by Anne Perry
The following morning Hester overslept and rose with a headache. She did not feel like early breakfast, and still less like facing any of the family across the table. She felt passionately about the vanity and the incompetence she had seen in the army, and the horror at the suffering would never leave her; probably the anger would not either. But she had not behaved very well at dinner; and the memory of it churned around in her mind, trying to fall into a happier picture with less fault attached to herself, and did not improve either her headache or her temper.
She decided to take a brisk walk in the park for as long as her energy lasted. She wrapped up appropriately, and by nine o’clock was striding rapidly over the grass getting her boots wet.
She first saw the figure of the man with considerable irritation, simply because she wished to be alone. He was probably inoffensive, and presumably had as much right to be here as herself—perhaps more? He no doubt served some function. However she felt he intruded, he was another human being in a world of wind and great trees and vast, cloud-racked skies and shivering, singing grass.
When he drew level he stopped and spoke to her. He was dark, with an arrogant face, all lean, smooth bones and clear eyes.
“Good morning, ma’am. I see you are from Shelburne Hall—”
“How observant,” she said tartly, gazing around at the totally empty parkland. There was no other place she could conceivably have come from, unless she had emerged from a hole in the ground.
His face tightened, aware of her sarcasm. “Are you a member of the family?” He was staring at her with some intensity and she found it disconcerting, and bordering on the offensive.
“How is that your concern?” she asked coldly.
The concentration deepened in his eyes, and then suddenly there was a flash of recognition, although for the life of her she could not think of any occasion on which she had seen him before. Curiously he did not refer to it.
“I am inquiring into the murder of Joscelin Grey. I wonder if you had known him.”
“Good heavens!” she said involuntarily. Then she collected herself. “I have been accused of tactlessness in my time, but you are certainly in a class of your own.” A total lie—Callandra would have left him standing! “It would be quite in your deserving if I told you I had been his fiancée—and fainted on the spot!”
“Then it was a secret engagement,” he retorted. “And if you go in for clandestine romance you must expect to have your feelings bruised a few times.”
“Which you are obviously well equipped to do!” She stood still with the wind whipping her skirts, still wondering why he had seemed to recognize her.
“Did you know him?” he repeated irritably.
“Yes!”
“For how long?”
“As well as I remember it, about three weeks.”
“That’s an odd time to know anyone!”
“What would you consider a usual time to know someone?” she demanded.
“It was very brief,” he explained with careful condescension. “You can hardly have been a friend of the family. Did you meet him just before he died?”
“No. I met him in Scutari.”
“You what?”
“Are you hard of hearing? I met him in Scutari!” She remembered the general’s patronizing manner and all her memories of condescension flooded back, the army officers who considered women out of place, ornaments to be used for recreation or comfort but not creatures of any sense. Gentlewomen were for cossetting, dominating and protecting from everything, including adventure or decision or freedom of any kind. Common women were whores or drudges and to be used like any other livestock.
“Oh yes,” he agreed with a frown. “He was injured. Were you out there with your husband?”
“No I was not!” Why should that question be faintly hurtful? “I went to nurse the injured, to assist Miss Nightingale, and those like her.”
His face did not show the admiration and profound sense of respect close to awe that the name usually brought. She was thrown off balance by it. He seemed to be single-minded in his interest in Joscelin Grey.
“You nursed Major Grey?”
“Among others. Do you mind if we proceed to walk? I am getting cold standing here.”
“Of course.” He turned and fell into step with her and they began along the faint track in the grass towards a copse of oaks. “What were your impressions of him?”
She tried hard to distinguish her memory from the picture she had gathered from his family’s words, Rosamond’s weeping, Fabia’s pride and love, the void he had left in her happiness, perhaps Rosamond’s also, his brothers’ mixture of exasperation and—what—envy?
“I can recall his leg rather better than his face,” she said frankly.
He stared at her with temper rising sharply in his face.
“I am not interested in your female fantasies, madame, or your peculiar sense of humor! This is an investigation into an unusually brutal murder!”
She lost her temper completely.
“You incompetent idiot!” she shouted into the wind. “You grubby-minded, fatuous nincompoop. I was nursing him. I dressed and cleaned his wound—which, in case you have forgotten, was in his leg. His face was uninjured, therefore I did not regard it any more than the faces of the other ten thousand injured and dead I saw. I would not know him again if he came up and spoke to me.”
His face was bleak and furious. “It would be a memorable occasion, madame. He is eight weeks dead—and beaten to a pulp.”
If he had hoped to shock her he failed.
She swallowed hard and held his eyes. “Sounds like the battlefield after Inkermann,” she said levelly. “Only there at least we knew what had happened to them—even if no one had any idea why.”
“We know what happened to Joscelin Grey—we do not know who did it. Fortunately I am not responsible for explaining the Crimean War—only Joscelin Grey’s death.”
“Which seems to be beyond you,” she said unkindly. “And I can be of no assistance. All I can remember is that he was unusually agreeable, that he bore his injury with as much fortitude as most, and that when he was recovering he spent quite a lot of his time moving from bed to bed encouraging and cheering other men, particularly those closest to death. In fact when I think of it, he was a most admirable man. I had forgotten that until now. He comforted many who were dying, and wrote letters home for them, told their families of their deaths and probably gave them much ease in their distress. It is very hard that he should survive that, and come home to be murdered here.”
“He was killed very violently—there was a passion of hatred in the way he was beaten.” He was looking at her closely and she was startled by the intelligence in his face; it was uncomfortably intense, and unexpected. “I believe it was someone who knew him. One does not hate a stranger as he was hated.”
She shivered. Horrific as was the battlefield, there was still a world of difference between its mindless carnage and the acutely personal malevolence of Joscelin Grey’s death.
“I am sorry,” she said more gently, but still with the stiffness he engendered in her. “I know nothing of him that would help you find such a relationship. If I did I should tell you. The hospital kept records; you would be able to find out who else was there at the same time, but no doubt you have already done that—” She saw instantly from the shadow in his face that he had not. Her patience broke. “Then for heaven’s sake, what have you been doing for eight weeks?”
“For five of them I was lying injured myself,” he snapped back. “Or recovering. You make far too many assumptions, madame. You are arrogant, domineering, ill-tempered and condescending. And you leap to conclusions for which you have no foundation. God! I hate clever women!”
She froze for an instant before the reply was on her lips.
“I love clever men!” Her eyes raked him up and down. “It seems we are both to be disappointed.” And with that she picked up her skirts and strode past him and along the path towards the cops
e, tripping over a bramble across her way. “Drat,” she swore furiously. “Hellfire.”
7
“GOOD MORNING, Miss Latterly,” Fabia said coolly when she came into the sitting room at about quarter past ten the following day. She looked smart and fragile and was already dressed as if to go out. She eyed Hester very briefly, noting her extremely plain muslin gown, and then turned to Rosamond, who was sitting poking apologetically at an embroidery frame. “Good morning, Rosamond. I hope you are well? It is a most pleasant day, and I believe we should take the opportunity to visit some of the less fortunate in the village. We have not been lately, and it is your duty, my dear, even more than it is mine.”
The color deepened a trifle in Rosamond’s cheeks as she accepted the rebuke. From the quick lift in her chin Hester thought there might be far more behind the motion than was apparent. The family was in mourning, and Fabia had quite obviously felt the loss most keenly, at least to the outward eye. Had Rosamond tried to resume life too quickly for her, and this was Fabia’s way of choosing the time?
“Of course, Mama-in-law,” Rosamond said without looking up.
“And no doubt Miss Latterly will come with us,” Fabia added without consulting her. “We shall leave at eleven. That will allow you time to dress appropriately. The day is most warm—do not be tempted to forget your position.” And with that admonition, delivered with a frozen smile, she turned and left them, stopping by the door for a moment to add, “And we might take luncheon with General Wadham, and Ursula.” And then she went out.
Rosamond threw the hoop at her workbasket and it went beyond and skittered across the floor. “Drat,” she said quietly under her breath. Then she met Hester’s eyes and apologized.
Hester smiled at her. “Please don’t,” she said candidly. “Playing Lady Bountiful ’round the estates is enough to make anyone resort to language better for the stable, or even the barracks, than the drawing room. A simple ‘drat’ is very mild.”
“Do you miss the Crimea, now you are home?” Rosamond said suddenly, her eyes intent and almost frightened of the answer. “I mean—” She looked away, embarrassed and now finding it hard to speak the words which only a moment before had been so ready.
Hester saw a vision of endless days being polite to Fabia, attending to the trivial household management that she was allowed, never feeling it was her house until Fabia was dead; and perhaps even afterwards Fabia’s spirit would haunt the house, her belongings, her choices of furniture, of design, marking it indelibly. There would be morning calls, luncheon with suitable people of like breeding and position, visits to the poor—and in season there would be balls, the races at Ascot, the regatta at Henley, and of course in winter the hunt. None of it would be more than pleasant at best, tedious at worst—but without meaning.
But Rosamond did not deserve a lie, even in her loneliness—nor did she deserve the pain of Hester’s view of the truth. It was only her view; for Rosamond it might be different.
“Oh yes, sometimes I do,” she said with a small smile. “But we cannot fight wars like that for long. It is very dreadful as well as vivid and real. It is not fun being cold and dirty and so tired you feel as if you’ve been beaten—nor is it pleasant to eat army rations. It is one of the finest things in life to be truly useful—but there are less distressing places to do it, and I am sure I shall find many here in England.”
“You are very kind,” Rosamond said gently, meeting her eyes again. “I admit I had not imagined you would be so thoughtful.” She rose to her feet. “Now I suppose we had better change into suitable clothes for calling—have you something modest and dowdy, but very dignified?” She stifled a giggle and turned it into a sneeze. “I’m sorry—what a fearful thing to ask!”
“Yes—most of my wardrobe is like that,” Hester replied with an amusing smile. “All dark greens and very tired-looking blues—like faded ink. Will they do?”
“Perfectly—come!”
Menard drove the three of them in the open trap, bowling along the carriageway through the park towards the edge of the home estate and across heavy cornfields towards the village and the church spire beyond the slow swell of the hill. He obviously enjoyed managing the horse and did it with the skill of one who is long practiced. He did not even try to make conversation, supposing the loveliness of the land, the sky and the trees would be enough for them, as it was for him.
Hester sat watching him, leaving Rosamond and Fabia to converse. She looked at his powerful hands holding the reins lightly, at the ease of his balance and the obvious reticence in his expression. The daily round of duties in the estate was no imprisonment to him; she had seen a brooding in his face occasionally in the time she had been at Shelburne, sometimes anger, sometimes a stiffness and a jumpiness of the muscles which made her think of officers she had seen the night before battle, but it was when they were all at table, with Fabia’s conversation betraying the ache of loneliness underneath as if Joscelin had been the only person she had totally and completely loved.
The first house they called at was that of a farm laborer on the edge of the village, a tiny cottage, one room downstairs crowded with a sunburned, shabby woman and seven children all sharing a loaf of bread spread with pork drippings. Their thin, dusty legs, barefooted, splayed out beneath simple smocks and they were obviously in from working in the garden or fields. Even the youngest, who looked no more than three or four, had fruit stains on her fingers where she had been harvesting.
Fabia asked questions and passed out practical advice on financial management and how to treat croup which the woman received in polite silence. Hester blushed for the condescension of it, and then realized it had been a way of life with little substantial variation for over a thousand years, and both parties were comfortable with its familiarity; and she had nothing more certain to put in its place.
Rosamond spoke with the eldest girl, and took the wide pink ribbon off her own hat and gave it to her, tying it around the child’s hair to her shy delight.
Menard stood patiently by the horse, talking to it in a low voice for a few moments, then falling into a comfortable silence. The sunlight on his face showed the fine lines of anxiety around his eyes and mouth, and the deeper marks of pain. Here in the rich land with its great trees, the wind and the fertile earth he was relaxed, and Hester saw a glimpse of a quite different man from the stolid, resentful second son he appeared at Shelburne Hall. She wondered if Fabia had ever allowed herself to see it. Or was the laughing charm of Joscelin always in its light?
The second call was similar in essence, although the family was composed of an elderly woman with no teeth and an old man who was either drunk or had suffered some seizure which impaired both his speech and his movement.
Fabia spoke to him briskly with words of impersonal encouragement, which he ignored, making a face at her when her back was turned, and the old woman bobbed a curtsy, accepted two jars of lemon curd, and once again they climbed into the trap and were on their way.
Menard left them to go out into the fields, high with ripe corn, the reapers already digging the sickles deep, the sun hot on their backs, arms burned, sweat running freely. There was much talk of weather, time, the quarter of the wind, and when the rain would break. The smell of the grain and the broken straw in the heat was one of the sweetest things Hester had ever known. She stood in the brilliant light with her face lifted to the sky, the heat tingling on her skin, and gazed across the dark gold of the land—and thought of those who had been willing to die for it—and prayed that the heirs to so much treasured it deeply enough, to see it with the body and with the heart as well.
Luncheon was another matter altogether. They were received courteously enough until General Wadham saw Hester, then his florid face stiffened and his manner became exaggeratedly formal.
“Good morning, Miss Latterly. How good of you to call. Ursula will be delighted that you are able to join us for luncheon.”
“Thank you, sir,” she replied equally gravely. “
You are very generous.”
Ursula did not look particularly delighted to see them at all, and was unable to hide her chagrin that Menard had seen fit to be out with the harvesters instead of here at the dining room table.
Luncheon was a light meal: poached river fish with caper sauce, cold game pie and vegetables, then a sorbet and a selection of fruit, followed by an excellent Stilton cheese.
General Wadham had obviously neither forgotten nor forgiven his rout by Hester on their previous meeting. His chill, rather glassy eye met hers over the cruet sets a number of times before he actually joined battle in a lull between Fabia’s comments on the roses and Ursula’s specillations as to whether Mr. Danbury would marry Miss Fothergill or Miss Ames.
“Miss Ames is a fine young woman,” the general remarked, looking at Hester. “Most accomplished horsewoman, rides to hounds like a man. Courage. And handsome too, dashed handsome.” He looked at Hester’s dark green dress sourly. “Grandfather died in the Peninsular War—at Corunna—1810. Don’t suppose you were there too, were you, Miss Latterly? Bit before your time, eh?” He smiled, as if he had intended it to be good-natured.
“1809,” Hester corrected him. “It was before Talavera and after Vimiero and the Convention of Cintra. Otherwise you are perfectly correct-I was not there.”
The general’s face was scarlet. He swallowed a fish bone and choked into his napkin.
Fabia, white with fury, passed him a glass of water.
Hester, knowing better, removed it instantly and replaced it with bread.
The general took the bread and the bone was satisfactorily coated with it and passed down his throat.
“Thank you,” he said freezingly, and then took the water also.
“I am happy to be of assistance,” Hester replied sweetly. “It is most unpleasant to swallow a bone, and so easily done, even in the best of fish—and this is delicious.”
Fabia muttered something blasphemous and inaudible under her breath and Rosamond launched into a sudden and overenthusiastic recollection of the Vicar’s midsummer garden party.