The Marlows

by Rosalind Laker

  Judith made Hedley’s coffee and took it in to him in the long drawing room. When she came back Silas had his elbows on the table, his food finished, and was picking his teeth with a splinter of wood.

  “Mr. Hedley was within his right to lose his temper with me,” he continued with such elaborate nonchalance that it was obvious he had suffered some discomfiture. “Gave him the wrong tip. A tout gave me the whisper and I thought I’d put Mr. Hedley on to a good thing. He knows I’m not often wrong about a horse, but I was in this case.” He got up from the bench and came across to where she had started to wash up. “Here! I’ll give you a hand.”

  “No, thank you, I would much rather you didn’t,” Judith insisted, but he seemed eager to be sociable, as if convivial company would be balm to his injured feelings, and he took a drying cloth and set to work. Unhappily she was aware that the cutlery, glass, and crockery used by Brett for his dinner, which had been taken to him secretly earlier, were among the things to be washed up. She did not think Silas would notice or count, nor place any significance to a few extra pieces if he did, but she decided it was best to keep him talking and his attention diverted. Unfortunately she was becoming increasingly nervous and when she dropped a glass she started as if the smash had been as loud as cannon fire.

  “My, my! You’re jumpy this evening,” he said jocularly, getting a dustpan and brush to sweep up the fragments for her. “That’s one down and how many to go?” He cast an eye over the rest of the glasses, meaning it as a joke, but Judith, who had never had to deceive before in her life, became even more agitated.

  “There’s no need to count them. Tansy had a guest for dinner anyway. Oh, I do wish you would leave the drying up to me!”

  “That was nice for her,” he said, watching Judith as he reached for another glass to wipe. “Havin’ a guest, I mean. Company for her. Glad to know she’s feelin’ better.”

  A jingling of one of the bells on the wall made her glance with relief in its direction. “Someone at the door. I must go and answer it.”

  She removed her apron, took her stick, and hurried as fast as she could into the hall. To her astonishment and delight it was Matthew Kirby who stood on the step, dressed most dapperly in a check frockcoat and trousers. He doffed his hat and held it, smiling at her.

  “Miss Judith! We meet again. I hope it’s not too late to call on you, but Mr. Reade told me you were eager to start your riding lessons and I wondered if you would like your first turn in the saddle tomorrow.”

  “Oh, I would!” The wild rose tint was high in her cheeks and her eyes sparkled, all else forgotten before this vision of young manhood about whom she had dreamed, sighed, and languished over ever since that brief but momentous meeting in the grounds of Ainderly Hall. “Come in!”

  In the small drawing room he sat opposite her, seemingly as much taken with her as she was with him, his wide, friendly mouth curved in a happy smile. She thought again how dear he was, how kind his eyes, and how pleasing his voice, which was mapping out how the lessons would progress.

  “So I’ll bring the mare along at ten o’clock then,” he said, rounding up the arrangements. “With Patient Lady on the leading rein — and never was a mare better named! — you’ll gain confidence in no time.”

  “I’m looking forward to it immensely,” she said between shyness and gaiety. “It’s most obliging of you to be my teacher.”

  “It’s an honour,” he replied eagerly. Then they both fell silent, aware they were on the brink of some experience that would be new to both of them, a fulfilment of the promise that each had felt in the other’s presence when she had sat on the wagonette seat in the sun and he had looked up into her face and thought he had never seen a sweeter girl.

  “What have you been doing today?” she asked in a rush, afraid he was on the point of leaving and wanting to extend his visit for as long as possible.

  “I went with my father to the Redstead races. Oh, yes! Here am I forgetting to tell you. Roger Marlow was riding again. That’s the sixth time he’s worn the Ainderly Hall colours, and he did better in his race today than he has done any of the times before. There was a real determination in his face when my father gave him last instructions and told him to ride to win.”

  “Did he win?” she inquired eagerly.

  He looked sorry to disappoint her. “I’m afraid not, but he held a good position all the way and came in third. In his other races he’s been well back and once he was last, so this was a big stride forward.”

  “He’ll be the greatest jockey England’s ever had one day,” she said serenely and with perfect confidence.

  “I hope you’re right. I had dreams like that once, and then suddenly I grew like a weed to my present height, and so now I’m learning to be a trainer instead. Anyway, my father was pleased. with Roger’s performance, but it was a good day spoiled for everybody by the discovery that one of the runners in the most important race of the meeting had been ‘got at.’ Bloody Silas, as everyone calls him, was questioned by the stewards for over an hour. He’s been staying here with his master, Selwyn Hedley, hasn’t he?”

  “They’re still here. They don’t leave until the morning. What happened?”

  “Well, this runner — a dappled gray colt — had been nobbled by a most fiendish and cunning method. A silk kerchief had been wrapped about his leg and then that leg beaten until a sinew was sprung. The stewards had a report that Bloody Silas was seen in the vicinity of the stables some time yesterday, but he was able to prove he was elsewhere. The stewards might have been less easily persuaded of his innocence if his master had raked in a big win, but strangely enough Hedley had his money on that very colt and suffered a heavy loss.”

  Judith’s gentle face showed her distress and horror at the dreadful deed. “Such cruelty! How can men be so inhumane! You mentioned a silk kerchief —”

  “It was found in some straw mucked out from the stall. The discovery was made after nearly everybody had left, and it must have been dropped accidentally by the wretch who committed that foul act. My father and I were having a drink with one of the stewards in a local pub when the kerchief was brought in for him to see. It was expensive silk — a gentleman’s kerchief — but there are hundreds like it.”

  “Does Silas know of the discovery of this clue?”

  “No, he doesn’t. But as I said, he has already cleared himself.”

  “Suppose Tansy or I could identify it as being like one of Hedley’s? He has a variety of them that he wears flowing from his tail pocket. He is quite a dandy, but in the worst possible taste.”

  He looked doubtful. “You would never be able to prove it was Hedley’s, although there’s no harm in your having a look at it. I’ll ask the steward to arrange it. They would be glad of anything they could chalk up against Hedley, but this is one crime that can’t be laid at his door.”

  She was tempted to tell him of that revealing snatch of a sentence spoken by Silas before Hedley silenced him. Silas must have injured the wrong colt because he had mistaken the stall or else the horses had been stabled differently since he had learned of the whereabouts of the one he had been instructed to maim. It was best to save that information for Dominic and Brett and Tansy for the time being. That reminded her that time was ticking by and she should be making sure that Silas was on his way to the stable loft.

  “I haven’t a proper riding habit,” she said, reverting to the original topic of their conversation.

  “It’s no matter,” he said, thinking how she would have outshone the haughty Nina, who rode with Edward Taylor and parties from the Manor, had she the same fine habit to wear. “Just put on a simple dress, a jacket for warmth, because there can be a cool wind blowing sometimes across the slope of the Downs where I’ll be taking you, and a band to keep your hair in order.”

  She did not know how she would be able to wait until morning came, for he had conjured up a picture for her of the two of them alone with the wind and sky and grass and flowers, two quiet horses
taking them wherever they wanted to go. “I’ll not sleep this night for thinking of the morning,” she exclaimed happily.

  “Nor I,” he answered, pleased to see how the colour flowed up into her cheeks again. He could have stayed talking to her until it was the very hour of their appointment, but he knew he must take his leave without further delay.

  She went with him to the door. Accidentally their hands touched and it fired their eyes to swift meeting, each seeing the other’s own deep pleasure at the contact reflected there.

  “Until tomorrow then,” he said, dawdling on the step.

  “Good night, Mr. Kirby.”

  “No — Matthew, please!”

  “Very well, Matthew.”

  He turned round a dozen times in the drive, his step buoyant, to wave his hat and make sure she was still there, standing in the lamplight, smiling and waving back to him, watching him out of sight. It was an image of her that he was never to forget, an image that was to stay with him till his long life’s end.

  Back in the kitchen Judith found that Silas had finished washing up and had put everything away. To her dismay he had settled himself in the rocking chair with his clay pipe and showed no sign of moving off to bed as he usually did.

  “I really must ask you to retire,” she said firmly. “It’s getting late and I want to lock up.”

  He took several more puffs on his pipe, watching her closely, and just when she was afraid he was going to ignore her request he acquiesced with a nod, stirred himself lazily, and tilted the rocking chair forward as he knocked out his pipe against the cooking range.

  “Yes, it’s gettin’ late.” He swung himself leisurely toward the back door. “I bid you good night then. I’ll be right sorry to leave this comfortable place tomorrow. The grub has been real tasty.”

  She shot the bolt home on the door with as much noise as possible to make sure he heard it as he went down the path. Tansy emerged from the rooms off the kitchen at the same time.

  “I thought he was never going!” she exclaimed, her face taut with tension. “Hedley hasn’t gone upstairs yet, has he?”

  “No, he’s emptying a bottle of brandy in the long drawing room. But listen to what I learned this evening!” Swiftly she recounted all that Matthew had told her, linking it with what Silas had blurted out in the dining room.

  “That’s splendid. It will give me extra verbal ammunition to use if I should need it. Is the front door locked?”

  “Yes, I fastened that after Matthew left.”

  “Then go to the long drawing room and make sure that Hedley is still ensconced in his chair. I’ll go upstairs to our old room and watch to make certain Silas has settled down in the stable loft and then you come up and take over from me to see he doesn’t come sneaking over to the house again.”

  “What about the back door?”

  “I’ll unbolt that ready for Dominic afterward. He’ll be waiting for the signal of the kitchen lamp going out and then he’ll come in

  Tansy took from a cupboard a hidden, emptied brandy bottle, one of two that Dominic had recovered from his jockey after the debauch, and then she sped up the rear stairs. At the top she rapped with her knuckles once on the box-room door. Brett replied with two taps to let her know he was alert and ready to bear witness to anything Hedley might be trapped into revealing. She ran on into the unlit bedroom that gave the best view of the stables. She breathed a sigh of relief. The lamp that Silas used there was alight. There should be nothing more to fear from him.

  Shortly afterward Judith arrived, breathless with effort, and she collapsed in the chair pushed up to the window. In the darkness she smiled at her sister, reaching out a hand. “Good luck, Tansy!”

  Tansy clasped it and leaned forward, their cheeks coming together in a swift pressure of affection. “I’ll do my best!”

  Somewhere in the house there came a faint thud. “What was that?” Judith whispered tensely.

  Tansy went to the door and listened. “I think it was Hedley moving about downstairs. I must go.”

  She flew down the rear stairs again, shot back the bolt on the door, doused the lamp, and returned to take up her position at the head of the same flight. A single lamp burned on the landing. She would see Hedley coming up the main staircase before he would see her. How loud her heart was beating!

  Downstairs she heard the latch of the door lift and felt the rush of a cool draft. Footsteps entered quietly, but without secrecy, telling her that Dominic had come to install himself beyond the curve of the flight in that well of darkness. The latch fell into place again and all was still. With confidence she squared her shoulders, hearing Hedley’s heavy footsteps leaving the long drawing room to take him on his way to bed. There was no need to be afraid.

  Outside the back door Nina, who had slipped indoors to replace her light cloak with the dark one on the downstairs peg, adjusted the hood as she set off at a run across the lawn, making for the gates into the lane. When she reached them she paused, seeing that the carriage in which Edward had brought her home from the Manor to these same gates was well and truly out of sight. Then she bolted down the lane in the opposite direction and turned into the path leading through Ashby Woods, which she had made her own. Edward had wanted her to remain at the Manor until the morrow, but she could not stay one night more away from Adam — he would be frantic for her.

  In her haste she failed to realize that for once she had been seen and someone was in pursuit of her. Dominic, emerging from the distant cover where he had been waiting, did not connect her with the carriage he had heard pass by some minutes ago but had glimpsed her cloaked figure speeding from the house and thought at once it was Tansy fleeing in terror. Something must have gone desperately wrong with their plans! Had Hedley used violence against her?

  “Tansy!” he called urgently. “Wait!”

  The running figure did not hear him and when he reached the gates he glimpsed the distant flick of a cloak vanishing from the starlit darkness of the lane into the blackness of the woods. He called her name again, but when he reached the spot where he thought she had disappeared he could find no trace of a path and the thickness of the trees shut off the sound of his voice and made it rebound. Pushing her way at a run through the foliage, which snapped back into place behind her with a wild rustling of leaves and creaking of branches, Nina was deaf already to the outside world, her ears hearing only the whispers of her lover that were to come.

  At Rushmere, Hedley had reached the top of the stairs and was pausing to get his breath and his balance, for he was deep in liquor, and he leaned his weight on the huge, powerful hand that rested on the balustrade of the landing. He lifted surprised eyes when Tansy moved from the deepest shadows where she stood, the lamplight falling across her skirt and faintly illumining her face.

  “Hey! Who’s this then? Miss Marlow, I do declare! Recovered, are you? You’ll know better than to go visiting unannounced at Ainderly Hall on the eve of another Derby Day, won’t you?”

  She moved a step forward, bringing more light onto her face, the patch on its ribbon showing black over her eye. “I wasn’t visiting that night. I was following Silas and lost him when he went on to give Nat Gobowen the brandy which had been laced by the drug that you keep in your medicine chest.”

  Hedley breathed strongly through his wide nostrils. “You’re a brave young woman to throw such an accusation at me. Who’s putting you up to this?”

  “I made up my own mind to tell you what I know.” Out of the folds of her skirt she brought the brandy bottle, which she had been hiding behind her. “There is money to be had for such bottles, and I managed to get them returned to me.” She embarked on her huge bluff, conscious of no more than a drain of brandy swilling in the bottom of it. “No bottle can ever be completely emptied. What would you say if I told you that the faint aroma of a certain opiate still lingers?”

  “I should say you were lying.”

  “Indeed? Then you have no objection if I take this flask to a knowledgeabl
e person — ”

  “Take it to whom you please,” he scoffed. “That bottle is no different from any other and you know it. I’ll also remind you that it’s no concern of mine if my servant chooses to get drunk with an old racing comrade.”

  “Silas wouldn’t have touched a drop of the contents of this bottle or the other, even though to Nat Gobowen’s eyes he may have appeared to. He knew — as I do — that after you had taken the two bottles into your room first, a certain phial in your medicine chest had less liquid in it than before.” She held her breath, waiting on tenterhooks to see how he would react.

  A terrible scowl congested his face. “If I thought my medicine chest had been tampered with I’d wring that white neck of yours!”

  “It was opened twice — once before and once after Nat Gobowen’s night of drunkenness.”

  “You dare to confess it!” His voice was a bellow and he took a few lumbering, bull-like strides toward her, enormous fists clenched at his sides. “What’s your game? Blackmail? You wouldn’t try it if you knew what had happened to others who have attempted it in the past!”

  “Tell me,” she taunted. “I’m not afraid.”

  He lowered his head, looking under his thick brows. “I don’t believe you are,” he said slowly, “but then you don’t know what it means to have a cracked skull or a lamed leg or a crushed foot.”

  “Is that what you inflict on jockeys who think to pay you back in your own coin? Some injury to prevent them ever riding again?”

  “None tries to trick me and gets away with it! Not jockey or tout or bookmaker — or anyone in debt to me! A slip of a girl like you can be silenced easier than any of ‘em.”

  “Not when I have such evidence as this.” She held up the brandy bottle again.

  He moved with incredible swiftness, thrusting one hand against her shoulder with the force of his weight behind it, and she went thudding back against the wall between the box-room door and the head of the rear stairs, knocking her head a painful blow, and with the other hand he tore the brandy bottle from her and hurled it from him. It smashed against the opposite wall. “To hell with your paltry evidence!” he thundered.