by Lucy Worsley
Fanny sighed, and tapped.
Inside, the library’s tall windows were open, and the white curtains were billowing inward in the breeze. They looked calming and clean. But Fanny’s father was looking far from fresh. He was in his shirtsleeves at his desk. He was frowning at a pile of papers, and seemed to be punishing some of them by balling them up and throwing them on the floor.
‘Oh, Fan,’ he said when he looked up, as if disappointed. ‘I thought you were Bond with the market figures.’ He turned back to a column of numbers. He started muttering again, adding them up under his breath.
He looked busy, but then he always did. If not now, then when? When else would she get his attention?
Fanny coughed, and stepped boldly forward so that she was looking down on him. She wondered what Anna would do in the same situation, and put her hands on her hips.
Just for a second, though. It took her that long to remember that it was an unladylike thing to do, and she lowered them back down again.
Her father didn’t look up.
Ha, Fanny thought. She put her fists back on her hips and kept them there.
‘Papa!’
That got him. He laid down his pen and looked up at her, pushing the papers aside, perhaps with something like relief.
‘Yes, Fanny,’ he said, ‘what can I do for you?’
‘I would like to speak to you,’ said Fanny.
She tried to be clear, like when Aunt Jane captured the attention of the whole breakfast table. She perched herself on the edge of the desk. ‘About Mr Drummer.’
Her father’s face fell, and he leaned back uncomfortably in his chair.
‘Bless me,’ he said. ‘What about him? That was an unfortunate business.’
‘What happened to him?’ Fanny cried. ‘He was kind, you know, to Anna and me, at our first ball. He talked to us and danced with us when no one else would.’
‘By Jove, did he now!’ Edward said. ‘Yes, he was an excellent young man.’
Fanny sighed. He was missing the point.
‘But what happened to Mr Drummer? I hear he has been taken to prison!’
‘Yes, yes, he has,’ her father conceded, turning back to his papers with a shake of the head. ‘Stealing. In Canterbury. A bad, bad business. I had no idea that his means were so slender that he felt the need to steal … items of clothing. Gloves, I believe it was.’
‘Papa!’ Fanny’s surprise made her voice a little shrill, and she swallowed hard in order to lower it. ‘Really?’ she began again. ‘I mean, it sounds so unlikely.’
‘Well, Mr Fortescue told me,’ her father said. ‘And he’s another magistrate, you know. Fine fellow. Couldn’t have got it wrong.’
‘And what did Mr Drummer say?’
‘Oh, well, I don’t know, I’ve been too busy to see him.’
If he wasn’t such a jolly, hearty man, Fanny would have said that her father looked a little mortified. And now he was continuing with his explanation, almost as if he felt a need to justify his behaviour.
‘Open and shut case, Fortescue said. No question. Drummer did it, for sure, pop him in the prison to make sure he doesn’t run.’
‘But, Papa, surely, oughtn’t you go to ask Mr Drummer if he really did do it? You didn’t even visit and ask him? You can’t have appointed him to the parish unless you thought that he was, well, a gentleman, and worthy of your protection!’
‘Ah, but Fanny, that’s the thing. I’m not sure that he was … quite … a gentleman. He was so inexperienced, and nobody seemed to know anything about him. Except your aunt Jane, of course. Ask her about him. Wait, though, on second thoughts, Fanny, don’t talk to anyone about him, anyone at all. You’ve your reputation to think about.’
He nodded at Fanny gravely, as if that were the end of the matter.
Fanny felt her heart beating faster. She actually placed her palms on his desk and leaned over it towards him.
‘Papa,’ she said sternly. ‘This young man was in your employment, he was your parson, and he has been arrested in a manner that sounds most dubious, and you haven’t even taken the trouble to investigate the circumstances?’
‘Fanny!’
It was difficult to get Edward Austen into one of his rages, but Fanny realised – too late – that she’d done it. He was on his feet now, towering over her, menacing her from his full height. She slipped off the desk and retreated slightly across the carpet.
‘I have … farmers not paying me, Fanny,’ he fumed. ‘I have criminals to prosecute all day and all night, it seems! I have ten children, and another on the way, and a … and a quite useless and penniless brother whose daughter won’t behave … and I have mouths to feed, and bills to pay, and worries enough to turn me grey, and I will … not … be lectured to … by a young lady!’
He paused, but only to fill his lungs for another bellow.
‘Particularly not by a young lady who must not, who must not, as your mother keeps telling us, chase after clergymen. It would kill your mother, Fanny, and although she rushes about and shouts a lot, you know that she loves you, and wants the best for you.’
He calmed down a bit. ‘As do I, my dear,’ he added more mildly. ‘Your cousin Anna has got herself into a state over that young man of hers. But I know that you are too sensible to take an unfortunate interest in an unfortunate fellow like that Drummer. Find yourself a proper man to marry.’
Fanny found that she was shaking a tiny bit, as if a gale had come gusting through the library.
‘I just wanted you to …’ she began. No, it was no good.
She lowered her eyes to the carpet. Oh, but it was a beautiful carpet, rose and gold and green. A man who owned such a carpet, she felt, could afford to be kind and generous. Something inside Fanny compelled her to go on after all.
‘I don’t want to marry him,’ she said, without raising her eyes, ‘I simply want to see justice done. Just … justice.’
‘Dear God!’ cried her father, coming out from behind his desk, taking her by the shoulder and propelling her towards the door. ‘And what do you think justice is, Fanny? The Good Lord gives everyone their destiny. Some deserve it, others don’t. Now spare me from the demands of young ladies who think they know best. Just get yourself married, please, dear Fanny. That’s what you want too, isn’t it? Get yourself married, take yourself off my hands.’
Somehow, Fanny found herself outside in the passage, the door closing firmly behind her.
Inside the room, she could hear the faint sound of her father giving a kind of irritated roar.
She found herself checking her limbs, one by one. Yes, she was intact. No injuries.
Anna was still there, watching her, round-eyed. Fanny suspected she’d had her ear pressed to the mahogany, and hoped she hadn’t been able to hear exactly what her uncle had said about her.
‘Well?’ Anna insisted.
‘Um, no good,’ Fanny said. ‘He wouldn’t tell me anything really, or do any investigating.’
But something else was bothering her too, something that wasn’t Mr Drummer.
It had been the sentence her father had thrown out almost incidentally. ‘We want the best for you,’ her father had said. ‘Get yourself married, that’s what you want too, isn’t it?’
A new and mutinous thought was forming itself inside Fanny’s head.
She imagined what would have happened if she’d said, right back at him: ‘You never asked me what I wanted. What if I do want to marry a clergyman? Or what if I don’t want to get married at all?’
But now she crossed her arms, and began to pace up and down the passage.
‘We can’t let this rest, Anna,’ she said. ‘We need to know the truth. I’m going to investigate the case. Like a professional thief-taker, you know. We’re going to solve the mystery. I think Aunt Jane will probably help.’
If her father would not explain what had happened to Mr Drummer, then she must make it her mission to find out for herself.
Chapter 15
&nbs
p; The breakfast table, Godmersham Park
Now Anna was back at Godmersham, the noise level at breakfast-time had risen even higher.
The next morning, only Fanny’s father was quiet. He was still in a huff from Fanny’s questions, she thought, protecting himself behind a barricade of newspaper like Aunt Jane did.
The little girls, obsessed with Anna now that she was engaged – or at least, likely to be engaged just as soon as that vital letter arrived from Steventon – pestered her with questions.
‘Anna, will you let us come to stay at Mr Terry’s parsonage?’
‘Anna, will you go to his church every Sunday, or will you stay at home to make your cook roast the dinner properly?’
‘Silly bean, she won’t have a cook, he’s as poor as a church mouse.’
‘Hush, Marianne, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!’
Anna smiled and tried to give bright answers. But Fanny could tell that her mind wasn’t on the little girls.
It must be clinging like a limpet on to the prospect of a letter from Steventon, the letter that would determine the fate of her life.
‘And now,’ Anna said, with an air of a person who wanted to change the subject, ‘what are we going to do today?’
‘I wish I could go to the shops,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Mrs Sackree has a list of things the children need. Linen, muslin, riding gloves to replace those ones William lost, Lord knows what else.’
‘Well, go, then,’ said Edward, in his huffy voice. ‘I don’t need the carriage, and the horses are getting fat and lazy.’
‘Oh, but I can’t,’ sighed Elizabeth. ‘There’s just too much to do upstairs, and the new maid is coming in to see if we like her or not, and Lord! It’s hot. Everyone in town will be in a state of inelegance. I think I’ll put it off until the weather breaks.’
Fanny looked out of the window. Yes, it was going to be even warmer than yesterday. She saw the trees of the avenue through a sort of shimmer of heat, even though it wasn’t yet ten o’clock.
‘Well,’ she said, with careful casualness, ‘if no one else wants the carriage today, I wonder if perhaps Anna and I borrow it.’
‘What for?’ asked Elizabeth at once. ‘Can’t you girls stay here and help me?’
Fanny hadn’t a clear plan in mind. But she just felt, deep down, that she couldn’t bear another day here in the park. She needed to go and start investigating what had happened to Mr Drummer, and to do that she needed a means of escape.
Aunt Jane was safely hidden behind her own newspaper. But to Fanny’s surprise, she now lowered it.
‘I think the girls should go into town,’ Aunt Jane said, ‘and I think I’ll go with them. I have one or two errands at the shops.’
‘Oh, please yourselves,’ cried Elizabeth. ‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you it will be horribly hot. And don’t leave until Mrs Sackree’s list is written down, for you must take it with you.’
It was nearly two hours later that their ordinary dresses had been exchanged for clean white muslins, and that Mrs Sackree’s list had at last been produced.
Fanny was waiting in the carriage when Aunt Jane joined her, wearing a giant straw bonnet like a governess’s.
‘Where is that girl?’ asked Aunt Jane, meaning Anna, fanning herself with the shopping list. The post-chaise had arrived after breakfast, but brought with it only disappointment. There was no sign of the longed-for letter from Uncle James.
Fanny leaned forward. ‘Aunt Jane,’ she said, confidentially. ‘Anna and I have decided something. We’ve decided to investigate the case of Mr Dominic Drummer. We think there’s a mystery there, and we want to solve it.’
‘Good for you, Fanny!’ her aunt said at once. ‘And if you ask her nicely, your wise old aunt will help you too.’
Before Fanny could reply, Anna came running out of the front door, carrying her parasol, and the carriage moved off.
Fanny’s hot head ached, in anticipation of the cooler air beneath the trees. She began to think how exactly to start the investigation.
‘… and you won’t need your parasol where we’re going,’ Aunt Jane was saying.
‘Aren’t we going straight to Market Street?’ Fanny asked. That was where the haberdasher’s was.
‘No,’ said Aunt Jane, shifting her bonnet back a bit on her head so that she could see the girls better. ‘We are going to begin your investigation. We’re going to the House of Correction!’
‘But, Aunt Jane!’ Fanny cried, aghast. ‘Papa would never allow that!’
Aunt Jane sighed.
‘You don’t understand the role of an aunt, Fanny,’ she said. ‘It is to break the rules. And sometimes to do the things that parents won’t or can’t do. You girls should see the House of Correction, for one day, as I’ve told you, you will be heroines, and you can’t just stick to the goody-goody world of the drawing room and tea parties. You need to see and know more than that to become heroines. It’s part of growing up.’
With that, Aunt Jane clamped her jaw shut, and fell to looking out of the window.
Fanny turned to Anna, seated on her other side, unsure whether to protest or not. She felt that she ought to, but she feared that Anna would be all too keen to do exactly what Aunt Jane had suggested.
It was true. Anna was wriggling about with delight.
‘Aunt Jane!’ she said. ‘I always knew you were butter and jam and cream, all at once. Let’s go to prison, and look for Mr Drummer!’
She spotted Fanny’s frown.
‘Oh, Fan,’ she said. ‘Come on. It won’t kill you. And you might even find a charming gaoler to marry!’
Fanny could not help but snort at Anna’s commitment to the idea of hunting for a husband. She subsided into thoughtful silence.
Was it possible that she could ever be a heroine, like Aunt Jane wanted? It seemed unlikely. Even her clever aunt might sometimes be wrong.
But yesterday Fanny had confronted her father, something she’d never done before, and now, this very minute, she was boldly doing something of which she was sure he would disapprove.
Fanny decided that there might be hope for her yet.
Chapter 16
The House of Correction, Canterbury
The House of Correction! Fanny had seen the gigantic stone gate before, many times, on the road into town. It stood close to the edge of Canterbury, in the streets where the working people lived, not among the fine mansions that sprang up as you got nearer the centre.
She’d certainly never thought she might one day go through that gateway herself.
‘Aunt Jane?’
Her aunt was still looking out of the window, thinking her own thoughts, and Fanny had to ask twice before she responded.
‘Aunt Jane, have you been to a House of Correction before?’
‘Yes,’ her aunt said, turning back towards the girls. ‘I think it’s important to see … all sides of life. Not just what happens inside the fence of Godmersham Park.’
Anna and Fanny looked at each other. Yes, there was perhaps more to the world than they knew. What happened at Godmersham and the other big houses nearby had seemed exciting and fulfilling enough … until now.
‘I visit from time to time,’ Aunt Jane explained, ‘just to keep an eye on things. I have my own favourites among the prisoners.’
‘No!’ said Anna. ‘What a mysterious person you are. Do Uncle Edward and Aunt Elizabeth know that you come here?’
Aunt Jane was looking at Anna very hard over the tops of her spectacles.
‘I’m not sure that they do know, Anna,’ she said. ‘But then there are a lot of things in the world with which Fanny’s parents aren’t familiar. And here we are.’
The carriage was jolting through the forbidding archway, and across what seemed to be abnormally bumpy cobblestones.
‘Now remember, girls,’ said Aunt Jane, with her hand on the door. ‘You are heroines. You are here to see the world, and to learn what it’s like.’
Fanny’s heart seemed to be h
ammering away under her bodice as she stepped down from the carriage. This was a strange place to find herself, but very soon she might see Mr Dominic Drummer!
Perhaps she could even help him, and perhaps he would be grateful. And perhaps she, too, would enjoy solving mysteries, just like the real-life thief-takers her aunt loved so much to read about in the newspapers.
The courtyard was enclosed on all sides by walls with row upon row of windows.
Fanny saw at once, with a shiver, that in each window there were bars.
A man in a dirty suit was coming forward to meet them.
‘They’re used to the gentry coming to visit,’ her aunt was explaining, ‘to entertain themselves by laughing at the lunatics. He will think you’ve come in the same spirit.’
The doorkeeper was now bowing, in an embarrassingly cringing way. Fanny saw although he was pretending not to, he was holding out his hand quite brazenly for money.
Aunt Jane briskly did the business, letting a coin or two drop from her gloved fingers into his.
‘Much obliged, I’m sure, madam,’ he said, and pocketed the money swiftly. ‘This way, if you please, young ladies. We will show you some good fun.’
He smiled, but his grin looked out of place on his greasy, crumpled-looking face. He held out a hand, as if he wanted Fanny to take it so that he could help her. She pretended she hadn’t seen.
As they crossed the yard, Fanny became aware of the noises of the place. She could hear hoots, and yells, and … was that a scream? Were people screaming here?
Then her heart nearly stopped.
For a second, Fanny’s eyes had rested on the bars of one of the windows.
And just for a second, she had seen those bars clutched, no, seized, in some kind of desperation, by a set of grimy knuckles within. Then there was a sickening howl, and the knuckles disappeared, as if their possessor had been dragged downwards and inwards away from the light.
What sort of place was this?
Anna answered the very question that had been in Fanny’s mind.
‘This is no place for Mr Drummer!’ she said angrily. ‘My uncle is greatly at fault for having abandoned him here, to be treated like a common criminal.’