The Arrangement

by Joan Wolf

  I hadn’t eaten the herrings but the pigeons smelled all right. I accepted some asparagus from Raoul and cut into my fowl.

  He answered John, “I know, I know, but Mr. Middleman and I agreed that it would be best if the two possible heirs to Devane remained here at Savile until this whole issue is resolved.”

  “And afterward?” John persisted. “Suppose Harriet’s child is a boy. What are you going to do with Roger then? Continue to support him? Continue to allow him to live here?”

  “Then we will have to find a way for Roger to support himself,” Raoul said serenely.

  John snorted rudely.

  Ginny said, “Good luck.”

  Mr. Cole said, “That kind of young man don’t never come to anything good, my lord. He ain’t like you, you see. He don’t care about anything but himself.”

  I felt a stab of surprise at how well Mr. Cole had expressed what I thought was probably the essence of Roger Melville.

  That night I moved back to my old room on the second floor and Raoul came up the stairs to visit me and everything was normal for three more days.

  Then one of the tenants’ children was killed by a bow and arrow in the woods.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  It happened like this. For three days, Charlie, Theo, and Nicky had been playing Robin Hood in the Home Woods. In fact, for the first two days, I had joined in their game for part of the day. I knew I had to surmount this need I felt to keep a constant eye on Nicky, but when the boys agreed to my tentative suggestion that perhaps they could use a Maid Marian to bring them luncheon, I couldn’t resist the opportunity. On the third morning, however, Ginny asked me to go into Savile village with her and I had left the boys to play their game without me.

  What had happened next was that Johnny Wester had accompanied his father, who was one of Raoul’s tenants, to the mill, where Charlie had met him and invited him to spend the day playing Robin Hood. Johnny’s father had given permission and Johnny had enthusiastically accompanied Charlie to “Sherwood Forest” to meet the rest of Robin Hood’s band of merry men.

  Unbeknownst to me, the faithful Mr. Wilson was not in attendance on that particular morning, as Ginny had given him permission to spend the day with his brother, who was passing through Henley. The boys had pressed the footman whom Raoul had assigned to look out for Nicky into service to play Little John to Charlie’s Robin.

  The boys had also taken advantage of their tutor’s (and my) absence to borrow several of the estate’s target-shooting bows and arrows, which were stored in one of the outbuildings behind the castle. Albert, the footman, was unaware that the boys did not have permission to use the bows, so he had gone along with the game. In the absence of Maid Marian, the boys had assigned Albert to remain back at camp (the tree house), supposedly preparing dinner for the merry men, and so both as a guard and as a witness he was useless.

  All the boys knew the rudiments of shooting, and afterward they told us in shock that they had not been shooting at each other but at the trees, which were supposed to be the Sheriff of Nottingham’s men.

  Only somehow Johnny got shot in the chest and was killed.

  After Albert had brought the child back to the castle, after it was certain that he was dead, and after his parents had been sent for, Raoul stood our three boys in front of him in the Little Drawing Room and tried to discover exactly what had happened. Ginny and I sat tensely on the settee on either side of Raoul and listened.

  “None of us could have shot him, Uncle Raoul!” Charlie cried in distress.

  “We were all spread out in a line, see, because we were supposed to be attacking the sheriffs men,” Theo said.

  “Charlie and Theo and I were all shouting and yelling,” said Nicky. “Johnny was kind of quiet, but I could hear the noise he was making as the twigs broke under his feet. Then there was a…kind of thud, and he cried out.”

  Nicky swallowed audibly.

  “None of us could have shot him,” Charlie repeated. “We were all facing in the same direction, Uncle Raoul! How could we have shot Johnny in the chest?”

  “You are quite certain that none of you were in front of Johnny?” Raoul asked quietly.

  “No!” Charlie and Theo said emphatically, and Nicky shook his head.

  “Arrows don’t turn around,” Charlie said. “They go straight. And we were shooting away from Johnny, Uncle Raoul. I swear it!”

  Ginny said tiredly, “Well, someone shot Johnny, Charlie. He didn’t shoot himself.”

  The three boys were very pale and shocked-looking. “I know someone shot Johnny, Mama,” Charlie said. “I am just telling you that it wasn’t us.”

  Ginny fell back on motherly scolding. “What on earth prompted you boys to take out the bows and arrows? I can’t believe that you could be so untrustworthy.”

  Silence fell in the room. The three boys looked wretchedly at their feet.

  “We’re sorry,” Theo whispered.

  “Yes, well, sorry will not bring Johnny back,” Ginny said, falling back on trivial words in the face of the tragic.

  “Could there have been a poacher in the woods?” I asked. “Someone who did not want to be heard with a gun so he chose to use a bow?”

  “A poacher who was poaching small boys?” Ginny asked.

  “No, a poacher who mistook Johnny for a deer,” I said doggedly.

  Raoul replied somberly, “Anyone from the neighborhood would know that the children use those woods. It is hard to believe that anyone would be careless enough to shoot without being very certain indeed what it was he was shooting at.”

  “We were being quite loud, my lord,” Nicky said in a small voice. “We were pretending it was a battle, you see, so we were shouting all kinds of taunts. A poacher would have known for certain that people were in the area.”

  The whole picture was growing uglier and uglier.

  Powell appeared in the drawing-room doorway. “The Westers are here, my lord.”

  Raoul got slowly to his feet. He looked sick. “Very well, Powell, I will come immediately.”

  I wanted so much to go with him, to help him through the horrible task of telling the parents that their child was dead. But I did not have that right.

  Ginny said, “I’ll go with you, Raoul.”

  He gave her a grateful look. “Thank you, Ginny. I think a woman’s presence will be helpful to Mrs. Wester.”

  The two of them left the room, leaving me alone with the three boys.

  Charlie said wretchedly, “If only I had not invited Johnny to play with us!”

  My own feelings were very conflicted. I felt dreadful about Johnny, of course, but I had an utterly terrifying feeling that if Johnny had not been added to the game, it would have been Nicky who was lying lifeless in the anteroom.

  I said, “You couldn’t have known what would happen, Charlie. Now I’d like you to think. Did you notice any sign at all that there was someone else in the woods with you this afternoon?”

  The boys looked at one another, then slowly they all shook their heads.

  “We were very busy with our game, you see, Mrs. Saunders,” Charlie said. “I’m not saying that no one was there—in fact it’s pretty clear that someone must have been, isn’t it—but we were too busy to notice anything.”

  “That’s so, Mama,” Nicky said.

  I looked at the shocked young faces before me. “No one thinks that Johnny’s shooting was your fault,” I told them gently. “Sometimes things happen, terrible things, that are very hard for us to understand. I think it would be a good idea for you all to spend a little time this week talking to the rector about what happened to Johnny. Mr. Ambling might be able to help make this a little easier for you.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Saunders,” the Austen boys murmured.

  Nicky nodded.

  “Do you think Uncle Raoul wants us to stay here and wait for him?” Theo asked.

  I thought that the familiar surroundings of the nursery would probably be good for them. “No,” I sai
d. “Go upstairs. If you are needed your uncle will know where you are.”

  The three boys turned to leave.

  “Nicky,” I murmured as they reached the door, and at my words he turned back into the room. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” I asked.

  By now the Austen boys had left the room, and Nicky returned to me, threw his arms around my waist, and buried his face in my breasts. “It was so dreadful, Mama,” he said in a choked kind of voice. “Johnny was lying on his back and a big arrow was sticking out of his chest.” He began to sob.

  I held him so tightly that I was afraid I was hurting him, and the image he had described was frighteningly present in my mind.

  I had seen Johnny when they brought him in, and the first thing I had noticed was that he was of a similar size and build as Nicky and that his hair was almost the same shade of brown.

  A dreadful conviction was growing within me that the target of that fatal bow shot had been my son.

  “Listen to me, sweetheart,” I said when his sobs had slowed and he had collected himself somewhat. “From now on I want you to be very careful never to leave the company of the other boys and Mr. Wilson. Do you hear me? Never, ever, under any circumstances, go off on your own.”

  His blue eyes were huge. “Do you think I am in danger, Mama?”

  I hated to frighten him, but I thought the situation was too serious for me to ignore. “I don’t know, Nicky, but what happened to Johnny was definitely peculiar. So please be careful.”

  The blue eyes got even bigger. “Yes, Mama.”

  “Good boy.” I forced my lips to assume what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Good night, then, sweetheart. I will see you in the morning.”

  “Mama,” said my now thoroughly frightened son, “can I stay with you tonight?”

  It was a measure of how frightened I was that I said yes.

  * * * *

  Raoul and I went for a walk in the rose garden after dinner, and his response to my decision about Nicky was predictable. “You said he could sleep in your room? Are you mad, Gail? The boy is eight years of age—far too old to be sleeping in his mama’s room.”

  Even though I had expected it, Raoul’s reply incensed me. “You are just put out because you won’t be able to sleep with me yourself. What do you care that Nicky’s life is in danger as long as you get what you want?”

  He said in a hard voice, “What are you talking about?”

  My voice was edged with panic as I answered, “Nicky is in deadly danger, Raoul. I know it. First there was the bridge, then there was the possible poisoning of his pony, and now a boy who looks like Nicky—a boy who was added into the play group at the Home Woods at the last minute—is killed.”

  He was silent for a minute. Then he said, “You think that arrow was meant for Nicky?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I do.”

  “Christ,” he said, and I did not mistake his use of the sacred name for blasphemy.

  More silence fell between us. The sweet, heavy scent of the roses was all around us, and from the top of the castle walls a nightingale began to sing. I wondered if it was the same nightingale that had been singing the first night Raoul and I had made love.

  The thought of that night softened my feelings toward him. “How was your interview with the Westers?” I asked.

  “Hellish.” His voice was rough and angry-sounding. “What can one possibly say to someone who has lost a child?”

  It occurred to me that I was speaking to a man who had been on both sides of that tragic scenario. It was true that he could have used the comfort of my bed that night as much as Nicky could.

  I told myself that Raoul’s life was not in danger and that Nicky’s was.

  He stretched his shoulders as if he was very tired. “I know we’ve been through this before, Gail, but let’s go through it again.” He thrust his hand impatiently through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. “You think Nicky is in danger but you have no idea as to why this might be so?”

  I drew in a deep breath and didn’t answer.

  The moon, which had been hidden behind a cloud, suddenly came out and illuminated the garden with a pale, eerie glow. The white climbing roses next to me looked almost unearthly in the pale light. Raoul pressed me further: “No inexplicable accidents ever befell him before he came here to Savile Castle?”

  “No, they did not.”

  His face looked bleached as white as a bone in the moonlight, and his eyes were dark and unreadable. He said, “So it seems we must assume that there is something connected to the castle, or to the people within the castle, that poses a danger to Nicky.”

  I broke off one of the white roses and began to shred its silky petals with nervous fingers. I said, “Raoul, I have been wondering about Roger. I didn’t tell you this, but the day he took me out driving he asked me if I would agree to give up Nicky’s inheritance if he could persuade you to go along with such a plan. I told him that I would agree, but that I doubted he would be successful in persuading you.” I looked up from the mutilated flower in my hands. “Did he ever approach you about this?”

  He was looking down into my face with those unreadable eyes. “Yes, he did, and I told him that I would not consider such a thing.”

  I said a little breathlessly, “I have been wondering— what would happen to that money if Nicky should die?”

  Raoul’s reply was slow and deliberate. “It would go back into the estate.”

  I pricked my finger on a thorn, winced, dropped the rose, and stuck my injured finger into my mouth. I said around it, “And be immediately available to the new Lord Devane?”

  “Yes.”

  I took my finger out of my mouth. “Roger is in desperate need of money, Raoul. Do you think he might be desperate enough to try to do away with Nicky in order to get his hands on Nicky’s twenty thousand pounds?”

  Raoul reached out to blot a drop of blood from my lip with his finger. His touch gave its usual lightning shock to my nervous system.

  He shook his head. “For one thing, Roger has no surety that he will be the next Lord Devane, Gail. And even if he is, he will have the money from the rents that I have been holding. Nicky’s money would be nice but not crucial to him.” A faint look of contempt crossed his face, the look of a strong man for a weak one. “At any rate, I doubt that Roger would have the nerve,” he said.

  I did not agree, but I thought I had said enough.

  Raoul stepped toward me and put his hands on my shoulders. “I know you don’t like to talk about this, sweetheart, but I am utterly convinced that these attacks on Nicky—if they are indeed attacks, and I am now inclined to believe that they are—are related to George’s will.”

  I stood stiffly and said nothing.

  “Gail,” Raoul said, and his long body bent over me, drawing me toward him until I was pressed against his warm, protective strength, “why did George leave Nicky twenty thousand pounds?”

  My body was rigid, resisting the familiar magic of his touch. I said, “I don’t know.”

  He said persuasively, “Sweetheart, I can’t help you if you won’t trust me. You must know that I would never hurt or betray you. But if I am to be of any help to you at all…”

  I ripped myself out of his arms.

  “Will you leave me alone?” I cried wildly. “Nicky’s birth is not a mystery and I have no idea why George left him that damned money! I don’t want it, I never wanted it, and I am utterly terrified that it is the reason why someone is trying to kill him! In fact, I have been thinking that for safety’s sake perhaps I ought to get him away from the castle altogether.”

  Raoul’s face was hard and bleak in the moonlight. All of the tenderness was gone from his voice when he asked, “Might I ask where you would go?”

  “To Aunt Margaret’s.”

  His face grew even bleaker. “I think that I will be able to protect Nicky better here than you would be at your aunt’s. The first thing I plan to do is hire some Bow Street runners to act as guards for h
im, and for the other boys as well, until we get to the bottom of this situation. And I will get to the bottom of it, Gail, that I promise you—no matter what I might end up uncovering.”

  His words sounded as if they might be more of a threat than a promise.

  “Will you check on how deeply Roger is in debt?” I asked.

  “I will check.”

  “And there is a man lurking around the Black Swan—name is Wickham. I overheard him talking to Mr. Cole about selling him some information.”

  “I will check on this Wickham as well.”

  The scent of the roses was all around us and the nightingale was still singing his heart out from the castle walls and we stood looking at each other with the chasm of my refusal to confide in him between us.

  Raoul said, “It’s about time for the tea tray, I think.”

  “Yes,” I said in a hollow voice, “I suppose it is.”

  I knew from the look on his face that he would not be placated if I tried to move back into his arms now. As we walked together toward the house, I wondered in despair if things would ever be the same between us again.

  * * * *

  There was a very large footman sitting in the hallway outside my room when I arrived upstairs. Nicky was already in bed when I went into my bedroom, but he was not asleep.

  I put my candle on the bedside table and looked into his face. He looked wide awake. “Charlie and Theo said that I was a baby for wanting to spend the night with you, Mama,” he said.

  “It is not every day that you see someone killed,” I returned reasonably. “I don’t think it is babyish to need some reassurance, sweetheart. You are, after all, only eight years of age.”

  “But Charlie and Theo are sleeping in the nursery tonight. They are not sleeping with their mama.”

  “Charlie and Theo are brothers. They have each other,” I said.

  “That’s true; they are both sleeping in Charlie’s room,” Nicky agreed. Then, tentatively: “They said I could sleep in there with them.”

  It began to dawn on me what my son was trying to say.

  “Nicky, would you like to go back to the nursery and sleep with Charlie and Theo?”