“I fear you may be right, Jane-girl,” said Caleb. “However, I shall have a busy night tonight, because I am going to Bow Street to ask for assistance to go to Ashall’s dwelling, tracing his footsteps from here. I’ll see you into the carriage, and I’ll ask Grey if I may borrow his Draisine.”
“He’ll probably say yes; he’s just got engaged,” said Jane.
“Excellent, he can persuade his mother-in-law elect to take him home,” said Caleb.
Caleb found it rather exhilarating to bowl along the streets in the middle of the night, when there was almost no traffic. It was after the hours of any delivery, and before most party-goers left their various venues to return to their own homes. Soon he was being accompanied by two more Bow Street officers in a gig, and it was tempting to make a race of it. When his own Draisine was finished, Caleb thought the gig would have been left far behind, even allowing for the paucity of traffic, and his own need to mount the pavements when on roughly cobbled streets.
They arrived at the viscount’s town house to find smoke and flames pouring out of a second storey window, and the fire brigade busy trying, rather ineffectually, to put it out. A maid was shrieking on the top floor and others huddled behind her.
Caleb said one or two words which would have had Jane raising her eyebrows. Caleb turned to the gawking inhabitants of the house next door.
“Get me a ladder and take me to your top floor,” he said.
His air of command was enough, and the butler, with trousers hastily pulled on over his night gown, did as Caleb asked. Caleb put the ladder across from the raised front of the house he was in to the one next door. The maids’ rooms might not have balconies like the lower floors, but their windows were hidden from the street with false frontages, and there was a good foot of flat roof between the false front and the slope of the roof into which their windows were set.
“Here, you, sit on that end,” said Caleb, to the butler. “You!” he pointed to an older maid, “You be ready to help them across that gap, and G-d help you if you let them fall.”
“Yessir, I mean, nossir,” said the maid, with a gulp. Caleb gritted his teeth, decided he did not have time to be cautious as a window blew out on the floor below the servants’ rooms, and walked across the ladder.
He slapped the girl who clung to him.
“Listen you dozy mort, you’ll kill your silly self and your friends and me if you don’t stop that histrionic nonsense,” he said. “I don’t expect anyone to walk, but you can crawl. Come on, now.”
“What about our trunks?” wailed one.
“If you think things are more important than your lives, go stay with your trunk and burn with it,” snapped Caleb. “Otherwise, one at a time, onto that ladder. Here, you look a likely girl, you show them the way,” he picked up a little girl who was probably the tween maid and set her on the ladder. She blushed scarlet but inched her way along it, and was retrieved by willing hands at the other end, the servants next door happy to help when told what to do.
“What is the meaning of this?” a head appeared from the house next door, presumably from the master bedroom.
“The meaning, sir, is that the servants of your neighbour are in mortal danger, and your house was convenient,” said Caleb. “Sorry to have woken you.”
“Who the devil are you?”
“Sir Caleb Armitage. A passer-by, as you might say,” said Caleb.
“I’ll come up and help,” said the man. Sure enough, as Caleb had the second servant girl on her way he appeared and added his own weight to the end of the ladder.
The hysterical one took some persuading, but her fellows called to her and shrieking like a banshee all the time, she managed to get to safety.
It was not a moment too soon; the end window blew out, and sparks settled on the ladder, setting it alight.
“Drop it,” said Caleb. “Move them all back indoors!” He stepped back, took two running steps, and jumped.
The floor crashed in beneath where he had been a moment ago.
“Shite,” said Caleb, and sat down hard.
“My dear Sir Caleb! Bravest thing I ever saw! Let me help you in,” said the gentleman of the house, dressed in a gaudy banyan and embroidered slippers. Caleb managed to get himself inside the house and sat down again on a serving girl’s bed.
“Might not be a bad idea to get everyone downstairs on the ground floor, in case the fire spreads,” he said. “Sorry. I think I scared myself silly and I’ve wrenched an old wound from Corunna. You organise your servants, sir, and I’ll make my own way down, and I’m sorry, but I’m going to slide down your banisters the way my son does.”
“I have no intention of leaving you, Sir Caleb! Belby can get them all downstairs, you girls pack a satchel each of essentials, and bring blankets for yourselves and these other poor girls. Belby, see the memsahib and the children are brought down.”
“Sorry to visit trouble on your house,” said Caleb.
“Nonsense! Sir William Wetherby is capable of handling trouble,” said Sir William. “So’s the memsahib; shot a snake in Calcutta.”
“Sounds like my wife,” said Caleb. “She shot a highwayman in London.”
“Now, my dear fellow, I like the sound of your wife already!”
“I wager she and your wife will be bosom-bows immediately they meet,” said Caleb. He could hear the sound of a female voice marshalling servants and children. “I can stand.” He got to his feet.
His thigh screamed at him, but he limped across the floor to the door that led to the stairs.
“I’ll get you a stick,” said Sir William. “Excuse me.” He went on ahead, and was presently back with an ornate but strong looking black cane. “Ebony,” he said. “Bought it because I liked the carving.”
“As good a reason as any and lucky for me,” gasped Caleb, sighing with relief as he let the stick take some of his weight.
It seemed like an age that it took to get downstairs, and when the lady of distinctly Indian origin bustled Caleb into a big wing chair with a footstool and a glass of brandy, and tucked a gay quilt around him, he merely murmured thanks and accepted the ministrations.
“Will your wife still like mine?” Sir William asked, sardonically.
“Lud, why should she not? A woman who can take charge is beyond the price of rubies,” said Caleb.
“She’s also part native,” said Sir William.
“Why would that bother us?” said Caleb. “We all bleed red.”
“Demme, I like you,” said Sir William. “That neighbour of ours said the neighbourhood was tainted.”
“Well he was a murderer so I’d say it was him doing the tainting,” said Caleb. “And too much of a coward to do the job himself. I’ve reason to think that fire is a result of a falling out between ... well not thieves, but murderers.”
“Demme!” said Sir William. “Never liked him. If he’s dead, couldn’t happen to a nicer person.”
“Yes, his victim was about the age of the oldest of your children over there,” said Caleb. “I expect, if we find a corpse, it was probably dead before it burned; at least in the fires of this world.”
Chapter 23
Jane rose to find Caleb’s Bow Street friend, Gabe Stogumber waiting in the parlour. He had reduced both Nat and Toby to drooling adoration, and Cecily was sitting there looking scared.
“Papa is hurt!” she blurted out. Jane paled.
“He ain’t dead, Mrs. Jane, not nowise, but he done open that hem wound he took in the army,” said Stogumber. “Bloody hero he is an’ all, saved the lives of half a dozen serving wenches from a blaze, then jumped afore the building fell in. He said to tell you not to be scared, he’s under the care of a formidable lady from Calcutta and her excellent husband and is about half cut on good brandy.”
Jane heaved a sigh of relief.
“Can I get you a brandy as well, Gabe?” she asked.
“Bless you, Mrs. Jane, I dursen’t, I’m on dooty until I’ve rendered my report,” he s
aid. “But I swung by here so you’d hear it all from a friend not read it in the paper.”
“Bless you, Gabe,” said Jane. “At least have breakfast.”
“Now that, I won’t turn down,” said Stogumber.
Jane arrived at Sir William’s house, looking at the burnt-out shell next door with a gasp of horror. It was fortunate that the houses here were separated by several feet, instead of being built as a terrace. Jane could only imagine what might happen if one of the houses in her own house’s row went on fire. The fire brigade would barely be able to contain it to the house on each side. However, presumably Viscount Ashall’s fire insurance was paid up to date if an engine had come out, and the estate would be able to claim. The building would have to come down, and soon: it was unsafe.
Jane was hailed by a man working cautiously in the wreckage.
“Mrs. ... that’s to say, Lady Armitage, isn’t it?” he called.
“Yes, I am Jane Armitage,” said Jane. “Can I help?”
“If you’d be so good,” said the man. “I’m with Bow Street, and he’ll want to know there’s three burned skellingtons, well, three blackened skulls, any road. Ain’t a cat’s chanst in Hell o’ sorting out bones from charred timber, and not wanting to dig too much for fear of the whole ruddy lot coming down.”
“No, you must not risk your life,” said Jane. “I will tell him. His daughter is informing his man, who is waiting for a murderer elsewhere. You’re Halliwell, aren’t you?”
“Yerse, milady, fancy you remembering me!”
“I know Caleb has said you are a very sound man,” said Jane. He had also said that Halliwell had the imagination of a garden snail, but she did not repeat that. Halliwell beamed. Jane reflected that honesty was better than imagination in any case.
She rang the bell, and was presently ushered into a small reception room which appeared to have become her husband’s sick room. He was occupying a day bed, under a gay quilt, and with a number of pillows propping him up. He was dressed in a nightgown and a gaudy banyan, with a velvet cap on his head.
“Oh Caleb!” said Jane.
“Now don’t go ringing a peal over me, Jane-girl, someone had to rescue them, and nobody else seemed to have any idea what to do. I reckon Sir William, that’s the cove who lives here, would have done, but he was sleeping at the time. And there weren’t time to do anything but act.”
Jane came forward and dropped a chaste kiss on his lips, and drew up a chair.
“As you did not get yourself killed, I forgive you for being a hero,” she said. “What happened? Gabe isn’t very articulate.”
“And the sea is damp,” said Caleb, ironically. He sketched what had happened with an anxious eye on his wife. Jane winced at the idea of him running across a ladder five storeys up, but nodded when he said it was the only way to do it.
“What impresses me is that you got a pack of daft women to cross it,” she said.
“I got them more scared of me than of the crossing,” said Caleb. “And the tweenie managed it, fortunately unaware that her bum was hanging out of where her nightgown was hitched up, and the rest followed. It was touch and go, though, I only just got them over before things got a bit exciting.” He eyed her with some trepidation.
“Just tell me about it,” said Jane. He did. Jane said nothing but she buried her face against him.
“I have too much to lose not to have made that jump,” said Caleb, quietly. “I know you’ll love me if it’s crippled me for life, though demme, it’d be a waste of the Draisine I ordered.”
Jane began laughing, and if her laughter was a little hysterical, it was better, she thought, than crying over him.
“You will ride that pestilential machine, I’m sure,” she said. “Is Sir William’s lady a competent nurse?”
“Yes, and as managing as you,” said Caleb. “She cut off my dress smalls and has taken them away. I’m wearing a nightgown and banyan of Sir William’s, and it’s fortunate he’s almost as large as me, and carrying enough embonpoint for it not to be tight on the shoulders. The cap she insisted on so I wouldn’t go into shock for being cold.”
“Sensible,” said Jane. “You look like a Member of Parliament.”
“Decrepit, pompous and venal? Hardly flattering, Jane-girl.”
“I was thinking more statesmanlike but gouty,” said Jane.
“Madam, when I am up and about again, I will have my revenge for that,” said Caleb.
“I look forward to it, my lord,” said Jane, demurely. “Well, I will not interfere with the ministrations of someone who knows what she is doing.”
Caleb blushed.
“It’s a long way up my thigh, as you know,” he whined.
“And I have sons whom I have bathed, and it’s nothing I haven’t seen,” said a soft voice from the door. “Lady Armitage, I do apologise for not greeting you, there is much to do.”
Jane got up quickly and took the hands of Lady Wetherby.
“Oh, I owe you so much, thank you for the good care of my husband,” she said. “I am so grateful for all you have done.”
“I am sure you would do the same for a hero rescuing the people next door to you,” said Lady Wetherby. “Please, you must call me Rohini, which is my name.”
“How pretty!” said Jane. “I am Jane, a plain workaday name.”
“Ah, but English names are as exotic to me as doubtless Indian names are for you,” said Rohini. “We have given all our children Hindi names as their middle names; my husband is keen for them not to forget their Indian heritage, even though they are only a quarter Indian. My mother was the governess to my father’s children, my half-siblings, you understand,” she added. “He married her, and always joked it was to save on paying her wages.”
“It sounds a convivial marriage.”
“I believe they had some frictions through being of different cultures, but they made jokes to overcome it,” said Rohini. “My father said I was more English than Indian, and was glad to find me an English husband. I am very fond of my husband, despite our age difference,” she added. “My father chose well.”
“I always used to disapprove of the arranged marriages of the past,” said Jane, “But having seen the bumblebroth young people can make of choosing their own lovers without a lot of help, guidance, trickery and coercion, I sometimes wonder if it might not be as well for more experienced people to do the choosing. Or at least to present their offspring with a choice of several suitable people from whom to chose a husband or wife.”
“I think guidance is certainly needed,” said Rohini. “Jane, would you care to dress your husband’s wound? I know he is embarrassed by my ministrations, but I felt it important to see it right away.”
“I agree, and so, I’m sure, does he, embarrassment despite,” said Jane. “It was never, I suspect, treated properly at the time.”
“No, that too I thought,” said Rohini. “I packed it with honey and turmeric, which is an excellent healing spice, and I sewed it up. His fortitude is considerable. I think if it had been sewn in the first place, it would have healed better.”
“They told him he would never walk again and left him to it,” said Jane. “I think they were more concerned with the broken bone than the torn muscles.”
“Ah? I think he will have more mobility in it than he has had since before the first wound, so long as he takes care of himself. He must eat food with turmeric in it as well as garlic and onion as cleansers, and plenty of meat. I have used the English pork jelly for him, which is also very good. It is no good to treat a wound on the outside if you do not treat the man on the inside as well.”
“An interesting idea, but as the Indian culture is so old, I will not dispute it,” said Jane. “I am relieved to hear no mention of bleeding him.”
Rohini made a noise not quite as unladylike as a snort.
“Bleeding is barbaric,” she said. “It weakens a man. If he is choleric, then he should drink hibiscus and cinnamon tea to reduce the choler. And that, so fa
r as I can see, is the only use for bleeding, to reduce choler, and it is a brute force way of doing it, if you ask me.”
“I will certainly take your words under consideration,” said Jane. “Fortunately, Caleb is never choleric. I will see about getting turmeric for our medicine chest, however.”
“I will leave you to dress the wound; the things are waiting,” said Rohini, clapping her hands. A tall Indian man in a turban pushed in a dumb waiter with bandages, an urn of hot water, and bowls of honey and a yellow powder. Rohini addressed him in her native tongue, and he bowed, and left.
“I saw the excellent job you made of healing the wound on his shoulder,” said Rohini. “I will leave. Clap your hands when you have finished and Ram Das will take everything away and bring us tea, and I will join you for that.”
“Thank you,” said Jane.
Caleb obediently rolled over so that Jane could get at the old wound. It had been a livid-coloured mark where a ball from scattered grapeshot had ploughed into his thigh and shattered the bone. The bone had healed, after a fashion, but the muscles around were torn, and Caleb had always found that they separated easily, causing him at best severe cramps. Good living over the last few years had helped a lot, but the weakness remained, and the jump had ripped muscle and skin right open.
The neat stitches along the wound looked as though they pulled everything together, and Jane washed off the wound, and smeared it well with honey, adding a good pinch of turmeric to it. Caleb was panting.
“I have to tell you that Halliwell found three skulls in the debris of the house,” said Jane, to distract him. “One, I presume, will be Ashall.”
“And the other two the missing butler and valet,” said Caleb, “The only servants not accounted for. The men all slept in the basement as is common, and got out. I’ve talked to the coachman who brought him home.”
“Excellent; did he have anything useful to tell you?” asked Jane, folding a square of cotton cloth to place over the wound as a new dressing.
“Damned right, he did,” growled Caleb. “He told me how his master was so drunk, his friend had to assist him into the carriage, and stayed with him to take him home, and asked him to wait to return him to the ball. He said that the viscount was so drunk he wasn’t even bothering to try to walk.”
Jane and the Sins of Society Page 19