by S K Rizzolo
Chapter XXIII
The trees shivered, whispering low. Though bright sun illumined their tops, the forest floor seemed dim, mysterious. As his feet sunk into a patch of muddy ground, Chase found himself thinking with some chagrin of his trousers and boots. He’d brought very little in the way of clothing on this journey. It would be just his luck to spoil a good portion of it on the second day.
But he kept moving doggedly down the track behind Edward Buckler, who set a rapid pace, glancing back over his shoulder every so often to meet Chase’s eyes. Does he think I’m too old and feeble to keep up with him, Chase wondered, irked. Then he realized that Buckler was driven on by the same feeling of dread that pressed against his chest like a stone. Where were Penelope and Lady Ashe? Buckler thought they must be with Barnwell at the ruined church where the prophetess had once borne her baby, and something told Chase he was right. It would end where it had begun.
Suddenly, he collided with Buckler as the other man skidded to an abrupt halt. Smothering his cry of pain as the barrister trod on his toe, Chase said in a low voice, “What is it?” and tried to peer over his shoulder.
Buckler rushed forward, calling out, “Dear God. Chase, help me.”
They stood in a small clearing, ringed with oaks that had trunks the size of cathedral pillars. The light streamed down; the dark, rich smell of earth mingled with the sweetness of wildflowers. A single butterfly, gold and green and blue, hovered lazily in the air, then drifted down to a branch.
From this tree dangled a man, noose knotted round his throat, his booted feet rotating in a slow half circle as the branch swayed. As Buckler reached out in a futile attempt to support the body’s weight, Chase gazed upon the dead man’s blackened, swollen features, easily recognizable as those of Sir Roger Wallace-Crag.
***
Rebecca Barnwell had crawled into the niche formed by the remains of the chancel, a close space open to the sky. Crouching beside Julia on the red-gray stones, Penelope couldn’t tell at first if the prophetess were aware of their presence, for she seemed locked within her pain, a caged animal.
“I think the baby is coming,” said Julia, raising terrified eyes to Penelope’s face.
Penelope regarded the mound of the woman’s belly straining against her simple gray gown. Her gaze traveled lower, and she saw that the lower half of the dress was darkly wet. Blood, so much blood that its sharp tang filled the air, and Penelope imagined it soaking into the patches of earth between the stones. Nearby, a shovel leaned against the archway, upright, with gleaming blade.
Penelope opened her mouth to speak, trying in vain to keep her voice steady. “Go and fetch help, Julia. I’ll stay with her.”
Rebecca struggled to lift her head, but fell back. “No, no…please. No earthly aid can be of use to me now.”
“You need a doctor.” John Chase had not believed this woman was truly pregnant, but something was causing her to bleed. If they did not act, she would die and the child, if there was one, along with her.
“No,” the prophetess said, and her hand shot out to grip Penelope’s with surprising strength. “Too late. It won’t be long, and I should like to talk to you.”
“Julia, the water in your saddlebag. Can you bring the bottle?” Gently freeing her hand, Penelope whipped off the jacket of her riding habit and slipped it under the prophetess’ head. Next, she enfolded Rebecca’s hand in both of hers, turning it over to chafe the skin gently, fingers tracing the faint, whitish scars along her wrist. Penelope thought of the intense sorrow this woman had experienced. No wonder it had sent her mad to be shut up behind stout walls like that pitiful creature in Bedlam of whom Buckler had told her.
“Did you leave the nuts for Sir Roger this morning?”
A ghostly smile played over Rebecca’s lips and vanished. “All one year we were lovers. I used to go to him in his study at night when the house was abed.”
“You discovered you were to bear his child.”
“She couldn’t give him a son,” Rebecca whispered, weaker now, but Penelope heard the thread of exultation in her voice and was chilled. “He said I must go away, that he would care for me and the babe. Slink away like some Jezebel branded by her shame? No, I couldn’t do that. I didn’t mind the whispers, for the Lord was with me.”
Julia was back with the flask of water. Carefully, Penelope slipped an arm under Rebecca’s shoulders and raised her so she could drink. Penelope looked at Julia, confirming the imminence of death, a tangible presence that hovered over the three women like a foul smell in an airless room.
Penelope grasped the frail hand again. No time. If she didn’t speak now, Rebecca would die with this dreadful secret on her conscience. Suddenly, Penelope did not want that. “Your baby, Rebecca. Tell me what happened.”
“They tricked me into the carriage. But when it stopped, I ran away through the trees to this church, an unlucky spot. But my pains were too strong, and I could go no farther. I don’t recall much more. But I’m sure I saw a man’s face, the Devil himself ablaze with hatred and evil, swimming before my gaze. When I woke up, the babe was gone, and Jack Willard stood over me.”
“Whose face did you see?”
“He came again these many years later to try to take this babe from me too. He told me he’d intercepted my letters to the Master and said he’d kill me if I didn’t keep silent, stay away, and stop telling tales to the world. When I said I only wanted the truth, he thrust his…knife to my belly.”
Her fingers fluttered in Penelope’s grip. With what seemed an almost superhuman effort of will, the prophetess managed to turn her head so that Penelope was looking into pools of despair.
“Where is my child?” she said, barely audible. “Please, you must help me.”
Penelope glanced at the shovel. Had Rebecca dug just a little deeper, she might have discovered that tiny skull. Penelope did not know whether to be glad or sorry she hadn’t. “The child has been found, Rebecca,” she heard herself saying. “You mustn’t worry anymore. Everything will be taken care of.”
“He…must be…baptized or he will be lost, condemned to wander until Judgment Day. I have heard his voice… crying in the wind.”
“Yes, I promise. I’ll see to it.” Penelope was crying herself, but she saw that Julia sat mute and stiff as if waiting for the axe to fall.
Penelope bent back to Rebecca, whose lips were moving again. “That’s…good,” she whispered against Penelope’s cheek. “You are a mother yourself.”
It was over. Gently, irrevocably, Penelope closed the dead woman’s eyes and looked up. “We must go back to Cayhill. They will need to bring a litter for her.”
Julia nodded and got to her feet, staggering slightly. Suddenly, there was movement behind her, and someone rushed forward, crowding them, a figure in a long black coat with a hat pulled low so that his features were not visible. He seemed to take in the woman lying on the stones; then his attention shifted to Julia, who cowered, whimpering with fear. He plucked her up in his arms and shook her like a dog worrying a bit of rag, so that her head lolled from side to side in an odd jerky motion. With one hand, he slammed her body against the stone and clamped his hand over her mouth and nose, squeezing, squeezing. As Penelope watched in horror, Julia’s lovely white skin began to purple.
“No!” Penelope cried, “stop it at once.” It was as if he hadn’t seen her yet, as if there were only room for one at a time in his red-hazed vision. She looked around wildly, her gaze lighting on the shovel still leaning against the archway. Snatching it up, she swung it in a wide arc, praying she wouldn’t hit Julia. The shovel struck the side of the assailant’s head with a sick thud. His hand dropped away; he fell to his knees and crumpled to the ground, face down. As Penelope stood over the man, panting, Julia stared at her, the marks of the man’s fingers already standing out in livid bruises.
“Penelope?”
Slowly, as if half asleep, she turned toward the sound of this new voice. It was Buckler, she realized, and glad reli
ef filled her heart. In a moment she was safe in the circle of his arms, shedding tears down his coat. As he patted her back soothingly and murmured nonsense in her ear, she clung tighter, until, gathering herself with an effort, she took a step back and noticed his companion for the first time.
“Mr. Chase! Where did you come from? Thank God you are here to help us sort out this disaster.”
He looked up from his examination. “I’m afraid it’s worse than you know. Are you hurt?”
Penelope felt her stomach drop, and she moved farther away from Buckler. “Do you mean I’ve killed him?”
“Him?” Chase prodded the figure with one booted foot. “No, Mrs. Wolfe, but he’ll wake up to wish you had.” He looked with compassion at Julia, but went on unflinchingly. “I’m afraid I have dreadful news. Your father is dead, my lady. He was knocked out and hung from a tree. Come,” he added with rough sympathy, “you had better sit down for a few minutes.”
Chase nodded at Buckler, who took Julia by the arm to guide her toward a low wall. Like a doll, she allowed herself to be positioned there, saying not a word.
Stooping over the limp figure, Chase again prodded it. “Do you know who this is, Mrs. Wolfe? Shall I show you his face?”
She thought of a man who had lived his life in shadow, observing and assisting others, often treated with contempt or, worse, indifference. One woman had shown him kindness, even in the midst of her tragic struggle to bear her husband a child, an heir.
For her, this man had committed a crime, the most terrible of all, the murder of an innocent. But he had known that the very existence of this child would be a reproach to a woman he admired deeply if she discovered the truth and would bring scandal down upon his master to whom, in his own way, he was loyal. Perhaps he had believed that the sacrifice of the one might serve the greater good.
“He was working late on the night of Ransom’s death,” said Chase. “He must have heard or seen something outside the window and gone to investigate.”
At Chase’s feet, the man stirred, giving a low groan. Reaching into his pocket, Chase removed a pair of handcuffs and bent to pull back his arms roughly. “Do you know who this is, Mrs. Wolfe?”
“It’s Owen Finch,” said Penelope.
***
“I baptize thee in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” said Sir Henry Buckler. Dipping his fingers in the vessel of water, he sprinkled glittering drops over the cloth-wrapped bundle cradled in his other hand. Penelope felt something inside her ease, and she saw that Julia’s expression had lightened too as she and Buckler exchanged queer, sad smiles.
It was the third day after the deaths of Roger Wallace-Crag and Rebecca Barnwell, and while services for Sir Roger had been held this morning, the prophetess had already been interred without fanfare, her grave marked with a humble wooden cross. The murderer Finch had been taken away to be incarcerated until the payment of his debt should finally end his misery.
Grieving over her father, Julia seemed to have cut herself off from the world, though she had been unusually gentle with Penelope and openly regretful of her companion’s imminent departure. Ashe, however, Julia ignored, as if he had ceased to exist. For his part, Ashe seemed deflated somehow, unmanned perhaps by his old friend’s death and his wife’s open contempt.
“What will you do now?” Penelope had asked her this morning when they were alone at the breakfast table.
“Perhaps I shall take a trip to Scotland to visit some of my father’s people…or travel abroad, if there is anyplace left to go with Bonaparte still on the loose.”
“And Lord Ashe?”
Julia looked up. “I’ve a little money of my own from my mother. Ashe may go to the Devil for all I care. I can’t imagine why I’ve been afraid of him so long. Do you disapprove?”
“It seems for the best,” Penelope had replied, and Julia had smiled that same smile she had just given Buckler—sad, yes, but also aware and alive.
For Penelope, all packing complete, there remained only this duty, a promise she had not known how to redeem until Buckler had hesitantly voiced his idea. She remembered how strange, even macabre, it had seemed, though now she was conscious only of its rightness.
A local doctor had examined those tiny bones they had been able to recover, but it had not required his expertise to determine the infant’s original cause of death. The skull provided the answer, the back of it crumbling away like sand, marked indisputably by the crushing blow that had ended a life almost before it had begun. The same doctor had also performed the autopsy on Rebecca Barnwell.
Penelope knew that in her nightmares she would see Owen Finch dashing the infant against the stone wall, and she often imagined his fastidious distaste at the blood splattering his hands and clothing. Was that why he had worn the voluminous greatcoat to attack Miss Barnwell on Clerkenwell Green and then again to murder Sir Roger and attack Penelope and Julia in the church?
Sir Henry was speaking again, barely glancing at the paper Julia held up in front of him. No doubt he had attended many a christening, or for that matter, many a wedding or funeral, in his tiny parish.
“They brought young children to Christ, that he should touch them; and his disciples rebuked those that brought them. But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily, I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.”
Sir Henry nodded to his brother. “Dost thou, in the name of this Child, renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of this world, with all covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them?”
The sun struck fire on his bent head as Buckler took a step closer to the tiny grave they had dug in the center of the circle just outside the ruined church. Placing a hand on the cloth bundle in Sir Henry’s arms, he said clearly, “I renounce them all.”
Sir Henry turned to Penelope. “Ah, the child’s other sponsor. Wilt thou then obediently keep God’s holy will and commandments, and walk in the same all the days of thy life?”
Throat tight, Penelope placed her hand next to Buckler’s, and though their fingers didn’t touch, she was deeply conscious of him at her side. “I will,” she murmured.
After Sir Henry made the sign of the cross over the bundle and laid it in its resting place, he and Buckler filled in the earth, then carefully placed the small marker Sir Henry had commissioned from the mason. In silence, Penelope and Julia decked the gravesite with bluebells and scarlet geraniums.
Afterwards, as they lingered near Sir Henry’s curricle to say their farewells, Penelope said softly to Buckler so that Julia, whom Sir Henry was tossing into the saddle, would not hear, “Of what avail was it to murder Sir Roger? Finch must have realized he couldn’t hope to keep his secret any longer.”
“Revenge, I should say. Had it not been for his master, Finch would never have been driven to murder in the first place. Barnwell should not have been driven to madness and treason. And Ransom would still be alive. I suppose Finch saw it as closing the circle. For that, he needed Wallace-Crag to die as well as Barnwell and her unborn child along with her.”
“Only this time there was no child,” said Penelope sadly. “Merely some sort of internal growth, a monstrous tumor that killed her without any interference from him.” She put out her hand. “I have had word. My husband comes for me and Sarah tomorrow, sir. So this is good-bye for a while.”
Buckler clasped her fingers briefly, his expression shuttered. “Godspeed, Mrs. Wolfe.”
“Has Edward been telling you of his plan to stand for Parliament?” said Sir Henry, coming to pump her hand. “I vow I shan’t know what to make of my care-for-naught brother.”
***
Pipe in hand and a mug of ale at his elbo
w, Graham sat over his papers in the private chamber at Bow Street office. “You’re back, Chase.”
“Yes, sir.” He had arrived back in Town yesterday and had hurried home to discover if a letter from his son Jonathan had arrived in his absence. None had.
“Any luck catching your culprit?”
“Yes, in fact. I located Rebecca Barnwell, who is dead, and apprehended Dick Ransom’s murderer, though unfortunately not until he had taken Sir Roger Wallace-Crag’s life as well,” he added, quelling the sense of regret and guilt that the thought of the baronet inevitably evoked.
Graham’s bored look vanished. “Indeed?”
When Chase had finished speaking, a silence fell which Graham broke. “Your friend Ezekiel Thorogood has been retained as solicitor to Janet Gore. She will turn King’s evidence, it seems, and handily escape the gallows for her part in the plot against the Regent’s life.”
“My friend?” Chase began, but just then the door burst wide, and a young boy employed by the office to carry messages and run errands burst in without ceremony. “The Prime Minister’s been shot in the House of Commons! Perceval is dead, and they’ve got the assassin.”
Chase stared at Graham, watching the blood drain from his face so that he looked for the moment an old man. For an instant, Chase too felt lightheaded and ill as a sense of unreality overcame him.
“What villain did this?” said Graham hoarsely.
“They say a man called John Bellingham lodging in Milman Street,” the boy replied, almost dancing in his eagerness to tell his tale. “Bellingham hid himself behind the folding doors leading into the house and burst out upon Mr. Perceval. Shot him through the heart, he did.”
Back in the stuffy inn parlor of the Fleece, Chase could hear Janet Gore’s voice saying, “You can’t stop this. Don’t think you can,” and he wanted suddenly to smash something for the pure pleasure of it. The plot to assassinate the Regent had come to nothing, but somehow Barnwell’s prophecy had come true, after all. Was the world peopled with lunatics, awaiting their hour upon the stage, their bloody opportunity, or was there some pattern in this Chase couldn’t see?