by Lydia Joyce
Fern had heard quite enough of Radcliffes, Gorsings, and Restons, but there was no polite way to tell the vicar, nor would it repay his kindness in searching out the information for her to let him know that she simply no longer cared. So instead, she put on an interested expression and said, “Oh?”
“Yes,” the old man continued. “There are a swirl of rumors surrounding that time. John Radcliffe was known in the village to be quite a monster. He was married to his wife for eleven years, and after two miscarriages, she never showed another sign of being with child until after he was dead. It was said that he beat her almost nightly, and he had two bastards by his cook, Jane Reston.” The man paused, looking chagrined. “I forget that young ladies are more delicate these days than in my youth. I do apologize if I have offended your sensibilities—”
“Nonsense,” Fern said firmly, hiding her slight shock at his bluntness. “Please, go ahead.”
Rev. Biggs settled back in his chair, looking up at the ceiling as if reading it. “Anyhow, John Radcliffe flaunted these natural children of his to shame his wife, and it is said that she had already gone a little odd in the head by his death. His death, of course, is the most interesting thing of all. It seems that he fell—”
“I know,” Fern said hurriedly.
“Well, it was said that he was drunk and was making a visit to Jane Reston’s room in the kitchens when it happened. But the most interesting thing was not that he … died,” the vicar said delicately, “but the circumstances surrounding it. Sir Thomas Fitzhugh was visiting then, to woo the middle daughter, Lettice. It had become evident—or so everyone thought—that Charlotte would produce no heir, and so any child borne by Lettice would have become the next master or mistress of Wrexmere. But John Radcliffe had refused to allow either Lettice or the youngest daughter, Elizabeth, to wed, perhaps determined that if a child of his did not inherit the estate, no one else would, either. And yet he let Sir Thomas visit, and when the baronet left one week later, Radcliffe was dead and Sir Thomas was betrothed to the youngest daughter, Elizabeth, rather than Lettice.”
Fern shuddered, and the weight of the bundled documents in her pocket seemed to grow heavier. “Do you think Sir Thomas killed him?” she asked.
Rev. Biggs gazed at her through the heavy lenses of his reading glasses. “No one knows. Some say that it was Sir Thomas. Others claim that Charlotte Gorsing did it in a fit of madness. And still others claim that Jane Reston killed him, for she was the only other one inside the house when it happened besides John Radcliffe, the Gorsings, and Sir Thomas. Though the whole village knew she cleaned the floor and laid out the body as the stable hand went to get the vicar, she never said anything about what she had seen that night.”
“But why would she kill him?” Fern asked.
Rev. Briggs hesitated. “John Radcliffe was a very harsh man. She might have become his mistress, but before she bore his children, she had been ‘walking out,’ as they say, with a very decent farmer’s son.”
Fern took in everything that meant. “How horrible,” she said softly.
The vicar nodded. “Unfortunately, there is little of Charlotte Gorsing’s period as mistress of Wrexmere that is not horrible.” He lapsed into a contemplative silence, and Fern, determined to change the subject to less dire matters, cleared her throat.
“I brought two letters to mail,” she said, pulling them out of her pocket.
“Did you now?” The vicar extended a hand, took them, and put them on a clear spot beside the table. “I will have Mrs. Willis add them to the mailbag. Which reminds me. I also have two letters for you.” He lifted the breakfast tray slightly, slid a hand beneath the edge, and emerged with two letters that were rather worse for the wear, their pages rumpled and wax seals cracked. “They came this morning. I am afraid that yours shall not be able to be sent off until tomorrow.”
“That is fine,” Fern said absently, distracted by her own name—The Hon. Mrs. Colin Radcliffe— prominently displayed on one of the envelopes in her sister Faith’s large but delicate hand. Her stomach sank. If Faith already knew where she was, then so did her parents, and they would all be wild that she had not told them what was happening. The second letter, in even worse shape than Faith’s, was addressed to Colin, at least. She put them both in her pocket.
She smiled at the old man and mentioned a butterfly that she had seen on the way to the vicarage, and that peaceful subject occupied them for quite a while, leading naturally from the realm of insects to other fauna and flora of the moor and bog and the dangers to be found therein for the unwary. Finally, Fern bade Rev. Biggs good-bye and rose from her chair, assuring the man she was quite capable of showing herself out and that there was no need for him to rise or to summon Mrs. Willis.
She stepped out of the vicarage into a dull gray drizzle. She raised her umbrella under the scant protection of the eaves. She started down the overgrown walk toward the lane, casting an uneasy glance at the sky. The ceiling of clouds above had darkened to slate, the brisk wind driving the rain to wet her skirts. The umbrella bucked and tossed a little in her hand, and she tightened her grip on it as she began to walk up the lane toward the drive to the manor.
An unexpected movement among the cottages caught her eye, and she paused. It came again—the flutter of a skirt in the wind halfway behind one of the little huts, just visible behind the bulk of the small outbuilding. Before Fern could move on, the woman changed position, revealing the broad face of Abby, wearing a man’s mackintosh open down the front and holding her apron up as if she was supporting something inside.
“Hullo, Mrs. Radcliffe!” she called, her sturdy boots squelching along a damp track as she came out to the road.
“Good morning, Abby,” Fern said, glad that it was her that she was meeting.
“Why, ‘tis almost afternoon now,” Abby said. “Dorcas Reston said she’d buy some eggs off me vor her tea, as she used all hers vor your breakfast, and bless me if my hens hadn’t lain six.” She nodded to her apron, where the eggs nestled against one another. “My big hen’s gone broody, but I’m leaving her—I’ve got a rooster, and I could use a few more chicks.”
“That will be nice,” Fern said, realizing that she knew nothing about the raising of chickens. She continued up the lane, Abby at her side.
The woman nodded vehemently. “It will, indeed, m’m. I could do with some fat fryers, a few broilers.”
“It sounds lovely,” Fern said. She wished they could talk about butterflies—she now felt quite capable of holding a halfway intelligent conversation upon that subject.
“I suppose you don’t have much use for chickens, m’m,” Abby said with surprising insight.
“Oh, I have a use for them,” Fern said. “I quite like them on my dinner plate, and I do enjoy a good egg for breakfast. It’s only that I don’t know much about them in the time before they arrive at my table except that they scratch and flutter about the garden and the cocks can make quite a racket when they care to.”
Abby laughed. “I’d like to know so little, m’m!” They walked side by side in silence for a moment, and then Abby said, “Has Dorcas Reston asked ye about they papers today?”
Fern stopped, and after taking another uncertain step, so did Abby. “Papers!” she said, with rather more heat than she intended. “I am sick to death of papers.”
Abby looked confused. “M’m?”
Fern paused for a moment, deciding what to tell the maid. “Joseph Reston came to our room last night before you brought dinner, going on unintelligibly about papers, and then he ran upstairs and tore apart the bedroom above us. He gave me quite a fright,” she added, knowing she sounded defensive.
Abby nodded sagely. “That must’ve been after him and his woman had their spat and before Meg thought he woke the spirit.”
“A spat about papers?” Fern said, without much hope.
“About they papers, m’m,” Abby corrected. “It seems Dorcas Reston found some papers on the table in the bedroom ye was virs
t in rooms before me and Sal cleaned it, and she was real hot about it. I heard her scolding in the kitchen. She and Joseph Reston were behind a big pillar, so I couldn’t see them, but I sure could hear them clear enough. She told her man that she thought he had them papers safe. He says he does, but she says, ‘What’s this, then?’ He says they must be some other papers, but she says that they were just the papers that they should have had and starts calling him all sorts of names because he can’t read, which ain’t vair because hardly none of us can read here. And then he gets real mad and says, ‘Which ones is it, then?’ and she says that they’re all it, but there has to be more because the most important ones aren’t there.” Abby paused, taking a breath. “So, did she ask ye about they papers yet?”
“No,” Fern said, feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck. The new bundle of letters in her pocket felt like a lead weight.
“Well, there is no doubt in my mind that she will,” Abby said. She looked at the cottage with the green door, its walk only a few paces down the lane. “This is where I stop, m’m. All the men went home when the rain started—they’ve finished stacking up all the slate and taking the broken plaster down, and it’s too slick up there for them to be trying to set any new beams. Annie Weaver made your lunch and left it on the edge of the hearth, since there ain’t no hob. If ye want me to come up and serve it—”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Fern said, wanting nothing more at that moment than to find some private place to get rid of the package hidden in her skirts.
“Well, then, I’ll come before dinner, m’m,” Abby said, and with a little bobble of a curtsy, she headed toward the shiny green door.
Chapter Nineteen
Fern walked past quickly, wanting to put as much distance as possible between her and the Restons’ house. Her mind teemed. If his wife wasn’t merely slinging insults, then Joseph Reston could not read. Perhaps he was not as mad as she had thought. Perhaps he didn’t care about all papers, but he couldn’t tell the difference between the ones that were important and the ones that were not. He had a hut full of papers he could not read, but what he wanted hadn’t been there at all …
Wrexmere Manor loomed above her, and for once, Fern was glad of its gray bulk. She circled around to the pump yard and entered through the kitchen door, shaking out her umbrella and leaving it leaning against the door frame just inside.
The kitchen was empty and silent, Fern’s footsteps echoing in the dim stillness as she crossed to the stairs. Blocking the memory of the scrawled messages in the cell nearby, she climbed the steps, then walked across the length of the great hall to climb the second flight that rose so dizzyingly from the stone floor. In her mind’s eye, she saw the shadowy, brutish figure of a man teetering at the top of the staircase—and then was pushed?—before falling to the ugly stain on the flags below. She shuddered and pressed tighter against the wall.
She opened the door to the bedroom she shared with Colin with a surge of relief—but her burst of words died unsaid on her lips, for the room was empty. Fern stared at the bare table for a moment, her mind blank. She had planned to explain everything to Colin, and that, somehow, would have made everything safe again. Where could he be? Slowly, she sat down staring at the sullen coals of the fire.
What, exactly, had she expected him to do? she asked herself sternly. Wave a wand and whisk all their troubles away? He had already promised to send for a coach. In fact, there was every likelihood that was what he was doing right then—since Joseph Reston and the workmen had left for the village, why would he stay? There was nothing else, feasibly, that might be done.
With no other occupation at hand, Fern pulled out the contents of her pocket and set them upon the table. Faith’s letter lay on top—she had almost forgotten it with the news that Abby had brought. With a feeling of gratefulness for the mundanity of the scolding she knew was enclosed within, she opened it. Five pages fell out, and Fern scanned them quickly, picking out the single paragraph’s worth of content among the flood of words. Young James was teething. Sophia had scraped her knee and said a word very unsuited to a little girl that was eventually traced back to a gardener, who was threatened with dismissal but ultimately spared. Fern had been horribly unthoughtful and remiss in not telling her family where she and her husband intended to go, worrying them all terribly and causing a huge fuss until they had heard through Mrs. Christopher Radcliffe that the newlyweds had gone to one of the Radcliffe estates. And so on.
Fern dropped the letter on the table, then moved the one addressed to Colin on top of it. As she set it down, the broken seal gave way entirely, and the letter sprang open, revealing a single page. Fern had already picked up the antique bundle of documents and was deciding whether she should read them, put them back in her pocket, or throw them directly into the fire when the very last line of Colin’s letter caught her eye:
Votre Ange.
Your Angel. Fern’s lungs clenched. She could see Colin smiling at her, his chilly eyes thawed with warmth as he kissed her good-bye. Until then, mon ange, he had said. Mon ange, mon ange. Every time he had called her that lit up like a small, separate fire in her brain. After the dances that had left her breathless when he was courting her, at his proposal of marriage, during every intimate moment that they had ever shared since.
Mon ange. Votre ange.
Her stomach churning with dread, she pulled the letter toward her slowly, almost involuntarily, her eyes dragging across the page.
C—
I know I swore I would not resume our contact for some months after your m. to F.A., but only the most desperate straits has driven me to this. There is no easy way to write this, so I will state it bluntly: My worst fears have been confirmed. I had not wanted to worry you, but I am with child, and A. knows and has cast me out—“until I am rid of the brat,” he says. I still would not have troubled you, as this burden is my own, except he has cut me off completely, even maneuvering my allowance out of my reach unless I take legal action, which would be sure to ruin even me, forever. All I ask is a small sum for support until I am delivered of the child, and another to pay a good family in Naples, or perhaps some little town in Provence to take it. Send the money through my maid—she will know where I am.
I wish I had some other way to communicate with you than a letter, for I fear the dangers of writing even this much.
Yrs,
Votre Ange
And that was all.
Fern stared at it for a long moment as her brain teemed with contradictory reactions, trying to make it say other than that which she feared—that which she knew it said. She imagined Colin smiling at another woman, making love to her, calling her mon ange … Her mind shut down, and she clenched her arms around her stomach.
The door opened. Fern looked up. Colin stood there, looking painfully handsome, his hair windblown and damp.
“You’re back, I see,” Colin said, stripping off his hat and gloves and tossing them on the table. “I hope you’re dry. I followed Reston’s men down to the village and paid a boy half a guinea to walk to the next—larger—village through this mess to arrange for a post chaise so that we do not have to take the mail coach. There isn’t a single horse in this hamlet, it seems.”
Fern stood, her heart tight in her chest, and extended the letter to him. “This came,” she said, the words scraping her throat raw. “The seal was broken. I saw the signature.”
Colin scanned it rapidly, the color draining from his face before returning in an angry flush. “You read my mail?” he demanded.
“I saw the signature,” she repeated quietly. Each word felt like a separate cut. “Votre ange, Colin. It is from your angel.”
His fist bunched around the paper, crumpling it. He tossed it into the fire with an oath. The flames flared up, devouring it. “What do you want me to say, Fern? Even you must have known that you were not the first.”
“I never thought of it,” Fern said. “I am a stupid, ignorant girl who never even thought of it.
That is what you wanted, wasn’t it? And that is what you married.” She laughed, the ragged edge of the sound catching in a half sob. “I know nothing at all. I don’t know how to arrange my hair or raise chickens or cook a meal or clean a room. I don’t know anything that I haven’t been told, but the world is full of things no one ever wanted me to know. I can accept that you have had other women before me, Colin. If I had possessed the kind of experience that would even make me question it, I would have assumed that you had.”
“What is the problem, then?” he said, the words crackling with ice.
“She swore not to contact you for a few months, Colin,” Fern said simply. “I had no expectations of having been your first, but I would have hoped that I would be your last. I may be ignorant, but I can count as well as any woman, and even I know how long it takes from the time that a woman is with child to the time that she knows for certain and someone might notice. You were making love to this woman even as you were courting me, and you were making plans to see her again after our marriage. A few months, Colin. Was that as long as your word was good for?”
His face darkened even more. “A few months? No. When I left my mistress’ bed on the morning of our marriage”—he raised his voice over Fern’s gasp—“I had every intention of returning to it as soon as our honeymoon was over. It was her idea that my fidelity should last so long, not mine. And if she had not wanted to see me again, she was replaceable enough.”
The ugly words seemed chosen to hurt the most. Fern couldn’t listen to this—not for a moment longer. She already felt the tears coming, and she would not, could not cry in front of him. She pushed from the table blindly and stumbled past him for the door. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.
“Listen to me, Fern,” Colin said intently. “I confess this because it is what I planned when we were married. It is not what I plan now. It is not who I am anymore.”