Julia and the Master of Morancourt

by Janet Aylmer

  “Who were they, Mr. Hatton? Smugglers?”

  “Yes, I believe so. They were probably on the way to store the goods in the abbey, or in some of those farm buildings that we saw yesterday. It looks as though I will need to investigate what is going on here very soon. I won’t be able to restore the abbey as I wish to if my land is infested with smugglers.”

  “May I help you?”

  He paused and turned to look at her. “It might seem like an exciting adventure, Miss Maitland, but there is a lot of money involved in smuggling, and the last thing that I would want is to put you in any danger.”

  “The same applies to you, sir. Why is it that men always think that they have to do everything themselves?” She was only partly joking.

  “Miss Maitland, of course I would like you to help me, but I would never forgive myself if any harm came to you.”

  “Unless you want me to call you Mr. Hatton forever, sir, you will have to treat me as an equal.”

  He looked at her steadily for quite a few moments, and then said, “That must be the ultimate threat—if my father could hear you, he would have an even higher opinion of you than he already has.”

  This reply was so unexpected that Julia had to laugh. “Indeed, Mr. Hatton. We cannot possibly disappoint your father, or indeed me. So please may I help you investigate?”

  “Very well, as long as you will listen to me when a situation seems to be getting too dangerous even for a spirited young lady from Derbyshire.”

  As she ran her fingers through her hair, Julia realised that she must be a very untidy sight. Mr. Hatton also looked dishevelled, with twigs clinging to his cloak and tendrils of his hair hanging down over his green eyes, and suddenly they both began to laugh at their situation.

  Eventually Mr. Hatton said, “We had better walk back now, or your aunt will be wondering where we have got to.”

  When they entered the house, they tried to tidy themselves up in the hall before going into the salon to see her aunt. Mrs. Jones took their damp outer garments, and the footman went to fetch a change of shoes for both of them. However, Aunt Lucy had heard the noise, and was concerned to see how wet parts of their other clothing had become, as she had seen the downpour outside the windows. It took some conversation before they were able to calm her, and Julia concentrated on describing the delights of the old abbey and the pleasant views down towards the sea. Nothing was said about what she and Mr. Hatton had encountered in the wood.

  “Have you heard, Julia, that James Lindsay is coming with his mother to visit us tomorrow morning? I am sure that your mama would approve of your meeting a baronet again!”

  Julia gave her aunt what she intended to be a withering stare.

  Mr. Hatton was not deceived by Aunt Lucy’s remark, or by Julia’s reaction. “Mrs. Harrison, I have had sufficient acquaintance with you to know that you intend Miss Maitland to bridle at that!”

  Aunt Lucy smiled and then excused herself to take a short rest.

  “As long as neither of you is serious,” said Julia after her aunt had left the room. “Although he is quite the most pleasant baronet that I have met so far, in my limited acquaintance, I do not find myself with a personal partiality for your friend Sir James.”

  This idea did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Hatton, and he looked rather taken aback until he caught her expression and realised that she was joking with him in her turn.

  “He does seem to me a very agreeable man, and I’m sure that my aunt would approve, but I suspect that he may not like my sometimes rather practical turn of mind.”

  “You judge him too severely, Miss Maitland. James does not have a narrow view of new farming practices, such as those used at Holkham Hall.”

  “How long has he been in charge of the family estate?”

  “For about five years. He really had no choice, following the early death of his father, as he is the only son. I daresay that Lady Lindsay, who is a very competent person, could have kept the estate going for a while if James had decided to become an officer in Wellington’s army. He used to talk of that when we were at school.”

  “So he might have chosen to serve with you in Spain?”

  “Yes, that is true. He did discuss the possibility with me after his father’s death but, bearing in mind the circumstances, he did not feel that he could lay that burden on his mother.”

  “What were those circumstances, Mr. Hatton?”

  “His father volunteered to serve in Portugal when Wellington was short of experienced officers at the very beginning of the Peninsular Campaign. Sadly, Gervase Lindsay was killed by a sniper soon after he reached the conflict. He was only forty-five years old; James was away at school with me at the time. His two sisters, Anna and Helena, are younger, and he has no brothers. So James inherited the baronetcy, the house, and the land with it. With the help of a good steward and the farm manager, Lady Lindsay kept the estate going until he had enough experience to take charge.”

  War, thought Julia, exacts a heavy price wherever you look. How many families now had lost fathers, brothers, and sons, or seen them injured, all in the cause of the conflict against Napoléon?

  Lady Lindsay arrived promptly at the manor house on the following morning with her son and was introduced to Aunt Lucy, with whom she soon began an animated conversation in the salon. Mr. Hatton invited Julia and Sir James to join him in the library, where they could have some private conversation.

  “Miss Maitland, please sit down,” said Mr. Hatton. Julia did as she was bid, then he continued. “Well, James, what have you been able to discover for me?”

  “First, that my cousin Patrick has been in Bridport visiting his half brother, Frank, at least twice in the past month. On one of those occasions, he was accompanied by a friend from London, but I could not find out who he was. Second, that Frank Jepson has recently moved house again. It seems that he fell afoul of Isaac Gulliver by trespassing on his territory near Burton Bradstock. However, Jepson has since bought a sizeable property on the west side of Bridport, so he is obviously not short of money.”

  “Mr. Hatton, may I say something?”

  He turned and looked at Julia with surprise, but it was Sir James who replied, “Of course, Miss Maitland, what is it?”

  “Mrs. Harrison’s personal maid, Martha Fisher, comes from near Bath. On the journey down here, she told us that her brother, Jem, had given up mining coal there in Radstock, and had travelled some months ago with other men to work in well-paid jobs near the coast.”

  Mr. Hatton was suddenly alert. “Jem, did you say?”

  “Yes. You may remember that we heard that name mentioned when we were—we were walking in the wood.” Julia turned her face away, knowing that she was blushing.

  “Why is that important?” asked Sir James.

  “A young man of that name, said to be a farmhand, was brought into Mrs. Jones’s kitchen here at Morancourt the other day, having hurt his leg. By chance, I came across Mrs. Harrison’s maid; she was very upset. Martha told me that it was her brother Jem Fisher, who had been working as a coal miner near Bath until recently.”

  “A miner should get much better pay than a farmhand, so why would he want to change jobs?”

  “Martha told me that her brother had never worked as a farmhand, as far as she was aware.”

  “I wonder?” said Mr. Hatton. “Do you know where he is living now?”

  “No, but Mrs. Jones said that her husband had brought him in to have the wound dressed. And she said that most of the farmhands lived in the village or in estate cottages.”

  “Something odd, Kit?” said Sir James. “Or just a coincidence, perhaps?”

  “Let me think about it, and I will speak to Mr. Whitaker, for he will know the names of all the men that I employ on the estate. Miss Maitland, please do not do anything concerning this unless I say so. Frank Jepson has come to the attention of the authorities several times in the past, I understand, and I have been told that he has been known to use a weapon when cross
ed.” He looked for confirmation at Sir James, who nodded in agreement.

  Julia suddenly remembered what the mysterious man on Eggardon Hill had said, and felt sick.

  “Come now, Miss Maitland, let us rejoin your aunt. I am sure that my mother would like to speak with you before we leave,” and Sir James led the way back to the salon.

  That afternoon, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and Mr. Hatton suggested that Julia should find her walking boots and a dark-coloured jacket, to walk with him past the Whitakers’ farmhouse on the well-worn track that they had seen towards the sea. It took them about thirty minutes to reach the place where Mr. Hatton had paused the curricle previously.

  “Now, Miss Maitland, shall we do a little exploring together? We will try to avoid the ditches this time! And we had better be circumspect about speaking too loudly.”

  Mr. Hatton led the way along the narrow path down towards the little valley, and round the slope of the ground until they could see the seashore some distance ahead of them. There were low cliffs on each side of the coast guarding what seemed to be a small bay. On the left of the track, the route they were following led to a gate in a low stone wall that encircled a group of stone barns with old thatched roofs.

  “Do you think . . . ?” said Julia.

  He anticipated her question. “Not being used for farming, I believe, as the worn track is too narrow for carts. Let us get a little closer, but remember to listen as we walk.”

  Nothing was heard, however, as they reached the barns and went through the gate to peer through a crack in one of the shuttered openings. Beyond, in the gloom, they could just make out stacked piles of small barrels and metal boxes on one side, and on the other some bales of fabric resting on a low table.

  “We’ve seen enough,” said Mr. Hatton. “I’ll wager that those are all contraband goods, brought direct from the shore and made ready for moving on further inland when they can. Come back with me now, Miss Maitland, before anyone sees us here.”

  “Could we not go down to look at the coast before we return?”

  He hesitated, then pointed to their right, where there was a band of trees beside the track. “Very well, but we will walk that way, not on the path, so that we are less visible.”

  As they advanced through the trees, the sound of the sea became audible at last, breaking on rocks along the coast below them. When they emerged from the wood, they found themselves still close to the track and on a slope overlooking the beach. There was no one in sight in either direction, although to the west the buildings on the coast at West Bay could just be seen in the far distance.

  “What are those objects?” said Julia, pointing out to sea directly ahead.

  Mr. Hatton looked carefully at the indistinct shapes breaking the surface of the water between the waves, and then replied, “James Lindsay is a local magistrate and he has told me that the smugglers sometimes need to keep their goods offshore until the revenue men have passed by. So what you can see may be markers or floats.”

  “For what, Mr. Hatton?”

  “They sometimes sink casks of spirits, having put them on rafts or roped them together in groups, all attached to large stones. Then at night they can be pulled up to the surface of the water and taken to shore by small fishing boats like that one below us there.”

  Julia looked down onto the beach where he was pointing, and eventually she managed to glimpse a small fishing boat that had been pulled back from the water’s edge and partly concealed between some rocks.

  “Do they ever get caught by the revenue men?”

  “Not often, as they can be out-numbered by the smugglers. Even if someone is caught, the jury of local people often acquit them. There is a lot of sympathy in Dorset for the smugglers, because the goods they bring in keep prices down, and would often not be available otherwise. Did you or Mrs. Harrison purchase any lengths of silk as gifts whilst you were staying in Bath?”

  “Only one,” she said, surprised, “for my mother.”

  “Well, that was probably smuggled into Dorset not far from here! Now, Miss Maitland, we had better not linger, just in case anyone thinks of coming by. Let us go back through the trees as far as we can, and then rejoin the track closer to the farmhouse.”

  On the walk back to the manor house, they discussed the various options open to Mr. Hatton, and concluded that he needed to make further inquiries now of Sir James, and anyone else who could be trusted not to disclose that the smuggling was being investigated.

  When she descended the stairs the next morning, Julia was surprised to see that her aunt was not in her usual place for breakfast in the dining room, and found her walking slowly and steadily across the salon with Mrs. Jones and Martha in close attendance. Indeed, her aunt seemed anxious to venture out of doors for the first time.

  “I do believe that I shall be well enough to travel home to Bath in a few days, Julia, perhaps on Monday. So, if there is anything else that you wish to do before we leave here, please do not delay in asking Mr. Hatton.”

  Julia’s hidden reaction to this news was considerable dismay at the thought of leaving Morancourt and all that it had come to mean to her, and having so little time left with their host. But she replied quite calmly to her aunt.

  “He did suggest that he could teach me to dance the waltz in the ballroom, Aunt Lucy, if you would agree to that.”

  Julia knew that, if the same question were to be addressed to Mama, the answer would be no, and that Aunt Lucy would be aware of that. But she also knew that Aunt Lucy shared some characteristics with her niece Sophie, and that she did not always choose to do exactly what people expected of her.

  As Mr. Hatton came into the hall from his study to join them, Aunt Lucy replied, “I don’t see why not, my dear, in a private setting such as this. Don’t you agree, sir?”

  When Mr. Hatton heard what Julia’s question had been, he turned to her and said in a very level voice, “That is very good news, Miss Maitland.” It was only when she saw the expression in his green eyes that she realised how much the answer meant to him.

  Ten

  The morning brought two letters from Derbyshire.

  The first was for Julia and came from Emily at Cressborough Castle. She had been over to see Sophie and Harriet at Banford Hall, and she passed on all the gossip from the sisters. They were all looking forward to Julia’s return, and Papa had asked for her to be told the same. Emily said that the Earl and Countess were in good health, and that they would all three be staying at the Castle for the next few weeks. Freddie had finally written a short note from Spain, to say that he was well but not looking forward to the colder weather, as the regiment was likely to be in the mountains over the winter. There was no mention of Dominic Brandon.

  The second letter was from Mama for Aunt Lucy, full of pride at having achieved an invitation from the Earl and Countess for Julia and her aunt to stay at the Brandon’s town house overnight on their forthcoming journey back to Banford Hall. There was no mention of Dominic Brandon in the letter, but seeing Julia’s face fall at the suggestion of returning via London told her aunt what she had already guessed.

  As Mrs. Jones was in the room with them at the time, all Aunt Lucy said was, “We can discuss our route to Derbyshire when we get back to Bath, my dear. I have suggested to Mr. Hatton that we leave here on Monday morning. He will escort us as far as Beaminster, and we will travel on from there.”

  Her aunt laid the letter down and picked up a book she had been reading, so Julia went up to her room and began to write a long reply to Emily. She recounted some information that she had heard about the local smuggling, but made no mention of Aunt Lucy’s ankle.

  Later that morning, Julia came across Mr. Hatton in the hall, and he asked her to join him in his study.

  “I have spoken to Mr. Whitaker, Miss Maitland. There is no farmhand named Jem on the estate here as far as he is aware, nor have any of our labourers been injured recently. I have sworn him to secrecy about the matter, and it was rath
er odd, as somehow he seemed to be relieved at the news.”

  “Do you think that he suspects that something is going on somewhere on the estate, but he does not know what?”

  “That’s possible—he may not feel that he knows me well enough yet to trust me completely, but hopefully that will change soon.”

  Julia looked thoughtful, then said, “Do you think that Mr. Jones might be involved? He was born in this area and has been employed here for much longer than Mr. Whitaker, I imagine.”

  He looked startled for a moment. “Of course, you said that Mr. Jones had taken Jem into the kitchen for his wife to attend to the wound. So presumably Mr. Jones had either found him lying somewhere, or was with him when he was hurt?”

  “Yes, one or the other.”

  “Hmm.” He was drumming his fingers on the desk as Julia waited. “You did offer to help me, so could you ask his wife whether they, and in particular Mr. Jones, have any close friends in the village?”

  “Very well,” she replied. “After I have seen how Aunt Lucy is, I will look for her and ask the question.”

  Later Julia found Mrs. Jones upstairs, sorting the household linen.

  “In case I do not have a better opportunity, Mrs. Jones, can I thank you now for being so kind to my aunt since her accident? It has been a great weight off my mind that she has had you to care for her and to call upon. And I have been able to make several excursions into the countryside around here knowing that she was in such good hands.”

  Mrs. Jones looked flustered but flattered at these remarks, and assured Julia that it had been a pleasure to be of assistance. From this, the conversation moved on to how long Mrs. Jones had been at Morancourt, where she had been born and brought up, and how she had met her husband.

  “Mr. Jones was a soldier as a very young man,” she told Julia, “but I met him after he came back from France about twenty years ago. There was a whole group of them who went to join the army from near here, for most could not find any employment in this area. He was lucky, for his father was already employed on this estate so, when Mr. Jones came back, he was offered a job by Mr. Henry Hatton. My husband did well, and ended up being in charge of the farm here.”