And indicating another figure hastening along the path, modestly clad in black but without the mourning veils as befitted a servant, ‘That is Simone, her ladyship’s maid, utterly devoted to her mistress.’
Tam regarded her retreating figure with interest, remembering how, after the prince’s dramatic discovery of the dead woman, Lord Percy had been sent to Creeve to bring back Simone but had returned frustrated having learned that she was absent visiting a sick relative.
Lord Percy was also walking with Lord Henry a short distance away. Both had arrived independently and were representing HRH the Prince Regent who was unfortunately (and conveniently) indisposed. Townsend whispered that Prince Frederick, Duke of York, had also been expected to attend, as a close friend of the Creeve family, but was similarly stricken with a mysterious indisposition.
To anyone who knew the true facts, like Lord Henry, these indispositions might have been written off as attacks of conscience. Considering the two princes’ intimate relationships with the deceased, it might have made matters somewhat difficult for them to face her bereaved husband.
Although they were getting rather wet, Townsend seemed reluctant to join their carriage and return to Brighton, when a servant carrying an umbrella rushed over and said: ‘His Grace has requested that you gentlemen join the other mourners for a glass of wine.’
Townsend, obviously hoping for just such an invitation, was delighted but, as they hurried to join the crowd gathering at the great doorway, Tam thought for a moment he saw the now familiar figure of the stalker standing under a tree.
‘Mr Townsend! Look, over there. There’s the man who has been following us in Brighton. What on earth is he doing here?’
Townsend turned around and stared with unseeing eyes.
He laughed. ‘Mr Eildor – you are imagining things again.’
‘He is there, I tell you. You’re not looking in the right place. Here,’ and seizing Townsend’s shoulder he directed his gaze towards the tree.
But even as he and Townsend looked, the man had vanished.
It was Townsend’s turn to be remarkably understanding for a change. ‘Come along, lad,’ he said briskly. ‘You’re cold and so am I. Funerals are depressing things – especially in weather like this. We’ll both feel more like ourselves again when we have a drink inside us.’
And with that Tam had to be satisified, but his ill ease continued. He was certain sure he had seen the Brighton stalker, but what was his sinister purpose in following Townsend and himself to Creeve?
The interior of Creeve was everything its exterior had promised, with its sixteenth-century panelled hall, heavily beamed roof, and minstrels’ gallery. Two elaborately carved fireplaces supported by fierce-visaged mythical heroes faced each other at either end of a marble floor where doors led to a succession of more practical rooms, including Sir Joseph’s study and the library, while a grand oak staircase swept upwards to the bedrooms.
The mourners had spilled over into the salon where Tam was further impressed by the magnificent view over the rolling Downs, taking in an ornamental lake, a pastoral landscape from an ancient painting, including sheep and cows and stately elm trees. Here was a house rooted in England’s history, built to stand the test of time, and Tam decided that it made the Marine Pavilion’s splendours somewhat tawdry and transient by comparison, as if a bad winter storm might lift it from its flimsy foundations and blow it away across the English Channel.
The girl described as the disgraced daughter was talking to Townsend. Both were staring in Tam’s direction as if he was the object of their conversation. The girl nodded and Townsend led her over.
Introducing Tam, he bowed and said: ‘Allow me to present Lady Gemma Creeve.’
The girl raised her mourning veil and Tam found himself staring into a face he recognised and had been pursuing the length and breadth of Brighton.
The convict lad he knew as Jem.
Chapter Eighteen
Somehow Tam managed to bow and murmur a conventional greeting. He heard the girl say:
‘Mr Eildor lacks a glass of wine,’ and smiling at Townsend: ‘If you would be so good, sir.’
Watching him retreat towards the tables, she seized Tam’s arm and whispered: ‘Not a word, please. Not a word. Come with me.’
And, smiling at people she recognised, she led him through their ranks and into the library. Closing the door she leaned against it, trembling.
‘I never expected to see you here.’
‘Nor I you, Jem,’ said Tam grimly. ‘Are you going to tell me what on earth that masquerade was all about?’
‘It’s a very long story, Mr Eildor. I only came back to Creeve when I read of my stepmother’s death in the newspaper. Nothing would have induced me to return to the life I had suffered here under her regime – but I thought Father might need my support.’
Pausing, she shook her head sadly. ‘It appears that I was wrong. Sarah turned him against me cruelly, even more effectively than I imagined, and I suspect that Timothy is the only one he needs—’
Footsteps were approaching.
‘I will explain later,’ she added hastily. ‘About nine, when the ladies adjourn after supper, the gazebo – the one on the right-hand side of the lake.’
The footsteps departed and Gemma said, ‘Safe for a while. The reason I ran away, if it isn’t obvious, is that my stepmother hated me and when I refused to obey her commands or reported her injustice to Father, she made him suffer for it. “That Girl must go!”’
She sighed. ‘How often I heard those words through closed doors. She never called me by my name, and was determined right from the start to get rid of me. The way most likely to be agreeable to Father was by arranging a marriage—’
‘Marriage! You’re just a child,’ Tam interrupted.
She smiled. ‘Looks are deceptive, Mr Eildor. It suited my purposes for the boy, Jem.’
That was true, and Tam realised what an unobservant fool he had been. The young face under its mass of curls, the boyish shape in large, coarse, ill-fitting shirts and breeches was now sheathed in shiny black silk. Close fitting and with the fashionable décolleté neckline revealing small breasts that were undoubtedly female. And, since Tam did not care for large bosoms, extremely attractive.
‘You can’t be much more than thirteen or fourteen,’ he protested, forgetting that such arranged marriages for dynastic purposes between rich families were quite normal.
She laughed. ‘You do flatter me, Mr Eildor. I am almost eighteen, ripe for marriage. Some of the girls I knew at school are already married and mothers of infants.’
Tam looked at her. Small, vulnerable; eighteen seemed incredibly young.
‘Stepmother found a widower for me – a horrible old man—’
‘How old?’ asked Tam anxiously.
‘Nearly forty.’
Tam groaned inwardly. Less than ten years older than himself, but he remembered that forty was middle-aged in the nineteenth century, as Gemma went on:
‘I refused him, of course. The main reason, as well as finding him old and unattractive, was that I overheard him talking to Stepmother and it was quite obvious from their conversation that she had been his mistress at one time.’
With a sudden gesture she took off her bonnet with its veils and threw it on the sofa. ‘I am afraid all this mourning is a mockery. We never liked each other, I knew she was unfaithful to Father when she went to London. And she had a little place in Brighton that he never knew about, where she used to entertain lovers. I am sorry for Father, especially when her end was so deplorable, but I cannot weep.’
She paused. ‘I feel there is something extraordinary and deeply suspicious about the circumstances of that carriage accident. But I’m fairly sure that highwaymen had nothing to do with it. There’s something we haven’t – or Father hasn’t – been told, to spare him.’
There was quite a lot, thought Tam, as she went on: ‘Her maid Simone knows a great deal more than she pretends. They wer
e always thick as thieves and I am certain she is familiar too with these so-called gambling friends and that secret hideout in Brighton. I expect some of them are here mourning her and Simone must be terrified in case the truth leaks out and gets her into trouble, although I expect she was well paid by Sarah to keep her mouth shut.’
There were voices outside and again they were interrupted, this time the door opened to reveal a furtive-looking couple holding hands and obviously hoping for some privacy. As they disappeared, looking very offended, Tam caught a glimpse of Townsend and Lord Henry nearby.
‘I had better not be caught with you,’ said Gemma, touching his arm. ‘Please, Mr Eildor, not a word to Mr Townsend. Promise.’
Tam took her hand and kissed it. ‘I promise. And it’s Tam, by the way, not Mr Eildor.’
She blushed prettily. ‘We’ll meet later and I’ll tell you all about Jem. How long are you to be in Brighton?’ and without waiting for a reply, ‘You must try to come to Creeve again—’
Putting a finger to her lips, she let herself out by the secondary door to the library which communicated by a corridor to the kitchens. As she disappeared, the other door opened to admit Lord Henry and Townsend.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding, Mr Eildor. Admiring the books, are you? We’ve searched for you everywhere. His Grace has most kindly suggested that we stay the night since it is so inclement for riding back to Brighton. He has heard from the stables that as some of the roads are under water, we should not risk the carriage. Other guests will be staying.’
At his side Lord Henry smiled. ‘No need to look alarmed, Mr Eildor, you won’t be expected to sleep in the stables. There are at least twenty bedrooms.’
Tam exchanged a glance with Townsend. He suspected that the invitation also included Sir Joseph’s desire to have them on hand to discuss further details of how they were to investigate his wife’s unfortunate demise.
The supper lasted considerably longer than Lady Gemma had anticipated. There was no sign of the ladies adjourning and they were further frustrated by the storm which had returned in full fury, with thunder and lightning, the windows lashed with rain, the candles guttering in a hundred violent draughts.
Gemma, seated across the table next to Lord Henry, looked frantically in Tam’s direction and, catching his eye, gave an almost imperceptible nod, which he hoped was invisible to Townsend at his side, since it indicated the assignation in the gazebo was not to take place. He was amused, meanwhile, to observe that Lord Henry was entranced by Lady Gemma, hanging on her every word.
Could he have had access to Lord Henry’s heart at that moment, he would have been even more interested. Henry was in love. For the first time, at past thirty, he had found the girl of his dreams. He had waited a long time for a girl so unique, so completely different to the women he encountered in his father’s court. Perhaps it was the prince’s taste in heavily bosomed, bewigged and painted, vulgar and overblown women that had stunted his own interest in the sex.
But here at last was the one he had waited for, sitting next to him. What he had seen of her figure he found immensely appealing. A lovely young girl, modest and rather shy, slim and delicately boned, small-bosomed, with an unpainted face under short, curling hair.
He longed to reach out and touch her and claim her for his own. Long before the supper was at an end, Henry had made up his mind. This was the girl he was going to marry. Tomorrow morning when her father Sir Joseph was reasonably sober he would ask for his only daughter’s hand in marriage.
That she might not feel the same had not occurred to spoil his dream, for she smiled and was so attentive. And had he any doubts he told himself that he was, although illegitimate, the son of the future King of England.
Observing them, Tam saw that Gemma had only found a convivial table companion who was obviously unaware of the whispers that she was the disgraced daughter of the house. As the wine was passed around once again, some of the solemnity vanished, whispers became louder, and even the hastily subdued merriment increased. Especially as Sir Joseph toppled slowly from his chair, and was scooped up from the floor by his valet and carried up to bed.
‘A nightly occurrence,’ whispered the man next to Tam.
After Sir Joseph’s departure a certain amount of drunken hilarity and levity crept in, turning the sober occasion into a lively wake. More bottles of brandy appeared. Glasses were raised to the late Lady Sarah by many men who, it was soon obvious, had received her gracious favours in the not too distant past, and there were some bawdy regrets at her loss expressed freely in her husband’s absence.
Meanwhile Tam, whose toleration of alcohol consumption was limited by a society where drunkenness was almost unknown and, when it existed, severely frowned upon, found himself out of step with the more uninhibited behaviour of the year 1811.
Townsend knew no such inhibitions and it was Tam who finally escorted him somewhat unsteadily up beyond the grand staircase, negotiated with some drunken merriment. Not into one of those twenty bedrooms Lord Henry had predicted, but along a corridor and up some meaner wooden stairs to the attics which were the servants’ quarters.
Here they were comfortable enough and had a room to themselves. Townsend, too inebriated to stop singing long enough to complain of this downgrading in status, was glad to put his head on a pillow. There he slept, not at all peacefully, but with a dreadful volume of snoring that, had Tam been completely sober himself, would have kept him from any hope of sleeping.
Next morning, they were awakened by unusual activity. Six o’clock and the servants had apparently been awake and busy with their day’s activities for hours. As for Tam, he had some very confused nightmares and, when he awoke, his first thought was that he had dreamt that the convict boy Jem had changed into Lady Gemma Creeve. It was with some difficulty that in those first moments of wakefulness he realised that it was no dream. This was reality and he would no doubt be shortly seeing her again.
A knock on the door and they were informed that they were to make their way down to the study. Immediately.
Townsend, grumbling, with a particularly sore head and very red eyes, had to be shaken awake by Tam and did not receive this summons with good humour. Finally, dressed again in the few outer garments he had discarded including the long overcoat, he accompanied Tam looking slightly less the worse for wear, down to the main part of the house.
Staring through one of the great windows, Townsend said: ‘Weather’s better. At least we should get back to Brighton today. HRH will be anxious about us. Wanting to know what’s happened. A full report.’
At the foot of the grand staircase Lord Henry waited. Looking remarkably sober, he turned a grave face towards them.
‘Something wrong?’ asked Townsend.
‘There is indeed. There has been another death—’
‘Not Sir Joseph?’ said Townsend, a natural conclusion considering his nocturnal habits of over-indulgence.
Henry shook his head. ‘No, not Sir Joseph. Simone, Lady Sarah’s maid, was found in the ornamental lake by the gamekeeper out with his dogs. Suicide apparently. Devoted to her mistress—’
Henry had already broken the news to Percy who refused to believe it.
‘Someone killed her, because she knew too much. She knew the truth about the marchioness – and the prince.’
Although they were alone, Henry held up a finger to his lips. That was dangerous talk in Creeve and, after all, Lady Sarah was his beloved’s stepmother. Such a scandal now made him extremely nervous.
Percy nodded furiously. ‘She didn’t walk into the lake, that’s for sure. We talked earlier and we were to meet—’
‘Where?’ asked Henry.
Percy looked uncomfortable for a moment. ‘At one of the summerhouses by the lake.’
Had they quarrelled, thought Henry, since the story of the aunt in Whitdean suggested that Simone might also have a lover. She was hardly likely to wait around for Percy, since she recognised there was no future for her, a me
re lady’s maid, beyond a few tumbles in the hay with one of the Prince Regent’s grooms, married with a wife and children somewhere offstage in the home counties.
As for Percy, despite his anxiety to find Simone’s killer, he had no wish for anyone at Creeve, particularly Sir Joseph, to learn of their association. He was in blissful ignorance that all the servants who had keen eyes in their heads knew that he was Simone’s lover.
‘You will stay and help me?’ he asked.
Henry said, ‘Of course I will.’ He had his own reasons for remaining at Percy’s request. His mind was racing ahead to that interview with Sir Joseph, when he would formally ask for Lady Gemma’s hand and take her to Brighton to meet his royal father.
How the prince would react to his report on the death of the marchioness’s maid, he had little idea. Relief, perhaps, that another strand in that nightmare he was most anxious to forget was sealed and made safe by death.
‘We must bear in mind, Percy, that there is a distinct possibility that she fell in and drowned by accident.’
Percy was not consoled. He laughed harshly. ‘I think not. Someone at the funeral yesterday – someone who is still in this house in all probability – killed her. And I will find them, and bring them to justice, if it’s the last thing I ever do.’
Prophetic words, indeed.
Chapter Nineteen
Meanwhile, Tam and Townsend were closeted with Sir Joseph who was similarly distressed and certain that Simone’s death was no accident.
‘She appeared to be a very level-headed young woman, not the kind who would be so emotionally involved with her mistress that she would feel that life had nothing to offer and she would take her own life. I would like you to remain with us for a day or two and investigate, Mr Townsend, especially as I owe it to my late wife. I cannot dismiss from my mind the fact that Simone’s death may well have some connection with her murder. Perhaps she knew more about those gambling friends in Brighton than they wished her to reveal.’
The Stuart Sapphire Page 15