Lady Helena Investigates

by Jane Steen

  For a moment, I was struck utterly dumb. I stared at my sisters, who sat back on their sofa with an air of satisfaction at having imparted the news to me. When I found my voice, it came out as a hoarse squeak.

  “Susan said that?”

  Scotty yipped at the sound of my voice and deserted my sisters to run to me. I didn’t normally treat him as a lapdog, but now I picked him up, seeking the comfort of his warm body and wiry coat.

  Annette laced her fingers together. “Not at first. Mrs. Bearcroft insisted the rector accompany her straight to Dene Farm while the verger and a curate stayed with Farmer Hatherall. They found the young woman at her darning and immediately confirmed the truth of her condition.”

  “She was silent for a long time,” Alice said. “But Mrs. Bearcroft cannot be withstood.”

  I bet she can’t, was my thought. But I kept my own counsel and waited to see what would come next. I scratched Scotty behind the ears, noting mechanically that he needed a bath.

  “Susan confessed she had fallen victim to the Frenchman’s charms.” Annette sighed. “We live in a broken world of sin and sorrow, don’t we? Ally and I are inclined to forgive the young woman.”

  “We certainly are,” said Alice. “We’re sure the French physician is a most persuasive and insinuating man—”

  “—and a poor, simple farmer’s daughter was no match for his wiles.”

  “She will have to go to the workhouse,” Alice said lugubriously.

  “No!” I stood up, putting Scotty down on the carpet. My sisters’ expressions changed to surprise.

  “Her father is willing to keep her until the baby is born, and her sister, Maggie, will take the child as her own,” I said.

  I realized my fists were clenched and I was trembling slightly. Did I even believe the story about Fortier? I didn’t think I did—I knew I didn’t want to—but then I remembered the girl in the church.

  “You knew about it!” cried Alice and Annette at exactly the same time.

  “And what if I did?” I held my head up high. “The Hatheralls are my tenants. What, pray, does Monsieur Fortier say in answer to these accusations? Has he been informed?”

  Was he still there when those accusations were made, I wondered? Were they delivered in front of his sister and brother-in-law?

  My sisters ignored my question. They looked at each other the way they often did, seeming to communicate without words. Annette gave a minute shake of her head and turned back to me.

  “The unpleasant discovery that you knew of Susan Hatherall’s condition causes us much grief, Baby.”

  “We are concerned your friendship with the Frenchman is even deeper than we feared. We will have to talk with Michael about this.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said, exasperated, although I knew Michael would soon be informed and would no doubt have something to say on the subject. “Michael will be about as useful as the Tsar of Russia. The first order of business is to give Monsieur Fortier the opportunity to make a public refutation of Susan’s claims. If Farmer Hatherall can no longer cope with his daughter’s disgrace, I’m quite happy to give her a bed in the servants’ quarters here while we work out what to do next. I won’t have her go to the workhouse.”

  Again I had the sense that my sisters were communicating with each other by thought alone. They both rose to their feet. As they were taller than me, I felt very much outnumbered, but I stood my ground.

  “If you like, I’ll go with you to talk with Monsieur Fortier,” I said. “We can go to the Dermody house—it’s possible he hasn’t started his day’s work yet. Just give me a few minutes to get ready.”

  “But he won’t be there. Quite apart from the fact that a newly bereaved widow cannot possibly—”

  “Why won’t he be there?” I interrupted.

  “He’s not in Littleberry.”

  “Then we can go to the Dermody house and inquire when he’ll be back. I don’t see why I shouldn’t be able to do that, mourning or no mourning. At least we can find out whether he even knows about the accusation, the poor man. Perhaps we should also call on Mrs. Bearcroft and ensure malicious gossip doesn’t spread until the facts have been ascertained. And talk to Farmer Hatherall to see if he thinks Fortier is the father of Susan’s child. At least then when Monsieur Fortier returns, we won’t have been guilty of failing to find out the truth—”

  “But he isn’t going to return.” Alice held up a hand to stem the flow of my words.

  “What do you mean?” I was completely at a loss.

  “Of course someone went to the Dermody house to find him, to give him a chance to respond.” Alice sounded exasperated. “But his sister said he was gone to Eastbourne, and would they come back in the morning.”

  “And then this morning she said he was gone altogether. To Dieppe on the Ousil, and she could not say when or even if he would return. She would not reveal the nature of his business.”

  “And that confirms his guilt entirely.” Alice began talking the second Annette stopped to draw breath. “All the town is talking about it. And your name has been mentioned, more than once, because the Frenchman has been seen talking to you, and everyone knows he visited Whitcombe.”

  I clenched my jaw but said nothing. I had grown up in the knowledge that everything our family did was of interest in Littleberry, but such close scrutiny was very trying. And I was furious with Fortier. How dare he disappear just at the moment when he needed to prove—or at least proclaim—his innocence? If he was innocent.

  Well, there was certainly one way to find out.

  11

  A generous offer

  “This isn’t a formal call,” I said as soon as Ruby, the Hatheralls’ servant, opened their front door, releasing a strong smell of baking. “Is the farmer home?”

  “No, m’lady.” Ruby was cheerful and friendly, as always, but her eyes were wary. She knew what my business was.

  “Good. I’d like to speak with Miss Hatherall.” I looked down at my boots. “I’m too muddy for the parlor. Would you do me the favor of letting me into the back garden?”

  Ruby’s eyes widened slightly, but she led me to the side of the house and unlatched a gate hidden between two tall hedges.

  “If you’ll just wait a moment, m’lady, I’ll fetch her directly.”

  I glanced up at the hill behind the farmhouse before I slipped inside the garden. Up there was Guttridge, waiting for me in the cemetery. I had ostensibly gone out to visit Justin’s grave. I had indeed laid the wreath my gardener had prepared that morning on the mound of clay, now settled a little but still nastily raw-looking. By my instructions, the grave was kept in good order daily, with fresh flowers or greenery depending on what was growing in the greenhouses or conservatory. Today it was a wreath of shining green bay leaves decorated with sprigs of bright-berried holly and pure white hellebores.

  I had left the cemetery via the lower lychgate and undertaken the slippery descent down to the lane that led from Littleberry to Dene Farm, using an old walking stick of Justin’s that I’d thought to bring with me for balance. I leaned on that stick now, enjoying its solidity under my fingers. Its chased silver cap was worn by years of the pressure of Justin’s hand, its ebony shaft nicked and dented by much use.

  I could hear the two women arguing inside the house, Ruby’s voice soothing and persuasive. I didn’t have to wait long until Susan emerged, brushing flour off her apron. She approached me with the air of a convicted prisoner facing the executioner. Her hair was speckled with white here and there, as if she’d been pounding the dough so hard that flour had flown into the air. Her skin was pasty, and a rash of pimples had broken out on her forehead. Her eyes, shadowed before, now looked heavy and almost bruised.

  “I brought you something.” I held out a glass jar containing a creamy substance. “It’s to soothe your hands—forgive me, but they look very dry and sore. I had my maid buy it from the apothecary in Littleberry to see what it should look like—I’ve a mind to make some of my own. I
n the meantime, I’d like you to have it.”

  She unscrewed the lid and sniffed suspiciously at the ointment. “Looks like something old Lady Broadmere would make.”

  “You rub it in like this.” Ignoring the disrespectful reference to my mother, I took the jar out of her grasp and dipped my finger into the pleasant-smelling substance. Taking her wrist, I gently rubbed a little of the cream into the back of her hand with a circular motion.

  After a few seconds, she withdrew her hand, but gently. “Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked. “I thought . . .”

  “That I was coming to scold you for telling lies about Monsieur Fortier? I’m not, but you must set the record straight. It’s so unfair to him. And I would like to make you an offer of employment.”

  “Employment?” Now she sounded completely incredulous.

  “At Whitcombe, in my workroom. Or at least the workroom I plan to set up. I’ve a mind to learn the herbalist’s art after all.”

  “Learn it again.” Her voice was flat. “You used to know quite a lot.”

  “Yes, I did. But I’ve forgotten it. I think I made a deliberate effort to forget it all back then.”

  “When you went all strange after your cousin died. I remember.” She hesitated for a few moments, then burst out: “I was glad.”

  “Glad?”

  “Because her ladyship wanted me by her all the time after you stopped helping. And I wanted to be with her ladyship. I would do anything for her ladyship.” Her hands clutched at her skirts as if she were trying to communicate the earnestness of her statement.

  “Why don’t you go and see her, then? She’ll have forgotten her . . . outburst . . . a long time ago.”

  Susan shook her head slowly. “No, I won’t go to Hyrst. But I don’t understand why you want me, of all people.”

  “I need someone who’s used to rough work and doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty, but also knows about indoor tasks—cooking and the like. I know you don’t do much farm work, but your hands say you work hard. And then there’s the years you spent with my mother. Haven’t you ever been tempted to practice the skills you learned from her? I’m sure some of it must have remained with you.”

  She looked sulky. “Father said I shouldn’t. He said she didn’t do me any good, filling my head with recipes for potions when I should be learning to be a good plain cook. He said that being his housekeeper was the right place for me, not up in the big house. He wouldn’t like me going to Whitcombe.”

  “He’d let you if I asked him.”

  “But why?” She almost shouted, as if she were frustrated at me.

  “Because I think you must be desperately unhappy. I think you accused Monsieur Fortier of fathering your child because you’re protecting someone else—a married man, perhaps. I’m not going to ask you who it is.”

  She stuck her tongue into her cheek, considering my words. “Do you like him? The Frenchie?”

  “I . . . neither like nor dislike him, Susan. My late husband liked him and trusted him, and he’s not here to speak for himself. I suppose I feel I must be as fair as possible to him and to his family by giving him the benefit of the doubt. Why did you name him in particular?”

  She hesitated, licking dry lips as she clearly considered where the greater risk lay—in telling the truth or not. By now, I was quite convinced she had been lying about Fortier. My initial affirmation had been in the nature of an arrow shot into the air to see how Susan reacted; but the fact that she had not vehemently insisted Fortier was indeed her child’s father had confirmed my instinct.

  At last, Susan drew a deep breath. “He’s a foreigner and a bachelor. That means he can move elsewhere if there’s scandal. A little will rub off on his family to be sure, but that Mr. Dermody don’t care two groats for anyone else’s opinion. Nobody will stand against him once his temper’s up. And that Frenchman, he’s got all sorts of tales around him already—one more won’t hurt him all that much. I couldn’t believe my luck when I heard he’d gone away. Maybe he’ll stay gone.”

  “It’s wrong, Susan. Wrong to accuse a man of something he hasn’t done, especially something as serious as getting a woman in the family way.” I could hear the anger in my voice. The calculation Susan had just expounded to me reminded me strongly of why I had disliked her as a child. She had always been fond of using other people for her own benefit.

  “Wrong?” Susan grinned. “There’s a deal wrong in the world, m’lady. Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils, as Father says.”

  I didn’t like that either, but I was determined to stick with my initial purpose. “If you came to Whitcombe, I’d let you have two half days as well as Sundays so you can see your child.”

  To my astonishment, Susan’s face turned blotchy as tears rose in her eyes and spilled down her pale cheeks. “I don’t want to see it,” she shouted. “I wouldn’t have Maggie take it, only she says she and Bert are talking about emigrating to Canada and I’ll never have to see it again. It’s a monster, and I hate it. If your ma still knew the top of her head from the sole of her foot, I’d ask her for a potion to get rid of it. I’d like to throw it in the river and watch it drown.”

  I raised my hands in a defensive gesture, as if to ward off Susan’s words, feeling the horror of them slide down my spine.

  “Don’t say such terrible things.”

  “I’ll say what I want. It’s ruined everything.” She sniffed loudly and wiped her nose on a corner of her apron.

  “You’re more fortunate than most women in your position,” I said, and I could hear the hardness in my voice. “Your father won’t banish you from his sight, and your sister will take the child. For heaven’s sake, Susan, what more could you want?”

  My question hung in the air for a long moment, accompanied by the clucking of hens from the run on one side of the farm’s spacious garden. Susan was indeed more fortunate than most. I had never realized how pleasant Dene Farm really was.

  “I want more,” Susan said at length, the hunger in her voice evoking a strong memory of the little girl who always wanted a bigger piece of cake than anyone else’s.

  “Well, you won’t get it by falsely accusing Monsieur Fortier.” Realizing how harsh I sounded, I modulated my tone. “Susan, I’m offering you a chance to improve your lot. Working at Whitcombe will teach you far more than you’ll learn here at the farm. I know it seems strange that I want to help you, but I feel my family’s responsible for your discontent with life. If you work hard, I’ll make sure you’re given opportunities to suit your abilities. I and my family have a vast acquaintance in the county, in London, even abroad. We can find a place for you where nobody will know about the baby, where you can start again as a woman with valuable skills.”

  I could feel myself embroidering a wonderful future for Susan in my mind. Despite my personal dislike of her, I could help her, just as I could help Thomas. I had the means to do so. By helping others at the same time as I pursued my own vocation, I knew I could, in the end, erase the feeling of uselessness that so often assailed me since Justin’s death.

  And perhaps, just perhaps, she might change her mind about the child once she’d given birth to it. I could encourage her to think kindly of the poor little mite. I would welcome it into Whitcombe House and ensure all of my people welcomed it too. I hated to think any child could be rejected by its mother in this way. It, too, was one of my people, and I determined then and there to help it as much as I was able.

  “But there’s a condition,” I said as Susan nodded her head, unspeaking, in response to my words. “You must let me bring Mrs. Bearcroft and have her hear you retract your accusation. This must be done as soon as possible.”

  “As long as you make sure the old—Mrs. Bearcroft doesn’t ask me whose it is again. I’m not telling, not if you had me torn asunder.”

  “It’s a bargain.” I pulled Justin’s stick out of the clay underfoot; it made a soft sucking noise. “I’ll allow you to keep your secret.”

&
nbsp; “Because it’s not fair, is it, m’lady? Every Sunday in church we pray to God not to lead us into temptation, and every day there’s the temptation that He’s been and gone and led us into. And the less people deserve the temptation, the worse He makes it.”

  “I don’t think it’s necessarily God who does the leading, Susan.”

  “Oh, it is, m’lady.” She sounded oddly confident. “But I’ll tell Father of your kindness, and of your conditions, and tell him not to fret over me anymore because I won’t be in his sight. He won’t like it, but I know how to set his mind at rest.”

  I didn’t like the sly little grin with which she delivered these last words, but it was getting cold as the sun sank to the horizon, and poor Guttridge would be shivering alone in the cemetery. I took my leave of Susan with a heavy heart.

  12

  The Dermodys

  I still felt subdued as I walked to Hyrst two days later with Guttridge. She and I didn’t have much to say to each other as we passed the three cottages in Hyrst Lane and entered the tree-lined drive that signaled the approach to the house. I was preoccupied with thoughts of Susan and, if I had to be quite honest with myself, of Fortier—where was the dratted man? Guttridge had seemed downcast for the last day or two, possibly as a result of spending an hour and a half alone in a cemetery.

  “Maybe we should have taken the carriage after all.” Having raised my widow’s veil, I could feel the damp touch of mist on my cheek, almost rain but never quite making up its mind to form into drops of water. “Or I should have come with a footman—but footmen never like to walk, and they’re such bad company.”

  “It’s quite all right, my lady.” Guttridge clutched a bag containing my notebook and pencils. “I like a walk on a day like this.” She sniffed the air. “Almost Christmas and we’ve hardly had any frost. Besides, I don’t like being stuck at Whitcombe all day by myself, as your ladyship knows well. Hyrst will be a nice change of scene.”