Underwood and Gil both treated her with a cautious deference, for she was an unknown quantity – and they fully intended that she should remain that way, but they had never imagined she and Verity would quickly become fast friends. Verity was always kind and understanding, and this quality of not judging often attracted people to her.
Unfortunately Ophelia made the error of assuming that the brothers were as undemanding and broadminded as their relative, and had swiftly earned their unremitting enmity, though for two very different reasons.
When she had blithely informed the puzzled Underwood she was ‘in touch with the other side’, she had prompted first irritation, then startled disbelief.
“The other side of what?” he had inquired testily, “The river, the county, the Pennines?”
She had graphically described the nature of the divide to which she referred, kindly offering to send a message to deceased loved ones, and both Underwood and Gil had been horrified. Underwood, because he did not believe there was any such divide, and certainly no one on the other side of it with whom he wished to swap greetings; Gil because he did believe – and felt that God, in his wisdom, had erected barriers which man was not meant to try and cross.
Verity tried to defend her friend, pointing out that her beliefs were harmless enough, and sometimes brought a great deal of comfort to the bereaved, but Underwood, for once, was firm, “It is nothing short of cruel to perpetrate such hoaxes! The woman should be thoroughly ashamed of herself!”
Gil naturally agreed and thereafter the atmosphere was decidedly frosty when they were brought together. Now they lost no time in excusing themselves and left Ophelia and Verity alone. The latter was not entirely sorry. Ophelia was the one person in whom she could confide her fears fully, and this she proceeded to do, though she drew a firm line when Ophelia offered to ask her spirit guide to reveal the name of her assailant. This was playing with fire, in more ways than one, as she very well knew.
Gil wandered off to greet Lady Hartley-Wells and Underwood made his way towards a group of young men, from whom much hilarity was rising. Jeremy James Thornycroft was at the centre of the crowd, as Underwood had suspected he might be. Whenever there were roars of raucous laughter, one could almost guarantee Thornycroft would be in the midst of it.
“Just in time, Underwood, you can defend my honour from this horde of rapscallions.”
Underwood leant casually against a marble pillar and folded his arms,
“Honour? You don’t know the meaning of the word, Thornycroft.” The younger man grinned amiably and shifted his weight more comfortably in his wheeled chair, “Damn your hide! Will you listen?”
“Certainly. Listening shouldn’t cost me anything.”
“We have a wager …”
“Ah,” said Underwood, as though light had dawned, “I did not think it would be long before that word raised its ugly head.”
Elliott, who had lost his right arm in the same battle in which Jeremy James had lost his legs, interrupted, “Gad, Underwood! You are not natural. How the devil can you resist the lure of parting Thornycroft from his money?”
“Quite easily,” came the sardonic reply.
Jeremy embarked on a long explanation of how he intended to beat the whole crowd in a horse race, and Underwood, barely listening, looked covertly at the eager young faces around him. Without exception every one of the five, Thornycroft, Elliott, Swann, Meadows and Dickson, had lost his youth and health on the battlefields of Europe, yet there was not one scrap of bitterness or depression. They had known the risks, taken them gladly, and borne the consequences with a valour which Underwood was not sure he possessed. He found their humour and zest for life nothing short of miraculous, considering the burdens they all bore.
He was being brought back into the conversation and was forced to lay aside his introspection. From the little he had heeded, it seemed Adeline had had designed and made a special saddle which was going to enable Thornycroft to sit a horse once more. He declared that once he had mastered the knack, he was going to challenge all comers to a race around the town.
“By God, I’ll beat the lot of you,” he was saying.
“That won’t be difficult,” was the grimly humorous riposte from Elliott, “I don’t have a right hand, Meadows is missing his right eye and needs spectacles for the other, Swann’s short his left leg and Dickson’s got less thigh than you.”
“I included Underwood in the challenge,” countered Thornycroft, with great dignity, “He’s able bodied.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me ride,” intercepted the grinning Underwood, “I’m the worst horseman in Derbyshire, so don’t drag me into your madness. I’m quite sure Adeline intended that you should trot sedately about town, taking the air, not tearing up and down the highroad, frightening the dowagers.”
“Nothing frightens the dowagers,” said Thornycroft decidedly, “And Adeline is a sweet girl, but she really cannot be expected to understand what makes a man’s blood run hot and wild.”
“If she’s like every other woman, she thinks it is she who does that,” murmured Underwood wryly, causing another explosion of laughter.
Elliott spoke to Underwood under cover of the merriment, “I see Miss Knight is back in town,” he said, nodding towards Verity and Ophelia.
“Has she been out of town?” asked Underwood, without any interest whatsoever.
“For over a week,” admitted the lovelorn Elliott.
“Really? I had not noticed. Why not go over and welcome her back?”
Elliott took the hint and presently Ophelia was drawn from Verity’s side. Underwood noticed and took his leave of the former soldiers with a grin and a friendly warning, “I think you really ought to know, there is a faction forming with the express purpose of having you gentlemen forcibly ejected from Hanbury. Your shocking behaviour has finally worn out the sympathy of the elders of the town.”
Thornycroft laughed, “They can form as many factions as they want, old friend, but when all comes to all, they know we’re harmless.”
“Or armless, in Elliott’s case,” grinned Swann.
“Behave yourself for a few days,” cautioned Underwood, “By the way, Jeremy, just how much did you take away from Rogers the other day?”
“Plenty!”
A small smile adorned Verity’s face as Underwood rejoined her, “How are the ‘Wablers’?” she asked, using a name for the soldiers which she really ought not to have known. It was a vulgarism, a contemptuous terms used by the cavalry to refer to foot soldiers – a rank to which these brave cavalry men were now effectively reduced.
“Who on earth told you that sobriquet?” asked Underwood, faintly shocked. Her smile broadened, “If you think we ladies are ignorant of the vulgar tongue, you are entirely wrong.”
“Well, you ought to be,” he said emphatically, “And don’t use it in front of Gil!”
“Who, the ‘devil-driver’?” she asked with a giggle.
“You seem to be feeling a little better. Miss Knight does have her uses then?”
She did not bother to answer this, imagining it was only going to initiate a lecture. They were quiet for a few moments, each busy with their own thoughts, then Underwood murmured, “I wonder how they knew?”
“Who knew what?” asked Verity, puzzled.
“Miss Knight’s parents. How could they possibly know she was going to grow up to be an Ophelia?”
“Well, she says she can see into the future – perhaps they could too.”
Underwood gave a derisive snort, but made no comment. Verity smiled and added, “Mayhap she grew up as she did because she was named Ophelia. I imagine she felt she had something to live up to, with a name like that. After all, you were named after a character in Greek mythology and became a Classics master.”
He had not viewed the matter from this angle and it evidently gave him food for thought, “We had better choose our child’s name with care,” he counselled.
“I always in
tended to,” smiled Verity.
“Elliott appears to be smitten,” said Underwood presently, after watching the young man struggle to bring the lady her water – no simple task for a man with only one arm.
“I think that a great pity,” remarked Verity, sadly.
Underwood raised a brow, “Surely Miss Knight would not reject him because of his injury?”
“Oh no, I wouldn’t think so. But she is very much in love with another.”
“And are we to have the pleasure of meeting him?”
“I doubt it. He is married already.” This shocking revelation drew no response from Underwood, and Verity glanced sideways at him, to gauge his reaction, “You do not seem to mind very much,” she commented carefully.
“Why should I mind? What Miss Knight chooses to do is no affair of mine. It is rather for the wife of her lover to ‘mind’, isn’t it?”
“Some men might object to their wife having a woman such as she for a friend.”
“It is not in my nature to object to very much in life, my dear. I have found it to be rather a waste of time. One can object until one turns blue, but it rarely has an effect on the outcome of anything.”
“Then I may continue to see her?”
“Good God, yes! What do you take me for? I ask only two things. One is that you do not confide this information to Gil, I fear the shock would kill him! The second is that you do not involve yourself in any action which might bring scandal to your door. I ask this, you understand, not for myself, but for you. You have attained an enviable reputation in this place and I have no wish to see you destroy it.”
“I promise I will not,” she answered, much relieved that he had taken the news so calmly.
“Do you not think it might be kinder in her to discourage Elliott?”
“I don’t think she realizes she is encouraging him. There is something oddly innocent about her at times.”
Her husband very much doubted that Ophelia Knight was in the least innocent about anything at all, but he kindly refrained from saying so, but he could not resist one tiny criticism.
“I find it curious you can still think so highly of her, knowing how you usually view adulterous affairs. I seem to recall you thought very little of Oliver Dunstable.”
Oliver Dunstable was a young man whose elderly wife had died under suspicious circumstances, who had cheated the gallows thanks to Underwood’s efforts. Verity had despised him for the weakness of his character, which had included the keeping of a mistress.
“Ophelia’s situation is quite different,” she protested, but without real conviction.
“I thought it might be,” he could not keep a note of cynicism from his voice, and indeed did not attempt to do so. She had the grace to blush, “No, really it is! He is trapped in an unhappy marriage.”
“Most men would imagine their marriage unhappy if they thought they could bed a lovely young woman on the strength of it.”
Verity privately agreed with him, and thought Ophelia a fool, so she pursued the matter no further, merely observing, “I suppose this means you will despise her more than ever?”
“Not at all. On the contrary, I pity her profoundly. She has chosen an empty life, whilst he can have everything he wants. There must, of course, be no children for her.”
“I don’t think she wants children.”
“That is most fortunate. It is to be hoped she never changes her mind.”
His wife could only agree with him.
*
CHAPTER FOUR
(“Ignis Aurum Probat, Miseria Fortes Viros” – Fire tests gold, adversity tests strong men)
The receiving of letters was a rare event in the vicarage. The Underwoods could expect a monthly, much crossed missive from their mother, but they corresponded with their other relatives not at all – unless to announce births, deaths and marriages. Verity, sadly, was entirely alone in the world, apart from her friends, most of whom lived near enough to exchange visits rather than letters. It was therefore with a feeling of mild trepidation that Underwood broke the wafer of a letter found by his breakfast plate the following morning. He was quite sure he did not recognize the handwriting, nor the frank, but his expression took on an aspect of pleasure when the writer revealed himself in the signature.
“Gil, it is from Dr. Russell. It seems he met mother a few weeks ago and when she told him we were living here, he thought it most timely since he is feeling in need of a restorative. He asks if he might visit us next week.”
“Dr. Russell?” Gilbert appeared to be deeply engrossed in his newspaper and was, his brother felt, being annoyingly vague, “I should think he stands in need of more than a restorative. I thought he was dead!”
Verity was astounded at this want of sensibility from the normally kind-hearted Gil, “What a dreadful thing to say. Gil, I’m surprised at you. Who is Dr. Russell, pray?”
“Our old tutor,” answered Underwood succinctly.
“Old being the word which best describes him,” interjected Gil decidedly, “He must be about a hundred and three. He was easily in his eighties when he taught Chuffy and I.”
Underwood managed a laugh, but he shot Gil a puzzled look. It was very unlike the vicar to be so scathing, “Nonsense! The man is not a day over seventy. Gil merely resents him because he saw flashes of my future brilliance, but utterly failed to notice anything even slightly interesting in my younger brother.”
“That was because you were an odious little bookworm.”
It was the vitriol apparent behind this remark which made Underwood decide that the conversation had progressed far enough. He spoke in a jocular tone, “Have I to write and tell the poor old fellow he is not welcome?”
“Certainly not. Have him here if you want to, but I take leave to doubt he is either poor or in need of a restorative. That letter was franked by an M. P. and I never saw a livelier hand. Dr. Russell may want to come to Hanbury, but I think you will find he has his own reasons.”
*
His great admiration and affection for Dr. Russell made Underwood eager to have the vicarage and its inmates looking their best for his arrival, and therefore everything which could go wrong, did so.
Dawn next day saw the whole household gathered on the lawn in various stages of undress, whilst Toby ran back into the house, to try and extinguish a fire which had broken out in the parlour.
It seemed Mrs. Trent had wanted the room to be warm for Verity when she came downstairs, so she had set the fire in the grate, lighted it, then gone to the kitchen to begin the tasks of the day. When she returned some time later, smoke had begun to billow back into the room. Assuming the chimney had caught fire, she had hastened upstairs in order to rouse the family. By the time the ensuing panic had calmed, and everyone was out of the house, the flames had spread.
Verity was ushered down the garden by Underwood and settled onto a garden seat, a blanket about her shoulders. Toby insisted on going back into the house to try and douse the flames, so Gil and his brother gladly filled pails with water for him from the long-disused well in the garden. They both had a lively sense of self-preservation along with a profound scorn of all things material, so nothing would prevail upon either of them to re-enter the building, once the living creatures had been removed. Toby, however, had no intention of seeing them lose their home, after all they had done for him in the past. Nothing they could say would convince him that they would really rather he did not risk his life on their account. It transpired that the peril was not so very great; as it often proves, the smoke was rather deceiving. Several buckets of water soon dampened the worst of the flames and Underwood was able to join Verity; his night shirt and the breeches he had managed to pull on were covered in smuts, his face was dirty, his hair romantically disordered, but he was otherwise unscathed.
“Where is Toby?” enquired the fretful Verity, noticing that the big man had not yet come out of the house.
“Merely assessing the damage. He sustained no hurt, I promise you.”
Presently Toby reappeared and he called Underwood to him. That gentleman went gladly to answer the summons, thinking nothing of it, but fear clutched at Verity’s heart. Something was wrong.
Toby had been a free man now for many years, but there were still certain little mannerisms ingrained in his nature from his years as a slave. One was that he never called people to come to him, but always went to their side. The fact that he had called Underwood to go to him could mean only one thing. There was something he did not wish Verity to hear or see.
In the parlour, Verity’s fears were being realized. Toby met Underwood at the door and gestured towards the hearth, “I think you ought to see this, Mr. Underwood.”
For a few minutes Underwood could see barely anything for the room was still full of smoke, though it was rapidly clearing, thanks to the open windows and doors. The waterlogged mess which had spilled out of the fireplace seemed to hold nothing of particular interest. It was evident to Toby that his companion had no idea what he was supposed to see, so he drew him across the room. The object turned out to be a bundle a rags, sticks and stones, blackened and still smouldering slightly.
Behind The Horseman (The Underwood Mysteries Book 3) Page 3