Death at Dawn

by Caro Peacock

  At the door, he put a hand on my shoulder and said softly, ‘Child, do as little possible tomorrow and Saturday. Stay safe in the schoolroom, if you can. Leave the fools to their folly.’

  Something touched my forehead, light as a leaf. It was only after he’d walked away that I realised he’d kissed me.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Friday, 14th July. Le Quatorze Juillet. I woke up thinking about that, of all things. Forty-eight years ago the people of Paris had stormed the Bastille and the world had changed for ever. It had always been a day of celebration in our household, with Tom and I allowed a glass of watered wine to drink to the Revolution and, as it happened, our own names: Liberty, Fraternity. (If my mother had lived longer, I’m sure there would have been a third child called Equality.) But today Revolution had a colder feel to it. I got up at about six o’clock, washed and dressed in the green cotton dress with my muslin tucker freshly laundered and clean white cotton stockings. I’d hoped to go early to the stables to see Amos Legge, but Betty had unknowingly ended that plan when I’d got back to the schoolroom the evening before.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Lock, but you’ll have to get the children up on your own tomorrow. Two of the lady visitors have come without their maids so Mrs Quivering said would I oblige.’

  With the house full of guests and the kitchen preparing for the grand dinner in the evening, all the servants were doing two or three times their normal work. This was in spite of the fact that thirty extra maids, waiters and footmen had been brought in from London and Windsor for the occasion. The maids in the room below me were having to sleep two to a bed to make room for them. I roused the children at half past six as usual, but getting them washed and dressed took much longer than when Betty was there. Henrietta wished passionately to wear her best white silk with the blue sash and sulked when persuaded into more serviceable pink-and-white striped cotton. Charles volunteered to pull out a loose tooth that was bothering James by looping a string round it, tying the other end of the string to the schoolroom door knob and slamming the door. Unfortunately the tooth wasn’t as loose as it looked and the resulting howls, blood and recriminations took up the hour when we should have been having our early walk in the garden. There was only time for a truncated prayer session before breakfast was brought up by Tibby the schoolroom maid. Betty arrived as we were finishing it, full of the gossip she’d gathered downstairs.

  ‘You didn’t tell me you’re to be at the dinner, Miss Lock. Aren’t you the lucky one.’

  Typically, she was not in the least envious, simply pleased at what she saw as my good fortune.

  ‘It’s only to fill up the table,’ I said.

  ‘There’s going to be real turtle soup. And you’ll see all the lovely dresses close to. What shall you wear?’

  ‘My lavender with the silk fichu, I suppose.’

  She looked doubtful. ‘Will that do?’

  ‘It will have to. Besides, I’ll be right at the end of the table and nobody will notice me,’ I said, sincerely hoping that would be the case.

  We spent most of the morning on Aesop’s Fables. The children weren’t capable of concentrating on anything more demanding, and neither was I.

  When their dinner time came, at half past two, I said I wasn’t hungry and would go for a walk outside to clear my head. Betty naturally put it down to excitement and nerves, but I was desperate to find a way of communicating with Amos Legge. In addition to the practical matter of asking him to bring Rancie, there was his mysterious message about the two gentlemen in the travelling carriage. I’d written a note to him during lessons, asking if he could meet me at the bottom of the back road at six o’clock the following morning, hoping I’d be able to manage that even though I couldn’t get all the way to the stables. My idea was to find a boy and give him sixpence that I’d discovered in the bottom of my bag to deliver the note. Since the stableyard was usually the best place to find a spare boy, I walked across the courtyard and through the archway. The cobbled yard was quiet and neatly swept, horses dozing in the afternoon calm and the place almost deserted. Not a boy in sight, just a man sitting peacefully on the mounting block, smoking a clay pipe.

  ‘Amos Legge!’

  ‘Good afternoon, miss.’ He stood up and put out his pipe with his thumb. ‘I asked one of the maids to let you know I was here, but I couldn’t tell if she’d heard me right.’

  ‘Just the very man I wanted to see. Mr Legge, could you please have Rancie here in the stableyard tomorrow night, after dark?’

  ‘On the move again, are we?’

  ‘I think so, yes. Only there’s so much I don’t know, where we’re going or even if, or …’

  ‘Don’t you worry, miss, I’ll have her here. Did you get that message I sent you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why I came. I’ve been turning it over in my mind … Maybe it did mean something and maybe it didn’t, only it was strange, and seeing as you were staying here, I thought somebody should know.’

  ‘About the two men in the travelling coach?’

  ‘The lardy one and the one that had the accident with his boot. Only I didn’t hear about it until after they’d gone, and with the others saying the lad was a bit simple, I didn’t quite know what to make of it.’

  It was no use trying to hurry him. I suggested we should sit down on the mounting block and he dusted it off for me with his hat.

  ‘When I left, they were still waiting for the wheelwright,’ I said. ‘What happened after that?’

  ‘They got the wheelwright in the end. The two gentlemen were waiting in the guvnor’s office most of the time. He kept offering them one of his own vehicles to go on up to the Hall, but they wouldn’t hear of it. It was go in the travelling coach or nothing. Anyways, there’s this lad helps out in the yard sometimes. They make out he’s a gawby, but I reckon he’s clever enough when he wants to be. He says they had a woman in there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the travelling coach.’

  ‘Just sitting in it all the time?’

  ‘No, or we’d all’ve seen her. You know how gentlemen’s travelling coaches usually have a place under the floorboards, nice and convenient for anything they might need on a day’s journey without having the trunks unstrapped? Quite a tidy space in some of them, big enough to take a woman, if she didn’t mind curling up a bit.’

  ‘The boy says he saw a woman under the floorboards in the travelling coach?’

  ‘Not saw, heard. He reckons he heard a moithering voice calling for help and for somebody to bring her a glass of water.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell anybody at the time?’

  ‘They was all too busy running around in circles with the coach and the gentlemen to take any notice of him. Afterwards, they thought he was just hearing ghosts again. He’s a great lad for ghosts, they say.’

  ‘But you believe him?’

  ‘Can’t say whether I believe him or not. But it seemed to me somebody here ought to know about it.’

  A groom came into the yard and gave us a curious look.

  ‘I must go,’ I said. ‘I expect you must, too. Thank you for telling me.’

  When I looked back through the archway from the courtyard, I saw him mounting a useful-looking cob, property of the livery stables, presumably. I’d assumed that he’d come on foot and once again marvelled at the resourcefulness of Amos Legge. But how seriously should I take his information? Very seriously, I thought. Gawby or not, the lad had impressed Amos. And if Lord Kilkeel and Brighton had a woman imprisoned in the well of the travelling coach, that explained why they’d refused to leave it at the stables and finish their journey in another vehicle. Could this be the woman from my father’s letter? If so, I’d been no more than a few yards away from her in the stableyard without knowing it.

  I looked up from the courtyard at the back of Mandeville Hall, a great brick cliff with hundreds of windows. She might well be in there somewhere, among dozens of guests, plus nearly a hundred servants c
ounting the extra ones brought in, so many rooms that a person might spend months there without seeing them all. I might as well try to search an entire town.

  As soon as I stepped inside the house, one of the footmen said Mrs Quivering wanted me. I found her in her room.

  ‘There’s a note for you from Miss Mandeville.’

  She handed me a folded lilac sheet.

  Dear Miss Lock,

  If you would care to come to my room when you are free, we may plan what you are to wear this evening. There may be some things which I should be happy to lend you.

  Signed with her initials in a flourish like the tendrils of sweet peas.

  ‘Miss Mandeville is very kind,’ I said.

  I didn’t think for one moment that Celia wanted to talk about clothes. It was an entirely different plan she had in mind. Still, she’d been clever, even leaving the note unsealed so that Mrs Quivering could read it if she were curious.

  I went back to the schoolroom to tell Betty where I was going. She was wide-eyed at my luck.

  ‘Miss Mandeville lending you one of her own dresses! You must be careful not to drop any food on it. Perhaps you should only pretend to eat. I’ll try to keep you something back from supper for later.’

  ‘Thank you, Betty, but I’ll do well enough.’

  ‘You might even be sitting next to a lord who will fall in love with you. Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘In fairy tales. But no, I’m not. I’ve looked at the table plan.’

  ‘So who are you sitting next to.’

  ‘Not a lord. Not even a sir or an MP. I have a cathedral canon on my left hand and a Mr Disraeli on my right.’

  ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘A writer, I believe. I’m nearly sure I read one of his novels once.’

  ‘Well, I suppose it takes all sorts.’

  Betty was clearly disappointed for me. Upstairs in my room, I put on my lavender dress and fichu pelerine and went as confidently as I could manage downstairs and through the door into the family’s bedroom corridor. Compared to the last time I’d been there, it was as busy as a beehive on a sunny afternoon. Bells tinkled, maids I’d never seen before ran in and out with armfuls of lace or cans of hot water, voices called from half-open doorways and the sharp smell of frizzled hair mingled with rose-water and lavender. I knocked on Celia’s door.

  ‘Come in.’

  She was sitting at her dressing table in her petticoats with a silk wrap over her shoulders and her maid brushing her hair. A tailor’s dummy covered with a dust sheet stood beside the dressing table. She saw me in the mirror and, without turning, said to the maid ‘You can go, Fanny. I’ll ring when I want you.’ The maid put down the hair-brush and left. Celia spun round in her seat and held out her hands to me.

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth, I’m so glad you’ve come. I’m so scared. Feel – I’m trembling like an aspen.’

  I took her hands. Indeed, they were cold and trembling.

  ‘Then put on something warmer.’

  I went to the wardrobe and found a blue velvet pelisse with white fur collar. She let me drape it round her and clutched the fur to her chest as if it were a warm and living animal.

  ‘I wish you’d told me more,’ I said.

  The conversation with Daniel had hardened me. I was still sorry for her, but angry at what was going on round her.

  ‘More of what?’

  ‘Queen to His Majesty King George the Fifth, was that the idea?’

  ‘The creature’s name is Harold, so it would be Harold the Second, wouldn’t it? It wasn’t my idea, you know that.’

  She stared back at me over her fistfuls of fur.

  ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘About the Harold creature being the rightful king? A month or two. My stepfather told me when we all knew King William was going to die soon.’

  ‘Miss Mandeville, he is not the rightful king at all. It’s utter nonsense about Princess Charlotte being poisoned and the baby saved.’

  ‘How do you know? Nobody can.’

  ‘Even if he were – which I don’t believe for one minute – what is your stepfather doing? If he tries to put this Harold on the throne, it may mean another civil war.’

  ‘But there’ll be one anyway. My stepfather says unless somebody takes a stand there’ll be a civil war in England, just like France. It’s happening already. People have been stirred up by agitators so that they aren’t content any more. They march and burn things down until they’re given votes, then when they’ve got votes they’re not satisfied with that and demand other things …’

  ‘Like food for their families. Miss Mandeville, your stepfather’s talking nonsense. There won’t be a revolution here.’

  ‘That’s what they said in France. And little Vicky won’t be able to stand up to them because she’s a girl and even younger than we are, so she’ll do whatever the politicians tell her’.

  ‘What about Queen Elizabeth and Queen Anne? In any case, can you see your bonnie prince Harold standing up against a revolution?’

  ‘You know very well he’s not my bonnie prince anything. If people like my stepfather help him become king, he’ll have to be grateful to them and do what they tell him.’

  ‘Including taking you as his wife?’

  ‘I’m not going to marry him. I find him entirely loathsome whether he’s king or not, and that’s an end to it. Two days from now I’ll be married to Philip, and nobody will be able to do anything about it.’

  I realised it was useless to be angry about her political naïvety.

  ‘And that’s really the wish of your heart?’

  ‘More than anything in the world. Sit down and I’ll show you his letter about meeting me tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think …’

  But she was already up and rummaging in a drawer. I settled in a blue armchair and she watched, smiling, as I read. People’s love letters should not be inflicted on the public, so I’ll say only that it was brave and loving, with a bedrock of commonsense to it as well, and altogether the kind of thing that every woman should receive once in a lifetime. As I handed it back, I was annoyed to hear myself giving a sigh of envy.

  ‘Yes, I think your Philip really loves you.’

  ‘Of course he does. Now, where are you and I to meet tomorrow night? Philip will have the coach on the back road from nine o’clock onwards.’

  ‘Let’s meet at nine then, or as soon after as you can slip away. In the stableyard.’

  ‘How do I get there without being seen?’

  I was about to say something impatient, then remembered that I knew the geography of parts of her house better than she did.

  ‘You slip out through the kitchens, into the back courtyard and through the archway.’

  ‘Through the kitchens in that?’

  She laughed and whipped the sheet off the tailor’s dummy. Underneath was a shining cloud of white silk and silver embroidery.

  ‘My stepfather chose it in Paris. He insists I wear it.’

  ‘Like a bride.’

  ‘Or a sacrifice,’ she said.

  ‘And altogether the worst garment in the world for eloping. You might as well carry a chandelier with you. Are those the shoes?’

  Soft white kid, embroidered with silver, that might just stand up to an evening of moderate dancing.

  ‘I must come up and change first, I suppose,’ she said. ‘We’ll meet here instead. Now, what can I find that’s drab coloured?’

  She walked over to a white-and-gilt-painted wardrobe and opened the door on a muted rainbow of dresses, skirts and bodices in soft blues, pinks, apricots, with shawls of delicate lace or gleaming satin. With some trouble we discovered at the back of it a plain grey dress, a dark gabardine travelling cloak and the stoutest pair of shoes she owned, which were not very stout but would have to do. She ran a hand softly over the rows of dresses.

  ‘I shall hate leaving them.’

  ‘You can always buy more.’

  ‘So I can. Now, l
et’s choose a dress for you to wear tonight. It shall be yours to keep.’

  ‘Won’t this one do?’

  A quick shake of the head was the only answer. She pulled dress after dress out of the wardrobe, trying each colour against my face, flinging them haphazardly on to the bed when they didn’t quite suit, until it looked like a barge fit for Cleopatra. After a while she narrowed the choice to a deep rose damask with silver-grey silk trim or moss-green ribbed silk with enough lace on the bodice to have kept Nottingham employed for weeks.

  ‘Which do you prefer, Elizabeth?’

  ‘Either.’

  ‘You must have an opinion.’

  She was as shocked by my unconcern as I’d been at her politics. To please her, I opted for the rose damask, on the grounds that the skirt was less full and the satin pumps that went with it had low heels.

  ‘You must try it on. You’re taller than I am and not so …’ She made a gesture with her hands over her chest. ‘But we can always pad out your stays.’

  I felt shy of stripping to my stays and petticoats in front of her, so I went behind a gilt leather screen in the corner. Although I’d chosen the rose damask with so little interest, it was sleek and comforting under my hands, like a cat. When I came out from behind the screen, feeling awkward in the grandest dress I’d ever worn, she clapped her hands.

  ‘It suits you so much better than me. It’s a great thing I’m not jealous. Come over here to the light.’ She looked critically. ‘You’re too thin for it, though. It hangs awkwardly at the waist. Come here and let me pin it.’ She was as deft as a seamstress. ‘Now, pull your stays down and let me lace you tighter. Breathe in.’

  ‘I can hardly breathe at all.’

  ‘It’s just a bit short and your ankles will show when you walk. Still, you have good ankles and the shoes might have been made for you.’

  She laughed, delighting in it like a child dressing a doll. She made me sit down at her dressing table and did my crinkly hair with her own hands, pinning it up to one side with a mother-of-pearl comb of her own. Then she rummaged in her jewel case, brought out a necklace of opals and garnets on a silver chain and clasped it round my neck.