An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4)

by Lexie Conyngham

  ‘We could have found it out already,’ said Blair sadly, for ‘Mr. Minnis says he would have gone to enquire, but he and Mr. Cunningham had a dispute over some garnets several years ago, and even their assistants do not speak to one another. I fear it is a job for my good man Smith.’

  ‘And the sooner the better, I suppose,’ said Murray, ‘although there seems to have been little happening since the attack on Effy, thank goodness. I confess I have had other things on my mind.’

  ‘I wonder if I should encourage Isobel to become acquainted with Miss Kirk?’

  ‘And who is Miss Kirk?’ asked Mrs. Freeman, entering the parlour importantly. Isobel followed quietly behind her, almost obscured by the crisp white expanse of bonnet lace on her aunt’s head.

  ‘A lonely and sad young lady of our acquaintance,’ said Murray, ‘who is in mourning and would benefit from the friendship of her equals in society.’

  Robbins’ appearance at the door heralded dinner, and Blair discarded for the moment his collection of correspondence before they moved into the tapestried dining room.

  IV

  Robbins was shepherding Daniel and William back down the passage to the servants’ wing with the dishes from the first course when Mary caught up with them.

  ‘You just finished with their rooms?’ he asked her.

  ‘Aye. The maid will follow me down in a few minutes. She wanted to change from her travelling clothes, too.’

  They reached the kitchen. Inside, Mary kept clear while the menservants exchanged their empty dishes for the ones laid out on the table holding the next course, and trooped back out to return to the dining room. Effy, already at the table, whisked the empty dishes off into the scullery, then darted over to an iron shelf by the fire to set on it an ashet containing a ham almost the same size as she was. The skin was crisply glazed with sugar, and a selection of vegetables was run around it in a thick sauce. Effy set it ready to keep warm for later, then went on arranging strawberries on the tops of two beautifully clear jellies, echoing the pattern of painted strawberries that could be seen on the china jelly stands within. Mrs. Mutch, with a rigorously supervised Iffy, was testing the meat for the present course with a big skewer, a final insurance before the men took it off to the dining room. She withdrew the skewer just as Robbins returned for the dish, and pronounced the juices perfect. She straightened, face strawberry red from the fire, and pressed her little fists into the small of her back with a long sigh. She glanced at the clock.

  ‘Ten minutes. Effy, what about the tatties?’

  ‘Five more minutes, ma’am,’ said Effy, and lifted one jelly cautiously to take it to the pantry. Mrs. Mutch nodded brisk approval.

  Mrs. Chambers appeared at the door and looked anxiously about her. She had brought some pickles through from the stillroom for the dinner.

  ‘All well, Mrs. Mutch? Do you need any help?’

  ‘No, thank you, Mrs. Chambers, it’s going grand.’

  Mrs. Chambers caught sight of Mary, still keeping out of the way at the back of the kitchen.

  ‘The rooms, Mary, was everything all right?’

  ‘Perfect, ma’am,’ said Mary. ‘The only problem was whether or not Miss Blair would take hers, but in the end Mrs. Freeman made her do it.’

  ‘Why on earth would she not take it?’ Mrs. Chambers was bewildered. She had put Miss Blair in a pretty little room with a view to the lake, and Mrs. Chambers’ own favourite curtains at the window and on the bed. She had paid particular attention to the linen in both Mrs. Freeman’s room and Miss Blair’s, giving them the softest pillows with the prettiest trims, and after Carlisle had done the floral arrangements she had gone back personally to make sure they contained flowers that she knew both ladies liked. It was not so often that Mr. Murray had lady guests to stay that Mrs. Chambers did not want to make a special effort for them. In short, she did not know whether to be shocked or simply hurt that Miss Isobel did not like her room.

  ‘I think she likes the room very well, ma’am,’ said Mary, quietly, ‘and had she been put in her usual nursery quarters she would no doubt have complained that she had not been given a grown-up room.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Mrs. Chambers, ‘of course, she is at that age. Poor Mrs. Freeman: it must be terribly hard work. But no gossip, now, Mary,’ Mary bowed her head to hide a little smile, ‘for no doubt their maid will be here soon. How could we put a lady guest in a room overlooking the stables, dear love the child!’

  V

  After dinner, Murray enjoyed the unfamiliar feeling of having such a variety of guests about. In deference to the ladies’ recent arrival, the company retired very properly to the drawing room rather than the parlour where Murray and Blair tended to opt for comfort rather than style. Isobel was encouraged to play for them, which she did not do particularly well: her father, taking pity on her, offered to play while she sang which had a better effect. Blair then continued playing a very catholic selection of tunes one after the other without music, until Mrs. Freeman begged him to stop, asking him in a loud hurt whisper how he expected her to encourage Isobel to play if he made it so easy for her not to do so. Isobel was indeed quite happy not playing: she had returned to an embroidery she was halfway through. From what Murray could see – and after the look he had received earlier he was in no hurry to approach closely and risk another – she had already stitched the outline of a waistcoat on to the sapphire blue silk and embroidered an elaborate concoction of curlicues back from it, giving a skeletal plan of button holes and pockets. Murray assumed from the colour that the waistcoat was intended for her father. Now on the same piece of silk, away from the main body of the waistcoat, she was starting to describe another shape. She was quick at her work and seemed to follow no drawings, but was so self-absorbed as to be of little use as company. Mrs. Freeman settled down to a somewhat carping gossip with her brother, and Murray, who had work to do, eventually excused himself and went to change and go out.

  He spent the best part of the afternoon helping with some tree-felling near Pitmen: part of the woodland there had suffered damage during the late spring storms and it had been a gradual process of tidying out the dead wood when there were men available for the task. This afternoon Thalland had managed to draw together quite a large team as well as two of the heavy horses and a quantity of tackle, and a rising breeze had cooled them as they hauled and carried, sawed and axed and broke. Every five minutes they had to rub dust from their eyes or were whipped by a wind-lashed branch: the sun shone as brightly as it had all week, but now the clouds raced in the fast blue river of the high sky, the trees dancing on its banks. It was drawing near supper time when he rode back alone, leaving Thalland to see to the transport of the new logs, his coat slung over the pommel of his saddle and his hat in his hand, tired and contented. His horse ambled gently through the thinning trees towards the lake, with the house beyond it, when he noticed an odd white flower on the top of a whin bush. Jerking the reins, he kicked his horse over in that direction to discover, to his surprise, that the flower was made of rather battered paper, attached by a thin wire stem to the handle of a lady’s parasol. The parasol had been rammed with some force into the heart of the whin bush. Murray peered down at it, unconsciously replacing his hat, then looked up hurriedly. He could hear singing.

  It was a lover and his lass,

  With a hey and a ho and a hey nonino,

  The voice was high, but strained a little on the top notes, as if it should have been in a lower key. As though the singer had heard his thoughts, the key changed and the singer continued.

  That o’er the green corn fields did pass,

  In spring time, the only pretty ring time

  When birds do sing –

  He was under the shelter of a tree, and the voice was coming from the other side of it at some distance. Cautiously – and somewhat stupidly, he realised, as his horse must have been clearly visible – he leaned forward to look around its heavy trunk.

  In a wider clearing in th
e loose woodland, young Isobel Blair was spinning around in a circle singing to herself. Sunlight through the wind-tossed leaves dappled her like flickering candles seen through a lattice: she smiled and blindly lifted her face to its light, her bonnet trailing by its ribbons in one hand. It had to be said, even of a lady, that she looked more than a little ridiculous. Murray was about to retreat when she came out of a spin in a breathless laugh and saw him. She froze. Colour began to pour into her cheeks. Murray could feel himself flush a little.

  ‘Hallo, there!’ he said, sliding courteously off his horse. ‘I heard the singing and – and found this.’ He pointed to the parasol. ‘I thought I knew quite well what crops my land produced.’

  ‘Dreadful thing,’ said Isobel, clearing her throat. ‘Aunt Freeman makes me carry it so that I shan’t be brown, but what is wrong with brown?’

  ‘Well,’ said Murray, trying to be fair, ‘I suppose it is not very ladylike.’

  ‘And why should I want to be ladylike?’ asked Isobel quickly. ‘I should have thought you would be on my side, but no. You bowed to me as if you had never met me before. I’m Isobel, you ken? Only I’m not supposed to say ‘ken’ any more.’

  ‘You’re not?’ asked Murray.

  ‘No, because it’s not ladylike,’ repeated Isobel in her best Anglified accent, ‘or at least,’ she added defiantly, ‘it’s no verra better-maistly.’

  Murray was sure she had never said such a thing in her life before.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry I bowed, but you are just out, are you not? It is supposed to be a good thing, exciting, isn’t it?’

  ‘Ha!’ said Isobel. ‘Don’t let anyone tell you that! It’s only the daft ones that want all this primping and poise, I tell you! The ones that are eyeing gentlemen before they’re out of the nursery, and giggling at the back of the schoolroom. They have no more sense than wee lammies.’ She swung her bonnet crossly.

  ‘So you do not wish to be out?’ asked Murray cautiously. ‘Or did you not know before it happened that it would be so disagreeable?’

  Isobel thought about it, screwing up her nose in a very un-better-maist fashion.

  ‘It is not that I want to be a child forever,’ she said in the end, ‘it is just that I did not wish to stop being a child all at once, like turning a page or slamming a door. On the same day as she had my hair put up, Aunt Freeman locked all my books away in a trunk, and that was that.’

  ‘But you enjoyed studying, didn’t you?’ asked Murray sympathetically.

  ‘Oh, do not say it like that, as if it is all over!’ she pleaded. ‘Aunt Freeman says I may read novels!’ she added with disdain.

  ‘Well, you may,’ said Murray. ‘There are some interesting novels, and even when the novel you read is not interesting, you should not read it uncritically but ask yourself why it is uninteresting, and if you have the opportunity you can discuss it with intelligent people, even when they do not hold the same opinions as you. Or perhaps particularly when they do not hold the same opinions as you. You can continue quite discreetly to be someone of information and thought even without benefit of schoolbooks.’ He began to feel pompous, as if he were back in his days as a tutor, and finished, ‘And when you are married and have a household of your own, you may read when you please, surely, without Aunt Freeman’s say so.’

  Isobel blushed deeply. Murray looked at her, bemused.

  ‘Surely you are not engaged already!’ he asked.

  ‘No! No,’ she turned away, but looked sideways back at him. ‘You will not tell, will you?’

  ‘Not tell that you are not engaged?’ He laughed.

  ‘No, but there is someone – someone for whom I have the deepest regard.’ She smiled into the distance.

  ‘Oh, yes?’ Murray smiled back. ‘And do I know the fortunate gentleman?’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘it was a gentleman we met in Carlisle, an acquaintance of Aunt Freeman’s relations, with whom we stayed. His name,’ she said, hugging herself, ‘is Dobson.’ She spoke it with reverence.

  ‘And does he return your regard?’

  ‘That I do not know, though I sometimes thought ... He did sit with me for a full quarter of an hour after dinner one day, and on another day he walked with me a little in a park. But then there was another girl – of the giggling at the back of the schoolroom kind, the artful minx, and she spent so much time inveigling herself into his particular company, and sometimes I thought he liked her very much.’ She finished sadly.

  ‘Well, he is not worthy of you then, if he seeks the attention of minxes.’

  ‘Oh, but he is! He is a fine, handsome gentleman, far beyond what I would deserve! I have a drawing of him, for I was careful to draw the whole company there, and I can show you how handsome he is!’

  ‘I shall look forward to it,’ said Murray. ‘You can show me after supper, for which it is past time that we were heading back home.’

  He helped her to draw her parasol out of the whin bush with minimal damage, and walked back with her across the river and up the hill to Letho House.

  VI

  It was not until the next morning that Isobel had the chance to show Murray the drawing she held in such reverence. She brought her sketching folder to show him in the parlour after breakfast, and as she shuffled through it he caught sight of pretty young ladies dancing with handsome men, old chaperones gossiping under elaborate lace folds from their bonnets, Aunt Freeman to the very life, embroidering by a window, an elderly gentleman, webbed with wrinkles, asleep by a fire. She flicked quickly past these and at last drew out a sketch of a man seated in a garden, reading a book. Underneath was written, ‘Mr. Dobson, June 1808’.

  ‘Certainly a fine, handsome gentleman,’ Murray was saying, when there was a sound in the dining room beyond. Isobel deftly rearranged the folder.

  ‘And this is my Aunt Freeman at her stitching,’ she said quite smoothly. Murray hid a smile as Blair and his sister entered the parlour, bonnet and coats in place.

  ‘Are we all ready to go, then?’ asked Blair eagerly. Murray glanced out of the window and saw Dunnet drive the barouche past, towards the front door.

  ‘Yes, I think we are.’

  The brisk breeze of yesterday had brought rain overnight, and the air smelled fresh and sharp. They kept the carriage windows open as they drove through the park, tunnelling through the damp woodland and emerging on the main road to Cupar. As they neared the town, the road grew busy with traffic heading to market: cattle and sheep meandered in the middle of the muddy road, eyeing each other uncuriously; traders, their hands bandaged against the rough wood of the shafts, wheeled carts that would convert to stalls, some with their names or the kind of goods they sold painted on the sides. Farm wives and their daughters, dressed up for the occasion, marched purposefully through the throng, baskets over their arms full of produce, to be emptied ready for the bargains they would win. The damp air brought them the smell of mud and dung and fresh sweat, but the gusty breeze whipped it away again before they could so much as wrinkle their noses. Mr. George, making swifter progress than they could on a single tall horse, waved as he passed them, and tipped his hat to the ladies.

  ‘We’ll maybe meet for dinner!’ he called across to them as the tide of traffic took him away.

  Dunnet stopped the carriage at Murray’s request at an inn where the horses could be stabled for the day – though they had to queue in the yard before there was room for them to be unhitched – and Murray arranged to see Dunnet again in the late afternoon. He stepped into the inn to ensure that a private room would be reserved for all four of them for dinner, and then returned to the street where Mrs. Freeman and Isobel were planning which shops and stalls to visit, and Blair was fidgeting with his coat buttons and his cane, eager to be off amongst the crowds. The ladies left them, and Blair was away in the opposite direction in a flash, bobbing and ferreting through the traders and shoppers and loiterers like a dog after a rat. He paused just long enough at the door of the Sheriff Court building f
or Murray to catch up with him, and then darted inside.

  The entrance hall was cramped with people trying to attend trials, leaving trials or simply attempting to combine a visit to the county town for the market with any court business they had to carry out, registering documents, paying fees and fines or reporting petty crimes. The clerk at the heavy wooden desk – more of a fortification than a piece of furniture – had to deal with eight separate parties before they could reach him, and when they finally managed to ask for Mr. Macduff, the Sheriff’s officer they had spoken with in Letho, they were advised to take a seat in an inner, empty office and wait until he was free, which could, they were warned, be some time. For half an hour Blair jiggled while Murray sat peacefully still, and at last the door opened and the thin officer entered, limping as ever. He bowed to Murray and Blair.

  ‘You’ll be wanting to know if we’ve found any more about the woman you found in Letho?’ he asked, ‘or have you more information to give us yourselves?’

  ‘A little of both,’ said Blair quickly, nodding.

  ‘Then please be seated, sirs, for we’re as private here as anywhere on market day. I have only a few minutes to spare, though, for that very reason.’ They settled again on the low wooden bench against the wall, and Murray removed a paper from his pocket with some notes on it, as an aide-memoire. The Sheriff’s officer settled beside them, twisted round to face them with an elbow on his knee. ‘Now, what have you to tell me?’

  ‘First of all, one of my female servants was frightened by a man around the place that the dead woman was first seen.’

  ‘Oh, aye?’ said Mr. Macduff. ‘And when did this happen?’

  ‘On the fifth of last month, the Sunday evening following the woman’s funeral,’ Muray explained. ‘She was not seriously injured, though badly shocked, and when we found out about it a few of us went out with torches to see if we could find him, but unfortunately with no success. The following day Mr. Blair and I returned to the spot in daylight and found the bracken flattened in the woodland as though a couple had lain there, and we found a scrap of my kitchenmaid’s gown on a briar, but no further sign.’