by Joan Aiken
Fanny, having laid one of her bouquets on the newly turfed resting place of Thomas’s mother, which as yet lacked a headstone, turned to scrutinize the rest of the stones, of which there were fewer than a score. Ned Wilshire’s must be one of the oldest here, she thought, if he died more than twenty years ago.
Her search was not difficult. A stone in a corner by the hedge that seemed somewhat older than the rest caught her attention, and, crossing to it, she read the brief inscription: “Edwrd. Wilshire Esq. A Stranger to this Town. ‘Many that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake.’ Went to his rest 1773.”
Seventeen seventy-three. Thomas would have been twenty-three, and his brother eighteen or thereabouts.
Poor young man, Fanny thought. No doubt he was foolish and dissipated, but so were many young men of his years; he might, with increased age, have mended his ways. It did not occur to Fanny at this moment that she herself was only seventeen; so many cares sat on her shoulders that she felt, often, older than the Sphinx. She laid her flowers on the grave and was returning to the carriage when an oddity struck her; among the graves of strangers, many neglected, with grass long and shaggy or nettles growing on them, that of Ned Wilshire was kept clipped and neat. She turned back to verify the fact: yes, the grass was carefully scythed, even the stone looked as if it had been cleaned. Could it be possible that Thomas had paid this attention to his brother’s grave? Or hired someone to do it? Puzzling over this, she had walked a few steps away when a movement caught her eye: somebody who had been kneeling beside a distant grave stood up; she was a little confused to recognize the young gardener, Andrew Talgarth. Still, her errand to the graveyard was a perfectly proper one. She went forward to greet him. He had, she saw, been placing a very beautiful bunch of wild flowers—honeysuckle, campion, cowslips, herb Robert, traveler’s-joy—on the grave of Jennifer Talgarth, dearly beloved wife of Robert Talgarth and mother of Andrew, born in Llandovery 1740, died in Petworth 1790.
“My mam always liked the wild flowers best,” explained Andrew, giving Fanny his slow, wide smile. “So in summertime I try to bring her over a new posy every two-three days; my da comes over on Sundays but he’s not so young as he used to be and he finds it a fair step from his house in the dillywoods. Lord Egremont’d send the carriage for him, but that he won’t allow.”
“Lord Egremont sent the carriage for me,” said Fanny, smiling too. “And the flowers! There is no end to his kindness!”
It occurred to her that if Andrew Talgarth were of an inquisitive nature he would immediately notice the identical bouquets on the new grave of Mrs. Wilshire and the old grave of poor Edward; it would be simple for him to make the connection and form his own conclusion; but she was certainly not going to stoop to any deceptions about it; she liked him much too well for that. Indeed she went on:
“I have only just discovered that my husband’s brother, who died long ago, is also buried in this graveyard. I was quite surprised to find his grave so well tended.”
Talgarth’s brilliant dark blue eyes turned to follow the direction of her glance; he said:
“Ah, that grave’s been well tended ever since old Goble came back from the sea.”
“Goble? It is he who keeps it neat? Why should—”
“Because he saw the ghost!” Andrew said, smiling. “It had a rare, sobering effect on old Goble, that phantom did, by all accounts! And I’m not saying I mightn’t be the same. If I saw a spook, likely I’d take care to keep its resting place tidy.”
“Good heavens,” said Fanny faintly.
Now recalling that all this time she was keeping Lord Egremont’s carriage waiting at the gate, she moved on, then, turning back, said impulsively to Andrew Talgarth:
“I was not able to thank you as I ought for the assistance yon rendered me that day in Petworth House gardens when I was being persecuted by that odious, odious man! I can hardly express to you how deeply grateful to you I was—how immensely relieved to see you come along that path—”
His face broke into its flashing smile again. “Ah, it was nothing, ma’am! I didn’t like to see you so affrighted; I’d have been glad to throw the chap into a holly bush.—Though I daresay it was punishment enow for him to have me turn up when I did—the poor besotted fool!” He glanced aside, seemed to murmur something—could it have been “Who’s to blame him?”—then, turning full to Fanny once more, said seriously, “Any way I can help you, ma’am, at any time, I shall be very happy. You can always call on Andrew Talgarth, I hope you know that?” The blue eyes met hers again, he gave a little bow, rather dignified, then turned and strode away up the slope toward a gate that led out onto the North Chapel road.
Feeling strangely peaceful, Fanny rode home in Lord Egremont’s carriage.
This mood of calm lasted through that day and the next and helped her to bear with fortitude the miserable atmosphere in the house, compounded of the servants’ nervous hostility under Thomas’s threats, his air of black vindictiveness against the whole world, Patty’s sulks, and Bet’s uneasy excitement and envy of her sister’s married state. Only little Thomas, the subject of all this upheaval, seemed unchanged; he slept a great deal of the time; roused to take nourishment; then slept again.
Thomas, to Fanny’s infinite relief, now passed several nights in his garden house. Since Fanny had no wish for the distasteful presence of Mrs. Baggot in her bedchamber, she did not summon the nurse, but, as she had done while Thomas was in London, requested Tess at night and morning to help her put on and remove her corselet (rightly guessing that Thomas would instantly notice if she left off the repellent garment). She had been a little exercised in mind as to how to explain it to Tess, but in the end simply said that it had been recommended as an aid to posture, leaving Tess to draw her own conclusions.
Tess accepted this, merely remarking, “Geemany, ma’am, I dunno why you need sich a contraption, seeing as you allus holds yourself upright as an ellet-rod. If it had been Miss Bet, now!”
On the third morning after Thomas’s accident, Tess appeared in a state of hardly suppressed excitement which burst out as she began the lacing up.
“Oh, ma’am, sich doings! That poor lady as you sent to lodge with my auntie Rapley—Missus Fox—”
“Yes? What of her?” Fanny asked with an instinctive tremor and sinking of the heart.
“She’ve been found, missus! Drownded! In the pool, down to Haslingbourne mill!”
“What? Oh, how dreadful! Who found her?”
“My cousin by marriage Charley Heather. He work down to Haslingbourne as a miller’s man, an’ when he went to open the sluice gate he see a bit of a feather, yaller, an’, thinks he, That be no water bird, and he looks furder, an’ sees the poor lady a-floating drownded among the mare’s tails an’ tussocks.”
“Oh, my God!” Fanny felt so sick and unstrung that she had to sit down on her bed.
“Hold up, ma’am! I shouldn’t ha’ told ye so sudden. I’ll get ye a cup of water.”
“Thank you, Tess. Just leave me a moment and I—I will soon be better.”
“D’you think ’twas she, ma’am, as tried to drown poor little Mas’r Thomas, an’ then got sad-like, an’ dreesome, a-thinking of what she’d done, an’ throwed herself in the mill pool?”
“I do not know, Tess” Fanny said faintly. “Perhaps so.”
But to herself she added, Perhaps that is what we were meant to think.
* * *
True or not, this, at any rate, was the explanation popularly held in the town for Miss Fox’s untimely end. A coroner’s inquest was held in the new town hall—much to the disgust of Thomas, who bitterly deplored and resented the unfortunate publicity of the whole affair; and it was decided that she must have made the attack on little Thomas while in an unbalanced state of mind, and had then drowned herself in a fit of remorse. Many people in the town came forward to say that they had seen the strange lady wal
king about wringing her hands or distressfully muttering to herself, “hackering an’ stammering like she were only half baptized,” as the town constable put it; so this seemed a reasonable explanation for both occurrences. Goble was not present at the inquest; he was laid up in the loft over the shed where he slept with one of the putrid fevers so prevalent in the town that summer, and Mrs. Strudwick reported that he was feverish and rambling and talked no sense at all. Fanny would have visited him, but Thomas furiously forbade this, exclaiming:
“Are you mad, Frances? Do you wish to bring the contagion back to the whole family?”
Two days after Miss Fox’s quiet funeral rites—she, also, was buried in the graveyard on the Billingshurst road, and a surprisingly large number of curious bystanders attended the ceremony, but the Paget family stayed away—Tess came to Fanny with a folded paper.
“The constables did come an’ take all Miss Fox’s things from my auntie’s, ma’am—not that the poor lady had much—but they missed this, simmingly. I fund it under the mattress, time I ran up to give the room a turnout. An’ I saw the name Paget on it, so I brung it to ye. ’Tis in some foreign language, though, I reckon; I couldn’t read no more than the name.”
The short note was, in fact, written in French. “Si quelqu’un, me trouvera, morte, je veux…”
If I should be found dead, I wish it to be known that the man responsible for my sad end is Thomas Paget, my evil genius, who used me heartlessly and despitefully, made many promises that he did not intend to keep, unkindly threw me off, and at the last, deprived me of my poor life, as he had done previously to his wife Emma.
Maria Fox
The scrap of paper swam under Fanny’s eyes.
“Thank you, Tess,” she said at length with difficulty. “I shall have—I shall have to think what is best to be done with this. You did right to bring it to me.”
Show it to Liz? was her first thought. To Lord Egremont? To Lady Mountague?
But, under such a direct accusation, Thomas must surely have the right to defend himself? He must have the right to see it first?
Papa would certainly say so.
Fanny walked swiftly out into the garden and across to Thomas’s sanctum. He was there, she knew; she had seen him cross the grass after breakfast, although it was his usual day to visit the mill.
The weather was close, cloudy, and uneasy; a fidgety wind sighed in the branches of the ash tree and carried the chimney smoke over the garden in sudden blue gusts.
Fanny tapped at Thomas’s door and walked firmly into the bare little room, controlling, as best she could, her inner dread.
He was there alone, sitting moodily hunched over a small wood fire. The garden room, with four outside walls and facing north, was damp and cold at all times except in the full sun.
“Now what is it, Frances?” he said harshly, turning to fix Fanny with an unwelcoming stare. She noticed that his eyes were bloodshot.
“Thomas…I think you ought to see this. It was found in Miss Fox’s room.”
He read the paper, puzzling slowly through the French. He had learned the language, Fanny knew, during his spell in the navy, enough to understand conversation and, she imagined, the contents of this note. As indeed it proved. Reaching the end, he gave a grunt of rage, screwed up the paper, and, before Fanny could stop him, hurled it into the fire.
“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I did not mean—Do you think you ought to have done that?”
“Yes, I should! And why not, pray?” He turned on Fanny furiously. “When that madwoman was accusing me of—Why not? Do you mean to suggest that I—that your husband—?”
Flinching before the look in his eyes, she murmured something about the coroner’s inquest.
Thomas took her hand in a punishing grip.
“Listen to me, Frances. You are to forget that you ever saw that mad, lying note. Do you understand me? If I ever hear you speak of it again—if I ever hear that any word about it has got out—I shall know who carried the report. I shall know that you are mad—to give credit to such tales about your husband. Do you understand me? You will suffer for it.”
He gripped her arm even tighter, until a cold sweat pearled her brow and she gave a stifled cry.
“I must do what I think is right, Thomas,” she said breathlessly.
“If you mention that note,” he told her, “I shall say that your wits are turned. That it was you who threw little Thomas down the well. I shall have you committed to Bedlam. Now go!”
Fanny stumbled out, so paralyzed by the hate and fury in his voice that the futility of his threat was no comfort to her. True, he could not accuse her of throwing her own baby down the well—she had been in Cowdray Park at the time—but she did not doubt that he would think of something just as bad. And would have no hesitation in doing it.
Fourteen
The town of Kabul was a handsome, prosperous, and friendly place with a great palace—built long ago by the Emperor Thaimur—on a hilltop looking north to the mountains of the Hindu Kush. The city, lying to the west of a spacious plain, ensconced in the angle between two mountain ridges, was built mainly of baked clay—golden, flat-roofed houses, tier upon tier, leading up the hillside. Among the bazaars and caravanserais there were many beautiful fountains and painted arcades. Huge red-flowering trees gave shade at street corners, walnuts and plane trees adorned the public gardens. Despite the uneasy political situation since the death of Thaimur with at least twenty of his sons struggling to obtain mastery of the country, the atmosphere in Kabul was one of luxury, comfort, and frivolity. Dancing girls performed in public places to the music of lyre and tambourine. Innumerable stalls sold wine, food, and every kind of delicacy, particularly the candied fruits for which the town was famous—preserved mulberries and rhubarb, made into a delicious conserve with lime and grape juice, candied apples, pears, peaches, quinces, licorice, and watermelon. Raspberries were preserved in ice with rose water; ice, brought down in great blocks from the mountains during the winter and kept buried in pits wrapped with straw, lay within the purchasing power of any poor citizen, even in the hottest summer.
The females had to take all these delights on trust, however, (except the candied fruits, of which Cal brought them supplies every evening). Cameron was warned by a friend of his, a camel dealer in the Kashmir serai, that even here emissaries of Prince Mihal were on the lookout for a party of Kitabi, or Christians, carrying a baby with them. Also, as a known adherent of the imprisoned Mahmud, brother of the Shah Shuja’, Cameron would be liable to arrest if he were recognized. He therefore thought it best to appear in the streets as little as possible, and then in careful disguise as an Arab horse dealer. He had accordingly hired a house for his party, where they must remain withdrawn from the public eye until a suitable westward-traveling caravan had been found, to which they could attach themselves.
The house consisted of two rooms, one for eating and one for sleeping. The main room had in it a sandali—a stone table built over a hole in the ground, in which a fire burned all winter long. Around this an Afghan family would sit cross-legged through the winter months—very often the legs of old persons and females were quite numb by the spring, Cameron told Miss Musson, who commented tartly that the Afghanis must be a set of idle good-for-nothings.
Miss Musson was very silent these days. Unless directly addressed, she seldom spoke. Very few of her dry shrewd comments, her brisk, pithy, ironic, yet good-natured observations were to be heard by her fellow travelers; ever since leaving the Holy Pir’s mountain she seemed to have fallen into an abstraction. Because of this very uncharacteristic preoccupation and inattentiveness, she had apparently failed to remark the almost equally uncommunicative mood of her younger companions. It was, of course, not uncommon for Cal, when inspired with a poem, to be quiet and dreamy and rapt; his present behavior merely followed the usual pattern as he sat immobile, staring into space, or feverishly covere
d the stone table with sheets of scribbled manuscript. His long epic about the great stone horse, the Asp-i-Dheha, was well under way, and he raised no particular objections to Cameron’s interdictions on the exploration of Kabul, only taking the air at dusk, disguised as an ash-smeared faqir, or a seller of shawls from Kashmir.
But for Cal’s sister to be so quiet, so somber and reserved, for such a long period was far from customary, and Cameron occasionally gave her a thoughtful, troubled glance, when he could do so unobserved by herself or other members of the party. She did not appear to be ill or afflicted in any physical way that he could discover, merely sunk in a strange lethargy and lowness of spirit so profound that sometimes she had to be addressed three or four times before she heard what was said to her. She had odd flashes of anger too, though never at Miss Musson; but with the other two she frequently lost her patience in a way that was quite out of character. “Scylla’s sulky as a bear these days, I can’t imagine what’s got into her,” Cal confided to the colonel. “As a rule, you know, she’s the best company in the world, never out of sorts. What can ail her, do you suppose? I ask her, but she just turns me off, or snaps at me. Can she have formed an attachment for one of those warriors back at the Bai’s castle?”
“Young ladies can be very chancy creatures,” Cameron answered cautiously, “though certainly your sister has up to now shown less signs of temperament than many members of her sex. I daresay she will come about if we leave her in peace.”
Accordingly Scylla was left mainly to her own reflections, and these were far from happy. She would sit for hours together, sometimes, with a stricken expression in her eyes, staring out of the small window, over the descending flat roofs of Kabul, to the faraway snow-covered peaks; and her face appeared almost as frozen and immobile as the distant mountains.
On the night when the glimmer of false dawn had shown her that it was Cal, not the colonel, who had come to her bed, she had been so appalled that her first instinct had been flight, and silence. With desperate, trembling speed, she had removed herself and her few belongings from the cave. Cal was sunk in a profound, swoonlike slumber; he had rolled off the bag of feathers onto the sandy floor of the cave, so she was able to carry the bed away with her. She withdrew herself and little Chet, who slept like a dormouse in his box of hay, to another chamber, and settled down as best she might to pass the rest of the night in a state not far removed from despair. At first her main concern had been for Cal. That he had been sleepwalking she was well aware; but suppose he had woken sufficiently to realize what he had done? His sister could only pray that was not so. Meanwhile she was left with the terrifying realization that his attachment to Sripana must have gone a great deal further than anybody had suspected; the thought of the danger they must all have been in had the Bai discovered this turned her sick with horror, also the thought of Cameron’s reactions had he learned about it. Her own fault paled in comparison.