by Abigail Agar
‘Aye, they are big affairs, Lord Stanley’s parties. More wine disappears than fits good taste, I hear. I heard tell of old ladies attending such balls and being defiled by men who were perfect gentlemen until they visited the Manse.’
Vera bristled a little to hear her employer talked of like that.
‘That’s not true, Mrs Plimpton. His Lordship is a perfect gentleman. A little lonely, and very sad. But a decent man.’
‘The devil can’t be the devil every minute of the day. But you keep an eye on him. And yourself. You sound like a giddy girl in one of those romantic novels.’
‘Well,’ said Vera fuming a little. ‘That is simply foolish of you. I do not care a whit about Lord Stanley, but I dislike my own reputation being sullied by all these rumours about Avonside.’
‘It’s not your reputation, Vera. It is Fidel’s, you remain untouched by the place, remember that.’
‘Hullo there, my little nephew,’ Mr Fielding called out coming down the stairway with a keg of something marked with another pub’s coat of arms. ‘What brings you here?’
Now’s the time, thought Vera.
‘Well, I have a job I would like to hire you for. You may take half my wages and a lump sum of one hundred pounds when I am restored to my estate.’
Mr Fielding immediately looked suspicious. ‘And what would I have to do for such a price?’ He hefted the barrel down behind the bar and rolled it into its frame.
‘I want you to find the men who killed my family. Find them and collect the evidence required to convict them.’
He rotated the barrel bringing the tap down to the bottom, and placing a pewter mug on the floor beneath the tap, he poured himself a pint.
‘You want me to set myself up as a thief-taker, turn on my own kind–’
‘Not your own kind. A pair of murderers. You’re not a killer are you?’
‘Young lady. You will show some respect for your elders and betters. I have a reputation in this city. One of protecting those whose lives have been placed beyond the law. You are the beneficiary of my kindness and of Mrs Plimpton’s. But you are asking me to sneak about, collect evidence, and send two men to the gallows for a fee.’
‘I am asking you to help me, to avenge my family, and to protect those who might be those men’s next victims.’
Fielding closed the tap and lifted the pint almost to his lips. ‘Do you believe they will kill again?’
‘They had some sort of business with my father. They visited rarely, they travel, have many associates. My father’s death was not the act of men who value a human life. If that were the case, they would have stopped after killing my father. They killed my mother and our servant girl Mishka. They did that for no reasonable motive but to ensure there were no witnesses who could exonerate me. These are undoubtedly men who will kill again. You have a duty to your fellow man to help me stop them. If once you have collected the evidence for court you feel there is no justice in turning these men in, then you may take my fee and go with it. Such is my confidence in your goodness and their sins.’
When this speech came to an end, Mr Fielding who had been listening with pint cup poised beneath his mouth placed the pewter cup on the bar and turned the handle to point to her.
‘Very well, Vera and Fidel. I will play the hunter in your little drama. But I will take on no danger and will make no final decision regarding sending these men to the gallows until I am satisfied as to the justice of that act. I know too well that the law does not treat men right. Nor women neither.’
‘Thank you.’
Fielding poured another pint and toasted, ‘To this new venture.’
‘To this new venture.’
Vera slept that night on the same chair she slept on after running away from her parents’ home just a few nights earlier. She could hardly believe it was so recent. So much had happened, so much had changed, not least her name, her weeds, her very sex.
But she felt calm as if things might be okay. She had hope again. Hope and just a little love.
Chapter 8
In the morning, she traipsed back across town before the sun was up. She was matching wills with the vicious filly over the question of which road they were to take back to the Manse by the time civil dawn had ended.
The sky blossomed into a full summer sunrise, and Vera rode towards the dark orange streaks at the horizon which faded to a delicate pink on the streamers of wispy cloud that gusted high overhead.
A falcon hovered over a wooden copse buoyed on the warming air. It had its sharp eyes out for the camouflaged patterns of its prey in the leaf litter below. Even this airborne predator, seeking to deal out death seemed calming to Vera as it lofted on the breeze.
Everything seemed at peace, except her damnable horse, which continued to debate her in vicious whinnying noises whenever she issued instruction by boot or bit.
Vera’s own heart was preoccupied – in the same manner as the horse – with two opposing matters. Where the horse was unsure if it wanted to bolt into a dangerous canter or stop completely and graze from the roadside ditch, Vera was unsure if she wanted to hurry on to the Manse to see Lord Stanley all the sooner or to turn away in fear and despair and rush back to Bathcombe.
He can never love me as long as I am Fidel, and until my parents’ murderer is brought to justice, I cannot become Vera again.
It hurt to know that nothing could come of her feelings for the Lord. But at least I can be close to him as Fidel.
Not as close as I’d like though, said the other side of her mind.
As the Manse showed around the curve of the valley, both mind and horse fell into agreement, and Vera kicked the exhausted mare into an unsteady canter.
It was delightful to get up a speed in trousers; no dress to catch the wind, just the tug as it caught the tail of her coat. It was freeing of body and mind.
Men get all the fun. She couldn’t help thinking of Lord Stanley with his own form of riding; his reputation for philandering seemed to be what appalled most of those who had spoken to her so far. What would my reputation be if I comported myself like that?
The horse’s odd and offbeat rhythm kept her concentrated firmly on staying atop her steed, thereby her thoughts were occupied, and she could no longer dwell on the problem which she had spent nearly the whole morning circling and circling and circling and going nowhere.
Instead of hovering over the problem like the falcon above the copse, she cast it aside in favour of the pursuit of her new prey, a pell-mell welter of wind and pounding hooves and the huge lungs of the horse working away like bellows between her thighs.
When she arrived, Vera put the steaming horse away, sluicing it down with the grubby pump water to cool its shivering muscles. Then she hiked out across the grounds to the Manse under a gorgeous summer sun, changed swiftly into her steward’s livery, and went searching for Caruthers.
Caruthers was in the kitchen, his hair more disordered than usual and a slight darkening under the eyes that suggested he may not have slept since Vera saw him last.
These were the only signs that the preparations for the ball were weighing on his mind as he smiled broadly on Vera’s entrance and with surprising energy seized her by the shoulder.
His boney fingers bit into her flesh hard, and he seemed almost to be trying to squeeze something from her with his grip.
‘Welcome back, Fidel. I hope you enjoyed your holiday in Bathcombe,’ he said. ‘However, you are not paid to stay out all night drinking away your wages and chasing pretty bar wenches. There is work to be done.’ The rebuke was given through an enormous grin, but Vera still felt the need to apologise for her tardiness.
‘Sorry, sir. I was delayed by the troublesome horse I took as a mount.’
‘Ah, yes. That sorry bastard nag was a waste of His Lordship’s money. Your uncle vouched for the horse trader. That should have been the first sign that horse was good for nothing but French steaks. Still, you best get on with your work for the day. Lord Stanley
needs seeing to, Helen needs help with the flowers, and the kitchen needs someone with male authority to order the delivery men who are bringing in the food about …’ Vera tried to memorise the list as Caruthers ushered her to the door of the kitchen and sent her on her way to wake and dress their lord and master.
The whole house had suddenly come to life in her absence. As she wound her way through the once empty, echoing corridors, she found they were already filled with workmen from Bathcombe and servants from the Fitzwilliam estate trying to look busy.
They must have ridden out overnight to get here before me! she thought.
This was the state of the house for the next few days, with the addition that no matter where Vera went, Caruthers would appear moments later almost as if he were following her.
Vera’s duties were quickly reduced simply to keeping Lord Stanley happy. As the number of people in his house multiplied, her Lord seemed to become more jittery, more likely to call for a glass of claret instead of tea, or to go stalking around the halls with Vera struggling to keep up as if working off some furious energy that was bubbling within him.
He became irritable, and Vera found much comfort in being a help in calming his anger when this happened.
More than once these high-speed rounds involved double checking the doors to the East Wing. He produced a set of keys from time to time and would unlock a door then re-lock it to ensure that it was correctly secured.
Standing behind him, the soft carpet runner beneath her feet and the lamp light dim in these corridors which had no external windows, she longed to ask what valuable it was that he had stowed away out of sight but clearly not out of mind in the long and empty corridors of the East Wing.
‘My Lord,’ she said on one of these looping excursions. ‘You seem out of sorts of late. Is there anything I can do to mend this mood that has–’
He pulled the key out of the door he was re-locking on the eerie windowless corridor lined with old suits of armour. When he turned, his face flashed irritation. ‘Do not speak to me as if I am an invalid, boy,’ he snapped so viciously Vera had to step back. He pointed at her with the key to emphasise his words, jabbing the air between them.
The anger hurt Vera. I just want to help, she thought but couldn’t open her mouth to speak. Lord Stanley must have seen the blanching fear that flashed across her face because he almost immediately softened.
With incredible tenderness he put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Fidel. You are right … I am out of sorts. I have much weighing on my mind, and allowing the hordes into my home reminds me of the many matters in this house that remain unresolved.’
Vera got the distinct impression he was not talking about the preparations for the party when he talked of ‘unresolved’ matters.
‘If there is much on your mind, perhaps it would be a relief to share them. Your confidence is safe in my hands.’
Lord Stanley looked down at Vera’s hands and said with a slightly ironic smile, ‘I image they would be, Fidel. Soft but secure hands they are. However, a problem shared is not a problem solved. You will find me a different man once I have company.’
They returned to Lord Stanley’s chambers, along the lush carpet runner that was showing signs of having been used by many more feet of late. Now Lord Stanley walked at a far more sedate pace, no longer stalking with brow furrowed. It seemed as if simply by acknowledging the nervous energy he had been exerting, he had found a way to calm the waters of his soul.
With Caruthers engaged in running the Manse’s new contingent of servants and with much of her daily work taken on by them, Vera found herself with little to do after putting Lord Stanley to sleep without his usual half-bottle of claret.
She used this time to burn a candle in the library, reading from Lord Stanley’s collection of books. It was a relief from the suffocating heat of the kitchen, where the cook kept the ovens burning all day to keep everyone fed in shifts.
Here among the books Vera hunched over the fresh bread which she dipped into a bowl of thick gravy-like sauce the cook was trying to get right in time for the ball.
Vera brushed a loose crumb from the pages of the Middle English romance she was reading and sat back into the warm leather of the reading chair. The whole last page had passed before her eyes without a single word registering in her mind.
Outside the house a nightingale was singing.
How sad that only the male nightingale can sing, Vera thought. How different her life as a boy was, how much freer as a serving boy than she had been as a wealthy daughter. The Vera story still hovered behind her role of Fidel but seemed more and more like something that had happened in a book she’d read long ago.
It certainly didn’t help that Helen too seemed at a loose end and so spent far more time seeking out Fidel to talk. She would often sit with Vera and ask endless questions about Fidel’s past with an open interest. Vera felt it was a shame to lie to a girl who was so open and kind, but still she plied Helen with endless lies about Fidel’s home in Bathcombe and the Fielding family’s history.
Vera found she increasingly enjoyed Helen’s company. Female companionship was unnatural now in men’s weeds and only Helen seemed to treat Vera as a friend and confidant. Helen had such a pleasing sense of mischief and was a good natured gossip, interested in people and prone to laughter rather than condemnation of their foibles.
After the strain of controlling both her own feelings and Lord Stanley’s day after day, her conversation with Helen was a delight and reminded her of going visiting on the weekends.
One particular conversation with Helen went around and around Vera’s head, distracting her from her reading.
It was the time that Vera finally found the courage to ask about Lord Stanley’s strange moods.
‘I am finding Lord Stanley quite the opposite of his reputation,’ she said to Helen that time. ‘I was told he was a debauched fellow with an eye for the ladies and love of music and dancing. But he seems to be deeply anxious about the upcoming party.’
Vera was playing the piano in the portrait room while Helen sang along. Her musical knowledge was limited to a few hymns, but she sung them well, and Vera enjoyed practicing her fingering.
‘Oh, you mustn’t worry about his Lordship. He has these periods of agitation. Mr Caruthers says even as a boy he used to suddenly turn from being bright and cheerful into something more brooding and sulky. It will pass; it always does. He’ll be as wicked as you might expect at the ball.’
‘He spends a lot of time checking the locks on the East Wing. He’s like Shylock checking on his ducats and daughter.’
‘Who is Mister Shylock?’ asked Helen. ‘You do have an odd way of speaking sometimes, Mister Fielding.’
‘Never mind Shylock, Helen. What is the big secret he’s so cautious of in the East Wing?’
‘Oh,’ said Helen. ‘That’s no mystery at all. Cook says he has all his father’s gold stashed in the chimney pieces there. Eli says the same but the gold is sewn into the curtains – that’s why you can sometimes see someone at the windows. It’s Lord Stanley checking on his – what was the word you used?’
‘Ducats.’
‘Checking on his ducats. Though, if you asked the cook’s assistants you’ll find that they know for sure that the figure in the windows is a ghost or ghoul of someone the Lord murdered and has buried beneath the floorboards. So you see the matter is quite settled, in quite different ways on each person’s ledger.’
‘And what do you believe, Helen?’
‘Oh, I don’t believe. Like everyone else, I know for sure that he has a foreign princess who he has locked up in the East Wing’s tower. It’s very romantic. One day a handsome young man like yourself will conquer Avonside Manse by force and put his Lordship on his back. Then they – or you – will free the princess and marry her.’