Favian stared at the smooth back of Lieutenant Roberts’s nut-brown head across the room; the preposterous feathers of the pink hat beside him were brushing his cheek. The lads would be on their way by now. At first he had meant to join them, until it was pointed out that his absence from the play might draw suspicion. He was eager to discover what progress the others had made. He would have to wait until tomorrow to find out. In the meantime, Favian consoled himself, he had the happy prospect of Miss Bedford’s company. He thought how he might engineer an opportunity to sit by her at the play.
“Tell me—what of this afternoon’s disturbances?” It was Raif’s voice. Favian drew closer to the group by the fireplace. “Have there been more arrests?”
“A bullock escaped from the pens,” answered the vicar, Mr. Prattman. “And Dan Whittle called Geordie Munsen a thief in the presence of witnesses. He refused to retract for at least an hour …”
“There’s been bad blood between them over a diseased hen Geordie supplied Dan last Michaelmas,” explained Captain Adams. He was a middle-aged man with an air of boyish sincerity lingering about his fleshy face.
“Other than that,” the parson shrugged, “to my mind there’s been less trouble this opening day than some other years.”
“Remember the time in ’08 when the heelanders met the townsmen in pitched battle in the marketplace? Almost closed the fairs that time,” Captain Adams reminisced fondly.
“I believe that was ’07 …”
“Surely not. I had just purchased my good Welsh cob—it was ’08 for sure.”
“My dear Adams …”
“What about the colonel’s radicals? The men the lieutenant took up?” Jarrett looked across at his host. Mr. Bedford had a square head on square shoulders and a watchful stillness about him. “The vicar says one of them was your coachman, Bedford—is that true?”
“Man was drunk.” The manufacturer’s speech was truncated as if unnecessary syllables were a waste of his time. “On his own time; gave him the afternoon off.” He seemed unmoved by his servant’s misdemeanors. “Leave him overnight. Learn his lesson.”
“I applaud you, sir!” chimed in Mr. George delightedly. “A firm hand’s the thing. Servants are forever taking advantage without it.” Jarrett considered Mr. George, wondering how many servants the civil servant kept. He looked like a man who lived in lodgings. Mr. George’s attention was fixed on their host, he noted, like a faithful hound.
“So the other two were the radicals?” he suggested.
“Just miners,” replied Mr. Kelso.
“It is early days, Mr. Jarrett.” Colonel Ison breezed up. He shook hands with his host and nodded to the rest. “Apologies. I was detained.”
When they’d last met, he had been irritable, even alarmed. Now he seemed almost jovial. Jarrett wondered what might have occurred in the few intervening hours. Ison rubbed shoulders with Favian and glanced down at him.
“Colonel Ison! How do you do, sir?” The youth greeted him with a smile. “How goes the investigation into the death at the Bucket and Broom?”
“Investigation? There is no investigation!” responded the colonel with a touch of his old irascibility. “’Twas a natural death. Body’s been sent to London for burial.”
“I understood there were signs of foul play …” Favian said.
“Who told you that?” The colonel flicked a glance in Jarrett’s direction. He harrumphed. “Nonsense! I have lived in this district all my life. Perhaps I may be allowed to judge matters better than those who’ve not been here a twelvemonth!”
It was oppressive here by the fire. Too much hot air. Jarrett’s thoughts slipped to the Tewards and their inn on the cold, clear moor. The snow should be falling up there by now. Hadn’t Duffin mentioned he would be rabbiting out that way tonight? He searched the press of heads for his hostess’s ostrich feathers, planning his exit. The party should be leaving for the theater soon.
Charles was over by the buffet. Mrs. Bedford had supplied an extravagant collection of desserts to tempt her guests. The centerpiece of the table was a vaguely offcentre pyramid of crystal dishes holding colored blancmanges and jellies molded in fanciful shapes. It gave the uneasy impression it might come tumbling down if anyone disturbed it by helping themselves to a dish. Every substance was pulled and molded into the semblance of what it was not—flowers, fish, birds, leaves. The nap of Charles’s black superfine coat gleamed rich in the light of the candelabra held aloft by a gilded nymph on a polished pink marble plinth. He leaned forward to select a pastry piped into the shape of a plump dove glazed with raspberry jam.
“That’s bound to ooze when you bite into it and ten to one it tastes of warmed wax,” Jarrett murmured, coming up behind him. Such displays were made to impress the eye, not the palate. Charles cast a look down at his handsome waistcoat of embroidered Florentine silk and withdrew his hand with a small reluctant sigh.
“There’s Miss Lonsdale! Good company at last!” Charles checked himself, noting the ladies filling the seats around her. “Oh lord! What a tedious collection of old cats!” he said, and wandered off in the opposite direction.
She was looking right at him. It would be rude to leave without paying his respects. Tonight she was dressed in a claret-colored velvet bodice cut low at the neck and cinched at the waist with a mother-of-pearl clasp. Her back was straight and her long legs made an elegant line as the fabric fell in rich velvety folds over an underdress of white satin. A ribbon of matching velvet confined her soft curls, and jewels in her necklace picked up the same tint. Miss Lonsdale had an instinct for color. She drew the eye. Miss Lippett, sitting at her side, in contrast, was a poor counterfeit of a woman. She was wearing dull black satin up to her neck and a sour expression. The eccentric spinster flicked a glance in his direction and quite deliberately turned her back to him.
“The colonel says there is a foreign agent at work among us …” The speaker was a flush-faced woman in yellow he had never seen before. Was the colonel taking everyone into his confidence? So much for his vaunted discretion.
“Among us, Mrs. Eustace?” cried Mrs. Adams, leaning forward and darting a nervous glance about the room.
“Not among us,” corrected Mrs. Eustace, “among the lower sort.”
“One would have thought one might notice a Frenchman.”
“Not a Frenchman!” exclaimed Mrs. Eustace, fanning herself. “I heard it from my cook, who had it from her cousin’s niece—she’s one of the colonel’s maids up at North Park. She was laying fires and heard them talking. They’re looking for an Englishman—”
“I don’t believe it!” Mrs. Adams exclaimed.
“A traitor of that sort is no Englishman!” stated Miss Lippett vehemently. “Hanging’s too good for them.”
“Or one that passes for such—a Yorkshireman, like one of them as is coming up for trial at York,” finished Mrs. Eustace triumphantly, pleased with the effect of her piece of news.
Jarrett marveled at this example of the efficiency of small-town gossip. Really, the spymasters of this world were missing a trick when they overlooked the natural talents of the opposite sex. He wondered idly if he were able to track down the niece of Mrs. Eustace’s cook’s cousin whether that person might be able to tell him to whom the colonel had been talking.
“It is almost eight—should we not be thinking of going over to the play?” It was Miss Lonsdale who spoke.
“I do not mean to go,” announced Miss Lippett.
Henrietta had arrived alone at Mrs. Bedford’s entertainment, her aunt, Mrs. Lonsdale, having taken to her bed pleading a headache, as was her wont to do when faced with the prospect of leaving her comfortable home on a winter’s night. Aunt Lonsdale had been reluctant to let her niece attend that evening, alarmed by the thought of Henrietta stepping foot in a theater without her chaperonage. Only Henrietta’s assurance that Miss Lippett—whom Aunt Lonsdale respected for her pedigree—would make one of the party had quieted her objections.
“M
iss Josephine,” Henrietta coaxed, hoping to persuade her. “I shall miss your company. Why, the royal family, I hear, is very fond of the theater; even her Majesty the Queen.” Miss Lippett, a hot Tory, had the greatest respect for the royal family, most particularly the poor benighted king and his good queen (their sons, for all they were princes, being, it could not be denied, rather wild).
“I have not heard that,” Miss Josephine said grudgingly. “My father, God rest his soul, abhorred the playhouse. Others may shift and compromise, but the old families have a duty to uphold what is proper.”
“But Lady Catherine has a passion for the playhouse,” said Miss Lonsdale. Lady Catherine’s pedigree was even longer than Miss Lippett’s. Indeed, Lady Catherine’s breeding was much too refined for her to set foot in Amelia Bedford’s house (besides which, as she frequently reminded anyone who would listen, she couldn’t abide fools).
“She has always been peculiar,” stated Miss Lippett with the splendid intolerance of one eccentric for another. “Romish,” she added, as if that explained it all.
Miss Lonsdale closed her mouth over the retort that rose to her lips. She was very fond of Lady Catherine and her religion was nothing to do with the case. At times Josephine Lippett was a remarkably silly woman for all her extensive reading. Mr. Jarrett was watching them. His eyes met hers with a sympathetic expression. She broke the connection, feeling a little flustered.
“I confess I am eager to see The Beggar’s Opera. I’m told it is most amusing,” she said lightly.
“Strolling players impersonating thieves and whores!” exclaimed Miss Josephine.
“Miss Lippett! Language, pray!” cried Mrs. Eustace, fanning herself with an excess of propriety. Miss Lippett threw her a contemptuous glance that amply conveyed her opinion that Mrs. Eustace was only the butcher’s wife and therefore beneath her consideration.
“I speak as I find.”
“Why, Mr. Jarrett,” Miss Henrietta said, her smile leaping the barrier between them, “do come join us—we are too much women here.”
Miss Josephine Lippett stood up abruptly.
“I have a headache,” she announced. With a ghost of a nod to the ladies she stalked past Mr. Jarrett.
A gong sounded from the hall and Mr. Bedford’s voice was heard announcing the departure for the theater. Jarrett blinked. Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Eustace were gazing at him in silence, as if they expected him to do something extraordinary. Henrietta rose to her feet like a naiad arising from frozen water.
“Mr. Jarrett, may I take your arm?”
It was only as he helped Miss Lonsdale on with her cloak that Mr. Jarrett remembered his intention to make his excuses and avoid the play.
Outside in the cold night, the spy looked out from the shelter of the tollbooth. The moon was hidden behind cloud. He could just make out the pens and backs of the beasts that shifted and murmured in their sleep. At the top of the marketplace a fire flared. The watchmen guarding the cattle were clustered around a brazier. A couple of soldiers had joined them. It was early yet. He would be safe enough here. He settled himself, concealed in the shadows.
He was well paid. He made sure of that, but there was more to it. He liked the parts he played. When he assumed his part he was invisible. He could stand right next to any one of them and not one would recognize his importance. Once upon a time he had resented his anonymity, then he learned how it could be turned to his advantage. He was a valuable man. They had no idea. Some days he held their lives in his hands. He went over his part, preparing himself for the night’s work.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“No madam.” The voice had a Londoner’s nasal intonation overlaid with an upper servant’s propriety.
“What you saying, woman?” Mrs. Eustace responded truculently. She was out of sight above. Mrs. Adams, who followed her, had stopped at the top of the short flight of stairs that led to the boxes. Henrietta craned her neck to peek around Mrs. Adams’s bulk. At that angle she could just see a slice of Mrs. Eustace’s head. The butcher’s wife was halted halfway down the narrow walkway behind the boxes. Lady Catherine occupied the stall nearest the stage. Mrs. Eustace and Mrs. Adams were hoping to occupy the next.
“This is a private box.” The statement was made in a tone of immovable politeness. Mrs. Eustace twitched in fury and Henrietta glimpsed a sharp-faced middle-aged woman with a prominent bust. Fancy, Lady Catherine’s maid. Fancy was formidable. Mrs. Eustace was red-faced but retreating.
“This box, madam, I believe is free,” the servant said firmly.
The box places were limited and the ladies of Woolbridge were competing to secure a seat. Mr. Jarrett had been shouldered aside in the rush through the door. Henrietta, pulled along in the wake of Mrs. Adams, found herself stranded there, at the bottom of the left-hand stair. The barn was chilly and damp. She pulled her velvet evening cloak around her. Men on the back row of the pit had turned round to stare. They were eating sausages and nuts and one had a cup of ale. She felt exposed and out of place. Miss Josephine, for all her excessively stiff-backed morality, was right not to come.
At a signal from the manager, the musicians to the side of the stage began the overture again. The latecomers were holding up the opera.
“Fancy, where are my guests?” Lady Catherine’s patrician tones cut across the noise. Fancy appeared at the top of the stairs. She beckoned Henrietta up.
“Just here my lady.”
Relieved and a little bewildered, Henrietta followed the maid past Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Eustace, who sat like a pair of outraged hens in the back box. They turned their faces resolutely away from her polite smile.
“I wouldn’t like to guess what that young woman spends on her clothes,” she heard Mrs. Eustace say. “I saw that silk velvet at twelve shillings a yard …”
In an oasis of clear space, Lady Catherine sat enveloped in an olive-green silk counterpane gorgeously embroidered with oriental flowers and birds of paradise. She had before her a short ebony crutch with an upholstered top upon which she rested her arms to relieve the weight of her hunched back. At her feet, her white and tan terrier lay curled up on a large tasseled cushion covered in scarlet brocade. The curve of the old lady’s spine was such she was forced to twist her head to the side to see out. Her expression was alive with puckish intelligence.
“Come! Come! Tell me about the Bedford woman. She has a new toy, I hear. Likes to play with soldiers, eh?”
Henrietta slid a glance to her right. Mrs. Eustace glared at her across the vacant chairs. The rest of the theater was almost full.
“I believe there are some coming in, Lady Catherine, who might be grateful for those seats,” she suggested tactfully.
“Paid the man a guinea for them,” the old lady said with supreme lack of concern. “They’re for me guests.”
His foot disturbed straw. The stink of the strollers’ playhouse filled his nostrils—pressed humanity mixed with turpentine, cattle and warmed animal grease. He had paid for his ticket. That didn’t mean he had to use it. He’d let the rush subside, Jarrett thought to himself. Mrs. Bedford’s principal guests were dividing up the stairs, left and right. The sheep and the goats. Justice Raistrick, as befitted the patron of that night’s entertainment, occupied the right-hand box nearest the stage. He had Bedford with him. And Mr. George. So the army buyer had filled his contract, had he? The groundlings were getting restless. The opera had been held up long enough. It wouldn’t be long before those lads in the pit started throwing the nut shells and other debris that littered the floor. He heard Charles arguing with Grub behind him.
“So you’re saying you would rather save an archbishop from the fire in preference to your mother?”
“You know my mother, cousin. Then again, I don’t know any archbishops.”
“Damned puppy!” exclaimed Charles, laughing.
Jarrett grinned across at Grub, but the boy dropped his eyes.
“Excuse me,” he said and slipped away toward the right-hand stairs.
&nbs
p; “What? Isn’t Grub talking to me?”
An uneasy expression flickered across Charles’s smooth face.
“Nonsense,” he said with a little too much emphasis. “It’ll be the girl. You know how that goes.” Mrs. Bedford pushed past on the lieutenant’s arm. “Lieutenant!” Charles hailed him. “You’re settled, I see. And where are you billeted?”
A faint blush stole over the officer’s smooth cheek.
“Mr. and Mrs. Bedford have been so kind as to offer me a room.”
“Silly boy! I tell him not to make so much of it. It is our duty to support our noble defenders!” Mrs. Bedford trilled with a roguish look.
“Indeed.” Charles gazed back at the pair politely.
“Thank you for your hospitality this evening, Mrs. Bedford,” Jarrett said, just to be saying something. “You do your guests proud.”
“And why wouldn’t I?” the manufacturer’s wife demanded. Her hand twitched the immense pearls that hung around her neck like so many beads. “Woolbridge may be far from London and other grand places but I still know how things are done!” She tugged her escort’s arm and stepped up the right-hand stairs, the swing of her skirts reminiscent of an angry cat swishing its tail.
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