Wintour glanced at it as we rode past. ‘It doesn’t much matter,’ he said over his shoulder to me. ‘I never liked the house in any case. And it was too small as well. So this is a blessing in disguise, perhaps. God willing, we shall build it anew after the war. It shall be far more elegant and done up entirely in the modern taste.’
I remembered his ramblings while the fever had been upon him, how he had promised me a suite of splendid apartments at Mount George. But he did not mention my apartments on this occasion, or the box of curiosities which, at the time of his feverish ramblings, had somehow been necessary to the fulfilment of this scheme.
We continued to follow the course of the stream. The sunken fence diminished and at last vanished. We had reached a spot beyond the ruins where, higher up the slope and partly concealed in a shallow depression, the cluster of outbuildings lay.
This, I guessed, had been the farmstead of the original settlers. The yard formed an enclosure bounded by two roofless barns, an irregular line of byres, stables and pigsties and a sturdy building with crude stone walls, stained by fire. The latter had small square windows and a central chimney of brick. There was still a tiled roof over one end.
Wintour dismounted and hitched the reins of his horse to a gatepost. He looked up at me.
‘That’s the house the old patroon built,’ he said.
‘It’s in better condition than the mansion.’
‘They knew what they were about, those Dutchmen. They built to last.’
I dismounted and followed him into the building by the one central doorway, which was wide and low. The door itself lay abandoned on the ground, ripped from its hinges. It was made of oak, black with age and at least two inches thick.
On the ground floor there were two rooms, each with a fireplace served by the central chimney and each with a surround of old Delft tiles, the blues and whites still strangely vivid, though many were cracked and some were missing. Originally there had been windows and a doorway on the other side of the house, which faced the mansion itself; but the openings had been sealed with bricks, perhaps when the big house was built, so its occupants would have the comfort of not being overlooked by their farmworkers. Narrow wooden stairs, almost a ladder, led up from the kitchen to the attic where the bedchambers had been. Though the joists remained, the partitions and many of the floorboards had gone, either torn out or burned where they were.
But the most striking feature of the place was the litter of objects that covered almost every inch of the floor. It was as if a malicious angel had swept through the little house, destroying all that lay in his path with a great hammer. Wintour picked his way through the rooms, staring down at the mess beneath his feet.
Everything was broken. There was splintered glass, scraps of varnished wood and rags of cloth that might have been silk or velvet. Books lay here and there, their spines ripped apart and their yellowing pages rustling like dead leaves in the draught from the doorway. A small cast-iron furnace lay undamaged but on its side. The flue-pipe that once connected it to the chimney had been torn away and thrown to the other end of the kitchen. Fragments of brass gleamed among the debris. I saw the dial of a grandfather clock lying on the ruins of its case and its machinery. A smiling sun looked up at me.
‘Dear God,’ I murmured. ‘Is this the work of looters?’
Wintour glanced at me. ‘It wasn’t plunder they wanted, Edward. It was revenge.’
‘On whom?’
‘Mr Froude, of course. This place was his study and his laboratory. It was his passion. He doted on it like a child.’ Wintour gave a harsh bark of laughter. ‘No – it was something dearer to him than any child ever was.’
Chapter Fifty-One
We could not find the baby’s grave.
The air was heavy with warmth and laden with the sweet, decaying stench of rotting fruit. We did not even know for certain whether we were in the right orchard – there had been three enclosures at Mount George, each for different kinds of fruit.
But Wintour thought it must have been this one, the smallest orchard, for he remembered that Arabella had loved the taste of peaches and apricots; sometimes she would order the slaves to set up an awning here against the south wall and bring out chairs, a table and even a carpet, so she might sit and read or dream with the smell of fruit in her nostrils.
We found Mr Froude easily enough. He lay in what had once been a herb bed at the base of one of the walls. Tendrils of rosemary had spread a vigorous grey web over the grave, feeding on his corruption. There was still a low mound, seven or eight feet long, to show precisely where his body lay. Someone had fashioned a crude cross from two planks nailed together and pushed it into the earth at the head of the grave. They had burned the initials HF at one end of the crosspiece and the date 1776 at the other. But over the years the nail had rusted, the wood had rotted and the planks now lay separately on the earth beneath the rosemary.
This land was so fertile that the trees were not espaliered but stood unsupported as standards. They were lank and ragged, overgrown and misshapen, for no one had troubled to prune them for two or three years. But still their branches bowed and sometimes snapped under the weight of the fruit they bore.
‘Why does no one pick the fruit?’ I said. ‘You could feed an army with it.’
‘Because of the ghosts, your honour,’ whispered Abraham, his eyelids twitching.
‘Hold your tongue.’
‘But Mistress Tippet—’
‘Superstition,’ I said. ‘Rank superstition.’
The young footman shook his head, as unshakeable in his fear as I was in mine. ‘They eat your soul, master. My mama told me.’
I took pity on him and told him to stand at the gateway to the orchard and keep watch. Corporal Grantford, unperturbed by the ghosts, was strolling among the trees and gathering fruit in his hat. Wintour was still looking for the baby’s grave. I joined him, and we walked methodically over the ground, examining every square foot of it.
‘November seventy-six,’ he said. ‘Damn it, that’s nearly three years ago now. And a baby’s body don’t take much more room than a cat’s, does it?’ He kicked savagely at a tussock of grass. ‘But you’d think they’d have left a marker, wouldn’t you?’
‘They might have done,’ I said. ‘It could have rotted away.’
We took another turn, examining the ground in silence. Mrs Tippet believed that they had buried the baby here a few days before its grandfather. But she hadn’t been there herself. She had no idea where the body might lie.
‘God’s death, why the orchard?’ Wintour burst out suddenly. ‘I can see why they put old Froude here after the place was sacked. But the baby died before that. So why not in the churchyard in the village? After all, my daughter was a Wintour. Half a Froude, too.’
‘Conditions were unsettled,’ I pointed out. ‘And the roads were probably bad at that time of year. No doubt they intended to re-inter the child later.’
I wondered whether the explanation had in fact been simpler and sadder, though I said nothing of this to Jack Wintour: perhaps poor Mrs Arabella had wished to keep her child as close to her as possible.
He said no more, but paced on. When we reached the far wall of the orchard, he stopped and rested his head on the brickwork. He rapped his forehead against it, three times.
‘Jack—’
He turned. I saw that tears were streaming down his cheeks.
‘Pray calm yourself, my friend,’ I said.
I looked behind us. Abraham was in the gateway at the other end of the orchard and he had his back to us. Grantford was nearer, though he appeared to be absorbed in gathering fruit.
Wintour wiped his face with the sleeve of his coat. ‘What else can a man do but weep?’ he said thickly. ‘I’m not like my father. Or even old Froude.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘My father would talk of God’s providence and the certainty of heaven – ay, and he believes it all too. And he would quote all the philosop
hical gentry at you, from old Socrates onwards. As for Froude, he was as cold as charity: he’d have said at least it was only a girl, and what we needed was a son and heir. But me—’ He hit his chest with sudden violence. ‘I’m no good at thinking or talking or praying, Edward.’ He straightened up and added, in a much quieter voice: ‘I merely thought – I hoped – that there would be something of her left. Something of my daughter.’
We walked a turn or two in silence.
‘Come,’ I said after a while. ‘I’m hungry. And we need to decide what we are to do.’
He looked at me and blinked. He was like a man waking from a dream. ‘Yes. I want to see what’s left in the patroon’s house.’
‘Why? Have you not seen enough already?’
He ignored the question. ‘And we haven’t looked at the mansion yet, either.’
‘When are we leaving?’ I asked. ‘Why not tonight? It would be safer, would it not? We could put ten miles between us and Mount George by dawn.’
‘I wonder if those thieving Whigs found the wine cellar.’ Wintour’s voice had a rasp in it. ‘Froude knew what he was about in that direction at least.’
‘Jack, we cannot linger here.’
‘Why not?’ He gave a shout of laughter, so loud and reckless that Grantford stared at us and even Abraham turned to see what was happening. ‘No one will disturb us, Edward. They’re all cowards, you know. They are afraid of the ghosts.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
The mansion was barely more than a memory. The fire had gutted it, destroying most of its contents. The storms of three winters had ravaged what was left. The heat of two summers had baked the remains.
Fragments of wall rose fifteen or twenty feet into the air. Doorways linked one vacancy to another. Chimneystacks of blackened brick and stone served rooms that no longer existed. Weeds, shrubs and saplings sprouted from every cranny they could find. In a year or two, there would be no trace at all of the great house at Mount George.
We left Abraham and Grantford to mount sentry outside – indeed, I doubt we could have found any inducement to persuade Abraham to enter the place. Wintour and I picked our way through the ruins. Under our feet was a blackened litter of broken glass, china and a multitude of other objects that I could not begin to identify.
‘This must be the hall, I apprehend.’ Wintour scraped at the rubbish with the toe of his boot. ‘Yes, it had a flagged floor. So here was the great parlour, with the dining room beyond, and then the library.’
‘Jack – we dare not spend too long here. We should go.’
‘Soon. A few hours, that’s all.’
‘But there’s nothing left. And it’s too dangerous to stay.’
He scowled at me. ‘I shall do as I please, sir. I’m my own master here, I think.’
He led the way out of the ruin and turned towards the farmstead. After a few yards, however, he turned back.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I should not have spoken like that to you.’
‘It doesn’t matter. But we cannot stay. It is not only our own lives we put at risk. It is Grantford’s and Abraham’s as well.’
‘I know. I’m truly sorry for it but there are reasons.’ The argument had touched him, as I had known it would. ‘Give me a little more time. I beg of you.’
‘Why?’
He stared at me for a long moment. Then he sighed. ‘Soon you will know everything, Edward. I swear it. But for now will you trust me?’
We turned the horses out to graze in a small, grassy enclosure beside the larger barn. Abraham and Grantford took turn and turn about mounting guard. There was the remains of a dovecote in one corner of the yard, the top of which commanded a view not only of the immediate approach to the farmyard and the garden front of the house but also of much of the desmesne below.
By this time it was almost three o’clock in the afternoon. Wintour went back to the patroon’s house and began to examine the rubbish on the floor more carefully. Meanwhile, I walked about the yard and wandered through the barns, sheds and enclosures.
Hard by the Dutchman’s dwelling was another, smaller building constructed of similar materials and retaining its roof. It had only one storey. Inside was a single chamber with a brick floor sloping down to a central drain. In one corner was a wooden cover that concealed the head of a well. There were also two stone sinks and several ovens built into the side of the massive chimney. Clearly it had once been a scullery and bakehouse, built apart from the dwelling-place to lessen the risk from fire.
It was equally obvious that the building had not been used for this purpose for many years. But I noticed a number of rings had been let into the walls, some of them nearly at the level of the floor. Dusty ropes were attached to them. They caught my attention because there was little else in the room – and that in itself was unusual, for the other buildings were crowded with rubbish. Near the drain in the centre of the floor was a great iron plate. A heavy hammer had been discarded beside it, along with a pair of pincers. I speculated that a blacksmith might have worked here, though there was no evidence of that in the form of rusting horseshoes or nails.
This conundrum occupied me for several minutes. In truth I was so worried about our dangerous situation – and about Jack Wintour’s erratic behaviour – that I would have seized with fervour on any distraction, however trivial.
The floor was covered with a fine, gritty dust that had probably lain undisturbed for years. It was perfectly dry for the roof was sound. An irregular patch of the dust, some of it on the iron plate, some of it immediately to one side, was slightly darker than the rest. I bent to examine it.
At that moment – and on such small events, whole countries may rise and fall, let alone the life of one man – a fly entered my mouth. Instinctively I spat it out. Along with the fly came a silver drop of my spittle, which landed on the darker section of the iron plate.
On a whim, I touched it with my forefinger and rubbed at it to expose the metal beneath the encrusted layer of dust. But the iron held no secrets. I learned only that it was free from rust and slightly indented, as though it had been hit many times by a hammer.
I straightened up and went to the doorway. I took out my handkerchief. I was about to clean my finger when I realized that, though the iron had no secrets, perhaps the dust did. My fingertip was tinted rusty-red.
Suddenly I remembered my games of backgammon with Jack Wintour in Warren Street. I remembered the splash of madeira on the board and the colour it revealed.
Blood, I thought. More blood. Always blood in this damned country, ever since I had seen Roger Pickett’s body with the bloody gash in his neck.
I chided myself for allowing my imagination to run riot. No doubt it was the trace of rust on my finger. Even if it were blood, there was nothing strange in that. This was a farm, after all, a place where animals lived and died.
My reason should have calmed my heart. But still my own blood thudded through my veins. I told myself my nerves were overwrought. There was nothing strange in that.
I heard running footsteps in the yard. My panic surged back. I swung to face the door, my hand groping for the pistol in my belt.
Grantford’s figure filled the doorway, which was so low he had to duck.
‘Sir. It’s Abraham. I can’t find him.’
Jack Wintour was on his hands and knees, picking through the trash scattered over the floor of what must once have been the patroon’s parlour.
‘I shall search the barns after this,’ he announced, glancing towards us. ‘And then—’
‘Abraham’s gone,’ I interrupted.
‘What?’
‘He was meant to be up in the dovecote keeping watch. But when Grantford went to relieve him he wasn’t there.’
Grantford coughed. ‘Begging your pardon, your honours, but his satchel’s still over there in the corner.’
‘But where would he go?’ Wintour said.
‘Perhaps he didn’t want to go anywhere,’ I said. ‘Perhaps it was
more that he didn’t want to stay here. He was terrified of the ghosts. But if he’s picked up and questioned by the enemy—’
‘He’ll hold his tongue,’ Wintour said. ‘He’d never betray us. Why, he’s never known any other family than us.’
‘He’s a slave,’ I said, suddenly angry. ‘Why should he owe you any loyalty, Jack? He never had any choice in the matter before. But now he has.’
Wintour blinked. ‘Are you sure he’s not somewhere about? He – he could have fallen asleep in a corner. Depend on it, that’s what happened, or something like that.’
‘We should search for him,’ I said. ‘And if we don’t find him we’ll know he’s gone.’
Grantford suggested we look outside first. If Abraham had run away, he could not have gone far; and we might be able to see him in the relatively open terrain of the parkland surrounding the mansion.
By unspoken agreement, the three of us kept together. Once outside the farmyard we walked in the direction of the orchards. The path led us beside the outer wall of one of the yard’s barns. This was supported by brick buttresses. We found Abraham between two of them.
He was lying on his side with his breeches about his ankles. It was clear that he had been interrupted in the urgent business of evacuating his bowels. The body stank for the process of evacuation had begun in life and finished in death.
I could no longer afford to be squeamish. I crouched beside him and felt for a pulse that I knew I would not find. His face was suffused with blood. I could see a single, staring eye. Around his neck was a circular contusion. There was no sign of his cutlass.
I straightened up. Grantford was scanning the countryside. Wintour looked at me without speaking.
‘Strangled,’ I said. ‘With a cord, I think.’
Chapter Fifty-Three
The horses were restless. They knew something was wrong.
We carried Abraham back to the yard and laid him in a byre with a piece of sacking to cover his face. I said a short prayer for I thought no one else would do it and we owed it to him that someone should. Wintour and Grantford stood bareheaded beside me. All of us were alert for movement outside.
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