A Deadly Betrothal

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘There were men in the Badgers fields, it seems,’ said Sybil. ‘But they hadn’t seen anyone crossing the farmland.’

  ‘No. And the boys at Badgers were with their own tutor. They hadn’t called on Thomas.’ Eric ran his fingers through his hair. ‘The lane past the Firtrees gatehouse passes various cottages and small hamlets, in both directions. One way, it eventually leads to Leatherhead and it goes to Woking in the other. No one, anywhere, had seen the lad go by. The track winds a lot; it isn’t a major route and there isn’t much traffic on it. A few riders were seen going by but none of them matched the description of Thomas. He had vanished, just vanished!’

  I said: ‘What’s at the back of the house? More farmland?’

  Eric gulped his ale again. ‘No – common land. A heath. Sheep graze there, and some goats and donkeys. It’s about half a mile each way and beyond it there’s a village called Priors Ford …’

  ‘Yes, I know Priors Ford,’ I said.

  ‘There was no trace of Thomas there either,’ Eric said. ‘He hadn’t passed through the village. Someone would have seen him; many of the villagers know him by sight. There is no one, no one at all, in any direction, who that morning saw, or even glimpsed in the distance, a boy who even might have been Thomas. The search has been careful. The Badgers’ people all left their work and joined in. They had to call off the hunt when night fell, but it began again the next morning, and folk from the villages joined in. The fir wood opposite the house was gone through then, inch by inch, Lisa says. Not a trace was found anywhere! Nothing! But he must be somewhere. Well, Mistress Stannard, Lisa thinks that perhaps you might have ideas … would you go to her? Would you help?’

  People were for ever asking me to help, I thought. Aunt Tabitha called on me when Uncle Herbert was being difficult; she and Marjorie seemed to think I could help when George walked back out of the past and put Marjorie out so badly; the queen thought I could soothe away her doubts about marriage. Now it was Lisa Harrison and the Lakes, wanting me to do something about the disappearance of Thomas, even though by the sound of it, everything that could be done, had been, was being, done already.

  But how could one refuse a plea like this? I sighed in sympathy and then felt privately exasperated. I had only just come home and I wanted to take up the reins of my household, to play with Harry and supervise his education. I had taught him to read and write and I had started him on Latin, and begun teaching him to play the spinet. But I couldn’t devote all my time to that, so I was planning to find a tutor who would educate him properly, though I intended to continue with the music lessons. I wanted, so much, to be left alone to attend to these things. But instead …

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Firtrees tomorrow. Today I must catch my breath.’

  ‘I don’t know what we’re doing here,’ I complained. ‘I couldn’t say no to Mistress Harrison, considering the state she’s in, but I can’t see the point of searching the wood all over again.’

  We were standing in front of the wood, which began on the opposite side of the lane that ran past Firtrees House. There was only a bank between the lane and the first dark line of trees.

  ‘I think we’re just obliging Mistress Harrison,’ said Brockley. ‘I can’t see much use in it, either. If the boy wanted to run away, and to me that is the most likely explanation, he could have slipped off through the wood and out to the farmland beyond. It’s nonsense to say he must have been seen. A boy would know well enough how to keep out of sight, alongside hedgerows, or using ditches. He could have got away unseen, right enough. But this search is what Mistress Lisa asked of us and we are right to humour her. It’s the only thing that will calm her.’

  ‘I too feel that he must have run off,’ said Eric Lake. ‘Who would want to attack a harmless young lad who was just standing in a courtyard and looking at an apple tree?’

  ‘But why would he run away?’ I said. ‘What would make him leave his mother and his twin without a word? Leave them in such fear and doubt!’

  ‘He must have been distressed by losing his father, and before that, being rejected by Edmund. Those things might have overset him badly,’ Eric suggested.

  ‘But we were talking to Lisa just now,’ I said, ‘and according to her, he was pleased that they had been allowed to come back to Firtrees to live and he’d talked of contesting the will!’

  Eric became thoughtful. ‘Yes, that’s true. He asked me if I could set that in hand on his behalf. He said he looked enough like his father to convince any jury that he really was Edmund’s son! He said there were plenty of people who would remember what his father looked like. That does sound like common sense and not at all like someone about to abandon his home and his family. You’re right about that.’

  ‘And Lisa said he was quite normal at breakfast that day,’ I remembered. ‘She doesn’t think he’s run away. She’s sure he wouldn’t do such a thing.’

  ‘Oh, well,’ said Brockley, ‘a second search will do no harm. We might find something, some sign. As I said, we are really here to please Mistress Lisa. That’s what it amounts to,’ he added ruefully.

  Lisa, red-eyed, exhausted, dressed in an old gown to which pine needles were adhering and her arm round an equally tearful and untidy Jane, had begged and pleaded with us.

  ‘He would never just run off. I think he must be … he must be …’ She broke down and then, through her tears, said: ‘He must be dead. There’s no other explanation. And his body is in the wood. It’s the only possible place. The wood is so difficult to search, to search thoroughly, I mean. The people from Badgers went through it, and that’s what they said. I went out there again myself, this morning. They were right; it’s hopelessly difficult. I didn’t know how to search. I just peered and stumbled about … everyone says that he would have been seen if he’d gone or been taken along the lane, whether east or west, or across the fields or over the heath to Priors Ford. I want that fir wood searched again.’

  I started to say ‘But …’ but Lisa, standing there in her parlour, dishevelled and despairing, cut me short.

  ‘Ursula, I beg you, I beg you, will you do it or at least get Brockley and Eric to do it? I believe Thomas is there. I believe that something happened to him – a friend called him outside and perhaps there was a dispute, or an accident and his friend is frightened and has hidden the … has hidden what he’s done and … Thomas would never run away or do anything to hurt himself. He wouldn’t! Something has happened to him! I know it has! I’ve lost my son. But I can’t bear not knowing just how. Anything is better than not knowing. Please will you search that wood!’

  Brockley and Eric said they would undertake the task but I was the one Lisa had called on, and I said that I must join them. I borrowed an old gown from Lisa, a skimpy one in thin wool, with skirts that could be kilted and narrow sleeves. Thus clad, I was fairly well fitted to go stumbling about in woodlands.

  ‘But how do we go about this search?’ I asked plaintively. ‘These trees don’t even have dens or caves between their roots; their trunks aren’t wide enough for that.’

  ‘We must just do what we can,’ said Brockley.

  ‘Yes, we must try,’ said Eric.

  We did try, and I hated it. That horrible wood was so silent. I could hear no birdsong. The scent of the pines was pleasant but muffling too; one was aware of the trees to an excessive extent. It felt as though they were watching us. I felt, as I moved through the shadows, that this was a place that might well hold secrets, but if so, it would keep them. I walked along, scanning the ground for signs of disturbance, scanning the tree boles for holes, for hollow trunks, for anywhere where … where anything … a body? … could possibly have been hidden. I saw nothing. Nor did Eric or Brockley.

  It seemed to me that we spent a lifetime in that wood. At the end of it, we were all hungry and thirsty, having eaten nothing at midday, and we had only failure to report. I don’t know whether I felt relieved or regretful. Finding anything wouldn’t, after all, have bee
n pleasant, but Lisa might have preferred it to this empty nothingness.

  Disconsolately, we made our way back to the house. We arrived to find a man clearing up horse droppings from the courtyard and a mild air of bustle, which was explained when we went indoors and were led to the parlour to be greeted not just by Lisa but also by Robert Harrison.

  Lisa looked questioningly at us and Eric shook his head. ‘No, Mistress Harrison, Thomas is not in the wood. We searched it from end to end. We’ve been at it without a break.’

  ‘I am not surprised,’ said Robert. He was as well dressed as before, in the same blue and silver, though I noticed that the doublet was rather tight. It looked as though Marjorie had been feeding him well. ‘I understand that a search has already taken place, twice, in fact, without result,’ he said. ‘It was good of you all to make such efforts to please Aunt Lisa. We all came at once, of course, when Thomas was first found to be missing. Aunt Lisa sent word, and we stayed here that night, but next day my father started coughing so we took him home. He’s been in bed ever since, and my mother is looking after him. But we all wanted to know if there was any news, so today I rode back.’

  ‘It was kind of you,’ said Lisa. ‘If only there were news. If only there were something.’ It came out as thomething. Her lisp was much in evidence again.

  ‘I shall have to go home again tonight,’ said Robert. He looked harassed and tired. ‘My parents will want to know whatever I can tell them, and tomorrow I must set off to see some of my employer’s customers in England. Appointments have been made. I have already kept some, but several are still outstanding and between those and Uncle Edmund’s affairs and now this, I wonder how to fit it all in.’

  ‘You must all be ravenous,’ Lisa said. ‘You’ve ridden from Leatherhead, Robert, and the rest of you have been out searching. I’ve asked for something to be got ready – halfway between supper and dinner, as it were. Jane and I had hardly anything midday, either. Let’s all eat.’

  I was grimy and ill-dressed but I was too tired to do anything about it. If Dale had been there, she would have urged me to change, but Dale was still pulled down by her illness and I had left her behind. Dale didn’t like seeing me go off with Brockley and without her; there had been a time, long ago, when Brockley and I had come near to being more than lady and manservant, and Dale knew it. But Eric Lake had been in the party, and that had somehow reconciled her. She had raised no objection. So here I was without her to keep me in order, and I went, still grubby, to the dinner cum supper that awaited us. Jane, who had not been in the parlour, came quietly in to join us.

  ‘I was at my books,’ she said unhappily. ‘It’s something to do, to think about. Is there any news, Mother?’ She went to Lisa and put an arm round her shoulders and I realized that Jane, apart from being bereft of her twin brother, was also attempting to be a support to her mother. It was a heavy burden for one so young, and no wonder that she looked so wan and exhausted. ‘Was … was anything found?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Lisa and Eric said: ‘Your cousin Robert came over to ask just that.’

  ‘I did have another purpose,’ Robert said. ‘There is something I want to say – to suggest. But presently, after we have all eaten.’

  Lisa, hardly listening, said: ‘If only … if only … one knew. It’s this emptiness, this silence, this nothingness! Where is he? Where is Thomas? How can anyone – a grown boy, active, strong, sensible – just disappear into thin air?’

  There was no answer to that, but Robert, helping himself to chicken pie, said: ‘My dear, I may be able to ease some of the more immediate consequences. But first, please, let us eat!’

  TWELVE

  Proposals

  We were all rather silent during the meal. I kept wondering what Robert had meant by his cryptic remarks about easing immediate consequences, but Lisa, lost in miserable contemplation of our failure to find anything, did not pursue the matter. Jane tried to, without success. She was so very wan and as she had her mother’s fair colouring, her black mourning gown made her even more waiflike. Somehow her voice was in keeping. She could barely make herself heard and after a dispirited half-sentence or two, ceased to try. Eric then attempted to question Robert, but Robert just shook his head at them and said: ‘Later.’ When the meal was finished, Lisa led us from her dining chamber to the parlour. There we sat about, awkwardly, until Robert cleared his throat and at last seemed ready to speak.

  It was surprising, I thought, how a room could take on the mood of the people in it. The parlour had bright cushions and a tapestry wall-hanging depicting colourful flowers and a pretty cabinet with a display of silverware in it and it should have been cheerful. Instead, it was full of sorrow and shadows. Always pale, poor Lisa was now unhealthily so, and as with Jane, her black gown made things worse. I could understand that, of course. She had lost husband and son in swift succession, and the loss of Edmund must have created an intolerable emotional muddle, since he had preceded it by hurling accusations at her and disinheriting their children. I looked at Robert, questioningly.

  ‘Aunt Lisa,’ he said. ‘And Cousin Jane. I want to help. And I have thought of something. I can’t magically produce Thomas but I might do something for Jane, at least.’ He looked gravely at her. Jane, seated beside her mother, said: ‘What do you mean, cousin?’

  ‘I thought of this when my father told me about Edmund’s new will,’ Robert said. ‘He apparently made it in our house. He wanted to talk it over with my father, it seems, though he didn’t take much notice when my father said he didn’t approve of it!’

  ‘He wrote to me about it!’ said Lisa, suddenly violent. ‘It was a horrible letter. Spiteful! He wanted to hurt me, as much as he could. I came to Firtrees to plead with him. My servants let me in. He was here, in this room. He tried to put me out but I clung to the doorpost and pleaded with him. More than pleaded! I wept, I howled, I begged him not to reject his children, I kept on saying that Thomas was beginning to look like him and that if Thomas was his child, then Jane must be as well, since they’re twins. I wailed and begged and then I was angry and I darted past him and went to that cabinet …’ she pointed ‘… there where I keep some of our silver and I threw it at him, all of it, every dish, every pitcher …’

  I regarded her in astonishment, finding it difficult to visualize gentle little Lisa doing any such thing. But appearances can deceive and the meekest, most submissive people can turn savage if provoked too far.

  ‘He wouldn’t listen,’ Lisa said. ‘He got hold of me and dragged me through the house and put me out by force. And then, it seems, he went to George to talk the new will over with him.’

  ‘Which didn’t quite work out as he meant it to,’ said Robert. ‘I wasn’t there, of course; I was still in France. But once I got home, I soon heard all about it. It was because of my father, Uncle Eric, that you only have the Cornish property for your lifetime, and can’t hand it on to your own family. My father considered that it shouldn’t be left to you at all, to tell you the truth; he wanted it all to be left to him and me. But Edmund apparently wished you to have something. Only, my father made such a to-do about it that in the end, Edmund did compromise a little.’

  ‘I wasn’t expecting anything at all,’ Eric said. ‘I am pleased about even this restricted bequest. I shall go and inspect it soon. I had better know what it is that I own, even if I only own it for the time being.’

  ‘I have brought you the deeds,’ Robert said. ‘I have them in my saddlebag. The will you have seen; my father showed it to you and to Aunt Lisa after Edmund’s funeral. It was in with the rest of Edmund’s papers. Father has taken charge of all that.’

  ‘But this idea that you have, about making anything better?’ said Lisa, returning to the original point. ‘Come along, Robert. What is it?’

  Robert smiled, that disconcerting smile that revealed his molars. For a moment, he seemed troubled. Unexpectedly, he caught my eye and to my surprise, gave me what seemed to be an apologetic glance
. He was wearing slippers and one of them seemed to be falling off. He leant down to adjust it and there was a comical moment as one of his lapis doublet buttons shot off and landed in the parlour’s unlit hearth.

  ‘My mother feeds me too well,’ he said, as he stooped to pick it up. ‘But I shall lose my spare flesh when I am back at the vineyard, harvesting grapes. Mother will sew the button back on for me.’

  ‘You ought to get married,’ said Eric. ‘Then you would have a wife to do these little tasks for you.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Robert. ‘And getting married is what I have in mind. Firtrees and its land have all passed into the ownership of my father and will eventually come to me. Thomas is not here to stand before witnesses who know how much he resembles his father. If you go to law now, Aunt Lisa, it will be harder without Thomas. You might be successful but no one can be sure. It could mean serious expense – just lining lawyers’ pockets – and that if it failed, well, it’s money wasted …’

  ‘I can’t afford it,’ said Lisa shortly. In fact, both she and Jane looked alarmed at the mere thought of going to law. Robert smiled at them. ‘So I offer you a simpler way! Jane, you are of marriageable age now. We are first cousins but that’s no longer a bar to marriage. These days, there’s no need to seek dispensations. Aunt Lisa, I do not condone what you did in the past but I can’t think it right that your children should suffer for it, especially as I believe that they really are Edmund’s. I suggest,’ said Robert, ‘that I should marry Jane, and thus restore to her in due time the inheritance that should have been Thomas’s. And we may not have to wait so very long before Jane’s rightful inheritance comes to us. It isn’t easy to say such things, but they happen to be true. My father suffers from frequent chest infections and the cough he has now is a bad one. I have seen such cases before. I fear the lung rot.’