‘And do stand up straight instead of cringing like a gaby. I’ve a mind to lecture you, and I want your full attention.’
‘You have it, m’lord. I must have run mad to do what I did. But to lose everything—you understand—’
‘Indeed, not. I am quite unable to understand that I should ever gamble away money which I didn’t possess and a house which I did. As for compounding my folly by threatening to commit murder! No, no, I don’t understand—and nor should you.’
Allinson hung his head. Whether coming to his senses had brought him repentance was hard to tell. He muttered, ‘And after all, I am still ruined. I cannot expect you to show me any mercy now that I have threatened your life.’
Devenish sat down and motioned to Allinson to remain standing. ‘Before you came in enacting a Cheltenham tragedy, or rather, melodrama, one of my more sentimental relatives was begging me to spare you. I was inclined to disoblige him, but on second thoughts it might disoblige him more if I did as he wished. He will not then be able to contrast my vindictive bloody-mindedness with his forgiving virtue!
‘What I am prepared to do is to continue to hold your IOUs—’
Allinson gave a stifled moan. ‘I might have known,’ he muttered.
‘You know nothing for you have not allowed me to finish. You would do well to curb your reckless impetuosity before you become gallows’ meat. Hear me. What I am prepared to do is not to call them in so long as you refrain from gambling in future. Should you begin again I shall not hesitate to ruin you.’
This time Allinson groaned. ‘The sword of Damocles,’ he said at last. He was referring to the old legend in which a sword was held over Damocles’ head, poised to fall, put there by the tyrant he had flattered in order to show him the limitations of life and power.
‘Exactly. I’m charmed to discover that you learned something at Oxford—was it?’
‘You know it was. You seem to know everything.’
‘Enough.’ Devenish rose. ‘Do we have a bargain?’
‘You know we have. You leave me no choice—’
‘No indeed, again. Of course you have a choice—although I take your comment to mean a grudging acceptance of my generous offer.’
‘Generous offer,’ wailed Allinson. ‘You mock me again. I am your prisoner.’
Devenish pounced on Allinson once more. He grabbed hold of him, gripping him by his over-elaborate cravat.
‘Listen to me, you ungrateful young fool. You have, through my leniency, escaped the gallows because otherwise that is where your stupid escapade would have taken you. I offer you freedom and a chance to reform your dissolute life—and you jib at doing so.
‘Answer me! Yes or no, unequivocally?’
‘Yes—if you will stop strangling me,’ Allinson croaked.
‘Unequivocally, I said. Yes, or no?’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’
‘And remember what awaits you should you backslide.’
‘I’ll not do that.’ Inspiration struck Allinson. ‘I’ll…I’ll buy a commission, turn soldier—that should keep me out of trouble.’
Devenish gave a short laugh and released him. ‘God help the British Army, then! Now, go. I have letters to write and a speech to rehearse. Oh, and by the way, give Tresidder a guinea from your pocket to make up for the fright which you gave him.’
‘I haven’t got a guinea. My pockets are to let.’
‘Then give him the pin from your cravat instead—and be gone.’
The relieved boy scuttled out of the room, pulling the pin from his cravat as he left. Devenish said aloud to the damaged portrait of his grandfather, ‘God forgive me—although you wouldn’t have done—for letting him off. I must be growing soft these days.’
And then he sat down to finish his letter.
He was late arriving at Lady Leominster’s that night. He had written to Robert, naming a date for his arrival at Tresham—‘and God help you if you have sent for me for nothing,’ he had ended.
His speech in the Lords, asking for clemency and help for the starving Midlands framework knitters, who had recently rioted at Loughborough in Leicestershire, had created a great deal of excitement, if nothing else.
‘What interest do you belong to?’ one excited peer had shouted at him. ‘You’re Whig one week, and Tory the next.’
‘None,’ Devenish had shot back. ‘I’m my own man and you’d better not forget it.’
‘A loose cannon, careering round the deck then,’ his neighbour, Lord Granville, had said languidly to him. ‘Hit, miss and to the devil when anyone gets in your way.’
His reward for this shrewd comment was a crack of laughter from Devenish. ‘By God, Granville,’ he had offered, ‘you’d be Prime Minister if you could make a speech half as incisive as your private judgements.’
‘Not a remark anyone would make about you,’ returned Granville, his perfect politeness of delivery robbing his words of their sting. ‘You have no private judgements. Everything you say is for public consumption. So far as that goes, you’re the most honest man in the two Houses.’
Remembering this interchange, Devenish smiled when he saw Granville and his wife across the Leominsters’ ballroom, talking to the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth. Some devil in him, which desired confrontation today, had him walking over to them.
Sidmouth’s response to him was all that he had expected. ‘Ah, here comes the noble advocate for the murdering Luddites I’m busy trying to control! What got into you, Devenish, to have you defending them?’
Devenish had a sudden vision of a mean street in a Northern town where a half-starved boy and his penniless and widowed mother had eked out a poor living.
He repressed it and said, ‘I don’t condone their violence, you know, but I do understand what causes it. Some relief, surely, could be given to those who wish to work, but who are unable to do so.’
‘Not Jacobin tendencies then, eh, Devenish? No feeling for revolution?’ Sidmouth said this quietly. He was a mild man. ‘No, don’t answer me, I know that on the whole you are more like friend Granville here and favour moderate and gradual change.’
He paused, ‘Perhaps Lord and Lady Granville, you will forgive us both. Devenish is well met. I have need of a private and quiet word with him. You will both excuse us, I trust.’
The Granvilles assured him that they would. Sidmouth led Devenish into an ante-room and shut its double doors behind them. Without preamble he said, ‘Do you intend to visit Tresham in the near future?’
Devenish said, ‘I have thought of doing so, yes. It’s years since I was there. My agent reproaches me every month for my absence, so I have arranged to go as soon as the House rises.’
‘Yes, you take your duties seriously. As I take mine. I ask you because something odd has been happening there recently. The Lord Lieutenant of Surrey has brought to my notice that over the last few years two men, one a person of quality, have disappeared. The gentleman was later found murdered. Several women of the lower orders have also disappeared—one as recently as a month ago. No reason has been found for their disappearance, and apart from that of the gentleman, not one of their bodies has been recovered. He would like an enquiry made.
‘Now, I have the hands of myself—and the few men I have at my disposal—overfull with this business of controlling radical revolution, to say nothing of Luddite discontent. I was speaking to an old friend of mine—Wellington, to be exact—and he told me that he has reason to believe that you are a sound man in a crisis involving danger. That being so I would ask you—discreetly, mind—to investigate this sorry business and report back to me should you find anything of moment.’
Devenish’s first thought was of Robert’s mysterious letter. He said nothing, however, other than, ‘I think that the Duke overestimates my abilities, but I will do as you ask. As a stranger to the district it will not seem odd if I ask questions about it. I take it that that is all the information you have. Has no other landowner raised the matter?’
‘Yes
, Leander Harrington, the eccentric fellow who lives at Marsham Abbey, alerted the Lord Lieutenant about the second man who disappeared. It was his valet, and although he had no reason to believe that foul play was involved, he had given no warning of his imminent departure. On the other hand his clothes and possessions had gone, which seemed to indicate that he had left of his own free will.’
‘As a matter of interest, have you any information about the murdered gentleman?’
‘Yes, indeed. He was Jeremy Faulkner of Lyford, a young man of substance. He was found dead in a wood some miles from his home. His body had been brutally savaged by an animal, it was thought, although whether before or after death was not known. His widow, Mrs Drusilla Faulkner, the late Godfrey Stone of Stone Court’s daughter, had reported him missing at the beginning of the previous week.’
‘And Lyford House is less than a mile from my seat at Tresham. I see why you thought of me.’
‘Coupled with what Wellington hinted, yes.’
Well, at least it would help to pass the time at Tresham—and perhaps serve to subdue his unwanted memories.
‘I can’t promise success,’ Devenish said slowly, ‘but I’ll do my best.’
‘Excellent, I shall be able to reassure the Lord Lieutenant that I am taking him seriously—although I shall not tell him who my emissary is. The fewer people who know, the better. This business might be more dangerous than it appears.’
Sidmouth paused. ‘You’re a good fellow,’ he added warmly. ‘I felt sure that you would oblige me.’
‘Despite my reputation for never obliging anyone.’ Devenish began to laugh. ‘At least it will enliven a few dull weeks.’
Later he was to look back on that last remark and at the light-hearted fool who had made it, but at the time he walked back to the ballroom to congratulate Lord Orville on having won his beauty.
Chapter Two
‘Isn’t it time, Drusilla, my love, that you left off wearing your widow’s weeds? Jeremy has been gone for over two years now, and I don’t believe that he would approve of your hiding yourself away from the world, either.’
Miss Cordelia Faulkner looked anxiously at her nephew’s widow. She did not wish to distress her, but she thought that the time had come for something to be said.
‘Dear aunt,’ said Drusilla, looking up from her canvaswork, ‘I am scarcely wearing widow’s weeds. I have always chosen to dress modestly, and to live in like fashion, and I have certainly not hidden myself away from the world. I live a busy life locally, and only this week I have arranged with the parson of Tresham Magna that his annual fête to raise money for the poor children of the parish will be held in our gardens.’
‘I expressed myself badly. I should have said the polite world. You ought to marry again, my love, not spend your life pining for my poor, dead nephew, and where better would you find a husband than in London?’
How to answer that? Drusilla looked away and caught a glimpse of herself in the long Venetian glass which hung on the other side of the room.
She saw a composed young woman in her very early twenties, dressed in a high-waisted gown of pale mauve, the colour allowed to a widow during her second year of mourning—a year which was now over. Her glossy curls were dressed on top of her head, one ringlet falling round a swan-like neck. Her eyes were the soft grey of clear water and her complexion was creamy, with only the faintest blush of pink.
Jeremy had always called her lips kissable—and he had often kissed them during the two years of her marriage. No, that was not correct, Drusilla reminded herself sadly, for eighteen months only. He had barely touched them, or her, during their last six months together.
It was the memory of those last sad months which helped to keep her in thrall to him. What had gone wrong with their marriage that he had absented himself from her not only bodily, but mentally? What had changed him from a carefree laughing boy to a brooding man? Was it something which she had unwittingly said or done?
Drusilla returned to the present with a start. Miss Faulkner was staring at her. She put her work down. ‘I’m sorry, aunt, I was wool-gathering. But you already know that the polite world does not interest me, and I have no intention of marrying again.’
‘So you say now,’ remarked Miss Faulkner shrewdly. ‘Later, you will surely change your mind.’
She sat down opposite Drusilla and said, her voice a trifle sad, ‘I cannot recommend the single state, my dear. When I was young and foolish I turned down a man of solid worth because he was not romantic enough for me—my head was stuffed with cobwebs.
‘By the time I realised that I was neither pretty enough—nor rich enough—to catch the handsome young fellow I thought I loved, and would have settled for solid worth, he had found another bride. And I, I never found anyone else who wished to make me his wife, and I led a lonely life until Jeremy kindly asked me to be your attendant when you married him. Do not reserve my sad state for yourself. You are younger, prettier and richer than I ever was. Find a good man and marry him.’
Picking up her canvaswork again, Drusilla told Jeremy’s aunt what she had never thought to tell anyone. ‘This time I would wish to marry for love. Oh, don’t mistake me, my parents arranged our marriage and I was happy with Jeremy.’
Until the last six months, said her treacherous memory.
Repressing it, she continued, ‘I’m not hoping for a grand passion, just a homely love. The kind of love my parents shared. What Jeremy and I had was friendship. I may be foolish, and I may have to settle for less again, but not yet, please.’
‘Very well, my dear, so long as you don’t wait too long—or settle for a fortune hunter.’
‘Oh, I shall ask for your advice if one arrives. Would you forgive me if I settled for one who was young, handsome—and kind?’
Miss Faulkner smiled. ‘Ah, you mean like Miss Rebecca Rowallan’s Will Shafto, I suppose. There are not many of those on offer, I fear.’
Further conversation was stopped by an agitated rapping on the door, and the entry of Vobster, Drusilla’s chief groom.
‘Yes, what is it, Vobster?’
‘It’s Master Giles, ma’am. He’s trying to persuade me and Green to allow him to ride Brandy instead of Dapple. I fear that, unless you have a word with him, he won’t take no for an answer.’
Drusilla rose, shocked, her face paling. Behind her Miss Faulkner was making distressed noises. Giles was Drusilla’s eighteen-year-old brother, who had a badly crippled leg as the result of a strange childhood illness which had kept him bedridden for months.
Dapple was a mild and well-behaved nag whom the doctor had reluctantly given him permission to ride, but Brandy was quite a different matter. He was the most high-spirited horse in the Faulkners’ small stable.
‘I’ll come at once,’ she said quickly. ‘We can’t have him trying to ride Brandy.’
‘And so I said, but he wouldn’t be told.’
‘Well, he’ll listen to me, I hope. I don’t wish to ban him from riding at all, for I believe that it keeps him well and happy, but we can’t have him risking his neck on fliers like Brandy.’
She arrived in the stable yard to find that Giles had finally persuaded Green to allow him to mount Brandy, by promising that he would not ride him, but would allow Green to hold him steady in the stable yard.
‘I should so like to sit on a real horse for once,’ he had said pathetically, ‘instead of that rocking chair which is all Dru will allow me.’
‘And rightly so, Master Giles, for you have not the strength to control Brandy. It was all Mr Jeremy could do to hold him.’
Giles knew that Drusilla did not wish to sell Brandy, although she could not ride him, because it would mean that her happiest memories of her husband would have disappeared with him.
He looked proudly down at his sister. ‘See how well I sit on him, Dru,’ he said. ‘Pray allow me to ride him—if only for a few yards.’
Drusilla looked sadly at Giles. On horseback he appeared to be a handsome
and well-built boy for his withered leg was hidden by his breeches and his spotless boots. She also saw a masculine version of her own face. Parson Williams had nicknamed them Sebastian and Viola, the beautiful brother and sister in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, who were so alike that in boy’s clothes they could be mistaken for one another.
‘You know very well that you cannot do that. It is against the rules which the doctor insisted on for your own safety.’
‘Oh, pooh to him! My arms are strong enough for me to control any horse. I refuse to be namby-pambied any more. At least allow Vobster and Green to walk me on him for a short distance. You may watch me and see how well I do.’
He looked down at her, his face on fire. Drusilla knew how much he resented not being like other boys, particularly since it was plain that if his leg had been normal he would have had the physique of an athlete.
‘Very well,’ she said, relenting, ‘but you must promise to be good.’
His smile was dazzling. ‘Oh, I am always good, Dru! You know that.’
‘No such thing,’ she told him ruefully, but gave Green and Vobster permission to lead him and Brandy out of the yard and on to the track which led out of Lyford House to join a byway which led to Tresham Magna. Vobster was shaking his head a little because she had, as usual, given way to headstrong Master Giles and nothing good would come of that.
He was right. For the first hundred yards Giles behaved himself, trotting along equably, with Brandy showing his annoyance at being curbed by tossing his head and snorting. One of the stable lads, Jackson, mounted on Drusilla’s own horse Hereward, accompanied them. Drusilla herself, despite wearing only light kid sandals, brought up the rear.
The path was firm and dry and the July sun shone down on them. From a distance they would have made a suitably charming scene for the late animal painter, George Stubbs, to celebrate.
And then, as Drusilla afterwards mourned to Miss Faulkner, Giles had to spoil it. Without giving any warning of what he was about to do, he put spurs to Brandy who, nothing loath, reared his haughty head, and set off as though he were about to charge into battle or win the Derby.
The Devil and Drusilla Page 2