by Jane Steen
19
After the inquest
“The inquest has taken place.”
Fortier stood rather stiffly in the doorway to the drawing room. When I motioned for him to sit down, he chose one of the least comfortable chairs—at a distance from me.
He’d been visiting Susan every two days since Christmas. Her recovery now seemed certain, and she hadn’t lost the child. Yet there was something about the pallor of her face and the dark circles under her eyes that looked horribly unhealthy.
Part of this, of course, would be due to the shock of her father’s death. She had wept very much when I’d told her, moaning like an animal in pain as she lay on her narrow bed. When her sobs turned to a racking cough that seemed to shake her very core, I’d pleaded with her to calm herself in case she harmed her child.
“Damn the child.” She’d pushed me away so hard I nearly fell backward. “It’s to blame for everything. We were happy, Father and I, and we were prosperous. Then the devil made mock of us.”
I’d seen Mrs. Eason, who had stayed with me while I delivered the news to Susan, make the two-fingered sign against evil behind her back. “The devil needs us to do his work for him,” she’d said as we’d descended the stairs. “Don’t let the girl take advantage of you, m’lady.”
I’d said nothing to anybody about the interest in Susan’s child that was beginning to grow in my heart. There was Maggie, Susan’s sister, after all. But I could do far more for any child than Maggie could, and maybe she wouldn’t want another child in the house. There would be time yet for me to step in and offer to help.
And I had been waiting to hear the result of the inquest. The coroner had not sent for me, and I had heard nothing from Ned.
“So . . . did they read out the letter?” I asked now, trying to keep my tone even and not start an argument with Fortier again.
There had been a distinct coolness between Fortier and me in the last few days. Now he looked like a horse with a burr under its saddle—highly irritable and inclined to bite. He scowled thunderously, his thick black brows drawing down over his eyes so that they met in the middle.
“They did not. The mayor managed matters in that splendid way you English have. He approached one or two of the most important men on the jury—not including the earl—to show them the letter, in order to persuade them that what was contained therein had no real bearing on the farmer’s death. That it would be sufficient for those men to testify they had seen the letter, that it contained allegations that were clearly untrue and would harm a lady, and that these allegations should not be aired in public. It appears that chivalry and consideration for the fair sex are sufficient to smother evidence in this benighted corner of the country.”
“Oh,” was all I could find to say. Naturally, I was relieved to know the lie about Justin was known only to a handful of men, no doubt selected by Ned for their discretion. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know who those men were. I might have to look them in the face across the dinner table.
“Oh.” The level of sarcasm in Fortier’s echo was enough to sting me into further speech.
“What good would it have done?” I asked. “Ned’s right—Hatherall’s note was a vindictive lie designed to cause scandal.”
“But it was evidence.” There was open derision on Fortier’s handsome face now.
“What was the verdict?” I refused to go any deeper into a discussion that had already caused strife between us.
“Felo de se. And the Crown did not waive its right to forfeiture—mainly, if I understood the arguments, because of Hatherall’s attempt to use his own death to cause the scandal they refrained from discussing. If you weren’t mixed up in the business, the Crown might have been more lenient. So you could say you’ve been the cause—unintentional, of course—of Susan Hatherall’s destitution.”
Seen any way you like, that was a very uncomfortable proposition, but I had my answer ready. “I am prepared to look after Susan and her child exactly as if the baby were Justin’s. I feel I’m under a moral obligation to do so.”
“I would agree with that.” One corner of Fortier’s mouth quirked up, but it wasn’t a smile.
“You’re angry with me.”
“I’m angry with the whole damnable system that allows one set of people to bend the rules into any shape they want. It’s an offense against justice.” Fortier almost spat out the last words, but then his face softened a little. “Even when the ultimate purpose is to protect a lady; although, God knows, Lady Helena, I would be the last person to want to drag you into this mess.”
I felt my own anger abate a little. “I thought you were going to,” I confessed. “I’ve been waiting for some kind of summons—on tenterhooks because I didn’t know what I might have to do. I’m still not sure what I would have said if I’d been asked the direct question as to whether or not I thought Susan and Justin could have—” I swallowed. “I think I would have said yes. I would be disloyal to my husband either way, and I’d rather have taken the course that preserved his dignity. People would understand a man making a mistake.”
“So you’re happy not to have been asked.”
“Of course I am.” I could hear a rising note of hysteria in my voice. “I’m sorry, Monsieur Fortier. You, no doubt, are accustomed to witnessing death. I am not. I’ve lost my husband, whom I loved dearly. I’ve been present at the discovery of the gruesome death of my tenant—not, you’ll admit, a routine experience for a woman in my position, even if I did insist on seeing him. I’ve been worried I might have a third and fourth death on my hands with both Susan and her baby in danger. Can you blame me for wanting a little peace and quiet?”
Fortier regarded me gravely with those unearthly eyes. “Thank you for explaining your position more clearly, Lady Helena. I’m sorry to have troubled you. I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Wait.” He had risen to his feet, but my exclamation made him sink back into his chair. “You haven’t fully explained the verdict to me. Is he to be buried at the crossroads?”
“With a stake through his heart?” This time he did smile. “That hasn’t been done for half a century. But he will be interred at midnight tonight in a far corner of the cemetery—albeit with a full service. For a churchwarden, that’s a bad end.”
“I’ll have to tell Susan that, I suppose. How awful for her. Is nobody he knew to be present at the service? His family should be represented.”
“His only family are women. His son-in-law has been asked and has refused. I believe the other churchwardens will be there.”
I felt my shoulders slump at the sadness of it all. “I’m going to have to see what I can do to provide both sisters with a little money.”
“Noblesse oblige?”
“I do wish people would stop throwing that phrase at the aristocracy.” I folded my arms. “Yes, we do feel that we’re under an obligation to care for those who rightly belong under our care, as feudal as it sounds. And I have the additional burden of having inadvertently caused Maggie and Susan to lose their inheritance. I will do what I can.”
“A life of dependence for Susan, then.”
“No.” I felt my temper rise again. “I’ll train her for a useful occupation and give her enough money to make a start in life—with or without the child. Is that so terrible? The workhouses are full of people who have nobody to care for them. Surely, some help from a landowner is better than that. Like it or not, Monsieur Fortier, we have a system that works.”
“American slave owners said the same thing.” Fortier’s tone was challenging.
“We are not American. We are British, and that makes all the difference in the world.”
“If you say so, Lady Helena.”
Left alone at last, I tried to seek repose—and could not. I prided myself on not being one of those tiresome women who were always complaining about their nerves, but for once I sympathized with them. My nerves had been strewn on the floor and thoroughly stamped upon and were bent on getting their revenge
.
I found fault with Guttridge over a button she’d not sewn on with quite her usual care. I scolded a footman with more than my usual degree of acidity for winking at a maid. I did not enjoy my dinner, which was mutton stew, and sent a scalding note to Mrs. Foster about avoiding mutton stew in the future—unfair, since I had arranged the week’s menus with her.
Instead of retiring at my usual early hour, I had the fire in the small library replenished and betook myself thereto with a goblet of Justin’s best brandy and some of Mama’s journals. I read steadily while the rocking ship set into a glass panel in the grandfather clock marked off the seconds, minutes, and hours with its sonorous tick.
I had been reading the early journals slowly, as they contained a great deal of information I wished to absorb. My own progress was extremely slow thanks to Susan’s illness, her father’s suicide, and the Christmas season in general; but, I reassured myself, time spent on study was never wasted. I often went back over Mama’s notes in order to understand them better.
As Mama’s knowledge grew and the descriptions of her work became ever more confident and expansive, details of her personal life began to creep in—with, I was startled to realize, a note of unhappiness. She mentioned Gerry from time to time; she was clearly as enamored of my oldest sister as one would wish a mother to be of an only child. Gerry appeared to give her no great trouble; for a small child, she was quite well-behaved, responsible, and unimaginative. Exactly as she was now, in fact. The most daring thing Gerry had ever done was to marry a man who, as well as benefiting from a private income, as did all of our acquaintances, was a wine merchant and therefore, technically, in trade.
Mama almost never mentioned Papa, and there were hints of long hours and perhaps even days spent alone. Had Papa been neglecting her at this time, and why? Was there some kind of estrangement between them, or was it simply the usual course of an established marriage? Papa would undoubtedly have been a busy man. This journal dated from shortly after the Queen’s accession to the throne. My father, then in his early thirties, had recently inherited the earldom and would no doubt have been active in the House of Lords as well as in the county. Unlike Michael, who disliked his parliamentary obligations, Papa had relished his role in the country’s government and had spent much time in London.
I lingered over a wonderfully detailed, partially colored sketch of a foxglove, one of the best drawings Mama had produced by that time. She’d drawn a bumblebee pushing its fat, furry body into the tube of the flower, its white tail and twin loads of yellow pollen vividly rendered against the purple shading she’d used on the flower. Beside the sketch, she had written some botanical terms and a note: “These are the bees’ favorites. I believe they are mine too.”
So long ago. I closed the journal, seeing in my mind’s eye a sunny June day and a solitary, perhaps lonely, young woman sitting sketching and writing, her blue eyes lost in thought, concentrating. Perhaps there was a small child playing near her, a child I’d never known. By the time I was born, Gerry was married and a mother.
I started a little at the first stroke of the clock’s bell, then counted. Eleven o’clock. Heavens, poor Guttridge must be waiting up for me—probably dozing in an armchair in the servants’ hall. But the day nagged at my mind, and I knew I was never going to sleep. In one hour, Lucius Hatherall would be buried, along with—if I were fortunate enough—the last things he’d wanted to say to the world.
I shifted restlessly in my chair, unable to get comfortable. Ned had said Hatherall’s study was crammed with books full of information and advice about how a man could advance himself in life. All that study was vanished now. If I lost interest in herbalism, all of Mama’s knowledge would likewise be scattered to the winds, her journals a mere family curiosity to gather dust in an attic at Whitcombe until my heirs—heavens, who would they be?—or their heirs, or someone generations from now, disposed of them. Why did one write journals anyway? For posterity? Posterity was a highly uncertain concept.
I shivered, realizing that the fire had burned down to a fine layer of glowing embers atop a bed of ashes. Going to the window and pulling aside the velvet drapes, I could see the mist had lifted, but I couldn’t make out more—the night was quite dark. A gloomy prospect for a funeral. With no family in attendance . . .
“Blast it.” I rose to my feet. The house was still and silent. There would almost certainly be a footman or a boy in attendance in the Great Hall, but this side of the house was reasonably private.
It didn’t take me long to reach the small mud room off the conservatory. There was the old manteau I refused to throw away and used whenever I wished to step into the garden in cold weather. It was dark green, the velvet collar a little moth-eaten. Underneath its peg stood my low galoshes. I slipped off my slippers and slid my feet into the rubber boots, cold even through my winter stockings.
I used the candle I had carried with me to locate the small oil lamps Justin had always insisted on keeping in the cupboard along with the matches. Justin often liked to walk around the outside of the house before retiring or visit the stables, and I sometimes accompanied him, hand in hand, our lamps swinging with the rhythm of our steps. So I knew where the bolts on the conservatory doors were located, and they were kept well oiled.
Stepping out into the night brought back a sharp memory of doing so with Justin, but the night seemed far more menacing now that I was on my own. Still, I had grown up in the country, where nights were always dark, and knew Whitcombe Lane like the back of my hand. Five minutes’ brisk walk brought me to the turnpike road, and I headed downhill, watching my footing carefully. Thanks to the mist, it wasn’t icy, but mud could be as dangerous as ice.
The path to the cemetery led through the workhouse burying ground, a large field where the unmarked resting places of the poor were shown, for a time, by the six-foot strips of mounded clay. I couldn’t see them, of course. Only the low iron railing that bordered the burying ground could be seen in the circle of lamplight that guided my feet. I said a quick prayer for the poor wretches whose graves would remain anonymous for eternity and then turned my thoughts to the man who would be buried that night.
There were lights not too far off. I extinguished my own lamp and used the others as a guide, treading with extreme caution so as not to turn an ankle or trip over a flint sticking out of the packed clay of the path. It was hard to judge distances or anything else in the darkness, and I had to stay out of the light.
Not that I was committing any kind of crime or offense in coming to the cemetery. But ladies did not go about unaccompanied at night. Ladies did not attend funerals. Ladies did not suffer from a compulsion to see their tenant safely into the ground, to represent, in a sense, the relationship that had tied him to Whitcombe land for two decades. Ladies did not appease their restlessness by nighttime wanderings.
The burial site was at the far side of the cemetery, near the dense barrier of oak, hawthorn, and beech that had been set there long before St. Michael’s churchyard ran out of burying space and the town of Littleberry purchased the acreage to the west of the workhouse. I picked my way along the foot of the trees, cursing as I encountered roots and hollows in the overgrown grass.
I was close enough now that I could see the men’s faces. Three lanterns. Two men in working clothes resting on their shovels; they were waiting, no doubt, to fill the grave. A lantern turned the white of a surplice yellow—that was the priest, but not the rector. He was speaking in a low voice, as if fearful of waking the more respectable dead whose resting places clustered near the twin chapels and the path that ran between them. The small book in his hand would be the Book of Common Prayer; I wondered briefly how many passages in the burial service one had to avoid for a suicide. All those words about deliverance, bliss, eternal glory; would Lucius Hatherall have any of those?
The priest had raised his voice a little, and now I could hear him. “Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spar
e us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Savior, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee.”
I shivered. Now that I was standing still, the cold of the night seemed to be seeping into my very bones. I looked hard at the other men; there were five, I thought, but it was hard to see. They were all dressed in sober black, their faces half in shadow. Two bowler hats—that would probably be the other churchwardens. The flat cap of a countryman. I wondered if that could possibly be Maggie’s husband after all, and hoped so very much.
Two gentlemen in tall silk hats; and suddenly I recognized Ned’s abundant beard. Dear, kind Ned. Not many of the people of Littleberry had the mayor in attendance at their interment, and his presence was bound to ensure that the townspeople would speak of Farmer Hatherall a little less unkindly. I fervently hoped the night air would not worsen Ned’s indisposition.
Was the other man Fortier? I could barely see him, but somehow I was certain it was the French physician. I moved a step closer—and put my foot straight into a rabbit hole. I pitched forward but mercifully was able to grab hold of a slender tree trunk to arrest my fall. I couldn’t stop myself from gasping and saw the faces of the two gentlemen turn toward me. Yes, the second one was Fortier.
I moved as carefully as I could back into the shelter of the hawthorn, wriggling my foot out of the hole. I was lucky I hadn’t broken my ankle, I realized. What kind of lunatic was I to creep through the dark to attend the burial of such a man as Hatherall? My reasons for doing so now seemed as nonsensical to me as they would to anyone else. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait for the ceremony to be over so I could make my way home and have Guttridge undress me and put me to bed.
Now they were all speaking in unison—that was the Lord’s Prayer. And then the priest raised his voice once more.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore.”