by Roz Southey
I tried to sound indifferent. “With singular lack of success, I’m afraid. I spoke to Charnley but he didn’t know what had happened to it. It appears to have been stolen from his shop.”
The sun hid behind a cloud again as we entered the first stretch of woodland following the pale road in the gloom, I began to think I’d been unwise to set out so late. And my early start was catching up with me; I was tired, and it had been a long day. I began to be desperate for sleep.
“Stolen?” Alyson mused. “Then it must be valuable. Perhaps it’s bound in gold!”
“Perhaps there’s a family tree drawn on the flyleaf – valuable evidence in an inheritance dispute.”
Alyson chuckled. “Perhaps there’s a bequest described in verse and set to music.” And he raised his voice – a remarkably pleasant tenor – in a mocking rendition of that popular psalm tune, Old Hundredth, with only a mild distortion of the rhythm.
“And to my aunt I now bequeath
All that I die possess’d and own’d,
On one condition only made
That o’er my death she doth not grieve.”
He had hardly sung the last note when a shot rang out.
13
The system of justice is rudimentary. Villains are rarely caught, and only when they threaten the great and the good. And often not even then.
[A Frenchman’s guide to England, Retif de Vincennes
(Paris; published for the author, 1734)]
My horse started, danced. I hauled back on the reins. Alyson’s highly-strung animal screamed and reared and the reins flew out of Alyson’s hands. He crashed to the ground. I tried to grab the animal as it bolted past but it jerked out of my reach. My own horse almost took fright again.
By the time I had control once more, I knew we were safe. Any robber would already have taken advantage of our confusion to hold us up. I swung my horse round, and glimpsed two men running across a distant field.
They were already too far away to catch. I clambered down from my horse and hurried to Alyson. He lay face down on the rough track, but was stirring as I reached him. I touched his shoulder. His arm shot out in angry rebuff; he pushed himself over on to his back, swearing viciously.
There was a graze along his forehead as if the shot had just caught him; his hands were bloodied and crusted with earth. Mud smeared his smart riding coat. “Get my horse, damn it.”
The animal had bolted two or three hundred yards along the track. I tossed the reins of my own horse over a low-hanging branch and went after it. It was sweating whitely, dancing about with rolling eyes. I muttered soothing nothings. Then I heard unmistakable sounds and glanced back to see Alyson astride my horse, cantering towards me.
He didn’t even slow down. As he cantered past, he called out; “Use my mount,” and spurred on. By the time he came up with his own horse, he was at the full gallop and spooked the animal into another nervous frenzy.
And when I got to it, the damn animal was lame.
There were, I estimated, two or three miles still to go to Long End, and the only option was to walk, and not quickly either, with a lame frightened horse tugging on its reins at almost every step. In lanes where the setting sun penetrated less with every minute, where the fields on either side were shrouded in gloom, every rustle of leaves made me think the attackers were returning to finish me off.
Two attackers. And not simple highway robbers – no one had actually tried to steal anything. So, a deliberate attack. But two men? The apprentice had an accomplice? That suggested the matter was a great deal more complicated than I’d thought.
I passed two cottages deep in the wood and wondered whether to take shelter there. Better to continue, I thought. How could I be certain that neither of my attackers originated from these hovels or were sheltering there themselves? I would have made better progress if I’d turned the horse loose in the first field I came to, but ten to one someone would steal it and Alyson, I suspected, would probably insist I paid him the animal’s full value.
I’d covered less than a mile and was in open country when I saw a horseman cantering towards me. A neat slight figure wearing a large concealing greatcoat, and a tricorne jammed down hard. There was nothing I could do but stand and wait for his approach. Swearing under my breath, I vowed to spend some of my few savings on a pistol.
The chestnut horse reined in beside me. I looked up at Esther Jerdoun.
Under that greatcoat, she was dressed in breeches. A cravat was knotted carelessly around her throat; a waistcoat of embroidered burgundy gaped at her breast showing the gathers of a white shirt beneath. She looked utterly beautiful and I was furious with her. Riding out alone! At night!
“What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Not looking for thanks at any rate,” she said coolly.
I took a breath, unclenched my jaw. “My apologies, madam. I’ve had a very trying day.”
“Was that before or after the attacker shot at you?”
I stared at her, then laughed unwillingly. “Oh – both! And how do you know about the attacker?”
“I chased him off,” she said.
As I gaped at her, she swung down from her horse and began rummaging in her saddlebags. “Do sit down, Charles, before you fall down. There is a tree stump over there in the hedge. I have some wine and cheese. Thank goodness the night is warm.”
“You shouldn’t be out riding alone,” I said, unable to hide my anxiety. “Not at this time of night!”
She gave me a cool look. “You are not my husband yet, Charles.”
Nor ever will be, I thought, and lowered myself wearily on to the tree stump. My feet were aching; I’d walked around all day and never imagined I’d end by traipsing several miles along country lanes.
“You are right,” Esther said. She pulled a bottle of wine from the saddlebag and two cloth-wrapped parcels, and came to sit down beside me. “I ought to be more circumspect. Scandalising people by riding around in breeches is not wise.”
I was disconcerted. I’d never heard Esther give a fig for the opinions of other people. Besides, I disapproved of her riding alone, not riding in breeches. I rather liked Esther’s breeches. And her independence of mind. Her cool head and her mischievous smile –
This would not do. I concentrated on the parcels she was unwrapping. One held two wine glasses – she held them up to the light to make sure they were still clean. The other contained white bread, cheese and two large apples. She filled the glasses, offered me cheese. It was all so genteel and civilised I felt a hysterical urge to laugh.
“We can’t just sit here. There’s a man out there with a pistol who might come back to finish us off!”
“No,” Esther said firmly. “He is entirely gone, I promise you. Now, will you let me tell you the story without interruption, Charles? It will take much less time, I assure you.”
Wine and cheese and the woman I loved. And she was plainly enjoying herself. In the breeches and waistcoat and greatcoat, she even began to behave like a man, putting one foot up on a stone and lounging back against a fence.
“You seem to attract these situations, Charles,” she said.
“They attract me,” I said, punning.
“I do know something about the habits of poachers. My stepfather suffered badly from them when I was a child. They decidedly do not go close to the big house, and they do not attack anyone unless they themselves are in danger of arrest. An injury – or worse – to another person would simply change a transportation offence into a hanging offence, which clearly would not be desirable. So you were not attacked by a poacher the other day.”
I nodded. “I agree.” I was surprised by how thirsty I was, drank down the wine, poured another glassful.
“Which means that the first attack was in all likelihood a personal matter. So, when you decided to go into town this morning, I thought the threat of another attack had to be taken seriously.” She reached for her wineglass which she’d propped in the cleft of a root. “I f
ollowed you into town this morning.”
“What! I didn’t see you.”
“I know you didn’t,” she said. “You were in one of those abstracted moods you fall into when a mystery absorbs you. You would not have seen a mad bull charging at you until its breath was hot on your neck, and even then you would probably have thought it was just a warm breeze getting up.”
“I can look after myself,” I said mildly, half-annoyed at being chided, half-pleased she was so concerned. “Did you follow me around town?”
“I did not. I went home and did some business for a few hours. Then I went back to Barras Bridge to wait for you returning. Whatever possessed you to start out so late, Charles?”
“The spirit disembodied late.”
She was silent for a moment. “Did she tell you anything useful?”
“Not much.” I waved her on. “And then?”
“I followed you back, at what I thought was a safe distance. Not far out of town, I became aware somebody else was following too. I did not want to be seen so I turned off into a little village and cut across country; I got myself on a low ridge, where I could see the pair of you riding along the road. But I could not see your follower. I was just worrying over this when I spotted him on foot in the wood. Before I could do anything about it, he had taken a pot shot at you. Or at Alyson.”
That startled me. I stared at her over a mouthful of apple. “You think Alyson could have been the target? But I was the one who was attacked at Long End.”
“Charles,” she said, patiently. “You are tall and dark and young. So is Edward Alyson. Close to, there is only the most superficial of resemblances between you, but at a distance and particularly from behind – ”
“Even the most inept attacker must be able to distinguish the difference in the quality of our clothes,” I protested.
“It was dark in that wood,” she said. “And you were both wearing greatcoats. From a distance, the difference was not obvious at all. And it was even darker in the garden at Long End.” The gloom was gathering, blurring the lines of her face. She gestured with her wine glass. “It is a possibility that must be considered, Charles!”
“But is it then mere coincidence that the attacks come while I’m trying to find out who killed Nell?”
“You admit yourself there is little hope of finding the girl’s murderer. What is more likely? That an apprentice is scared you will find out his identity even though there is no evidence against him, or that a wealthy man like Alyson might offend some villains? Or a husband or two? Or be involved in some dispute over property?”
I thought of the woodland. And wondered if ‘Mrs. Alyson’ had a husband elsewhere.
“What happened after the villain fired the shot?”
“I saw Alyson fall. The man must have thought he had hit his target. He ran off. Across the fields. I set the horse after him and he must have seen or heard me – he veered off in another direction. Then my horse balked at a high gate and I thought it quicker to go after him on foot.”
The men I’d seen running across the field, I realised, had not been two men at all, but a man and a woman: the attacker pursued by Esther. So – only one attacker then, as I had previously thought.
“He was rather faster on his feet than I am,” Esther said ruefully. “I might have caught up with him in time but another man emerged from a hedgeline riding one horse and leading another. They rode off together and I had to give up the chase.”
I was bewildered. Two attackers after all?
“In what direction did they go?”
“West,” she said, “into the setting sun. He will not be back tonight, Charles. Even if he knows he failed to kill whichever of you was his intended victim, he knows too that he was seen. He will not come back and risk capture – best to be patient and try again another time.”
“What did this second man look like?”
“Burly, middle-aged perhaps. I could see nothing more than that. Oh, and he was poorly dressed like a servant.” She began to wrap up what was left of the food and the glasses, held out the wine bottle to me. “I think we should make our way back.”
“To Long End?” I stood up, exasperated. “I’m tempted just to have done with it all and go back to town.”
“Nonsense,” she said. “You could no more give up on a mystery than fly. Besides, you have a living to earn. And I am here, because you are here.” She smiled at my surprise. “Oh, really, Charles! Someone has to keep an eye on you!”
“You sound like Hugh,” I said uneasily.
She was very close, a pale wraith in the gathering gloom, very still. Her perfume drifted to me like a night-scented flower. A tiny smile touched her lips. “Charles, have you any idea how boring town is in summer?”
“Ah, I see,” I said. “My company is better than yawning over a piece of needlework.”
She leant closer. Her lips almost touched mine – I jerked back. She smiled again. “It is plain to me, Charles,” she said, “that you will get that poor girl’s murderer. I have every faith in you. And it is equally plain that I will get you.”
She packed the remains of the meal, with the glasses and the wine bottle, in her saddle bag, swung herself up on to her horse, using the tree stump as a mounting block. “Time to start walking, Charles!”
Half a mile from the house, Esther spurred her horse on so we would not arrive at the same time. The sun had set completely and stars peeped through the rents in the dissipating clouds. As I trudged up the drive, the house loomed up ahead against the sky, an indistinct hulk sparkling with flickering candlelights.
I made the stable yard safely despite starting at every shadow. The grooms were waiting impatiently, probably warned of my imminent arrival by Alyson. One snatched the reins from my hands and started to coo over the dishevelled horse, another lifted its lame foot anxiously. No one cooed over me. No one addressed even one sentence to me – a far more effective display of contempt than any words could have been.
I crossed the yard to the back door leading into the scullery. A shadow detached itself from the darkness by the horse trough. A tall man, jerking his head to urge me back into the shadows; I retreated with him, looking in resignation at the lean marked face of Fowler.
“All right,” he said, grinning wolfishly. “What’s all the excitement? How did his high and mightiness Mr Alyson get to look like he’d fallen into a midden?”
“Someone fired at us on the road,” I said wearily. “Fowler, I need sleep.”
“And I need something to tell his lordship.”
“Heron sent you?” I said startled.
“Likes to keep up with what’s going on,” he said. “And so do I. Come on, Patterson,” he wheedled. “If there’s excitement, let me in on it! You know how dull life is when all you’ve got to worry about is whether a coat is pressed and cravats bleached!”
“You should have kept to your old life then.”
“I’d be hanged by now,” he said, his grin widening.
“Then settle for a quiet life.” I turned for the scullery door. “I’m going to bed before I fall asleep standing up.”
Fowler laughed softly. “You know your problem? You attract trouble.”
“You’re not the first to say so.”
“Nor the last, I warrant.” He followed me into the dark scullery. A stub of candle burned on a table just inside the door; he took it up, gestured to me to precede him. “Thing is,” he said. “There’s only so many times you can get yourself out of trouble. Take my word for it. It always catches up with you in the end.”
“You seem hale and hearty enough.”
“I got out,” he said. “Settled for the boredom of shirts and coats. You just get yourself in deeper, month after month.” We started up the narrow servants’ stair. “And I don’t much fancy being the one who has to tell Heron you’ve got yourself killed.”
“It won’t come to that,” I said.
He shook his head. “Always does.”
14
[Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his brother Georges, 11 July 1736]
He was at my door next morning before I was properly awake.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re not the last up. There’s not a lady out of bed except Mrs Jerdoun and she’s gone for a ride.”
I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, wondering if Esther had ridden out to look at the wood to look for signs of our attackers.
“And only a handful of the gentlemen up too,” Fowler said. He broke off, then started again in quite a different tone. “Would you like me to shave you, sir?”
Instinctively, I looked to the door. Heron walked in; his footsteps were soft but obviously not soft enough to escape Fowler’s notice. He cast an assessing look over me. “No damage, I see.”
“Alyson was the one who fell from his horse.”
“Mr Alyson is in the breakfast room, sir,” Fowler murmured and indicated deferentially that I should sit down to be shaved. “I believe he has suffered no ill effects from his adventure last night.”
“He seems positively to have enjoyed the incident,” Heron said dryly. “He is telling everyone about his narrow escape. You did not feature a great deal. I believe he frightened the fellow off himself. A great burly brute, I understand.”
I sighed. “We never saw him. He never got within a hundred yards of us. Did Alyson – Mr Alyson – suggest a reason for the attack?”
“Highwaymen,” Heron said, straight-faced.
I laughed. “On a country lane? They wouldn’t find very rich pickings. And no one attempted to hold us up.”
“If you have no clue as to who killed the girl,” Heron said, going straight for the heart of the matter, “why should anyone attack you? Unless there is some musician who wishes to take over your teaching practice?”
“They’d find it sadly unprofitable,” I said, submitting to Fowler’s ministrations. “I was wondering if the real target was not Alyson. There’s some business about a woodland?”