Death at Dawn

by Caro Peacock

  She still looked terrified. I should have liked to tell her that she’d be safe there, but I didn’t know what safety was any more. In any case, I’d no idea where else to put her.

  ‘Wait for me,’ I said. ‘Please wait. I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  Betty was on her way back downstairs.

  ‘There’s a gentleman insists he must speak to you. He won’t go away. I’ve put him in the boys’ bedroom.’

  She was hot and miserable at this violation of her sanctuary. I went into the bedroom and there was Daniel, tapping out Voi Che Sapete on James’s xylophone. He put down the hammer when he saw me.

  ‘Blackstone’s woken up. I think you should hear what he has to say.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  I wanted to run to him with my news, but I didn’t trust him over Blackstone. Perhaps I took a few steps towards him and stumbled, because he spread out his arms, as if to catch me.

  ‘Liberty, are you ill? I don’t believe you’ve slept or eaten.’

  ‘I’ll do very well.’

  I made myself stand up straight and his arms fell to his sides. I took him by the back stairs into the courtyard and round the wall of the kitchen garden. When we came to the spiral path to the pavilion he offered me his arm, but I shook my head and went in front of him. At the door, he asked me to wait while he went inside, then beckoned me to join him. It was a big shadowy room, with camp beds arranged along both sides. Blackstone was lying flat on his back on one of the beds, very tidily, like a man trying not to take up too much space. A blanket covered him from feet to waist. Above it a white shirt slowly rose and fell to his shallow breathing. His complexion was grey, his eyes closed. He seemed even thinner than I remembered, and older.

  ‘Miss Lane is here,’ Daniel told him.

  He opened his eyes, focused on me and slowly brought his feet to the floor. He was still wearing the black trousers of his waiter’s uniform. Daniel knelt by the bed, lending a shoulder to help him stand.

  ‘We can talk here,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to get up.’

  ‘If you’ll allow me, I feel a need for the sunlight.’

  Blackstone gave a wan smile as he said it, but his voice was as creaky as his joints. He got himself upright, slipped his feet into a battered pair of black shoes and walked to the door, leaning on Daniel’s arm. Outside, the two of them waited until I sat down on the stone bench by the wall, then Daniel settled Blackstone next to me and sat on his other side. Blackstone paused for a while with his face to the sun, eyes closed, taking painful-looking breaths.

  ‘I did not kill your father,’ he said, eyes still closed. ‘I told you that in Dover, but you wouldn’t believe me.’

  ‘But you didn’t save him either, and you might have,’ I said.

  His eyes jerked open.

  ‘That is not true. He was dead before I even knew he’d got to Calais. Believe me, if I’d had the slightest idea they would go to such lengths, I’d have found him and warned him. I never wanted him to interfere.’

  ‘But you must have known he’d been killed because of Mr Brighton. You knew he hadn’t died in a duel. If you were his friend, why didn’t you do something, make people investigate?’

  His eyes closed again. A sigh fluttered his white shirt.

  ‘What good would it have done? Only caused a hue and cry that would alert Kilkeel to the fact that I was watching him? Nothing could bring Jacques back. If I failed in my duty to him, it was for a cause that your father would have approved, and you, Suter, approve as well.’

  Daniel seemed about to protest.

  ‘What was that?’ I said.

  ‘Ridding the world of kings.’

  ‘Not by these methods,’ Daniel said.

  Blackstone pushed himself away from the wall and sat straight-backed, eyes fierce.

  ‘By what methods, then? By politely asking, Be so good as to go, sir? Please be so kind as to stop fattening yourself and your brood on the wealth of the labouring people. Please be obliging enough to abdicate and let the men you call your subjects grow into free and honest citizens instead of demeaning themselves as your toadies and flatterers. Is that how you’d bring about a republic?’

  His voice grew in force as he spoke and some colour came back to his face, like the glow of fire in a grey ember. Daniel looked ill at ease.

  ‘I’ve never denied my republican opinions, you know that.’

  ‘Oh no, as long as you can sing about them or recite poetry about them or drink toasts over the punchbowl to them, that’s well enough. Have you spent time in prison for them?’

  ‘You know very well I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, I have.’

  ‘I know that too. You’ve suffered for a cause we believe in, and I honour you for it. But I still don’t understand what you were trying to do this time.’

  Blackstone didn’t answer Daniel. He sat there, stiff and upright, staring out over the lake. There were a pair of swans scudding across it, wings half-spread to catch the breeze.

  ‘I don’t understand either,’ I said. ‘What was the purpose of dishonouring my father’s memory to shield people who are just trying to replace a queen with a king? I don’t know anything about little Vicky, but I don’t see how she could be much worse than this creature they call Mr Brighton.’

  ‘That is the entire point,’ Mr Blackstone said. ‘Surely you can see that?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I can’t either,’ Daniel said.

  Blackstone sighed like a schoolmaster with two slow pupils.

  ‘As you have observed, Mr Brighton is – even by Hanoverian standards – more than usually stupid. He is greedy, foppish and entirely at the mercy of the schemers and flatterers who surround him. What’s more, he is by nature highly unlikely to beget heirs.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ I said.

  Blackstone and Daniel looked at each other, then at me, and seemed to consider.

  ‘I think in that respect Blackstone’s probably right,’ Daniel said.

  ‘Thank you, Suter. In addition, any claim he might have to the throne would be as the grandchild of George IV, one of the unworthiest monarchs ever to infest the throne of England, and of Caroline of Brunswick, who was no better than a whore, and not even an attractive one at that.’

  ‘Blackstone!’ Daniel protested, looking at me.

  ‘If I have offended, I apologise. But I believe my point is made. If so-called Mr Brighton had a legitimate claim to the throne, then he would probably be a monarch so spectacularly bad that even the lazy, over-tolerant people of England would rise up in a body and say “Enough.”’

  Daniel was looking at him in amazement.

  ‘So you’d found out about this plot and you were concealing it, to make sure this country was saddled with a bad king?’ he said.

  Mr Blackstone nodded his head.

  ‘It was a faint hope, I admit. For one thing, I seriously doubt he could ever prove his claim.’

  ‘And for that faint hope, you were prepared to let the world believe that my father died betraying his own principles,’ I said. ‘It seems to me a poor exchange.’

  ‘No, because there was a larger hope. Even if the pretender’s claim failed in the end, there were some powerful men like Mandeville and Kilkeel supporting it, so it was quite certain to cause a deal of noise and trouble in the country. The streets of our cities are already teeming with hungry men, our country towns are full of labourers turned from their jobs and out of their cottages. And our politicians expect them to forget their empty bellies and their starving children, throw their hats in the air and cry “God save the queen!” If the people see those same politicians squabbling among themselves whether it’s to be Queen Victoria Alexandrina or King Harold on the throne, might not that be the spark that makes them decide to throw off their chains at last?’

  Daniel and I looked at each other.

  ‘That wasn’t worth my father’s life,’ I said.

  Blackstone closed his eye
s and didn’t answer. The hectic colour was fading from his cheeks and he gave a shiver.

  ‘Why in the world did you decide to come here yourself?’ Daniel asked. ‘Why run around playing the waiter when you should have been at home in bed?’

  His tone was gentle. I could see that he still respected the man. Blackstone gave another of his thin smiles.

  ‘I needed to see what their next step would be. Spies have proved to be unreliable and expensive.’

  I must have made some sound of protest because he turned to me.

  ‘I exempt you, Miss Lane. I wish everybody had been as honest in the cause as you have been.’

  ‘I don’t care about the cause. All I want to know is who killed my father.’

  ‘I believe Kilkeel was deeply involved,’ Blackstone said. ‘I don’t suppose he pulled the trigger himself, but they were all furious about that woman.’

  I looked away from him so that he shouldn’t see anything in my eyes. In spite of his weakness, I still didn’t trust him.

  ‘Who is she and what happened to her?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘I still don’t know. I believe they intended her as some kind of witness, though witness to what exactly I’ve no notion. I had a man trying to find out for me, but he became scared and let me down. That was why it was so important that I should be present last night.’

  ‘Nothing happened,’ Daniel said. ‘Or rather, a lot happened, but there was no mystery woman suddenly produced from behind a cloak. Was that what you were expecting?’

  ‘Something went wrong with their plans yesterday, I’m quite convinced of that,’ Blackstone said. ‘Mandeville hasn’t gone to all this trouble just to give dinner to his friends. He and Kilkeel are still waiting to make their move, and I don’t know why. We must find out.’

  It infuriated me that, in spite of everything, he was still plotting.

  ‘Did you know Mrs Beedle was murdered here last night?’ I said.

  Blackstone stared at me.

  ‘I don’t even know who Mrs Beedle is.’

  ‘Mandeville’s mother-in-law. Did you kill her?’

  Daniel started protesting, then stopped when I gave him a look.

  ‘In all my life, I’ve never killed anybody,’ Blackstone said. He looked straight at me, eyes wide open as if he wanted me to see into his thoughts. ‘I hope you believe that. I should be sorry to have your bad opinion, Miss Lane.’

  His eyes closed. After a while he slid sideways against Daniel. I thought he might have died, but I felt no grief, nothing. Daniel caught my eye and pointed to a couple of young musicians smoking their pipes on the far end of the terrace. I went over to them to ask for their help and the three of them managed to take Blackstone back inside. He tried to walk, but his feet scarcely grazed the gravel. At the doorway he turned and looked at me.

  ‘Do you believe me? About your father, at least?’

  I thought of what Daniel had said, that in his prime this man could have marched ten thousand people on Whitehall, and of the thin black legs sticking out among the scattered vegetables.

  ‘Yes, I believe you.’

  I sat on a bench and after a while Daniel came out to me, head down.

  ‘Thank you for saying that, Liberty.’

  ‘He said something I know is true. That makes me inclined to believe him on the rest.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘My father was killed because of the woman. Don’t tell Blackstone or anybody else, but that same woman’s hiding in my room. I’d like you to come and speak to her.’

  ‘Your room! For heaven’s sake, Liberty! If you’re right, two people have died because of this woman, and now you tell me you’re hiding her.’

  ‘I don’t know what else to do about her. But you must come and speak to her.’

  ‘Please, leave it and come away with me this instant. Mourn your father and let them all play their games and go to hell in their own way. You know now why your father was killed. You know it wasn’t poor Blackstone …’

  ‘Poor Blackstone!’

  ‘Yes. He always told us he’d live to see a republic in England. I don’t think he believes it now.’

  ‘I still don’t know why my father was killed. I think she does. There’s no doubt whatsoever that she’s the woman in his letter. In any case, we can’t just go and leave her here. We must find a way to take her with us.’

  ‘Did she tell you she knows who killed him?’

  ‘I haven’t managed to ask her yet. She’s very scared and she doesn’t like questions.’

  ‘Liberty, just leave it and –’

  ‘While the man who killed my father is living and breathing, no, I will not leave it.’

  He sighed and gave me his hand to help me up from the bench.

  ‘If you won’t leave it, then I suppose I must help you, though the gods know there probably isn’t a man in the world less fit for this sort of business than I am.’

  As we walked back to the house I told him what she’d said, as well as I could remember. I let him take my arm, past caring who saw us. He waited outside the kitchen door while I made sure there was nobody in the chamber pot storeroom, then we went up the back stairs to the maids’ landing. He waited there again so that I could go up and warn Mrs Martley. To my relief, she was just where I’d left her, asleep in the hard chair, wrapped in Betty’s shawl, her head fallen sideways on to her shoulder. Her eyes jerked open when I stepped into the room.

  ‘You should have slept on the bed,’ I said. ‘Are you well enough to talk to somebody? He’s a friend of my father’s and will do you no harm.’

  She nodded reluctantly and I went down to fetch Daniel. I’d worried that his presence would make her even more scared than she was already, but I should have trusted more in his natural kindness and gift for putting people at ease. He made a polite bow to her, introduced himself and – after a questioning look to ask my permission – sat down on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Mrs Martley, I am sorry indeed to intrude on you. Jacques Lane was a very good friend of mine, and I’d be obliged to you for anything you could tell me about your acquaintance with him.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘How did you come to meet him? Was it in Paris?’

  She blinked and pushed back a lock of her lank hair.

  ‘Paris, yes. When I was trying to get away from the fat devil.’

  I opened my mouth and shut it again, deciding to leave as much of the questioning as I could to Daniel.

  ‘Fat devil?’

  ‘I don’t know his name to this day. He was keeping me shut up in this house in Paris, a servant on watch in the hall day and night. Only, you see, there was one of them liked a drink and one night I looked out and he wasn’t there on guard. So I got my few things together and ran down the stairs and out of the door. That was all I could think of, getting away, only I had no more idea of how to get back to England than flying to the moon, and I don’t know any French, not a word.’

  She stared at Daniel as if her life depended on making him understand.

  ‘And was that when you met him?’ he prompted.

  ‘I knew there was a hotel next door with a coach-yard and I’d heard English voices there. So I thought if I went to the coachyard and waited I might come across an English family and beg them for pity’s sake to take me back with them.’

  ‘When was this?’ Daniel said.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve lost track. A lot of the time I didn’t know whether it was day or night even. So it’s no use asking …’

  She was becoming perturbed again, twisting her fingers in the fringes of the shawl.

  ‘Don’t concern yourself about it, then. Did you get to the hotel courtyard?’

  ‘Yes. There was a gentleman there, talking to a horse. I’m sorry, did you want to say something?’

  I must have made some movement. My father talked to all animals, from horses to mice. It brought him back to me so vividly that I felt like yelping from hurt. I pressed my lips
together and nodded to Mrs Martley to go on.

  ‘He was talking to it in English, saying it was going on a long journey and not to be scared. He sounded a pleasant man so after a while I plucked up courage and went over to him. I said I was a respectable Englishwoman fallen on hard times and I wanted to get home. Well, no sooner were the words out of my mouth than his hand went to his pocket. “Thank you, sir, only it’s not just the money,” I said to him. “I’ve no notion how to set about getting back and I’ve got enemies next door to this very hotel who’ll stop me if they find out, then goodness knows what will happen to me.” I don’t know if he believed me then or not. He took me round a corner to one of those places they have in Paris, like a public house only not so cheerful, and sat me down and looked at me. “You’re shaking,” he said. “So would you be shaking, sir, if you’d gone through what I’ve gone through,” I said. Then he ordered us a glass of brandy apiece and I started telling him my story. Even while I was telling it, I thought it sounded so fantastical, he wouldn’t believe me. He did, though.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘My father always trusted people.’

  Even the memory of him seemed to have unloosed her tongue.

  ‘It was more than just trusting. He knew the half of it already. While I was telling it, he kept nodding his head as if it chimed in with something else he’d heard. And when I got to the bit about the fat devil asking me questions as if I was in the dock at the Old Bailey he started laughing. “It’s nothing to laugh at,” I told him. “The fat devil kept on at me until I didn’t know right from left or black from white, and all about something that happened twenty years ago. He said I must be sure of everything, very sure, because one day I’d have to stand up in the House of Lords in front of all the judges in their robes and wigs and say the same thing.”’

  She paused for breath. Daniel poured her a glass of water.

  ‘What did Mr Lane say to that?’

  ‘He said he was sorry for laughing, but it was all a great nonsense and he was sure I shouldn’t have to stand up in the House of Lords or anywhere else. Still, he said, it was a very wrong thing that had been done to me and of course he’d take me back to England. He said he was leaving the day after tomorrow and I could travel with him. “But what will I do until then?” I asked him. Well, he jabbered away in French to the man behind the counter and said I could stay there, all meals provided, and he’d come for me early morning, day after tomorrow. “Don’t tell anybody,” I said to him. I was still mortally terrified the fat devil would find me. So he promised not to tell anybody, not even his friends.’