The Lonely Earl

by Vanessa Gray

  Within an hour, Faustina drove up, alone, in her gig. She had come at once, consumed by curiosity. She had read a warning between Betsy’s carefully formed lines, and came in the front entrance of the inn.

  “Good afternoon, Benjamin! How are you? Fine spring weather now that the storm is past. I wonder whether Betsy might make some special scones for Sunday morning…”

  In such airy fashion she moved adroitly past the open door to the taproom, not glancing inside, and down the hall to the kitchen door.

  “Thank the Lord you are here,” said Betsy. I’m just at my wits’ end in puzzling out what to do, and that’s a fact.”

  “I could not get Joseph to tell me what was amiss,” said Faustina, sitting down in a wooden chair and drawing off her gloves. “He will be coming along soon. He seemed not to want to come with me.”

  “Used some sense for once,” grumbled his proud mother. “Best for nobody to know I asked you to come. But he couldn’t tell you anything, Miss Faustina, for he didn’t know. But this is what happened…”

  In a few moments Faustina was in possession of the facts, as far as Betsy knew them. But I wonder why, she thought. Zelle is not one to put herself out for the child, I shouldn’t think.

  Aloud she said, “The woman gave no hint? Well, perhaps Althea can tell us when she wakes.”

  But Althea did not tell them. “I don’t know,” she said vehemently. “I don’t know anything!”

  “Well, now,” said Faustina admiringly, “I know you would have been smart enough to ask Zelle why she was getting you up from your nap to walk all the way to town!”

  “I wasn’t in bed, I was in the…”

  Faced with the wedge of the small bit of information she had let drop, Althea capitulated. “If,” she bargained, “I can see the horses.”

  This was not the time, thought Faustina, to attempt to rebuild Althea’s sadly lacking character. “Fine,” said Faustina. “When young Joe comes back, he’ll take you to the stables.” Her eyes sought Betsy’s permission. After Althea’s terse narrative, she was released in Joseph’s custody as he came in the back door. Faustina and Betsy looked at each other in dismay.

  “What are we going to do?” said Mistress Kyd, looking hopefully at Faustina. “I don’t like that part about the ghost of the earl!”

  Faustina’s memory served up to her the recollection of the shots in the night. Another inch, so she had been told, and the earl would indeed be a ghost.

  “Miss Faustina!” said Betsy sharply. “I’ll get some brandy!”

  “No, no, Betsy! I’m quite all right.” She thought swiftly. “First we must see that Althea doesn’t go back to that house. I can’t believe quite all she said she overheard, you know.”

  “It does sound right queer,” agreed Betsy. “But if I ever saw a frightened woman, that foreigner was one. And I wouldn’t think she scared easy.”

  “But what of the child? Do you think she understands?”

  “Hard to say, miss. She’s like her grandmother. I daresay you don’t remember the old countess, but I tell you this one’s a copy if ever was. Took all her fences, as they say.”

  “Hugh’s mother? I don’t remember much of her but a great beak of a nose and… Well, what is this to the point? If Hugh is in danger, we must do something!”

  But what to do? It was surely like something she had seen in the theater in London — villains, and heroes, and black deeds done in the night. But this was real, this was Devonshire, where she would have walked anywhere in the shire without fear of more than footpads. But murder…

  “I must tell my cousin,” she decided. “Ned will know what to do. I do not wish to trouble my father with it. Besides, I doubt he would take it seriously.”

  “If he had seen that woman’s face, he would.”

  “Well, there’s little likelihood of that. So I must be on my way. You’ll keep the child?”

  “For a bit. But I can’t keep her here if Master Vincent comes, you know that, miss.”

  “I know that. I’ll send Bucky for her as soon as I get home. It won’t do for me to come back. It might be as well if no one knows where she is.”

  Faustina had reached the door before Betsy Kyd spoke what was in her mind. “What if Lord Pendarvis is really in… in trouble?”

  Faustina paused. “You mean, suppose he is connected with the smuggling? I tell you this, Hugh Crale doesn’t have a criminal bone in his body. He is not a smuggler, believe me!”

  She was halfway to the vicarage before it occurred to her to wonder how she could speak with such finality of a man whom she did not truly know. Moreover, a man whose character she had no great opinion of, and had said so, more than once. But she simply knew, she thought, and rightly dismissed the possibility.

  Ned would be at the vicarage. He had told her he was taking a book to Miss Bidwell, “to beguile her hours of pain.” Faustina had looked at him in starting surmise. “Is her ankle so bad, then?”

  “There’s more than one kind of pain,” said Ned with tight lips, and left at once. Speculation ran over her mind quickly, as Ned headed for the stables, whistling, but she was not allowed the time to wonder further, for just then young Joseph had arrived with Betsy’s urgent message.

  Now she reached the gate of the vicarage, a small spreading house under an oak tree next to the church, at the opposite end of the village from the Green Man. For the first time she speculated on the life that was lived beneath that roof. Helen Astley was not a favorite of hers, nor was the vicar. She thought suddenly that Helen would be very hard to live with, and in such a small house there would be no safe retreat from her. Perhaps this was the pain that Ned meant.

  She had not yet lifted the latch when Aubrey emerged from the front door. “I am happy to see you here, Miss Kennett,” he said. “I wonder whether you would give me five minutes?” Upon receiving her surprised assent, he said, “Shall we stroll along to the church? I should like to talk to you.” He glanced nervously over his shoulder at the vicarage.

  “I really must talk to Ned first,” she said anxiously. “I have some unpleasant news he must hear at once.”

  “The family is greatly upset,” said Aubrey. “Believe me, your cousin is not at liberty to speak to you. And I really want to ask you—”

  “Not at liberty?” A quick vision of Ned tied up with rope and tossed in cellar flitted across her mind, and was gone. “What do you mean?”

  Aubrey Talbot was clearly laboring under some distress of mind. But, as he quickly indicated, it had nothing to do with Ned. “I must ask you this,” said Aubrey in agitation. “How is Miss Waverly? Why will she not see me? I called this morning at the Chase, and was told she would not see me. Do you know why? What have I done to offend her?”

  Faustina soothed him as much as she could. “Nothing that you have done, I am sure. It is only that my aunt has taken ill…”

  There was no way she could soften the situation for him. She looked carefully at him, noting the broad brow, the strong eyebrows, the pleasant good-natured face with resolute mouth and chin. The brown eyes, anxiously watching her face…

  “I’m sorry,” said Faustina. “Julia has promised her mother that she will not see you again.”

  “But why?”

  “Truly I do not believe that logic plays a part in this. My aunt is something of a law in herself, and Julia thought it best, I must suppose, to make that promise.”

  “I thought she liked me a little,” he said, deeply troubled.

  Remembering the lost expression in Julia’s eyes, and her confession to Faustina, she could only agree. But to Julia a promise was a promise — and whether given under duress or not, Faustina could not give Aubrey any reason to hope.

  With an obvious effort, after a few moments Aubrey returned by stages to the present. “But you spoke of urgent news, and I am keeping you.”

  “Perhaps you are the one I should tell, rather than Ned, anyway,” she said. “You are an old friend of Pendarvis?”

  “S
ince our boyhood.”

  “Then I should tell you what I have just learned.” Swiftly, in as few words as possible, she sketched the information received from Althea. “But of course I do not know how much to rely on the memory of such a small child.”

  Aubrey said shrewdly, “The maid has decamped, has she not?”

  Faustina said, “I do not know whether she has gone back to the Hall or not. I am so foolish! I just came away from Betsy’s without even thinking to inquire at the Hall. But then, Althea says that her father is away, and surely Zelle would not simply bring the child to Betsy without an overpowering reason. They are not on good terms, I should tell you.”

  Aubrey nodded, lost in thought. “It is a strange thing,” he said, “that until I arrived in Devonshire, my life had been a fairly routine affair. No family to kick up trouble, no debtors to chase me. In fact, an orderly, unemotional, dull life. But now…”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Now,” he continued, as though she had not spoken, “there is a great row going on inside the vicarage. The one girl who has stirred me as I have not been touched for ten years refuses to see me. And my dearest friend is a target for murder. You must admit, Miss Kennett, that Devonshire has an invigorating influence.”

  She could not spare time for Aubrey’s tangential philosophizing, she thought. “But what shall we do? Hugh’s away, and I don’t know where. How can I get word to him?”

  Surprisingly, Aubrey the philosopher transmuted himself into a man of action. “I will take word to him,” he announced.

  “You know where he is?”

  “Yes. He borrowed my roan, because he thought his gray was not ready for a long trip yet. Yes,” he added in answer to her unspoken question, “Revanche is just now in the stable behind the vicarage. It will take me only a few minutes to saddle. I shan’t take Peasley with me.”

  He left her. She stood undecided for a few moments, and then realized that she had done all she could for Hugh, at least for the moment. But there was still the need to tell Ned that perhaps his smugglers would attempt another murder, and if his riding officers were alert to the possibility…

  With resolution she walked up to the vicarage door. No one answered her knock, so she pushed open the door and entered. Certain sounds from within directed her to the drawing room of the small house. Nothing in her life, except perhaps Aunt Louisa, had prepared her for the scene that confronted her in the drawing room of Mr. Astley, man of God.

  Helen Astley was the center of the commotion. Sobbing with abandon, raising her tearstained face frequently to deliver a piercing stare at the man across the room, with a long-drawn-out moan she returned to her weeping.

  Her father leaned over the back of the settee, soothing his daughter with meaningless syllables, which, quite properly, she paid no heed to.

  In the intervals, he straightened in a queer little dancing step and shouted to the bewildered, red-faced man at the mantel. Her cousin Ned!

  “You came here under false pretenses!” cried the vicar. “Leading my little girl to hopes you had no intention of fulfilling. And Lady Waverly, too. I do not like to speak ill of someone,” he added viciously, “but your mother has a great deal to answer for.”

  “Leave my mother out of it,” roared Ned, stung. “She has nothing to do with this!”

  Faustina advanced a step into the room in an attempt to hear better. Perhaps her ears were deceiving her, she thought, and all this would vanish if she could just understand it.

  Ned caught sight of her, and his relief was embarrassingly obvious. “Faustina, damme, I’m glad to see you!”

  “He swore at me!” cried Helen.

  Diverted, Ned said, “I never did. You mean just now? That is outside of enough!”

  “Ned, please,” said Faustina earnestly. “Mr. Astley, I beg of you to calm yourself.” Gratified to see her words having a slight soothing effect, she exerted herself further. Casting a quelling glance at Helen, who had subsided into mere weeping spasms, she added, “I suppose it is too late to try to bring Helen to a sense of decorum, Mr. Astley. I do wish she would remember that weeping does nothing to advance her beauty in the least. But of course, giving way is a great relief to a hysterical turn of mind.”

  “Hysterical!” said Mr. Astley, affronted. “She has every reason to give way.”

  “She has none-at all,” retorted Ned, heartened by the presence of his cousin.

  “He promised me—”

  Ned grimaced. “I never promised you so much as the time of day,” he said with heat. “I don’t know where you got such an idiotic notion.”

  “You can’t deny that you have been making calls on my daughter?” cried Mr. Astley, his voice becoming shrill. “What was she to think except that you wished to marry her?”

  “Marry! Mr. Astley, surely you cannot wish Helen to marry a man who quite clearly is not interested in her?” marveled Faustina.

  “There are my daughter’s feelings,” said Mr. Astley, somewhat calmer.

  “But his mother said he was interested!” wailed Helen. It was becoming obvious to her that she had overestimated Ned’s feelings for her, and while she could not be expected to give up her hopes with good grace, what was gone was past weeping for. Besides, as Faustina had just said, a swollen face and red eyes were never attractive.

  “But I still don’t understand what has caused all this heat,” complained Faustina.

  “I told you I came to bring Miss Bidwell a book,” said Ned with a strong attempt at calm narration. “And I took it in to her.”

  “My daughter thought, of course, he had come to see her, and she hurried to receive him,” said Mr. Astley with a waspish glare at Ned.

  “He…” said Helen, rousing to thunderous tones of tragic drama, “was kissing her. I am so ashamed even to say the words — but there was no shame in that room!” She pointed vaguely toward the back of the house, where, presumably, Mary Bidwell sat with her ankle upon a stool and her thoughts in a spin.

  Ned kissing Mary? Faustina gaped at Ned in astonishment. He was rosy with embarrassment but gave no indication of backing down.

  “I must see Mary,” said Faustina hurriedly.

  “You do not believe me?” cried Helen.

  Faustina stood in the doorway, her skirts belling around her. “Oh, yes, I believe you,” she said, adding, “but I can’t see that it is a concern of yours. Mary is surely of age?”

  She turned and sought out the room, small and confined, where Mary spent her days. This day, at least at the moment, she spent in tears.

  Faustina took her hand kindly. “My dear,” she said, “you must try to bear up. I am foolishly fond of my cousin Ned, but I cannot believe he would deliberately insult you.”

  “Oh, no, Miss Kennett,” Mary said with a last gulping sob. “I am sorry to seem so missish. But Sir Edward has been so kind, and said… said such things… and then, to have all this… this misunderstanding. It is too bad of them!”

  “I should think your ankle pains too?” Faustina adjusted the pillow beneath it. “I never gave Helen any credit for being helpful in a sickroom, but any idiot would know this pillow is wrong.”

  She spoke bracingly, trying to decide what to do. If Ned were serious, as she strongly suspected, then her way was clear. After a moment she said, “Forgive me, but what did Ned say to you?”

  Mary looked away, out of the window, and did not answer. Well, her way was clear anyway. She got to her feet with decision.

  “In any event, you cannot stay here. I should imagine that you will be glad enough to leave such a house. I vow I could not abide such a pair myself.”

  “But I cannot travel,” said Mary, “and I do not know precisely where I can go.”

  “My dear, leave all the arrangements to me. I’ll send Woods, my maid, to pack for you, and before tea you will be out of here.”

  Mary sank back among the pillows. “I cannot…” she said, her lips quivering.

  “Of course you can. Now, don’t w
orry. Let someone else,” Faustina added with great kindness, “take care of you for once.”

  She left Mary weak with relief, and returned to the drawing room. Silence had, blessedly, fallen upon the trio. Ned started up anxiously, and she smiled reassuringly at him.

  “It is too bad, Mr. Astley,” she began briskly, “that a guest under your roof has been treated so shabbily.”

  “I quite agree,” said Mr. Astley, glancing sullenly at Ned.

  “Helen, I had not expected you to behave in such an ill-bred fashion to a guest.”

  “She is not a guest, you know,” said Helen spitefully. “She simply has no place else to live.”

  Mr. Astley agreed. “A charity case.”

  Ned made a motion as though to protest sharply, but Faustina quelled him with a glance. “I find it hard to believe that Miss Bidwell — a near cousin to Lady Horton, is she not? — is a charity case. I should imagine that you have misread the circumstances. That is a habit you have, is it not, Helen?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Faustina swept on. One part of her mind told her that she must bear a startling resemblance at that moment to her aunt, sweeping all objections ruthlessly aside.

  “Woods will come to pack Miss Bidwell’s things and bring her to Kennett Chase.” She was relieved to see the happy light spring up in Ned’s eyes. “Where she will be my honored guest.”

  She never looked back. She swept erectly out of the room, hearing Ned pounding close behind her. Not until they had reached the street did she turn to him. “Ned, what on earth are you thinking of? I vow I have never experienced such a half hour!”

  “Faustina, you’re good as gold. I wouldn’t have been able to get Mary out of there myself.” He looked nervously back at the cottage. “Do you think she’ll be all right there?”

  Now that it was over, Faustina’s amusement stirred. “You think they will smother her with pillows? I doubt that Mr. Astley will allow Helen full rein to her emotions.”