by Caro Peacock
‘I couldn’t sleep for the storm. I can’t abide lightning.’
She hadn’t seen Tabby since the day before yesterday and had no idea where she might be. I said if Tabby did turn up, she should tell her to go to the cottage and wait for me, but had no great hopes of it. I was beginning to think that Tabby might be trying to get back to London. Its back streets and yards were the nearest thing she had to a home, and the speed of our coach journey had probably given her no idea of how far away it was, twenty-five miles or so. I imagined her small, resolute figure trudging the dusty road.
I walked up to the coach station at the Bear but nobody had seen a girl of her description. She certainly hadn’t tried to board any of the London-bound coaches, but then she had no money. I tipped the head ostler and asked him to tell all the drivers to look out for her and, if they found her, bring her back. From his attitude, he thought it was an ordinary case of an absconding maid and I didn’t waste time trying to persuade him otherwise.
On the way back, I stood for some time on the old bridge, looking down at the fast-flowing river. A dark bundle turning in the current set my heart thumping, but when it came nearer it turned out to be a mass of twigs and reeds. After that, I wasted an hour or two making inquiries around the village and outlying cottages. All I achieved were various promises to watch out for her and a false hope about a girl stranger seen on a footpath, who turned out to be a child visiting an aunt and nothing like Tabby.
A visit to the cottage produced nothing but well-tidied emptiness. If Tabby had come back, she’d have left some trace. The next hope was to go back to the hall, in case anybody had news of her now. I felt tired and weighed down with worry. The freshness of the air after the storm had been burned away as the sun rose higher, and everything felt hot and sticky again. But that was only part of the reason for my reluctance to go back to the hall. I didn’t want to return because Robert Carmichael was there. His last words to me had been a reproach, and an undeserved one. Come just so far but no further, had been the message. He must have known that Lady Brinkburn was coming close to confiding in me and would surely have had enough influence with her to stop her if he’d really wanted. But then, she was stubborn in her way and had shown me the journal, even though he disapproved. He’d been unmistakeably relieved when I told him that she’d denied the story of the daemon lover. Then just one more question, and a perfectly justified one in the circumstances, had changed his attitude entirely. I’d been invited to share at least some of the family secrets, then treated like a trespasser.
Still, no help for it. My responsibility to Tabby would have to come before the Brinkburns’ problems. I drank some water, nibbled at a slice of yesterday’s bread, then threw the rest for the ducks and went back through the woods to the road.
I’d chosen that way in preference to the river bank because there were two cottages on the way I hadn’t covered in my search, but they were as useless as the rest and I began to regret my choice. The road was rutted and dusty, the sun beating down so that my head felt hot even under the straw bonnet. The only people I saw were four farm workers, taking a break from their work in the shade under the hedge, their scythes propped up beside them. Then, perhaps half a mile from the hall, the sound of galloping hooves came from along the road in front of me, and a horse and rider appeared.
It was too hot for galloping and the road was too hard, but that didn’t seem to matter to this man. At first he and his horse were no more than shapes in a dust cloud. As he came nearer I could see that he was dressed like a gentleman in a black jacket and top hat, but he was riding like a jockey, swinging his whip hand to urge the horse on, though not actually hitting it. If he saw me, it didn’t make any difference to his speed or direction, and I had to jump aside on to the grass verge as he went past. I recognised the horse as a blue roan I’d seen in the livery stables at the Bear, useful-looking but not accustomed to this pace and labouring hard. Then, in the one glance I had at his face, I recognised the rider, too. It was Stephen Brinkburn and he looked furious.
I waited for the dust to settle, then walked on slowly. Nobody had seen Stephen for ten days. He hadn’t been at the hall the night before, so must have arrived while I was looking for Tabby. Lady Brinkburn had not said anything about expecting him. In normal circumstances, there’d have been nothing out of the way in the elder son rushing to comfort his bereaved mother, but normal circumstances didn’t apply here. Besides, his visit must have been indecently short.
Whether or not he’d arrived in a bad temper, he was certainly leaving in one. That was the biggest puzzle of all. If he’d spoken to his mother, he must have received good news. She was no longer claiming that his conception was the result of a visit by somebody other than his father. Therefore he was what he’d always believed himself to be–legitimate successor to a title and a fortune. There’d be no embarrassing revelations in the House of Lords, society gossips would lose a good story and the fair Rosa would transfer her wavering affections back to her true knight. Even allowing for the death of a father who had not played a large part in his upbringing, Stephen Brinkburn should have been beaming like a man who’d just had all his birthdays come at once, not beating the dust out of the road as if he hated the world. That is, unless his mother had decided to change her story again. The possibility of that was at least a diversion from worrying about Tabby. Had Sophia understood the significance of what she was saying to me? I’d believed she had at the time, but a laudanum-hazed brain is a strange thing.
I’d thought yesterday that my work for the Brinkburn family had finished, but now it might be all to do again.
The maid who opened the front door to me looked hangdog, like a girl who’d had a scolding.
‘Are you Dora?’ I said.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
It was a mutter with her eyes on the floor.
‘It was unkind to tease poor Tabby,’ I said. ‘Still, I’m sorry about the ham. Has she come back?’
‘No, ma’am.’
I was about to ask if Lady Brinkburn was receiving visitors when Mr Whiteley came down the stairs, nearly tripping over in his hurry.
‘Has your maid reappeared, Miss Lane?’
‘No.’
‘We’ve looked everywhere for her. I’m quite certain she’s not on the estate.’
He looked scared of me, as if I’d hold him personally to blame. I asked him if he’d kindly send up to Lady Brinkburn and let her know I was back. He looked even more unhappy.
‘Her ladyship is resting. Mr Carmichael said I was to ask you if you’d be kind enough to call back tomorrow, if convenient.’
It was another slam of the door, just in case I hadn’t been deterred by the first one. The day before, Sophia had implored me to stay and protect her from whatever phantoms were haunting her dreams. Now she was treating me like an annoying and distant acquaintance. Dora was still standing by the front door, ready to open it again. I was practically being thrown off the premises. I stood my ground and looked Mr Whiteley in the eye.
‘Mr Brinkburn has just passed me on the road,’ I said, forgetting to give Stephen his new title. ‘He seemed in a hurry.’
He gulped. Always, in his dealings with me, he must have it in mind that I knew he’d committed perjury. In my anger, I was prepared to use that shamelessly.
‘Yes, I believe he was.’
‘Was his mother expecting a visit? She said nothing about it to me.’
‘I understand Mr Stephen’s visit was unexpected.’
‘And they quarrelled?’ I said.
He couldn’t bring himself to say so in words, only dropped his eyes and nodded. That confirmed what I’d expected from that glance at Stephen’s face. I thought he’d wanted something from his mother and hadn’t got it. In spite of what she’d said to me, she’d refused to confirm the legitimacy of his claim.
‘Please give Lady Brinkburn my compliments and let her know that I shall come back tomorrow,’ I said.
Then I released him f
rom his misery by turning on my heel and walking out of the door. Anger took me halfway up the drive at a pace too fast for a hot day. I stopped to adjust my bonnet and, against my better judgement, looked back at the house, wondering if anybody was watching me from a window. If so, there was no sign of it. The serene red-brick façade framed by its close-cut lawn gave no hint of the suspicion and unhappiness inside. I looked at the place on the lawn where Sophia’s eyes had been fixed the night before and an odd idea came to me. Suppose it had been a real man and not a laudanum vision after all. Could it be that Stephen had arrived before daylight and gone walking round the grounds of his old home, preparing for a crucial interview with his mother? I imagined him, staring up at her window in the half light, knowing that his whole future might depend on what she told him in the morning. Then, in the morning, they’d quarrelled and nobody was going to tell me more than that.
For the rest of the afternoon I dragged myself round on my fruitless search for Tabby. I was becoming convinced that she was on her way back to London. First thing tomorrow I’d send a message to Abel Yard and ask Mrs Martley if she’d reappeared there. For now, I didn’t even have the energy to lift a pen. I’d had precious little sleep the night before and had walked so many miles in the day that the seam of one shoe was bursting. I made some soup, dragged myself upstairs, undressed and went to bed.
From anxiety over Tabby and anger with Lady Brinkburn, I’d expected a restless night, but must have slept for eight hours or more, because when I woke up it was broad daylight and the birds were shouting their morning challenges to each other. I looked at my watch and found it was half past five, plenty of time to write my note and take it to the Bear to go by an early London stage. But it was stuffy in the cottage and the morning outside looked so clear and beautiful that I decided to give myself a few minutes by the river first. I changed from my nightgown into a chemise and petticoat and walked barefoot down the garden path to the bank. The cool river smell was all over the garden, early bees buzzing in the marigolds. The water was cold to my toes so I drew my feet up and sat on the bank, watching willow leaves eddying in the current. A kingfisher darted out of an alder tree, swift and bright as a rapier. My eyes followed its flight upstream. There was a rowing boat coming down.
My first thought was that it might be Robert Carmichael, coming to explain or apologise, and I prepared myself to be angry with him. But he was skilful with boats and would never have allowed one to proceed in such a disorderly way. It was drifting in the current like the willow leaves, sometimes coming straight on, at other times turning almost sideways. Nobody was rowing it. I thought it must have come unmoored from somewhere further upstream and stood up, looking for a pole or tree branch in case there was a chance of pulling it into the bank. There was nothing suitable to hand, so I ran back to the porch where I’d noticed an old clothes prop leaning. By the time I got back with it, the boat was almost level with the garden, but on the far side of the river. It headed for the opposite bank, then was caught by a counter-current that twitched it back midstream and carried it on with more speed than before. In that moment, I saw that it wasn’t empty. Somebody was lying in it, white face upturned, body swathed in some dark fabric.
I only had one glance before the river carried it on, but was certain that the face was female. The first fear about Tabby and the river came rushing back. Instantly, I was sure she was the figure in the boat, unconscious or dead.
I slid down the bank into the river, taking the clothes prop with me, and waded out waist-deep, petticoats floating out round me, toes sinking into the mud. I flailed after the boat for a few yards, but it was useless. There was no hope of catching it. Mud rose to my knees, flinging me forward into the water, head and shoulders under. I managed to keep hold of the clothes post and lever myself upright, then leaned on it to thrash my way back to the bank. Once clear of the water I lay on the grass, gasping and sobbing, until it occurred to me that the figure in the boat might have been only unconscious, not dead. I didn’t truly believe that, but while even a slim hope remained I had to get help for her. I ran inside, crammed my wet feet into shoes, grabbed a cloak from the back of the door to cover myself then ran towards the road, hoping against hope to meet somebody with a horse or cart.
The path through the woods felt endless, with brambles like snares that seemed to have grown overnight. When I got to the road, there wasn’t a person or a cart in sight. I remembered then that it was Sunday, with no farm workers out early. It was no use wasting time asking for help around the cottages. My only hope was that the boat might come to a stop at one of the piers of the new railway bridge, or at least that there’d be somebody there with a boat. I hitched up my cloak and ran, welcoming the stitch in my side as a distraction from the pain of my conscience. If I hadn’t interfered, trying to save Tabby from her precarious style of life, she’d have still been sleeping, happy and louse-ridden, under a pile of old sacks in Abel Yard.
When at last I came to the bridge there were workmen with a pony cart and handcart, on some railway task so vital that it had brought them in on a Sunday. But they weren’t working now. Some of them were on a substantial wooden jetty stretching a long way into the river, others clustered at the landward end. They were all looking in the same direction. I ran up to them and asked what was happening.
‘Woman drowned,’ one of them said.
I ran on to the jetty. The men there had their backs to me so I couldn’t see what they were looking at. I touched the shoulder of the one nearest and he turned.
‘Who’s drowned?’
‘She’s not drowned,’ he said. But my surge of relief didn’t last for more than a heartbeat, because he went on: ‘She’s in a boat, stone dry. But she’s dead.’
‘I think I know who she is. May I see her?’
The men made way for me. They’d moored the rowing boat to one of the posts on the jetty. Both the post and the rope, designed for barges carrying bricks, were too large for such a small vessel. A long boat-hook swathed in waterweed was spreading a damp stain over the dry planks. They must have used it to catch the boat as it went past. For a moment I couldn’t look past that stain, knowing what I’d see when I did.
I made myself look at the boat. Dark fabric, entirely dry as the man had said. It seemed to be a cloak wrapped round her. They’d drawn it up over her face.
‘Please let me see her face,’ I said.
One of the men kneeled down on the jetty and moved it gently aside. The pale face was as tranquil as a wax mask, framed in thick swathes of hair that were only a little disordered. Hair that had been well tended for a lifetime, lightly streaked with grey.
‘You all right, miss?’
‘Your mother, is she?’
Rough murmurs of male sympathy round me, a hand on my shoulder.
‘No, she’s not my mother. It’s not who I thought. She…’ I hesitated, still not quite believing it. ‘She’s Lady Brinkburn.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The first relief that I hadn’t, after all, brought Tabby to her death gave way to shock and incomprehension. Lady Brinkburn’s eyes were closed. She might have been asleep in her white bed where I’d last seen her. There were no obvious signs of violence. I found I was trembling and let the workmen guide me to a pile of timber and sit me down. They were kindly men, but brought in by the railway company and not local, so when I asked if somebody could take a message to Brinkburn Hall, I had to explain where it was. One of the younger ones volunteered to run there. I’d have preferred to break the news myself, but had no strength left and was realizing what a sight I must look, feet stockingless inside my shoes, hair wet and muddy, nothing but underwear beneath the cloak. I told the young workman to ask for Mr Carmichael.
‘Tell him that there’s been a serious accident and ask him to come to the railway bridge at once. Say the message is from Miss Lane.’
He ran off. One of the men who seemed to be their foreman folded the cloak back over Lady Brinkburn’s face.
&
nbsp; ‘Should we take her out of the boat, miss?’
I said I thought we should leave her as she was until somebody came. Two of the workmen stayed by the boat, while the rest of us walked slowly back to the bank. I asked the foreman the time and found it was still only seven in the morning. Back at the hall, they might not even know that Lady Brinkburn was missing. Her absence wouldn’t be discovered until Betty brought in her coffee, or even later than that if the maid decided not to disturb her.
It seemed a long time before anyone came. The workmen drew apart and formed little groups, first talking in hushed voices and then more normally, lighting pipes. One of them laughed at something and was shushed by the others. I sensed they’d had enough of this drama and wanted to get back to their work.
At last a horse and rider appeared, in a cloud of dust. They reined up sharply and Robert Carmichael practically threw himself out of the saddle.
‘Sophia’s missing,’ he said to me.
I looked towards the boat. He must have seen from my face, because he didn’t say anything else, only strode along the landing stage to the rowing boat. The foreman and I followed. He kneeled down, drew back the cloak and took a long look. Then he covered her again and sat back on his heels, hands to his face, drawing long breaths. When he looked up at us at last, his expression was quite blank.
‘We could have her taken to the main road at the old bridge, sir,’ the foreman suggested.
Robert Carmichael stood up, visibly taking on responsibility.
‘If you would, yes. Who found her?’
‘Two of my men were out on the jetty and saw the boat. They managed to hook it in. They thought she was just asleep at first.’
Robert looked at me. I explained about seeing the boat going past on the current and trying to catch up with it. I said nothing about thinking it was Tabby. He listened to me, but only nodded.