongside cold meats such as tongue and ham, and with the bacon and sausages there was also curry of mutton. Endless piles of toast was brought up from the kitchens, and coffee flowed with tea and cocoa too. It was the perfect remedy for a previous night’s overindulgence.
Theodore slipped in and sat near to Adelia who nodded, and she flicked her eyes to the door to alert him that Mary and Cecil were coming in. She saw him visibly relax as he studied his daughter closely.
Harriet Hobson came in late and sat at the far end. The Dowager Countess did not appear at all. After breakfast, Adelia went to Dido’s side and together they bid their guests goodbye as they straggled out of the castle in pairs and groups, a long and drawn out event that took up the whole morning.
It was not until just before luncheon that Adelia was able to sit down in a quiet room with her daughters both at her side. Harriet appeared soon afterwards, saying that she had just seen the Dowager Countess and she was happily terrorising the gardeners. The four women seemed to settle by inches into the chairs, sighing and closing their eyes and taking a few moments to properly relax.
Adelia didn’t want to break the silence. It seemed pointless to say to Dido, “How are you?” when the obvious answer was going to be “Devastated, scared and exhausted.”
The uncomfortable peace was broken by a footman tapping on the door. He brought a note to Adelia.
“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Who would write to me here? It must be from Mr Postlethwaite,” she added, and looked at the envelope
in dismay. She felt reluctant to open it and receive more bad news.
Harriet, ever unashamed in her blatant curiosity, shuffled over and said, “No, that is a woman’s script.”
“Who is it, mamma?” Mary said.
“Mary! Just because you are feeling better, does not mean that you can poke into someone’s private business,” Dido scolded her as if she were the older sister.
While the two daughters bickered, Adelia picked the envelope open and glanced first at the name at the bottom. She twisted to show it to Harriet: Jane Pegsworth.
Harriet’s eyes widened.
Adelia folded the letter back up and shoved it back into the envelope, and then she folded the envelope in half as well. A glance passed between Dido and Mary but neither of them asked anything further; no doubt they’d speculate about it later.
Adelia pursed her lips in annoyance.
As if she didn’t have enough to deal with, but her sister-in-law could be as much of a plague as her brother Alfred was.
THEODORE HADN’T THOUGHT he could face breakfast but somehow, the fact that the room was full and everyone was making low conversation on polite topics actually helped. When everything else seemed to be terrible at least one could fall back on etiquette and social manners to steer one’s way through the madness.
He desperately wanted to speak to Dido but she was engaged in her role as mistress of the house, though it was an uncertain role now, with Lord Mondial gone. He watched her in the great hall, with his wife alongside her, and felt both proud and sad for the pair of them.
And strangely helpless, too. He’d done what he could to bring justice to the place, but he had ended up destroying his daughter’s security and marriage. Yet what choice did he have?
Gloomily he descended the front steps where he encountered Sir Henry Locksley, on his way back inside. The dew stains halfway up his legs and the mud on his shoes told Theodore the younger man had been taking an early morning walk rather than attending breakfast. “Take care,” Sir Henry said. “Everything is quite waterlogged today.”
“Thank you. And thank you for ... everything.”
Sir Henry looked at him in surprise. “Me? I have done nothing but make things worse. What is going to happen now?”
“Taylor will hang; Mondial has fled.”
“No, I mean here. This place. Lady Mondial...”
Theodore looked at the earnest, worried young man. He had broad shoulders and an open expression, reminding Theodore of the old tales of knights dedicated in purity and chastity to the court of King Arthur. He grabbed Sir Henry’s hand in an impulsive gesture. “She will need you now more than ever.”
“But I cannot bear to compromise her, sir!”
“Then do not. I trust that you won’t. But you can be there for her in the coming days and weeks. I beg you.”
“I ...?”
Theodore let the man’s hand drop and he continued on his way.
He wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing in the eyes of society.
But it was the right thing to do as a human being.
HE THOUGHT ONLY OF Dido as he walked the gardens. He returned to the house just after luncheon had been served but she was not in the dining room with everyone else. Adelia nodded at him from the table. He was pleased to see Mary was there, but he refused the invitation to go in and dine. Instead he went upstairs to Dido’s private rooms. He had not spoken to her, yet, of what had happened the previous evening, and though he knew she would have heard the news from others, he wanted to tell her himself.
A chambermaid opened the door and directed him, with barely concealed annoyance, to a private morning room along the corridor. Here he found Dido sitting by the window, wrapped up in a blanket of fine wool, crying gently while her lady’s maid fussed around with tea things and toast, trying to tempt her mistress into eating. She retreated as Theodore entered and he ran to his daughter’s side.
“You should not be alone! Let me call for someone. Would you like your mother? Or grandmamma?”
“Father – I’ve sent them away. I spent all morning with them all and they have been lovely but I needed to think. Sorry, sorry,” she burbled. “I stayed strong in front of them but... now... I am so sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.”
“I don’t mean to cry in front of you.” She tried to dab away her tears. “I didn’t cry before. I didn’t cry last night. I didn’t cry this morning. I must not cry now but I am so very, very tired; forgive me. Leave me alone to be a mess.”
“Nonsense. If you cannot be yourself here with me, who can you be yourself with?”
“I have never, ever cried in front of John, you know. Yet here I am crying for him. He’s gone, hasn’t he? He killed Philippa, or as good as did it. I’ve heard everything and I believe it. It ... fits.”
Theodore grabbed her hands. “Tobias Taylor did the deed itself and will hang for it. As for Mondial...” He choked on the man’s name. “We’ll find him.”
“You won’t. And I don’t want you to. I could not bear to ever see him again. Let him go. He knows his name is in tatters. He will never come back. I expect he will go abroad and end his days in shame somewhere. I hope he has a very long life and suffers from constant fever and plague for every single day of it. Boils, everywhere.”
The fierce threat seemed to lighten the mood in the strangest of ways. Theodore squeezed her hand in reassurance and began to say, “Unfortunately, most plagues kill rather quickly, so...”
And then he stopped.
It wasn’t really what she wanted to hear, was it?
“I hear that in some foreign places, one can get a tick that burrows deep into one’s flesh and lives there for years, causing unspeakable agonies,” he said, instead.
“Oh, good,” Dido replied and she squeezed his hand back. Then she said in a more weary voice, “But what will become of me and the children, now? We are quite alone and friendless. The shame will cling to us.”
“I will see to it that your finances are managed fairly and I have no doubt that Judge Anderson will be an advocate for your case. As for shame – yes, there will be gossip, and you can use it as a way of weeding out the most unworthy people from your circle. Those that remain at your side will be your truest friends. And you do have them. I have just seen Sir Henry, you know. Locksley is the most steadfast man you can ask for.”
She sighed. “Oh, Sir Henry. He is a saint. But I am married and will always be so, even it is to an absent cad.”
“Sir Henry knows that. But he has eyes only for you and a more devoted – and chaste – ally you will never find. It could be enough. Trust him as a friend, at least.”
She hung her head, and he hugged her tightly, and that was how Adelia found them, about ten minutes later.
Twenty-nine
“Isn’t it interesting how at night, it’s the blue and white flowers that come to the centre of one’s attention?” Adelia said that evening as they walked in the upper grounds of Mondial Castle. There was a full moon hanging low in the sky, and light grey clouds were riding high in the sky, all small and wispy and looking perfectly fluffy. The ground was still sodden from the rain but the upper garden was well-laid out with paths of gravel which glowed pale in the moonlight. An owl hooted. A spray of lobelia seemed to be brighter than they had ever been during the day.
“That’s due to the reflection of the moonlight,” Theodore said. “You’ll also find they are more aromatic to attract their preferred pollinators.”
“I see.” She didn’t really need the explanation but it was nice to talk of something innocuous for a change.
The whole day had been a blur of activity for her. Things weren’t over once the guests had departed. She had trusted the housekeeper to the supervision of the mammoth task of clearing up, and no doubt an awful lot of food and drink would have been pilfered by the servants but that was hardly the current priority.
Now, after a long day, they were walking in the peaceful moonlight a
nd wondering about their own imminent departure from the castle.
“Where did you go this afternoon?” Adelia asked after a while. “I confess I was so busy I did not notice until someone said you had ridden into town.”
“I went to call upon Doctor Hardy,” he replied.
It was strange that he didn’t add anything to the sentence.
“Had he already gone?”
“Yes,” he said curtly. There was a thickness in his voice. She turned to look at him but he had angled his head away so that she could not see his face.
So Doctor Hardy was dead, then.
The strain of events on his already weakened heart must have been too much. She wanted to shower empty platitudes on her poor grieving husband: At least you got to see him at last; at least you’ve brought some kind of justice for his granddaughter. But she held her tongue.
He broke the silence. Speaking in a more normal voice, his jollity forced, he said, “When I got back there was a letter from Mr Postlethwaite.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, and it’s good news. Heaven knows, we’re due something good. He has managed the lawsuit business most efficiently. It has been resolved.”
“Oh, good. He is a marvel.”
“He is.”
“I have more news. While in town, I called in at the Judge’s Lodgings, though I was not able to persuade him to reconsider the matter of – the other matter. The trial won’t be very long. The man will hang, of course.”
“And yet ... what of him? What will he do, then?” She meant Lord Mondial but didn’t want to say his name.
Theodore seemed to understand. “I expect he will be booking a passage away from England as we speak.”
“Good.”
“I will try to find out where he goes. He will not have an easy life of it.”