Death at Dawn

by Caro Peacock

  I read through the lists, looking for names I recog nised. The house guests included one duke, two lords, four baronets and their ladies, and six Members of Parliament. (I refrain from giving their names here because most of them were nothing worse than foolish and easily flattered, and I am sure they would not now want the world to know that they had ever set foot in Mandeville Hall.) I racked my brains, trying to remember what I’d heard or read about any of them. The duke was eighty years old or so, and I remembered from accounts of Reform Bill debates in the Lords that he had been a bitter opponent of it. Given his host’s views on the subject, it was not surprising to find him on the guest list. The same applied to two of the Members of Parliament, both to my knowledge die-hard Tories of the old school. I’d heard my father talk about them. It was a reasonable guess that the other four, of whom I’d never heard, shared their opinions.

  ‘Have you everything you need, Miss Lock?’

  Mrs Quivering came sweeping into the room, followed by her assistant, who was burdened with a bad cold and an armful of bedsheets.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mrs Quivering.’

  I started mixing ink. The ink powder and pens were of fine quality, much better than in the schoolroom. Mrs Quivering took a bedsheet from the pile in her assistant’s arms and spread it out on her table. They were on the far side of the room from me, so I couldn’t hear all of their conversation but gathered that some wretch in the laundry room had ironed them with the creases in the wrong places. Then they started talking about other things. I caught ‘wheel off’ and ‘didn’t get here till nearly midday’ and stopped stirring ink powder so that I could listen more carefully.

  ‘… blue room all ready for him, then we have to change it because his man must sleep in the room next to him. So Mr Brighton offers to take the blue room, his valet goes upstairs with the others, and Lord Kilkeel has the oak room, which was …’

  She unfolded another sheet, muffling the end of what she was saying. I looked at the papers I was to copy. A Mr H. Brighton was at the top of the list of guests who would be staying at Mandeville Hall, with Lord Kilkeel just below him. Which was the fat man and which was fashion plate?

  ‘Take them back,’ Mrs Quivering said, sighing. ‘Tell her she’s to do them again in her own time, and I don’t care how long she has to stay.’ She heaped the sheets back into her assistant’s arms. ‘Miss Lock, Mrs Beedle says when you do the place cards you must make your ‘s’s the English way, not the French way.’

  Soon afterwards she went out, leaving me alone with the lists. It was clear to me that I must make not one but two copies, one to stay in Mrs Quivering’s office, the other for Mr Blackstone. It was an awkward business because my sleeve kept brushing the wet ink and making smudges, so I had to use quantities of blotting paper and the inkwell seemed as thirsty as a dog on a hot day, needing constant replenishing. I was never a tidy worker, not even in convent days, and got blots on my cuffs, smears on my face, the top two joints of my pen finger so soaked with ink I thought it must be black to the very bone. I had no time now to register the names I was copying: they were just words to be harvested. Mrs Quivering came back towards evening and seemed to approve of my industry, even showed some concern.

  ‘You’ll miss your supper, Miss Lock.’

  ‘I think I should like to finish the lists today, Mrs Quivering.’

  The true reason was that I wanted to have a reason not to be there if the children were sent for. The fat man and fashion plate were under Mandeville’s roof now and would surely be in the drawing room before dinner. Fashion plate might not recognise the boy from the loosebox, but the fat man would surely remember the woman who’d butted him in the stomach. How I’d avoid him for a whole week, I didn’t know.

  Mrs Quivering was so pleased by my zeal that she had sandwiches and a pot of tea sent in, proper plump beef sandwiches on good white bread. I tried not to get ink on the sandwiches as I ate, then went back to copying. It was a fine evening outside, but the light inside was past its best and my eyes were tired.

  I was near the end of the ball guest list when the door opened. It was Celia, in a flurry of pink silk and white ribbons.

  ‘Betty said you were here. Have you got my letter?’

  I’d brought it down with me and had it under the blotter. She went over to the window and read, her hand shaking so much I was surprised she could make out the writing.

  ‘Oh, thank God.’

  Her body sagged in a swish of silk and muslin. I think she’d have fallen to the floor if I had not jumped up and caught her. I put her down in my chair and she still clung to me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s right. Philip will come for me.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘He leaves that to me. He’ll come to Ascot and be ready for a word from me. Oh, I can’t think. You must help me think.’

  I had no wish to be an accomplice in an elopement – my life was too tangled already – but I could hardly desert her.

  ‘When will he get to Ascot?’

  ‘Tuesday, he says. Wednesday at the latest. But how shall I get away? If I as much as walk in the garden, somebody notices. And now Mr Brighton’s here …’

  She said the name as if she’d bitten into something bad-tasting.

  ‘Mr Brighton?’

  ‘Didn’t you see him? Oh, I forgot, you didn’t come down with the children.’

  She made a face, pushed out her lips and pretended to smear something on them with her little finger. It was exactly the gesture of fashion plate with his lip balm.

  ‘So the fat one is Lord Kilkeel,’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Isn’t he the most hideous person you’ve ever seen? He’s a great friend of my stepfather’s, though.’

  I was on the point of telling her how essential it was that Kilkeel should not see me, but before I could get the words out, she was demanding my help as usual.

  ‘Tell me, Elizabeth, you’re clever, how do I get away without them noticing?’

  ‘If there are a hundred and twenty people coming here for a ball, will anybody notice an elopement?’ I said.

  ‘But that means waiting until next weekend – a whole week.’

  ‘Is that so bad?’

  ‘A lot of things may happen in a week. But I’ll think about it.’ She stood up, rather shakily. ‘Philip says I must write to him at Ascot poste restante. I’ll decide tomorrow, so you must take the letter on Monday morning.’

  I thought, Must I? but didn’t argue because I knew I’d go to the stables in any case to send my copies of the lists to Mr Blackstone. Celia was on her way to the door.

  ‘If anybody sees me and asks what I was doing here, say I brought you a message from my grandmother. I think she approves of you. She keeps asking me questions about you.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  But as before, she went without answering.

  I finished copying the list and, in the last of the daylight, took the note from Mr Blackstone out from under the blotter and read it.

  My dear Miss Lock,

  You have done well. Please do your best to communicate with me every day. In particular, be alert for the arrival of a person calling himself Mr Brighton and let me know at once.

  On Sunday afternoon I wrote my reply.

  Dear Mr Blackstone,

  Mr Brighton arrived Saturday, in the company of Lord Kilkeel. He will be staying at least until the dinner and ball next weekend. They were in the family pew in church this morning, but I did not have a clear sight of him because I was sitting in the back pew so as not to be seen by him. I enclose lists of the guests at the dinner and ball, and also of the house guests. I hope you will consider that I have earned the right to ask why you wish to know about Mr Brighton and how it concerns my father’s death. What is Lord Kilkeel’s part in it?

  I wrapped it up with the lists and addressed it, wondering why I had not admitted to Blackstone that I had already been considerably closer
to Mr Brighton than the length of a church away. One reason was that I distrusted the man and did not see why I should give him more than our bargain. The other and deeper one was that the memory of Mr Brighton’s hands on me in the loosebox made me feel so dirtied that I could not face writing it down for another man to read.

  On Sunday afternoon Celia came into the flower garden when Betty and I were there with the children. She’d brought scissors and a trug with her, to cut some sweet peas for her dressing table. When Betty wasn’t looking, she slid a letter out of the trug and into my hands.

  ‘I’ve taken your advice. I’m telling him to come for me on Saturday.’

  When she’d gone, I watched the children and worried. It was wrong that Celia should depend on me for advice in something so important. Until then, the matter of the elopement had been useful to me, but now I felt guilty. Her position at Mandeville Hall might have its disadvantages, but at least she was provided with a permanent roof over her head, a life that connected one day with the next and the company of a mother and a brother who cared for her. Missing all of those, I valued them more than she did and wondered if this Philip were worth the loss and whether she really knew her own mind. I supposed I should have to speak seriously to her but did not look forward to it with any pleasure. Betty said she was happy to look after the children while I went back to my other work. Now that the lists were done, I turned to a stack of forty blank place cards that Mrs Quivering had set out for me. She’d suggested that I leave them till morning, but they gave me the excuse for missing the children’s visit to the drawing room again and a close-quarters encounter with Kilkeel and Brighton. How I’d manage to spin out the excuses for the rest of the week, I couldn’t imagine.

  On Monday morning I woke with my eyes still tired from all that penmanship, body stiff and weary after an uneasy night. The thought of being under the same roof as the fat man had kept snatching me back from the edge of sleep. I fumbled in the half dark with the buttons and buckles of my boy’s clothes, hating them for the memory of Mr Brighton’s hands. No ride on Rancie this morning. The delight of that had been lost in what followed it and I had more serious things to do, although how poor Rancie was to be given her exercise was one of the thoughts that had nagged at my brain through the night. I hurried down the back stairs, through the room of the chamber pots and across the courtyard.

  When I came to the drive and took the turning for the back road, the clouds in the east were red-rimmed, the sky overcast and rain threatening. About a hundred yards down, to the right of the road, was the big dead oak tree. On the other occasions I’d passed there had been two or three crows sitting on it, but there were none that morning. I don’t know why I noticed that. Perhaps I sensed something, as dogs and horses do. I passed the tree and had my back to it when a voice came from the other side of the trunk.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lock’.

  A woman’s voice. An elderly voice. Even before I turned round I knew who I’d see, though it was so wildly unlikely that she’d be there in the early hours of the morning. She’d come out from behind the tree and was standing there dressed exactly as she always was, in her black dress and black-and-white widow’s cap, ebony walking cane in her hand. She stood where she was, clearly expecting me to walk towards her. I did.

  ‘Well, aren’t you going to take off your cap to me?’

  Confused, I snatched off my boy’s cap. My face, my whole body felt as red as hot lava while her cool old eyes took in everything about me, from rag-padded high-lows to disorderly hair.

  ‘I wondered where those clothes had got to,’ she said. ‘Where are you going so early, if I might ask?’

  I didn’t answer, conscious of the two letters padding out my pockets and sure she was aware of them too.

  ‘It’s going to rain,’ she said. You are likely to get wet before you reach the Silver Horseshoe, Miss Lock.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘So I hope you have those papers well wrapped up. It would be a pity if they were spoilt, after all your careful copying.’

  ‘Oh.’

  I was numb, expecting instant dismissal or even arrest.

  ‘So you had better hurry, hadn’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Umm?’

  She gave a sliver of a smile at my astonishment.

  ‘May I ask for whom you are spying? Is it the Prime Minister? I wrote to him and to the Home Secretary. I was afraid that they’d taken no notice of me, but it seems one of them has after all.’ Then, when I didn’t answer. ‘Well, it’s no matter and I’m sure it is your duty not to tell me. I did not know that they used women. Very sensible of them.’

  ‘You mean …?’

  ‘Only I must impress on you, and you must pass this on to whoever is employing you, action must be taken at once. This nonsense has gone quite far enough, and it must stop before somebody dies.’

  No smile now. Her hand had closed round the top of her cane, as if she were trying to squeeze sap out of the long-dead ebony.

  ‘Somebody has already died,’ I said.

  ‘All the more reason to stop it then. What are you waiting for? Hurry.’

  I went. When I looked back from a bend in the road there was only the oak tree, no sign of her.

  There was a letter for Celia at the stables that Monday morning, but nothing from Mr Blackstone. On Tuesday, when Mrs Beedle came up to see the children at their lessons, she gave not the slightest sign that she regarded me as anything but the governess.

  ‘I notice that you haven’t been coming down with the children, Miss Lock.’

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but there is a great deal to do for Mrs Quivering.’

  In fact, the place cards were all written and she probably knew that, but she gave me a nod and corrected a spelling mistake on James’s slate that I’d missed.

  ‘Sharp eyes, Miss Lock. Sharp brains are all very well, but there’s nothing like sharp eyes.’

  On Wednesday morning I made my usual journey to the livery stables, but the crows were sitting on the dead oak tree as usual and there was no sign of her. There were two letters that day, a thin one for Celia and a thinner one for me. I opened it on the journey back.

  You have done well, Miss Lock, Your duties are at an end. You need not communicate with me any further. I shall see you again when this affair is over, or provide for you as best I can.

  I crumpled it in my hand, furious. So Blackstone thought I could be dismissed with a pat on the head, like an unwanted hound. He had a debt to me – everything he knew about my father’s death. I intended to collect that debt, however long it took me.

  Just one phrase of his note interested me: when this affair is over … It added to the sense I had of things moving towards a crisis. It increased all through the day as house guests began arriving in advance of the weekend. Every hour brought another grand carriage trotting up the drive and the children wouldn’t settle and kept jumping up to look at them. It was a relief when Mrs Quivering summoned me downstairs again.

  ‘Miss Lock, do you understand music?’

  She had a new pile of papers on her desk and a more than usually worried expression.

  ‘Understand?’

  ‘There are musicians arriving tomorrow who, it seems, must have parts copied for them.’

  ‘Will they not bring their own music?’

  ‘It is something newly written. Sir Herbert ordered it from some great composer in London and is in a terrible passion … I mean, is seriously inconvenienced because the person delivered it late and with the individual parts not written out.’

  ‘I’ll do it gladly,’ I said, meaning it.

  It was just the excuse I needed for keeping behind the scenes on the servants’ side of the house for the next two evenings. I’d often done the same service for my father’s friends, so it was a link too with my old life.

  She dumped the score on my desk and left me to look at it. A few minutes were enough to show that Sir Herbert’s ‘great’ composer was a competent hack at best.
The piece was headed Welcome Home and came in three parts: a long instrumental introduction, rather military in style, scored for woodwind, two trumpets and a side drum. Then a vocal section for woodwind, strings, baritone and high tenor, with pinchbeck words about past glories and future triumphs, followed by an instrumental coda with so much work for the trumpets that I hoped they’d demand an extra fee.

  I wondered if Mrs Beedle had proposed me for the copying work and, if so, what I was expected to gain from it. As the afternoon went on, I guessed that it had nothing to do with the music, but very much to do with keeping me in a convenient place for spying. Everything in a household, from kitchen maids with hysterics to guests mislaying their toothbrushes, came to the housekeeper’s room.

  There was one particular incident that afternoon. The assistant housekeeper came into the room and whispered something to Mrs Quivering, who followed her out to the corridor. She left the door half open and I saw one of the under footmen leaning against the wall, pale-faced, with tears running down his cheeks. I knew him slightly because he sometimes brought coal and lamp oil to the nursery kitchen. His name was Simon and he was fourteen years old, tall for his age but childish in his ways. I believe he owed his promotion from kitchen boy to under footman to the fact that his shoulders were broad enough to fill out the livery jacket. Mrs Quivering gave him a handkerchief to mop his eyes and listened with bent head to what he was saying. I couldn’t hear him, but her voice carried better.

  ‘It is not your fault, Simon, but you must not talk about it. While he is here, you will go back to working in the kitchen, then we’ll see. But if you talk about it, you will be in very serious trouble.’

  Her assistant led the boy away and she came back into the room, heaving a sigh and not looking very pleased with herself. Soon after that, the butler came in, a sad-faced man named Mr Hall. They carried on a conversation in low voices, heads close together, with Mrs Quivering doing most of the talking.