Dark Road to Darjeeling

by DEANNA RAYBOURN

  I moved to step between them, but Brisbane would not budge. He fixed Plum with a look of perfect calm, but I had no doubt that if Plum raised a hand to him, Brisbane would have thrown him to the ground in the space of a heartbeat. When he spoke his voice was deadly calm and very nearly friendly, as if he had every expectation of Plum’s obedience.

  “Let her be. The poor girl has to earn her bread. The last thing she requires is interference from you. You abuse your station.” Brisbane was right of course. Any upper servant admitted to social occasions was expected to be silent and very nearly invisible. Attracting attention to oneself in any fashion was unthinkable, and it was not Miss Thorne’s fault that she was comely. The burden of not noticing it fell upon the gentlemen, and for Plum to contemplate making a spectacle of the girl a second time was unkind.

  But Plum did not care to be reminded of it, and least of all by Brisbane. He smiled slowly, malicious as a cat. “I never thought to be lectured upon my duty as a gentleman by the likes of you,” he said, each word dripping with venom.

  Something Brisbane said must have flown true, for Plum turned upon his heel and left us then, but not to accost Miss Thorne. He left the party altogether, taking the road toward Kanchenjunga, doubtless to spend his sulks in sketching.

  I turned to Brisbane in disbelief. He smiled thinly. “It might have been worse. He might have said he never thought to be lectured by the bastard son of a Gypsy whore.”

  “You were not a bastard,” I said automatically.

  Brisbane’s smile turned rueful. “Everyone always seems to forget that.”

  The Eighth Chapter

  Do not keep to yourself the secret of your heart, my friend!

  Say it to me, only to me, in secret.

  —The Gardener

  Rabindranath Tagore

  The rest of the outing passed pleasantly and without incident. We made excuses for Plum that did not persuade Portia in the slightest but seemed to satisfy everyone else, and I applied myself to the excellent repast, refusing to worry about the new antipathy that had sprung up between my husband and my brother.

  Or the distraction that Miss Thorne was rapidly becoming, I thought as I watched her over luncheon. She kept her eyes downcast or fixed upon her charges, save for once or twice when I saw them dart to Brisbane and quickly away again. It was not the first time a young lady had betrayed her interest in my husband, and I rather doubted it would be the last. He was a remarkable man, and I gave him a particularly warm smile as I passed him a bowl of cherries in snow.

  I said little during the meal, so intent was I upon the possibility Brisbane had raised of Lucy’s involvement in Freddie’s murder. Of course, I conveniently put aside the fact that we did not know for certain if it was a murder. Sometimes these things simply had to be taken on instinct, and the more I considered it, the more convinced I was that some villain had taken advantage of the snakebite to administer some fatal dram.

  But Lucy? I was not certain I could like her for a doer of dark deeds. I thought of the pretty face, the soft white hands, and thought of another murderess we had known. I shuddered, and reminded myself that villainy could wear any guise. I forced myself to consider the matter rationally. As a friend of the family, Lucy might well have called upon Freddie during his recuperation, bearing some sort of delicacy to tempt an invalid’s palate. But what? Soup or cake might be easily adulterated. Fruit might be envenomed with a hatpin dipped in poison. Any Indian sweetmeat, so achingly sweet to English tastes, could be laced with something foul. I could almost picture her, smiling as she offered a plate of bonbons, sugared with death.

  “Julia, why are you staring at that cherry in horror? Either eat it or put it down,” Portia hissed under her breath. I realised I was still holding a single fruit, contemplating its unblemished garnet skin and thinking how easy it would be to snuff a life by offering up a bit of the poisoner’s handiwork.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, dropping the cherry to my plate. I was letting my imagination run rampant, and discipline, as Brisbane often reminded me, was an essential virtue for a good investigator.

  But I had to conclude that Lucy was at least a possibility for our villainess. Depending upon the depth of her feelings for Harry, it was at least worth considering her involvement. And if Lucy had killed for Harry once, she might do so again, I thought, resting my eyes upon the hapless Miss Thorne.

  I made every effort to put aside thoughts of the investigation and enjoy myself the rest of that tranquil afternoon. The weather was enchanting, and it was a lovely thing to sit in repose and watch the pickers move through the dark, glossy rows of tea as the shadow of the mountains lengthened over the landscape. Only the sight of native men, armed and posted as guards at intervals around the perimeter of the fields to protect the pickers against the predation of the tiger gave any hint that this was not a thoroughly perfect day. The rest of us told stories and laughed together, and even the pale doctor smiled once or twice. I made a note to call upon him later in the week, but for that golden afternoon, I gave myself up to the pleasures of the moment. The fresh air gave us all excellent appetites for dinner, and a hearty meal meant that we were all of us dozing by ten o’clock in our chairs in the drawing room. We retired gratefully, and I slid quickly into sleep. Sometime long after the clock struck midnight, I heard the peacocks fussing in the garden, Feuilly’s scolding voice raised just higher than his wife’s soft protests. It was only after a long moment that I realised the cause of their annoyance. I heard soft footfalls upon the gallery that ran past our room, and when I crept to the sill, I could see a pair of shadows and hear quiet murmurs.

  I crept nearer still, straining my ears. The wind must have shifted a little or perhaps Miss Cavendish raised her voice, for I heard her then, clear as a bell. “Something must be done,” she said, a trifle desperately. “If the Peacocks falls into her clutches we will lose everything.”

  “You must leave it in my hands,” her companion soothed. “I will take care of it.”

  Miss Cavendish gave a little moan. “Oh, if only I could believe that. But she is monstrous.”

  “She will not take your home away, I give you my word. I will take care of it,” he repeated. “You must trust me to dispatch this threat in the way I see fit.”

  She gave a brittle laugh. “I could dispatch it. I could throttle her with my bare hands and that would be an end to the matter.”

  “Hush!” he said harshly. Then more gently, “You must not speak so. Surely you realise there are already questions raised about Freddie’s death.”

  “Do not say such a thing. I spoke wildly when I said I would like to kill her. I would never do such a thing, never. But she does not belong here! If she were to die, I would shed no tear for her,” Miss Cavendish said. She moved away then, and her companion went with her, leaving me to wonder precisely whom they had been speaking of, and more to the point, what had Harry Cavendish meant when he said he would take care of the threat that loomed over the Peacocks?

  The next morning I was determined to confine my sleuthing a little nearer to the Peacocks. I knew the White Rajah would keep his ears sharpened for any local gossip that might impart some illumination in the matter, and I had no desire to call again so soon upon the Phippses. I felt at a distinct disadvantage knowing so little of our hosts. They might be blood relations, but so were half the English gentry, I reminded myself ruefully. Our family were so numerous and so widespread it was simply not possible to keep abreast of everyone. Even if we had thought to do so, it would have seemed a piece of disloyalty to Father to have corresponded with any of Mama’s people. He did not speak often of her after she died, and we did not mix with that side of the family. There had been no dramatic scene nor any bad blood, only the natural drifting apart when there is nothing to bind people together. Mama’s family had been an old, comfortable gentry family, the life’s blood of the English countryside, the squires and parsons and ladies bountiful who ensure that the peaceful and pastoral ways are still observ
ed. They were descended distantly from a ducal family, but they were firmly outside the aristocracy by the time Mama had been born. Her betrothal to a belted earl had raised many eyebrows, and not just amongst Father’s acquaintance. The Marches had a long history of eccentricity, and Father’s marrying so far beneath him was met with a shrug. Mama’s family protested, counseling her against the marriage on the grounds that she was flying too high.

  But they had been happy, I reminded myself fiercely. Tremendously happy until a tenth confinement in sixteen years had killed her. Father had been bereft, but their happiness together gave me courage that I might be happy with Brisbane. Two more different people could not be found in all of England I sometimes thought, and yet something within him spoke to something within me, and it was a conversation I could not ignore. When I was with him, it felt as if the whole of the universe had suddenly righted itself.

  Which was why I found it so difficult to deceive him. I ducked my head when he asked what I meant to do with myself and murmured something about writing letters. I had neglected my correspondence shamefully, it was true, but my family would have to wait another day for letters. Everyone at the Peacocks was engaged in some worthy occupation, and it seemed that morning was the perfect time for me to embark upon a bit of sleuthing in a room I had not yet seen—the estate office.

  “Nothing has as many secrets to tell as a ledger,” I reminded myself as I crept through the passages to the locked door of Fitzhugh Cavendish’s office. Harry had taken charge of the room for his own use, but he was out giving Brisbane a tour of the workings of the tea garden. Plum had left early without a word to anyone—sketching again, no doubt—and Portia was occupied with Jane. Miss Cavendish was in the garden, and Jolly was busy in the dining room with a pot of silver polish and a pile of rags, whilst the assorted other members of staff were hard at work in the various domestic offices. I should have at least half an hour undisturbed, I calculated. I knelt swiftly before the locked door, fishing into my coiffeur for the tiny lockpicks I carried there. Brisbane had commissioned them for me from a blacksmith in Marrakesh and then provided me with a series of lessons on how best to use them. He had cautioned me strongly that it was purely an intellectual exercise and ought not to be employed except in case of dire necessity, but as I snicked the lock, it occurred to me that my husband, for all his skills and experience in the ways of the world, was perhaps slightly less well-schooled in the ways of determined women.

  I eased into the office and closed the door softly behind me, relocking it to ensure I should have warning if anyone approached. I dared not light the lamp, but the shutters had been thrown back to admit the morning sun and the room was quite bright enough for my purposes.

  A series of ledgers stood open upon Harry’s desk, and the first order of business was to skim them quickly for any irregularities. I had a poor head for figures, and what I hoped to find, I could not say. I thought I might come across something unusual, but every entry seemed reasonable enough. There were expenditures for workers’ salaries, for repairs to a picker’s cottage that had been damaged by a windstorm, and for supplies and goods from Darjeeling and Calcutta. There was no ledger for the household, but I was not surprised. I had little doubt Miss Cavendish managed the household accounts herself, and kept those account books in her own room, removed from the business of the estate proper. But as I skimmed the tidy rows of figures, I wondered if she had ever handled the book I held in my hands.

  Was this why Harry Cavendish was so diligent about the locking of his door? It was customary to keep estate offices locked; my own father permitted no one but himself to carry the key. There were ledgers and documents, deeds and trusts, financial portfolios and private letters as well as strongboxes with cash and other valuables. It only made good sense to keep the area secured, although I wondered if Harry Cavendish exercised a bit of extra caution to keep his aunt from meddling in his business.

  But they had seemed friendly enough during their mysterious conference in the middle of the night, I reminded myself. I had not thought Miss Cavendish capable of loosening her hold upon her iron composure, and it had been a surprise to hear her so unbridled. I had almost felt sorry for the anxious, fearful creature I had overheard, confiding her woes to her nephew, and I wondered too if she had merely broken down in a moment of weakness or if she regularly unburdened herself to him. I also wondered about their comments regarding Freddie’s death. Miss Cavendish’s shock at the notion seemed to confirm her innocence in the affair, but it might well have been an act for her nephew’s benefit. Or he himself might be feigning concern to mask his own involvement, I reflected. I reminded myself to look for any clues to Harry’s relationship with Freddie, but as I searched through personal albums and even a cache of letters, I found nothing to incriminate Harry.

  Until I came to the last of the drawers in his desk. I had nearly abandoned the search at the sight of it, for it was packed tightly with ink bottles and penwipers, blotting papers and discarded correspondence. Bits of wire and string—too short to be of any significance—had been put by in case they were needed, a frugality that struck me as being in keeping with Fitzhugh’s character. Freddie had probably not touched the drawer during his tenure, and Harry had discovered it intact. But he had added something, I realised as my fingers closed around the edges of a morocco portfolio. I extracted it swiftly and opened it with rising excitement. I knew, without even opening the thing, that here was something of significance.

  It took me a moment to realise what I was looking at, for I am no draughtsman and these were rather sophisticated drawings. I finally looked to the legend penned in the corner and realised they were plans to expand the tea garden. A huge tea factory had been neatly sketched into the area now occupied by Pine Cottage, a factory with all of the newest conveniences and some very expensive machinery, if the brochures tucked into the portfolio were any indication. There was a budget, drafted in the same hand, totaling thousands of pounds for the improvements. The entire project was dated, and I saw with a sinking heart that the date was during the time Miss Cavendish had been abroad in England, seeking to bring Freddie home.

  I thrust the plans back into the portfolio and secured it at the bottom of the drawer, piling the detritus on top of it again and thinking rapidly as I did so. When Miss Cavendish had gone to England to retrieve Freddie, she carried with her little hope of success. Fitzhugh was ailing, and only Harry remained, the great hope of the next generation. He spoke fondly of his grandfather, and I suspected Harry had been the old gentleman’s favourite. Did he nourish hopes that the entailment might somehow be broken and he would inherit the Peacocks?

  If so, his hopes would have grown steadily as Miss Cavendish returned without Freddie and Grandfather Fitzhugh continued to fail. What a blow it must have been to him when Freddie arrived to collect his inheritance! And how much deeper must it have bit when Jane announced her expectations. The plans in that drawer represented countless hours of work and perhaps months, even years, of dreaming. And all of it began to slip through Harry’s fingers as Jane’s child began to grow.

  Did he bide his time then, or did he hasten Freddie’s end? In either event, Jane would be safe only so long as she carried. As I had pointed out to Portia, a clever murderer would not draw attention to himself with a second and perhaps unnecessary murder. Once the child was born, events would have to move swiftly to their conclusion. If the child was a girl, then there was nothing for Harry to fear. He would be the heir and the Peacocks would pass securely into his hands.

  But if Jane bore a son, then he would have to kill again, an infant this time. How simple a thing would that be? A soft footfall in the night, a pillow laid firmly over the sleeping face. It would be finished in a matter of seconds, and no more difficult than drowning a kitten.

  I sat back, feeling faintly sick with the ease of it all. So little could stand between Harry Cavendish and a sizeable inheritance—the slender thread of a child’s life and his own conscience. There was not
hing else to prevent it.

  Hastily, I scrabbled through the rest of the office to find whatever else I could. The only item of note was in a ledger I found tucked into a stack of books upon the shelves. It had been begun the previous year, the first third of it written in Fitzhugh’s hand, the rest in Freddie’s. I ran my eye over the usual expenditures for repairs and wages and supplies, and then, something quite out of the ordinary—payments under Fitzhugh’s reign, one per month, directed to Miss Thorne. I looked again, scrutinising the entries carefully, but there they were. Payments in cash to Miss Thorne tendered monthly. They ended abruptly with Fitzhugh’s death, and no matter how I scoured the rest of the ledger, I found no more. Whatever service Fitzhugh had been purchasing, Freddie had not continued the association.

  On a hunch, I pulled out the current ledger again, the one that Freddie had begun at the start of the year and had been taken over by Harry when the management of the estate passed into his hands. I paged through it, and just where the handwriting changed from Freddie’s careless scrawl to Harry’s tidy hand, I saw it. A cash payment made out to Miss Thorne, and heavily scored through, as if the keeper of the ledger had been angry. The amount of money had been figured back into the accounts, and no further payments had been offered. I sat back and considered carefully. Fitzhugh had made payments to Miss Thorne each month. Not enough to make her wealthy, but enough to keep her if she lived modestly, perhaps the equivalent to her salary as a governess. Then with his death, the payments ceased, perhaps with no offer from Freddie to continue them.

  And then, upon Freddie’s death, Harry made one attempt, a failed attempt, to provide her once more with money for some service she had been happy to provide his grandfather, but which she refused to provide for him.