Lady Catherine's Necklace

by Joan Aiken

He asked me, very civilly, if I would assist him in sorting out papers from the hugger-mugger that is to be found up there. Apparently, when Hunsford Castle was torn down, all the contents and furnishings were stored in the barns of local farmers during the construction of the new mansion. When this was completed, the more valuable furniture was placed in the main salons (or some of it, at least; Lady C.’s taste inclining to lighter and more modern pieces than some of the massive and heavy, if historic, objects which had served her forebears), but anything in poor repair, or whose use was unknown, was relegated to the garrets, which run the whole length of the house under the tiles and above the servants’ bedrooms. So there is an infinity of lumber, as indeed Charlotte and I observed, for she accompanied me up there to see what kind of a task Lord Luke was proposing for me. When she perceived the immense heaps of dusty anonymous objects, she cried out in horror and wholly forbade me to pass any time in such an unwholesome atmosphere, for, said she, if I did not breathe in enough dust to bring about my death from asphyxiation, I would assuredly meet my Fatal End due to some heavy object toppling on me from one of those ill-piled, top-heavy mountains of Miscellaneous Rubbish.

  Lord Luke was greatly cast down at hearing this prohibition, but indeed, Charlotte said later, it would be highly improper for me to be up there alone with Lord Luke (though as to that, I am sure he is the most harmless creature in the world), but Mr Collins, she said, would be shocked to death at the very notion, so it is not to be thought of. In a way I am sorry at missing the opportunity to delve in those amazing piles of odds and ends, for who knows what may not be there? Charlotte and I divert ourselves for hours together in concocting suggestions as to what may be the object of Lord Luke’s search: I incline to King Alfred’s diary, for portions of Hunsford Castle were Saxon in origin, but Charlotte’s theory tends to a lost work by the author of Beowulf.

  Thus we endeavour to comfort ourselves during what is, in truth, a sad enough time; for though we did not know Mr Finglow well, he was a man of such kindness and talent, and his end was so dreadful, that it has strongly affected the entire neighbourhood.

  Col. FitzWilliam remains at Rosings still, for I understand that he has given his promise to escort Lord Luke back to Wensleydale when the latter has found what he is searching for and wishes to return home; but that may not be for some weeks yet, since both men, we understand, have promised Lady C. that they will remain in the house while she is absent. We do not see the colonel, he does not come to the parsonage any more and I am glad of it.

  A mysterious story has been circulating in the village that two men came down from well-known London jewellers to inspect Lady C.’s diamonds and give an estimate for cleaning them, and that one of the men declared that the diamonds were counterfeit!

  We hardly know what to believe! Lady C.’s maid, Pronkum, remains at Rosings and, it seems, is as astonished as anybody – indeed, she was quite prostrated.

  Your affectionate friend,

  Maria Lucas

  ‘The dinner at Truro was disgusting,’ pronounced Lady Catherine. ‘And this road is abominable.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Hoskins. ‘Would your ladyship wish for a cup of tea from the flask?’

  ‘Certainly not! I daresay it would be tepid, and would taste of nothing but the metal flask and sour milk. What time is it? Are we approaching Brinmouth? This stage seems to have lasted for ever.’

  ‘I’m afraid, ma’am, I can’t see the face of the carriage clock – the light is so poor. Would you wish me to stop the driver and step out into the road? It is likely to be lighter outside.’

  ‘By no means. Let us get on as fast as may be. It would be lighter if it were not for this intolerable weather.’

  ‘They told us at Launceston, ma’am, that they had had more rain in the last three days than in the last three months,’ Hoskins said, compressing her lips as if such weather would never have been allowed in Kent.

  ‘I do not believe it. I dare say one may always expect such weather in these parts. Where is the baggage coach? It seems to have been entirely left behind.’

  Lady Catherine peered out disapprovingly at a dismal twilit vista of grey, hurrying clouds and rainswept moorland set about here and there with large shapeless rocks.

  ‘You may give me a dram of brandy, Hoskins – this road is so wretched and the coach sways about to such a degree that I feel quite queasy.’

  ‘Yes, my lady.’ No hint in the maid’s manner suggested that she had been waiting for this moment since they left Truro. She unbuckled the strap around a hamper and brought out a silver hunting-flask, the top of which, when unscrewed, did service as a cup.

  ‘There, ma’am.’

  ‘You have hardly filled it more than half full.’

  ‘Because the coach sways so, my lady.’

  ‘Pour me another.’

  ‘Certainly, ma’am.’

  ‘Did you post the letter to Lord Luke that I gave you at Truro?’

  ‘Of course, my lady.’

  ‘I suppose he will not receive it for at least three days,’ Lady Catherine said discontentedly. ‘I cannot imagine why anybody chooses to live in such barbarous regions as these. And when I recollect that we still have a sea journey ahead of us…’

  She yawned deeply once, and then again. The silver flask top slipped from her hand. Her head drooped sideways.

  Hoskins neatly retrieved the flask top and screwed it back on to the flask. She surveyed her mistress attentively for some five or six minutes, then, satisfied, rapped on the hatch. When it opened:

  ‘She’s off!’ the maid reported. ‘Sleeping like a babby. Are we nearly there?’

  ‘Just about. See those lights on up ahead? That be Brinton Tor; beyond lies the hill we gotta go down, and Brinmouth’s at the foot. ’Tis a pesky steep hill, though; I’ll not be sorry when we’re down. Best you get out, my gal, and walk at the horses’ heads, hold them back do they slip; this road’s no better than a demmed waterfall.’

  Grumbling and protesting at this extra duty, Hoskins nonetheless did as she was required. The horses slipped and stumbled and shivered; the coach swayed from side to side as they crept down the precipitous hill. On the left, a high bank rose into near-darkness; on the right, a steep declivity ran down to the lights of a town or village some distance below. Down there, the sea could be heard breaking on rocks, and there was also the sound of rushing water closer at hand.

  Halfway down, the cause of this became apparent. The road surmounted a rude bridge spanning a swift-running body of water coming from the moorland above. The bridge consisted of no more than a single stone arch, without parapets. As the coach crossed this structure, a mass of branches and debris, which had collected against some obstacle in the stream above, suddenly broke free, and, with a loud crash, descended upon the vehicle. The horses slipped, staggered, broke their harness and fled on down the hill at a breakneck pace, cannoning against Hoskins, who fell into the ravine. The coach toppled over, hung against a bush for a moment, then plunged on down the hillside, until it finally came to rest, entangled in the boughs of a stunted tree, which grew on a bank at the confluence of two rushing streams.

  The driver had been flung off his box and lay motionless on the bridge above.

  By now it was almost completely dark.

  * * *

  ‘It is so kind of you, Colonel FitzWilliam, to give yourself the trouble of pushing me about the gardens,’ sighed Miss Delaval, turning her head in the wheelchair to give the colonel, who was propelling it, her most beguiling smile, accompanied by a gentle quiver of her thick dark eyelashes. ‘My brother has been so wretchedly mortified by this unfortunate mishap that he is hardly to be seen just now, he keeps his room—’

  ‘Mishap?’ said the colonel, in a troubled voice. ‘You refer to the death of Mr Finglow?’

  ‘Oh! My dear sir, no!’ Miss Delaval was shocked. ‘No, that is not less than a tragedy! And Ralph does, of course, take himself most bitterly to task for ever having encouraged Lady C
atherine in her whim to remove the cottage. If he had ever considered the possibility that it would lead to such a terrible outcome, he would naturally have scotched the plan when Lady Catherine first suggested it.’

  ‘Oh? It was my aunt who first proposed that Wormwood End cottage be demolished?’

  ‘But of course! It was her own idea entirely, from the very first! No, no, Ralph would never have suggested such a thing. He has far too much respect, indeed reverence, for art and artists, especially in the persons of those two talented protagonists. Well, it is no use to say two now, is it – that poor, poor Mr Mynges, what in the world, I wonder, will he do now? Move back to London, I dare say…’

  FitzWilliam sighed, and said in a repressive tone, ‘Well, at least he is no longer under notice to quit. My uncle Luke and I persuaded Aunt Catherine’s attorney that the notice was quite ineligible, and that he might remain in the cottage for whatever length of time he wished.’

  ‘I dare say he will nonetheless wish to remove himself without too much delay. He cannot want to remain in a place with such awful association,’ she suggested.

  ‘Perhaps. But if that affair was not on your brother’s mind, what mishap do you refer to that is causing him such mortification?’

  Now the colonel’s voice was tinged with irony.

  ‘Why! I referred of course to the affair of the false jewellery! As you may recall, it was my brother who suggested summoning the man from Rundell and Bridge, and he now feels that he has made a fine fool of himself. He fears that when we return to London, his friends will have heard the tale and that he will be the butt of all the Mayfair clubs.’

  ‘Oh? But they were not his jewels, after all. Why need he concern himself?’

  ‘He feels, you see,’ said Miss Delaval, twisting her head to a remarkable degree so as to fix her large, dark troubled eyes on the colonel, ‘that Lady Catherine cannot have trusted him; that she perhaps had her real gems hidden away somewhere, awaiting her return…’

  ‘Oh, I see. Is that what he thinks? It is true that my aunt is an unaccountable, devious character – on the surface she seems direct enough, even overbearing, but what governs her impulses one is not always able to guess.’

  ‘And you, of all people, should know what motivates her,’ said Miss Delaval in a rallying tone. ‘Are you not her prospective son-in-law?’

  ‘Possibly so. That issue depends on my cousin Anne.’

  ‘Poor Miss Anne! She seems so utterly overset by these calamitous happenings,’ sighed Miss Delaval. ‘I have tried to lighten her spirits in every way that occurred to me – encouraging her to have a new trimming on her primrose muslin, and to try the effect of doing her hair in ringlets instead of that severe, Quakerish braided coronet she wears. But she turned on me almost with indignation, as if my efforts to cheer her mounted to a kind of heresy! And when Ralph asked her, only wishing to elevate her mind from what it continually dwells on, if she had any notion of some hiding-place where her mother might have secreted the real diamonds, so that, you know, he might have them furbished up against Lady Catherine’s return, she rounded on him, positively like a wildcat. “Have you not done enough mischief here?” she cried at him. I have never seen him so repulsed! He quite crept away with his tail between his legs. I believe he has now offered his services to Lord Luke for that never-ending quest in the attics.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ suggested the colonel drily, ‘Mr Delaval has some notion of coming across my aunt’s diamonds in that quarter. But if that is his aim, I fear he is due for disappointment. Aunt Catherine has quite a detestation for that part of the house – any objects, indeed, that remind her of the old castle – and never sets foot there. I think it is the last place where she would deposit anything of value. It is far more probable that she took the real gems with her, to impress my Aunt Adelaide.’

  ‘On a journey overseas, merely visiting her sister-in-law? Oh, no! Surely not!’ Miss Delaval sounded outraged at the very possibility.

  As the colonel and Miss Delaval approached the shrubbery, two figures emerged from it carrying baskets of cuttings.

  ‘What a charming friendship that is, between Miss Anne and the garden-boy – what is his name? Joseph?’ said Miss Delaval sweetly. ‘At a time when poor Miss Anne is so low-spirited, it is a joy to see anybody who can bring her to a state of cheerfulness! I am sure it does one’s heart good to hear her laugh.’

  ‘Just so,’ agreed the colonel, compressing his lips.

  As the wheelchair passed the pair, deep in horticultural discussion, Smirke approached from the other direction.

  ‘You, Joss!’ he said sharply, but with a hint of indulgence. ‘His lordship was asking for you to go and help him shift a whole passel of stuff up in the attic. You’d best lay those cuttings to soak in a pail o’ water.’

  ‘I’ll take care of them,’ said Anne. ‘I’ll come with you, Joss, as far as the stable yard.’

  ‘Ragwort’s full as bad as buttercup,’ FitzWilliam heard Joss telling Anne as they hurried off along the path. ‘And did you know, there’s a Sardinian herb that, they say, if you chew it, you die laughing!’

  He and his companion burst into gales of chuckles.

  ‘How delightful it is to hear them!’ said Miss Delaval.

  Colonel FitzWilliam frowned, and accelerated the pace of the wheelchair.

  * * *

  Mrs Collins and her sister Maria were visiting Ambrose Mynges at Wormwood End. Alice the cat, who treated most visitors with haughty suspicion, had taken a fancy to Maria, and came to rub against her. Mr Willis the apothecary was there also, advising Young Tom about his sleep problem.

  ‘Cold water and vinegar,’ he was saying, ‘sponged over the brow, last thing at night.’

  ‘I detest the smell of vinegar,’ said Ambrose.

  ‘Camomile tea,’ suggested Charlotte. ‘Or hops, passionflower, lemon verbena, basil, violet leaves – and of course catnip. The catnip leaves should be steeped, but not boiled, and flavoured with honey.’

  ‘Mrs Collins is a better physician than I shall ever be,’ said Mr Willis.

  ‘Good friends who come and chat are the best physicians of all.’

  ‘We have brought you a basket of dried cherries,’ Charlotte said. ‘Besides being so delicious, I find they are very soothing if chewed slowly, last thing at night.’

  ‘Cherries are also sovereign for gout,’ said Mr Willis. ‘I always prescribe fifteen cherries a day, fresh or dried, for all my gout patients.’

  ‘Grief, not gout, is what ails me.’

  ‘We know. We know that,’ Charlotte told him compassionately. ‘And if there were anything more we could do, you have only to ask. If you cared to come and stay at the parsonage—’

  ‘You are an angel of goodness, Mrs Collins, but there is nothing more that you can do. I prefer to stay here, where I feel near to my friend.’

  Willis took one of the dried cherries and ate it.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I recognize the flavour. Are they not made from Mrs Godwin’s receipt?’

  ‘Indeed yes,’ said Charlotte. ‘I have her kitchen book and use it faithfully. Every year I take care to get a great sackful from the Rosings cherry orchards – dear me, I suppose next year I must look further afield, if the orchards are to be cut down. That is such a pity, is it not? Those trees provide a handsome crop, year after year.’

  ‘Perhaps, now this cottage is to be spared, Lady Catherine will have second thoughts about the lime avenue and cherry orchard also.’

  ‘Sir Lewis was particularly attached to that orchard,’ remarked Mr Willis, shaking his head. ‘Many an evening I used to see him walking there as I drove by, especially when the trees were in bloom. And in his will, when he died, it was found that he had expressed a wish that a sack of the cherries should be delivered, each year, free, to Mr Godwin, who was then the incumbent here, for the use of his wife.’

  ‘Very touching – very thoughtful of him.’

  ‘Only, as it happened, Mrs Godwin pred
eceased Sir Lewis, so the bequest was not carried out. But I suspect that we are tiring Mr Tom. I think it is time I took my departure.’

  Mr Willis rose, bowed to the ladies and walked outside to where his cob stood patiently waiting.

  ‘Did you know Sir Lewis well, Mr Mynges?’ Maria was suddenly moved to ask Young Tom.

  ‘I? No, not well. At least, not so well as my – as my friend Desmond. D-Desmond had been coming here for a number of years before I knew him. He and Sir Lewis had been at school together. Why do you ask, Miss Lucas?’

  ‘I – oh, I just wondered what – what sort of a man Sir Lewis was. One receives such conflicting accounts of a person who has died, does one not? I wondered, for instance, if he was fond of poetry.’

  ‘Poetry? Why do you ask that?’

  ‘Oh, a person who chooses to wander in a blossoming cherry orchard must surely have poetic leanings in them, do you not think?’

  ‘Maria, you are letting your fancy fly away with you,’ said Charlotte. ‘And it is time we returned to those four hungry children. Goodbye, Mr Mynges, we will come again soon.’

  ‘You cannot come too often,’ he said.

  On the way back to the parsonage, Maria was unwontedly silent. She was thinking about a handwritten poem which she had discovered in Mrs Godwin’s kitchen book. It had been tucked inside some voluminous instructions for dealing with a chimney fire (‘Close all doors and windows tightly, then procure a wet blanket…’). The writing was not that of Mrs Lucy Godwin, who had herself transcribed many of the receipts in a small, neat hand. This was larger and more flowing. Maria remembered the poem, which had been written on a small piece of paper, perhaps torn out of a diary or notebook:

  Muslin, not silk

  White as new milk

  The canopy spreads

  Over our heads

  Delicate mist

  Shelters our tryst

  Softer than lace

  Pale as thy face.

  Blossoms must pass

  Scatter on grass

  Cherries instead

  Glowing and red

  Cluster above

  Speak of our love…