by Joan Aiken
Fanny shivered. “I do not know! He is very pertinacious in accusing me; and I know that I did not do it—but still—I find it so hard to believe that he could—that even Thomas could do such a thing—”
She raised pain-filled eyes to Cal, who exclaimed in horror, “You did not think that I had done it, Fanny?”
“No—oh, how could I tell? I did not know what to think.”
“Have you no one to comfort you? Where is my sister?”
“Oh, she has come almost every day. She has been very kind. Everyone has indeed.”
Now Cal glanced about the cell and saw that it was filled with tokens of people’s good will—newspapers and books lay piled on the floor, jam pots of flowers, baskets of fruit stood ranged against the wall.
“Many Petworth people—whom I do not even know—so often send little things—eggs, cheeses—and the children send posies—somebody comes every single day with these—” Fanny indicated a very beautifully arranged bouquet of woodland flowers and evergreens—old-man’s beard, feathery broom, brilliant rose hips, pine fronds and cones, a few snowdrops and early wild daffodils. “Every day I receive a new one, but I do not know who brings them. Is it not beautiful?”
“Yes—very—but, Fanny, it is so dreadful to see you in this place. To set you free I would gladly admit to the murder myself—”
“Cal, no! You are not to think of such a thing!”
“Well, I daresay it will not be necessary,” he agreed. “I will go to see old Goble, and, between us, I daresay we may be able to piece together enough evidence to point the finger of justice at your abominable husband.”
Fanny had not been told of Goble’s death. Lord Egremont and Scylla had agreed that there was no point in additionally burdening her with this painful news.
She murmured, “I wish you need not! Oh—I do not want to die—and yet I feel that it may be better this way. Poor Thomas—I never loved him—indeed it was hard not to hate him—which was very wrong. I feel I am being punished deservedly.”
“Arrant nonsense!” said Cal.
“No, it is not. I have a foreboding that, if I do not accept this as my just desert for not being a good wife to Thomas, something worse will happen. Oh, Cal—pray do not do anything rash or wild!”
“Not being a good wife to him? You were the best wife a man could hope for—far, far better than he deserved. Fanny, I daresay I should not be saying this to you now, but if—but when—when you are free of all this horror, free from Thomas—as you will, you must be—for he has quite disowned you—will you marry me? Will you be my wife? Indeed, I love you with my whole heart! Loving you has changed me from a boy to a man.” He smiled at her ingenuously, and her heart was pierced by a curious pang—belying his words, he looked so much a boy, still, a lock of soft dark hair hanging, as usual, over his eyes, which gazed pleadingly into hers. “Fanny? Will you? Please say yes!”
She felt too much at ease with him to pretend shock, or surprise, or disapproval. But she shook her head.
“No. Dearest, dearest Cal—no! I love you as much as anybody in the world—but it cannot be. It can never be.”
“Why not? You can divorce him, or—”
“Hush! It would be wrong. I know, I feel, it would be very wrong.”
“No! It would not! It would be right—right for both of us!”
She said quietly, “Please do not go on.”
“No, of course not.” He was humbled. “Forgive me! I am always—importuning you when I should not—when you have too many troubles already. I just wanted you to know. But you are right! I will leave you now. I will see you again as soon as may be. In the meantime—perhaps these may speak for me—” And he pulled a bundle of manuscript pages out of his pocket and handed them to her, saying with a slight smile, “Is it not strange? All the time I was under your roof, I could write nothing—not a single line—though I was feeling it in my heart. But the moment I was back at sea again, out it all came pouring, and the burden of it was Fanny—Fanny—Fanny! These are for you. Let them plead my case. Now I will bid you good-bye.”
And, first gently touching her forehead with his lips, he limped to the door and knocked to be let out.
During the hour’s drive to Petworth he lay back against the cushions and sank into a profound sleep of exhaustion. Since receiving the news of Fanny’s arrest he had hardly known a full night’s repose—he had been riven by remorse over his quarrel with Thomas, which must have begun this whole train of events, harrowed by anxiety for Fanny, and consumed with a longing to affirm his love. The relief of having done this was so great that he slept like a child until awoken by his coach wheels clattering over the cobbled streets of Petworth.
He had told the driver to go straight to Petworth House, Fanny having informed him that Scylla was there. His need to see her almost equaled his need to see Fanny, and he was bitterly disappointed to be told by the major-domo that Miss Paget was not in the house just then.
“She’ll be back here in two–three hours, though, sir, she and Mis’ Wyndham have driven over to Chichester. They’ll be back come dinnertime.”
“How vexatious! We must have passed on the road.”
However, Cal found the master of the house at home and unfeignedly delighted to see him.
“My dear Paget! You are welcome indeed. Where did my message finally catch up with you?”
“At Acre, sir.”
“Acre? By heaven, you have made good time back, then!”
“We were bringing dispatches from Captain Sydney Smith, you see, sir. Boney is marching in his direction—hoping to go on to India—I believe he is at Jaffa now—so it was urgent to bring the news back to England. In that way, fortune favored me—otherwise I might not have got back so fast.”
“You look worn to a bone, my poor boy. Will you eat a nuncheon?”
“No, I thank you, sir. I could not eat. I wish to make a deposition as soon as may be, regarding this horrible business.”
“Of course you do! Let us go into the library, and I will ask Frank Goodyear to write it all down as you tell me. Frank! Frank!” he called to his secretary. “Come along, I wish you to write down Lieutenant Paget’s statement.”
In the library they found a young man studying a large number of elaborate plans which he had spread out on the great table. He rose politely at Lord Egremont’s entrance and made to leave the room.
“Shan’t disturb you long, Talgarth, my dear fellow,” Lord Egremont said. “You go out and take some air, now, prune a tree or something, you look pale as a plateful of tripe! I wish you would obey my orders and go off to study the gardens at Corsham Court, instead of fagging yourself to death over those plans—all work and no play, you know!”
He shook his head at Talgarth as the latter, bowing, left the room, and added to Cal, “Capital young fellow that—capital. Obstinate as a bear, of course, never listens to my orders—but I believe he will be outstripping Capability Brown, by and by, he has a remarkable natural genius. He don’t look well at present, though. Silly fellow! He spends too long over those confounded plans—schemes for my new pleasure grounds, you know. However that ain’t to the purpose. Well, Frank—are you ready to write?”
“I believe, sir,” said Cal, who had been thinking, “that it may be better if old Goble is brought here to confirm my testimony—that is, if it is possible to fetch him without arousing Captain Paget’s suspicions?”
“Goble? What, hadn’t you heard—No, but of course, how could you have? Why, he is dead, my dear fellow, dead and gone these six weeks.”
“What?” exclaimed Cal, horribly startled. “Goble dead? How can this be? He was not murdered also?”
“No—no, poor old fellow, natural causes took him off”—and Lord Egremont described the circumstances. “Chilgrove said he was not surprised; Goble had been ailing for some time, never took much care of himself; probably
never ate a proper meal. I doubt if he was given much in that cheeseparing Paget’s establishment.”
This news distressed Cal deeply. “I daresay the trouble he confided to me may have hastened his end; he told me that guilt and remorse had kept him from sleeping for many weeks.”
“Guilt and remorse for what, my dear boy?”
“He told me that he was the person who threw Thomas’s child down the well.”
“Goble was?” exclaimed Egremont, very much astonished. “Good God! Bless my soul! Why in the world did he do that?”
“He told me that he had seen the ghost of Paget’s brother, twenty years ago, in the Petworth jail, crying out for vengeance. Ever since, it had preyed on his mind, and one day when he was in the garden, he told me, ‘something come over him and he took and heaved the baby down the well.’ Then he was sorry for what he had done, but it was too late. So it was a relief to him when the baby was rescued. But he began to worry more and more, in case fate still intended him to punish Thomas in some other way.”
“God bless my soul,” Egremont muttered again. “And he told you all this?”
“Yes, it came out, bit by bit, on snowy days in the stable. I think,” Cal said seriously, “that he began to confuse me in his own mind with this younger brother of Thomas who died in jail.”
“Looked up Wilshire’s case,” Lord Egremont muttered. “Lost all his money at Goodwood races—drunk and disorderly—clapped into Petworth jail till his friends could pay his debts—contracted the jail fever and died. Before we built our new prison that was, of course. Poor stupid young fellow. Not a bad sort, I daresay. But come, now, let us have your deposition, let us get that over with.”
The deposition, however, as Lord Egremont soberly said, did little more than bear out Goble’s previous testimony.
“We know the snow stopped falling at three. We have the night watchman’s word for that. We know the child’s burial place was covered with snow; therefore the murder must have been committed at least a half hour to an hour previously. You found Goble in the garden at half past three, you say—you do not think that he had committed the murder? Repeating his previous act?”
“No,” said Cal, very positively. “His remorse over the previous act was too real. Also—as far as I know—Goble had but the one suit of clothes. I never saw him wearing anything else. And there was no blood on him—not a speck.”
“I am afraid we are not advanced much further,” Lord Egremont was saying disappointedly, “after fetching you all the way back from Acre, too!” when the Rev. Martin Socket was announced.
“Mr. Socket informed me that it was a matter of some urgency, my lord,” said the footman.
“In that case, show him in.—Well, Martin, my friend—what can I do for you?”
Mr. Socket did indeed appear quite agitated. He had another man with him, who carried a canvas parcel.
“Giles Fewkes, eh?” said Lord Egremont, recognizing one of his tenants. “What’s all this about then, eh?”
“Lord Egremont, Farmer Fewkes, here, has made a discovery which we think may be of considerable importance in the case of the Paget baby. We thought it best to lay the matter before you without delay.”
“The Paget case?” Lord Egremont suddenly looked very alert. “Now there’s a coincidence for you. But what is this discovery, then?”
The Rev. Mr. Socket, glancing at Mr. Fewkes, who appeared tongue-tied, continued with the story.
“Six weeks ago, you see, sir, as—owing to the splendid hay harvest last year, I had more than enough provender for my three horses and two milch cows—I sold the contents of my smaller barn, the one in the valley, to Mr. Fewkes, here; and he sent a couple of men with a wagon to cart it all over to one of his empty Dutch barns, in two big loads, rather than waste time going back and forth every time they wanted a truss of hay to feed his heifers.”
“Yes? But what has this to say to anything?” demanded Egremont, somewhat puzzled.
“Patience, sir; I am just coming to the point. The hay was removed in two wagonloads and the barn—which, as you know, is halfway down the slope below the Hermitage—was left empty. This, as it happened, was on the day following the Paget baby’s death.”
“Oh-ho? Indeed?”
“Mr. Fewkes has been feeding the hay to his cattle, sir, truss by truss, and today discovered in the middle of a bundle this jacket, which we have brought to you.”
Here Farmer Fewkes, undoing the canvas parcel, revealed a stiff, dusty, dirty-looking garment, with tarnished brass buttons, which could just be recognized as a pea jacket. It was stained dark brown, and flecked with stalks and seeds of hay. Rolled up in it was a short sword, which at first glance looked to be rusty, but on closer inspection appeared stained with the same dark substance as the jacket.
“Good God!” said Lord Egremont, staring at these exhibits. “That looks like one of the Petworth Troop issue swords. And that jacket—”
“I have seen that jacket—or one very like it,” said Cal quietly. “It resembles one worn about the house by my cousin Thomas.”
Lord Egremont stood up and, without touching it, carefully inspected the handle of the sword, which was made of plain metal, bound with wire to give it a better grip. “Look there, what do you see?” he said to Cal.
Cal scrutinized it likewise.
“I see the print of a three-fingered hand,” he said.
Egremont began to mutter to himself. “He knew the house and grounds would be searched. He wore his wife’s nightdress over his jacket to catch the blood. That was why Goble thought he was a ghost. But even so the jacket was soaked. He had to get rid of it. He left the nightdress and a razor in the privy to incriminate his wife—he made a mistake there. The child was stabbed as well as slashed. You cannot inflict a stab wound with a razor. He buried the child—that was before the snow had stopped falling. By the time you came into the garden the loose earth had been screened by snow, and he was in the valley, hiding his jacket and the weapon. An hour earlier, and you would have caught him digging.”
Cal shuddered. “I must confess, sir, I am just as glad we did not. What a sight!”
“He hid the jacket in the barn, probably intending to return at a later time and burn it, after the Bow Street runners had completed their search. But, when he did go back to the barn, the hay had all been removed. He must have wondered where it had gone. He must have been horrified—”
“Why!” exclaimed the rector. “Paget did come to me—three or four days later! He told me his hay supply was running low and asked if I had any to spare. I told him that I had none left, save for my own use.”
“He must have been on tenterhooks to know where your hay had gone,” Lord Egremont said grimly. “Did he not ask you?”
“No—I suppose he was afraid his interest might seem too particular.”
Egremont rang vigorously for a footman.
“Pringle: see that the constables are brought here directly. And—wait; as a magistrate and lord lieutenant, I can order the release of Mrs. Paget from jail; Frank, write this order from me to the governor of the prison of Chichester—Talgarth can take it over. Don’t go, Socket, my dear fellow, or you, Fewkes, we shall want your depositions for the constables—Where is Paget gone off to, now? I suppose he is weary from traveling and needs to rest. Now then, Frank, take this down: ‘I hereby authorize the immediate release of Mrs. Frances Paget—’”
Cal had not, in fact, gone to rest but was making his way across the Bartons’ graveyard to the Hermitage. By now, after his weeks at sea, he was quite nimble on his wooden leg, assisted by a heavy cane which he carried with him everywhere.
Entering the Hermitage garden, he noticed, first, the difference that the changing season had made since he was last there: the snow was all gone, the daffodil stalks were sprouting, slim and green, the cherry and apple trees were in bud.
Cal
glanced through the garden-room window. The place was empty, so he swung his way across the lawn to the house.
The door was opened by Mrs. Strudwick, who gasped in astonishment.
“Master Cal! We never looked to see you back!”
“Is your master—is Captain Paget in?” he asked quickly.
“Yes, sir—he’s in the dining room—shall I say you’re here?” she added doubtfully, evidently recalling the quarrel. “He’s in a very strange, twitty mood these days, sir.”
“Don’t trouble, Mrs. Strudwick, I will announce myself. Where are the young ladies?” he added, for the house seemed strangely silent.
“They’ve gone, sir; their sister, Miss Martha, come and took them away. Master’s all on his own now.”
Cal entered the dining room where Thomas, having evidently finished an early and solitary meal, was sitting in the half-light as if he had not the energy to get up and move to another place. A gruel bowl and a plate with a half-eaten piece of bread stood before him.
Cal was startled at the difference that the intervening weeks had made in his cousin. Thomas looked as if he had aged by ten years. His brow was wrinkled, there were deep furrows in his sallow cheeks, the hair above his eyes had turned completely white, and the patches by his ears were grizzled with gray. He looked gaunt and dry, like some half-starved old bird of prey, huddled on its perch, with rusty feathers, its head hunched between its shoulders.
When Cal walked in Thomas, who was staring unseeingly at the shuttered window, did not turn his head, but said harshly:
“Get out, woman, and do not come troubling me. I said that I wanted nothing more.”