“Didn’t hear one,” Osgoode told him. “First I knew, Thom was rapping on the front door, and a maidservant went to admit him.”
“Odd,” Livesey mused. “Oh, but I suppose he sent Andrew on by coach, and he could have hired a mount at Taneyhill’s Livery.”
“I’d expect ’twas Thorn’s social rounds boring young Hewlett to tears, Matthew,” Osgoode said with a faint chuckle. “When he comes to town, Thom makes the most of his time, calls on as many as’ll have him in. And, with his fount of gossip and wit, there’s none would refuse an hour here, an hour there, with him. Anne always relished his droll wit. More her sort of gentleman than most in these parts.”
Something was nagging Livesey’s wits, something out-of-place or half-forgotten, something he’d missed, that they’d all missed, a line of questions that had to be asked, no matter how ludicrous.
“Ah!” Livesey suddenly erupted, all but slapping his forehead to punish himself for being a “jingle-brains.”
“Smith’s Creek, Mr Marsden! Smith’s Creek! Look you, Anne and Harry had a second hidey-hole where they trysted … a tumbledown log cabin along the creek on the north side of the Wrightsville Road, a mile or two east of their glade, we must assume. Far enough from town to avoid prying eyes but close enough to make it a short ride. Is that not on Thom Lakey land?”
“Well, aye,” the magistrate allowed, scowling. “He owns it all right down t’Smith’s Creek, an’ he did have some tenant parcels along th’ road, b’fore he let ’em go back t’woodlots, but … damme! Where ye goin’ with this, Livesey? I know we’re stumped t’find th’ villain, but thinkin’ Thom Lakey might ve had a hand in it’s dev’lish desp’rate! Man’s a gadfly! Did he murder anybody, I expect it’d be a tailor who run him up a bad fit!” Marsden hooted in wicked glee.
“He could have ridden down that way and seen Harry and Anne at their play, sir,” Livesey pointed out, admittedly spinning very wispy spider webs out of Marsden’s very suspicion … desperation. Even he had trouble picturing it, like a very dry and old spider that had not snagged a fly in weeks. “Was he so disillusioned by Harry’s adultery—did it come out and destroy their faction, Harry and Osgoode, and all their good work with one blow—wouldn’t a dead Harry serve better as a martyr, not a disgrace, sir? Or, had he ambitions to lead …”
“Thomas Lakey had no such aspirations that I ever saw, Matthew,” Osgoode Moore quickly dismissed. “He’s the most supportive fellow I know, always encouraging. Had good ideas, I admit, but he was always content to serve. Took minutes, corresponding secretary, treasurer.”
“Then, might’ve Thomas Lakey had … feelings for your wife on the sly and felt badly let down … ?” Livesey fumblingly posed, losing enthusiasm even as he did so, knowing what a stretch he was making.
“Bachelor Thom?” Marsden cackled. “I doubt it. I ain’t sayin’ Lakey’s p’culiar, fer he’s ever adored women’s comp’ny, but he doesn’t stray off th’ porch on his home ground, d’ye get my meanin’.”
“Uhm … perhaps I don’t,” Livesey said, at a loss; that happened now and again, when confronted by a particularly impenetrable and esoteric Low Country folk idiom.
“Meanin’ uh …” Marsden gravelled, shifting his quid from one side of his mouth to the other to find a polite way to say it plainly in mixed company. “In my lifetime o’ knowin’ him, Thom Lakey doesn’t need continual feminine comp’ny. Never married, but never goes without ah … congress, whene’er th’ need arise. Th’ hired morts?” Mr Marsden added, as Livesey continued to gaze at him, still unenlightened. “A fetchin’ servant girl?”
“Ah!” Livesey exclaimed, at last.
“Outta town,” Marsden said further. “Mostly. Charleston, an’ places like that. Osgoode can tell ye more o’ that.”
“Uhm,” Osgoode stumbled, stiffening to be put on the spot, and with Biddy by his side looking up quizzically. “When traveling with him in the past, Thom was of the wont to be … entertained … only in the best ah … houses. Willing widows and such. Ever discreetly!’
“Meanin’ he’d tread a hen in another pen, but he’s not a cock-rooster who’d crow, after, either,” Mr Marsden added, quite perkily, as if relishing Livesey’s prim Northern perplexity. “An’ safer with local ladies an’ girls than a tonsured Dago monk. Why Thorn’s so well trusted by local men. Respected, too, after all th’ profit he’s had from his plantation an’ bus’ness int’rests.”
“Hmmm … I suppose, then,” Livesey said with a sigh, sinking back against the settee back, having played his last card and lost.
“Excuse me, again, gentlemen,” Bess shyly spoke up, with her hand up as if trying to respond at her schooling. “When Andrew walked me home, yesterday … he was with me when I met Jemmy Bowlegs and his friend, Autie, the ginger-beer monger … they were the ones who kept watch on Mistress Moore’s house for me, the ones who saw her dispose of that gown yonder, and fetched it to us. Andrew was … peeved that I spoke to Jemmy, as ifl was snubbing his presence?”
“So a boy’s cross with ye. So?” Marsden impatiently fumed.
“Well, sir, were Andrew’s feelings hurt, isn’t it possible that he might have made at least passing mention to his uncle?” Bess added. “I have gathered that Andrew Hewlett is ah, some fond of me, and …”
“Why Thomas Lakey invited us out to the Lodge,” Mr Livesey grumbled. “Spoke of allowing Andrew and my daughter to see what sort of future relationship might come ofit, d’ye see.”
“He did?” Bess gasped, “Oh … my!” She blushed, wishing for a hand-fan to cool her features—or hide behind.
“Could he not have …” Livesey speculated with his fingers at the tip of his nose in a steeple. “… stayed in town on his social calls, seen Bowlegs and his friend purloin that gown, by accident, perhaps, and … that brick thrown through my window last night! The note on it did warn me to call off my … daughter, though that wasn’t quite the scurrilous term used! It said ‘newcomes keep out of our business’ too. We are newcomes to Thomas Lakey’s lights. Osgoode! When Thom called on Anne, did either of them seem noticeably out-of-sorts?”
“Well, no, not really.” Osgoode tried to remember: “Anne was out-of-sorts and a trifle tetchy for a time, but I put that down to a headache and the gloomy occasion of Georgina’s memorial gathering. She brightened considerable after Thom arrived. Thomas, well … he was his usual droll self. Didn’t stay as long as was his custom, but… coming in and going out, he did seem as if he had other calls to make that night, so he might have seemed a tad rushed, in fact.”
“Calls unbidden, long after supper and dark?” Livesey asked. “I’d have thought the demands of a successful planter’s life wouldn’t allow for late-night rambles in town, nigh ten miles from home. Would he take lodgings somewhere for the night, d’ye think?”
“He’d usually overnight with me, Matthew,” Osgoode informed him. “At Harry’s, too, even was Harry and Georgina away.”
“Now that’s da … deuced interesting!” Livesey exclaimed. “If you were absent, he’d still stay at your house, Osgoode?”
“Well, of course! Most times, though, when I was away on the faction work, Thom would ride with me, d’ye see, but when I was away on law business, we’d give him a spare bedchamber. God, Matthew, he is the perfect gentlemen. I’ve known him all my life!”
“Knew Harry yer whole life, too, Osgoode,” Marsden dryly said.
“And besides Harry, when he called,” Livesey enthusiastically continued, levering himself to his feet again, despite the dull ache in his right thigh and stump, “was Anne in the habit of allowing Lakey to call upon her in the mornings, in her bedchamber?”
“Well, yes, he was the only other I know of that—”
“There’s only three men with access to Anne Moore’s bedchamber, and wardrobe, sirs!” Livesey all but shouted. “Osgoode, here, Thomas Lakey, and Harry—and Harry’s dead. Had he known, somehow, the secret this gown holds … had he spied them out when they met on his land, perhaps even watc
hed Anne make up her coded bouquets, and smoked out the significance oflace, or ribbon, or flowervariety …?”
Osgoode was, by then, almost goggle-eyed in surprise, and Mr Marsden had left off chewing his quid, scowling as was his wont, but with a shrewd cast to his eyes.
“Mr Marsden, we have no other possibility to pursue,” Mr Livesey urgently proposed. “If Thom Lakey was in Wilmington when someone tried to burn me out, at the least he might have seen something, someone’s, or several someones, doing odd things. It seems queer to me, though, that he has so many links to the evidence we’ve gathered, so … might it not be worthwhile to ask him a few questions, sir?”
“Well…”
“For instance, God forbid, where was Mr Lakey the night of Harry’s death?” Livesey dared demand. “Osgoode, he came to the Widow Yadkin’s, didn’t he? What do you recall of his doings that night?”
“Thom turned up at the ordinary a bit after I did, a bit after you,” Osgoode related, now frowning in concern, himself. “We chatted for a moment. Said he’d come by the house, but we’d already gone out, that he’d wished to speak to Anne before she went to the Lillington’s supper party then walk with me to Yadkin’s, but missed both of us. I … I particularly recall that when I left, just a little after eight o’clock, I felt hellish relieved that Thorn’s horse wasn’t in the yard. I was on my way to my shallop, then, to be with dear Biddy,” he said as he turned briefly to bestow the girl a doting smile, and a pat on her hand. “The last thing I needed was to give Thom grist for his gossip mill.”
“Rode in from The Lodge, not coached?” Livesey asked, with mounting excitement.
“Wanted to show off his new mare, I think,” Osgoode told him with an easy laugh. “Lovely coffee-brown beast, ‘bout fifteen hands high. Wouldn’t race her, but … hmmm. Matthew,” Osgoode said more soberly, shifting uneasily on his chair, “I think Ijaped him over his clothes, that evening. Not his customary frippery. Thomas wore a suit of bottle-green ditto, coat and breeches the same, a plain black tricorne and black waistcoat. Asked him, had he found religion, or was he going … hunting! Oh, God.” Osgoode blanched, then squirmed uncomfortably again. “Why, when he shewed me his new mare, he even had a cloak behind the saddle, though it was a warm evening.”
“Umhmm!” Livesey commented, stamping his cane on the floor. “You were there, too, Matthew,” Osgoode said. “Did you note when he left?”
“Ah, no,” Livesey had to confess. “Harry and I were by then … cherry-merry. Quite betook by wine. Sorry. Mr Marsden, sir—” he said, turning to that worthy, “knowing this, don’t you think that we must speak with Thomas Lakey? No matter how ridiculous it seems?”
Marsden chewed on that idea for a second or two, mouth working as if he’d found a tough stem or a pea-gravel in his tobacco quid, in a black pet. “I will own t’havin’ a hellish curiosity ‘bout what ol’ Thom might have t’say ‘bout all these … coincidences. Why not?” he said, disposing of his chew into the kid, and rising, calling for his hat and cane.
“Sillitoe, I’ll have me coach fetched ‘round,” Marsden ordered, “an’ I’ll thank that Captain Buckles or whatever his damn name is to accomp’ny us … with a brace o’ his redcoats, just in case. What th’ devil happened t’ye, man?
Sillitoe had, in fetching the magistrate’s dinner, been treated rather roughly by some of the hotheads; he now sported a livid bruise on his cheek, and his usually immaculate attempt at formal livery had suffered, too.
“Never mind, Sillitoe, we’ll speak of it later,” Marsden said. “Best hunt up Constable Swann while yer at it. Mr Livesey!”
“Sir?” Livesey replied, much relieved that he had been able to convince the magistrate to continue looking for a suspect.
“Care t’be in at th’ kill … if killin’ there be?” Mr Marsden offered. “Clever wits such’s yers might think o’ somethin’ I don’t. Though if this notion of yers don’t work, God help ye, an’ us.”
“I would, sir, indeed,” Livesey eagerly answered.
“Don’t want t’ride back t’Wilmington an’ find it up in ñames,” Mr Marsden said with a droll snicker to the others. “I’d admire did ye stay here in th’ courthouse ‘til I’m back, Osgoode. Healthier for ye. Same goes for yer father, Mistress MacDougall, ‘til I can assure th’ gath’rin’ mobs that he’s innocent. Knowin’ Eachan, it’s best he’s still in cells a while longer.”
“Amen t’that, Mr Marsden, sir,” Biddy said with a knowing shrug, and a grateful curtsy.
“Whilst he’s still in there, Osgoode,” Marsden gleefully suggested, “so he can’t get at ye, might be a good time t’tell him how ye been courtin’ his little girl … an’ what-all yer intentions are, an’ I do trust I’ll see ye at Services t’morrow, Osgoode … ‘mong th’ quick, not th’ dead. Need a soldier or two t’help with that, hmm?”
“Uhh …” Moore replied with a gulp, suddenly realizing what he faced, but putting a determined arm about Biddy MacDougall’s shoulders.
“Miss, I’d offer regrets t’yer father, though I doubt he’s of a mood t’hear ’em,” Marsden gently said. “My pardons for any rough treatment, anyway, though he brought most of it on himself.”
“Och, I’ll try, yer honor, sir!”
“Think Anne’d be at church tomorrow, Osgoode?”
“Doubt it, sir… not in our pew box, at any rate.”
“Damme, but I’d love t’see th’ look on her face when ye spring yer handsome s’prise on that hussy! Well… come on, Livesey. Let’s go try our wits on Thom Lakey, an’ see what he’s got t’say.”
Chapter 32
A WARM, Low Country afternoon burned bright as brass, the winds unaccountably still, and the lushly vibrant-green leaves on the deciduous trees, and the boughs and needles on the towering, spindly pines, stood motionless. High-piled, convoluted cloud heads stood tall over Cabbage Inlet and the Sounds, but here, a few miles inland, what sea breeze might develop was muffled by the vast forests.
The magistrate’s coach-and-four turned off the Duplin Road onto the graveled and oyster-shelled drive of Lakey’s Lodge at last, leaving a much worse-tended public road of ruts, puddles, sandy patches and mud. On either hand of the long drive, crops of corn, flax and hemp, of tobacco and cotton, sprouted springtime knee- or shin-high, brighter green than the woods, and brilliant with promise against the backdrop of rich umber and sand soil. A few thin files of men and women, with children here and there, grudgingly, slowly, toiled in the planted rows—field-slaves—with here and there an overseer or gang-boss keeping an eye on them from horseback: either a Free Negro or trusty slave bossing his own kind, or a White who was used to bossing.
Between each planted field stood windbreaks of hardwoods: trees and shrubs, spared for the purpose when the forests were clear-cut, or woodlots of mixed trees and secondary growth to be used for firewood, pine resins and turpentine, or later construction … places where the pigs could root, and livestock could find cooling shade. Other fields in the distance sprouted lawn-like cover crops, where animals grazed, and the grasses and their ordure would be turned under to re-nourish the land. Others, stoutly fenced off with zig-zag pine fences, stood fuzzy with varieties ofhay.
Though he had never exactly aspired to being a real farmer, Mr Matthew Livesey knewjust enough of the new, scientific ideas about rotational agriculture to be impressed, as he leaned his head out from his side of the coach, ducked and peered across Constable Swann to see out the other side to take it all in. Had he not been a fool, had he not gone gallivanting off with the militia to lose his leg, this was what he might have hoped his lost acres to become … somehow. Perhaps at Samuel’s hand? Livesey enviously thought, am I wrong to press him into following my trade? For which, he’s sometimes so inapt?
He sat back on the bench seat, flushed with the heat, and with a guilty idea that his pride was in the way of clearer thinking. Did Pride, indeed, “goeth before a fall,” would Livesey & Son go under with Samuel at the helm, or should he face the sad
reality, take a partner who was knackier at business… ? He firmly pushed that thought away, saving it for later cogitation and forcing himselfback to the matter at hand.
Mr Marsden had been leaning out his own window of the fine coach, and suddenly thumped his cane on the roof as he hauled himself to the door and opened it to lean out, waving his cane horizontally to summon someone. “Here, boy! Whoa up a minute,” he ordered.
A Negro in pantaloon-like trousers and loose, sleeveless shirt astride a saddle horse appeared alongside the coach on Marsden’s side, leading a second saddled horse by the reins. “Yassuh?” he shyly said, quickly doffing a ragged straw hat.
“Where ye goin’ with that horse, boy?” Marsden asked.
“Takin ‘im back t’Mistah Taneyhill’s Liv’ry fo’ de massah, suh.”
“Yer master rented a horse in town last night, did he?” Marsden further enquired, sharing a brief glare of certitude with Livesey and Constable Swann.
“Uh, yassuh,” the young stableman replied.
“Come home late? When, d’ye know?” Swann spoke up.
“An hour’r two ‘fo’ sunup, Massuh Thom did, yassuh.”
“Roused ye out, hey?” Marsden asked with a cheerful tone.
“Ah, yassuh, I sleep in ober de stables, suh,” the lad answered, put at his ease by Marsden’s sunny, teasing enquiry, and perking up a tad from a slave’s customary wary deference.
“An’ Mr Thorn’s to home, do we call on him?”
“Uh, yassuh, bot’ de massuhs be up t’de house, umhmm.”
“Well, that’s mighty fine, then,” Marsden said, sounding happy, if only for the lad’s benefit. “Get along t’town, ‘fore it gets too hot on ye.” Marsden leaned back and shut the coach door as the slave clucked his tongue, shook reins and tapped his bare heels along his mount’s flanks to continue his journey at a sedate, time-eating gait that might give him a whole afternoon of at least seeming freedom.
“Shouldn’t we have asked him how Lakey acted, or … ?” Livesey dared to suggest, as their coach got into motion again, as well.
What Lies Buried: A Novel of Old Cape Fear Page 29