by Joan Aiken
Dr. Chilgrove was reassuring. No: thanks to the thickness of his wrappings, the baby seemed to have sustained remarkably little harm. One of his fists slightly scraped—a bruise or two—and a bit of grit in his eye, which the doctor had removed on the previous evening: these were all his injuries. No concussion, no fractures, and, so far as could be ascertained, no psychological damage.
“Are you sure, Doctor?” said Thomas menacingly. “If it should prove otherwise in time to come—when it might be too late to call in more expert advice—”
“Hush, my dear fellow! I will take my affidavit that the child hardly knew he was out of his crib! Infants of that age, you must know, are amazingly impervious to such mishaps; and your great boy is as robust as any I have seen—thanks to the excellent care and principles employed in his rearing,” he added with a bow toward Fanny, who interpreted this, correctly, as an attempt to shield her from Thomas’s displeasure.
“That may be,” Thomas snapped nonetheless. “But if you”—to Fanny—“had taken him with you on the visit to Lady Mountague, instead of considering only your own selfish enjoyment, the accident would have been averted.”
“No—no—my dear Captain Paget,” said the doctor hastily, “I could not have sanctioned such an excursion—in fact I did not, did I, ma’am? Such a long carriage ride—on a warm day—folly, folly! Infants should be kept quiet, not jauntered about the countryside in carriages.” So saying, the doctor made his escape, before becoming further embroiled in domestic dissension.
“I am going to get to the bottom of this business—if I have to call in the Bow Street runners!” declared Thomas ominously, and he summoned all the members of his household into the dining room for an interrogation which soon had most of the females in hysterical tears. However none of his stormings or threats of dismissal could elicit any information regarding the baby’s accident.
“Mayhap some piker or mumper or didicai came in and done it,” suggested one of the workmen hopefully.
“Fiddlestick, man! Why should one of the gypsies have a grudge against me?” said Thomas impatiently.
“More like ’tis the liddle maid your own darter as done it,” grunted Daintrey. This brought a chorus of agreement. “Arr! Dunnamany times I seen ’er a-tormenting the babby, time the nurse girl warn’t there to frap ’er knuckles.”
“What? You dare to suggest that my own child could do such a thing?”
Thomas’s wrath was terrible, but it could not modify the popular verdict, and at last, dismissing the servants and workmen to their duties, he turned on Fanny.
“What is this, Frances? You allow my own child to be accused to my face, without speaking a word in her defense?”
As always, his fury made Fanny feel physically sick, but she clenched her hands, digging her nails into her palms, and replied with as much calm as she could muster:
“It is true, Thomas, that Patty has a very jealous, teasing disposition where the baby is concerned, and I have a number of times been obliged to reprimand her quite sharply for disturbing him; but in the present instance I think the accusation is unmerited; I do not believe she is to blame.”
“Oh, indeed? You are graciously pleased to believe that she is not to blame? And on what is this opinion based, may I ask?” Thomas inquired savagely.
“Come upstairs,” Fanny replied, “and we will try a simple test.”
“If I find that the child is responsible,” muttered Thomas, following, “I will thrash her until she—If she is responsible, God help her—and God help you, for allowing such a situation to develop!”
The baby was in his crib today, with Jemima keeping vigilant watch over him. Patty, whose nettle rash was still present, though abating, kept her bed in the adjoining room, listlessly snipping up lengths of colored silk with scissors which she had purloined from Fanny’s workbag. Fanny, anticipating this moment, had purposely refrained from questioning the child about little Thomas’s accident and had forbidden Jemima to do so; now she called her stepdaughter:
“Patty, come here to your papa and me a moment; we wish to see how strong you are.”
“Why?” demanded Patty suspiciously at once. However she could not resist a chance to demonstrate her capabilities, and soon came running through the door in her nightgown with a conceited smirk on her face. “What do you wish me to do?” she asked.
“Your papa,” said Fanny, forestalling Thomas, who was about to speak, “does not believe that you are strong enough to lift little Thomas out of his cot. Whereas I am sure that you can.”
“Of course I can!” said Patty proudly, and she ran to the cot and endeavored to hoist out the baby. However, owing to the height of the cot and the very considerable weight of little Thomas, this, in fact, proved quite beyond her power; she could not even raise him off the pillow. After several minutes she had to admit defeat, and Thomas obliged her to desist, saying shortly:
“That will do, child; do not upset the baby any further. Go back to bed. And, Patty,” he added grimly, “if ever I hear of you touching or tormenting little Thomas, I shall give you such a beating—with my belt!—that you will not be able to sit down for a week after. Do you understand?” Crestfallen and frightened, she ran back to her bed and hid under the covers.
Thomas said coldly to Fanny, “That was well thought of, Frances, and should suffice to give the lie to any calumniators who make such a suggestion in future. But it still leaves us with the question of who committed the crime. I can see I shall have to call in the constables.”
Here Bet, who had inquisitively followed upstairs, blurted out:
“But, Lord, Papa, don’t you think it very likely that it was Miss Fox who did it? She was such a whining, sneaking, prying miserable creature—it is just the kind of thing she would do, I daresay!”
“Miss Fox?” Thomas’s high color left him completely; he went perfectly white. “Are you clean out of your wits, girl? What should Miss Fox have to do with the matter?—Whom do you mean, in any case? What Miss Fox?”
“Why, you know who I mean, Papa, Miss Fox who used to be our governess. She has come to lodge in the town—we heard so yesterday when we was at Lady Mountague’s—did we not, Stepmama?” Bet artlessly divulged, without, however, mentioning that it was her own sister’s husband who had mentioned the matter. “So do you not think, Papa, that it is likely—”
But, with an inarticulate exclamation, Thomas had turned and plunged out of the room, leaving the females to stare at each other.
Thomas was seen no more at home that day. The weather continued gray and rainy, the garden uninviting, and Goble so strange and distracted in his manner that Fanny was almost afraid to go near him. Walking out to ask him if there were enough strawberries for dinner, she heard him mutter:
“Leave a babby under the owd asp tee, can ye wonder if the asp maid abuses ’im? Arr, I shouldn’ wonder if ’twas she throwed ’im down, powerful aggy, she be, an’ can you blame ’er, so tied up and throttled as she be? Better to ’a left ’im in the apple terre, apple treeses ’ont bear no grudges.”
Shivering under his wild wondering eye, Fanny retreated to the house again. Who could he imagine the asp maid to be? The spirit of the tree?
Later in the day, risking Thomas’s displeasure, Fanny went on two errands into the town. The first took her to the jail.
The Petworth Bridewell was a decent-sized stone building with a notice carved on a slab over the portal informing the passer-by that it had been erected on that spot in 1788 at the expense of the third Earl of Egremont to a design made by J. Wyatt Esquire.
Old Boxall, the jailer—who resembled some ancient Nibelung hobbling out of his crevice in a rock—would have been pleased to show Fanny over the entire building.
“It be a main fine jail, ma’am—ye’ll never see a better. Owd Lordy had ’er builded, acos the jail we had afore was so tarnal damp, a-many prisoners died o’ the j
ail fever, ’thout ever coming to trial.” Fanny shuddered. “But it bain’t so now, missus! They gets a dry cell apiece, two pun’ o’ bread a day, decent thick does, an’ looked over by a surgeon does they so much as complain o’ the rheumatiz.”
Nevertheless, Fanny had no wish to see over the place. She left her basket of provisions for Callow and promised to bring more every day that he was there. Boxall, however, was loath to see her go; it was not often that gentry-ladies visited his domain.
“It be a rare different place now, missus, from when your owd gardener Goble did see a Token ’ere. But that were in the owd jail, see, afore Lordy ’ad ’er pulled down.”
“Goble? Was he here? In the jail?” said Fanny, startled. In spite of the recent strangeness in his manner, Goble seemed such a respectable character that it was hard to imagine his going to jail.
“For debt, it wurr. ’E tuk on another man’s debt; the more fule ’e,” said Boxall with some scorn. “An’ then the press gang got ’im an’ ’e wurr obleeged to go to sea. But while ’e wurr in the jail ’e did see a Token.”
“A Token? You mean—a phantom?”
“A Token,” Boxall agreed, nodding his aged head up and down. “It wrung its pore hands something crool, and huffed an’ hollered till owd Goble was all of a vlother; ’e couldn’ get no sleep ’count of its hollerings and carryings on. ‘Remember pore Ned Wilshire,’ the Token said, ‘what died in this jail. Remember me!’” This was Boxall’s most notable story, polished by much telling and retelling during the last twenty-three years, and he invested the specter’s words with great dramatic emphasis, fixing his pale ancient eyes on those of Fanny.
He had never had such a gratifying reaction from an auditor.
“Wilshire?” she whispered, pale with astonishment, gazing at him wide-eyed. “You say there was a prisoner called Ned Wilshire who died in this jail?”
“Not in this one, missus,” Boxall repeated patiently. “’Twas in the owd jail, what Lordy ’ad pulled down.”
“When was this?”
“Over a score of years agone. When I was a young man in me forties.”
“Then if Wilshire died here,” pursued Fanny, “where would he be buried?”
“Likely ’e’d be down i’ the new graveyard near to Hampers Green way; they doesn’t want jailbirds stodding up the Bartons’ graveyard nigh to your place. Rackon that’s whurr e’ell be.”
Nodding her thanks, Fanny left the disappointed Boxall, who was just on the point of telling his Token story all over again. She walked on, her empty basket over her arm, doing sums in her head.
Thomas had been five years older than his half brother Edward Wilshire—Thomas was now forty-eight, so his brother would have been forty-three—he had died “over a score of years agone”—so he would have been twenty-one or twenty-two—yes, it was feasible that the Ned Wilshire who had died in Petworth jail had been Thomas’s unhappy half brother. Then that was why—yes, it came back to her now that, on her first evening at the Hermitage, Bet had said her father had some objection to living in Petworth. No wonder, if his brother had died here in disgrace! Knowing Thomas, he must have been anxious lest his connection with the prisoner should ever come out; though there seemed little reason why it should, since the names were different.
Occupied in these reflections, Fanny walked at a quick pace through the great gates of Petworth House and, without giving her time to become nervous or change her mind, rang the bell at the main door which, as usual, stood open. A manservant asked her business, and she announced firmly that she wished to inquire after the health of Mrs. Wyndham, and see her, if it were possible.
“Sure, ma’am, she be in the library, an’ I reckon she’ll be main glad to see ye,” said the friendly if unpolished footman, and led Fanny off to the left, adding, “’Tis Missus’s fust day out of her chamber, she’ve been in the sheets three weeks, nigh, lamentable ornery she’ve bin, ever sin’ the big randy.”
“So I heard yesterday, and I am very sorry for it,” said Fanny.
A voice from the library called, “Is that Mrs. Paget?” and Fanny came around a screen to see Liz reclining on a sofa, her face alight with expectation.
“Oh, my dear friend, I have been so wearying to see you! But Chilgrove said my complaint might be contagious, and my conscience would not allow me to send out a call for your company, or even to tell how I was, lest you come and take the infection. But I am so very glad you have come! Especially since George told me about the dreadful accident to your baby! What a fright you have been in! Is he really quite unhurt?”
Fanny was touched that Liz should inquire after the baby when she herself was plainly still far from well. She looked very pale, waxen, and was a great deal thinner man when last seen; in spite of being carefully arranged, her curling gold-brown hair had lost its luster and her eyes their sparkle. Fanny’s conscience smote her that she had been harboring censorious and unkind thoughts of her friend; at the sight of Liz her suspicions melted totally away. She hastened to make light of little Thomas’s misadventure and inquire how Liz really did.
“For indeed you look sadly pulled down.”
“Oh, it was a shocking bore, but I am better now,” sighed Liz. “And it made an excuse to bundle all our guests out of the house, including that viper Henriques, who I could see was rendering himself disagreeable to you. I am truly sorry for that; the man is a pest, and quite without principle, but the trouble is, there is no getting rid of him. He was a friend of George’s in the wild days, when George belonged to the Four-in-Hand Club and the Prince of Wales’s set, and now, when he wishes to stay here, George is too good-natured to say no. Thank heaven he was afraid of taking the infection, and departed to find some other accommodating hosts. But tell me how you go on, my dear friend? And how is that curmudgeonly husband of yours?”
Somehow, without having the least intention of doing so, Fanny found herself relating the story of her visit to the jail and Boxall’s astounding revelation.
“Is it not strange, Liz? My poor brother-in-law dying in that jail, and Goble having seen his ghost there. Do you believe in ghosts, Liz?”
“I have never seen one myself,” Liz admitted. “But I remember hearing George speak of this occurrence—indeed at one time it was a well-known tale, all over the town. George used to think very highly of Goble, you know—he was employed as a gardener here before he was impressed—and George would have taken him on again when he came back from his naval service; but Goble would not; he said he was disgraced. But how could he have imagined the specter? Very likely he had never known Wilshire, who was not a native of the town. It must have been a real specter!”
“Goble is so strange now,” Fanny confessed. “I am half afraid of him. He was muttering something today about the ash maid—saying, I think, that it was she who had flung little Thomas into the well.”
“The ash maid? He has been reading Theocritus!” said Liz, laughing. “If it were young Talgarth, now, I would not be surprised. Were not the ash maids hollow dryads who came out of trees to lure travelers to destruction? But do you not think, Fanny,” she went on in a more serious tone, “is it not possible that it was Goble who put your baby in the well? As a kind of revenge on Thomas, perhaps, for the death of Ned Wilshire?”
“But why now? And how could he possibly know that Thomas was Ned Wilshire’s brother?” Fanny began. Then, however, she recollected that Goble had been used to push old Mrs. Wilshire about the garden in her wheel chair. He might have discovered from the old lady—yes, he might—
“Good heavens!” she burst out. “Liz! What had I best do?”
“Well, it is only conjecture,” Liz said quickly. “Best do nothing, is my advice. Your husband is such a hothead, you know! Wait and watch. Do not leave the baby unattended.”
“No, indeed I will not.”
Greatly preoccupied with this idea, Fanny shortly afterward took h
er leave, saying that she had tired Liz for long enough. Lord Egremont came in as she was going, greeted her in friendly fashion, asked after the baby, and offered to send her home in the carriage. She was laughingly declining this offer when Liz contradicted her.
“Yes, George—Fanny would like to be driven down to the new graveyard. She wishes to lay some flowers on her mother-in-law’s grave.”
“Oh, but I have none with me—” Fanny began; but Lord Egremont had already given the order, and at the same time dispatched a footman for some blooms from the glasshouses. Two beautiful bouquets of roses and lilies were brought before Fanny had time to utter more than a few words of protest, and Lord Egremont handed her into the carriage.
The graveyard lay a quarter of a mile outside the town by the Billingshurst road upon a grassy eastward slope. There were very few graves in it, as yet, and the planted trees were still young, hardly more than saplings; the place was kept, still, mainly for persons coming from outside the town who had not family plots in the Bartons’ graveyard near the church.