“I know, but I cannot. I have nowhere to go, not yet, but we live in the attics above the kitchen wing and he will never know we are there, I promise you. Forgive me for my hysteria, Annie. I panicked rather, but now I have recovered my senses a little. At least I can hide away from him. How can you be so calm? Your case is much harder than mine.”
“I think… because I am all in pieces inside, and if I begin to think too hard, I shall fly apart, like the springs of a clock, and then I might never be put back together again.”
“Oh, Annie!” Judith said. “I have not been much of a friend to you, have I? In avoiding him, I have avoided you, too, and when I did speak up just now, I only made things worse.”
“It was already as bad as it could be,” Annie said. Then, restlessly getting to her feet, she cried, “Where is he? Why is he not back yet? I must dress for dinner, for if he returns and I am not ready—”
“Yes, go, you must go!” Judith cried.
And so, the most bizarre element of that most bizarre of days, Annie went up to her dressing room and went through the routine of donning her evening gown as if nothing at all were amiss, and her insides were not roiling with terror. Both Betty and Honeywell came, having decided between them that they would share the duty until a final agreement on the matter had been arrived at by husband and wife.
Then Annie went downstairs and sat in the peacock chamber, awaiting her husband. Judith rushed in and sat with her, although ready to skitter out of sight as soon as he returned. Yet still he did not come.
“Shall I tell Mrs Hewitt to serve the dinner, madam?” Mrs Cumber said at six o’clock.
“Let us wait,” Annie said firmly. Not that she would be able to eat anything, whether Mr Huntly returned or not. Was this part of her punishment? Was he making her so anxious about him that she would fall at his feet in abject repentance when he eventually returned? If so, his plan was doomed to failure. She would certainly beg his forgiveness for her intemperate language, but the substance of her complaint was valid, and if he had any honesty in him, he would recognise it.
The room began to grow gloomy, and Billy silently entered and lit the candles. And still Mr Huntly did not return. Surely he had gone to eat his mutton elsewhere, for it was almost eight o’clock, and he would not go without food for so long. He was a creature of habit.
The sound of a carriage on the drive turned Annie’s knees to jelly. He was come home! Although he had left on foot, he had obtained a carriage to bring him home. Now she must face whatever punishment he deemed appropriate for her. She thought for a moment she might be sick, but she took several deep breaths and steadied herself.
Several male voices in the hall. That was odd… had he brought someone to dine with them?
The door opened, and Mrs Cumber stood there, white faced.
“Sir Leonard Fairbrother, Mr Popham, Mr Grey, madam.”
Sir Leonard? The magistrate? Dear God, were they here to arrest her? Was it a crime to argue with one’s husband? She sprang to her feet.
“My dear Mrs Huntly!” It was the vicar who came forward. “Dear lady, we bring you bad news, I fear. You must prepare yourself for a very great shock. Pray sit down. Mrs Herbert, do you have smelling salts to hand?”
“Do get on with it, Popham!” Sir Leonard said gruffly, his bushy eyebrows ominously lowered.
“Of course, of course. I very much regret… I deeply regret to inform you of the most tragic circumstance—”
“Your husband is dead, Mrs Huntly,” Sir Leonard said.
“Sir Leonard!” Mr Popham protested.
“Dead?” she said faintly, struggling to breathe.
“Dead. Some villain shot him through the chest not half a mile from here, and he is quite dead.”
Annie felt as if her head were underwater. She was hot, she could not breathe, the world faded into the distance… then all was blackness.
8: A Death In The Family
Annie woke to the odd feeling that the world had fallen onto its side. She was lying down, that was it… lying on a chaise longue in the peacock chamber. Judith’s concerned face was bending over her, waving a vial of smelling salts under her nose and behind her she saw Mrs Cumber, anxiously wringing her hands. Somewhere in the distance, male voices rumbled.
Slowly she remembered… Rupert not returning… he was dead… shot in the chest… then she had fainted.
A man’s face. Mr Grey, the physician. “How do you feel now, Mrs Huntly?”
“I… not sure.” She made a feeble attempt to sit up.
“Lie still, and you will be better directly. Have you a fan about you, Mrs Herbert? Mrs Rupert looks very hot.”
“No… I am quite well… if I could but sit up…”
Judith put an arm behind her to lift her up and the room righted itself. Judith found a fan — oh, her own fan, she realised — and began waving it vigorously in front of her face. The air was not cool, but it revived Annie a little.
Sir Leonard and Mr Popham were talking in low voices across the room, rather tersely, by the sound of it. Sir Leonard’s deep voice was gruff and peremptory, Mr Popham’s higher one admonitory. The parson was reproving the magistrate for his abrupt announcement.
Mr Grey took her pulse and nodded, seemingly satisfied.
“Is it true?” she said. “My husband is dead?”
“I am afraid so.”
“Someone killed him?” He nodded. “But why? Who would want to do such a thing?”
“That remains to be discovered, Mrs Huntly. Sir Leonard has sent word to the coroner, and has pledged to investigate the matter personally. The parish constables are well enough for straying cows and the like, but will not do for murder.”
“Murder…” Such an ugly word… she shivered.
“Mrs Huntly, may I give you something to help you to sleep tonight? A little laudanum, and you will feel a great deal better in the morning.”
“Will I?” she said. “My husband will still be dead, Mr Grey. Murdered…”
She allowed him to leave her a vial of laudanum, although she knew she would not take it. Her own remedies were gentler and more fitting, she felt, than the harsher poppy seeds.
They left soon after. Judith and Betty helped her to bed, and both offered to sleep in the dressing room, to be near at hand if she should need anything. She refused, for what she needed most was solitude, to settle her mind and begin to accept what had occurred. She had eaten nothing for hours, so Judith arranged for a tray of food to be left in her room, together with a decanter of claret.
“Half a glass when you eat will do you a world of good,” she said. “Oh, Annie! I hate to leave you alone like this. Will you promise me that you will send for me if you need a friend to bear you company?”
Annie agreed to it, and after Betty had readied her for bed, they left her alone. She listened to them disappear down the corridor and silence fell. Outside the house, the trees rustled slightly, and somewhere an owl hooted. Within, all was quiet. In the kitchen wing, no doubt, the servants were discussing the day’s events in shocked whispers. In the attics above the kitchens, Judith would be checking that all was well with her daughters before preparing for bed herself. Did she have a maid? Annie had no idea. She knew so little about the house, or the people in it, even though she was its mistress. Her husband had taken charge of everything.
The room was hot, so Annie opened the window and sat, hunched over her knees, on the window seat. There was no husband now to reprove her for the risks inherent in the evening air. Somehow, that made her feel guilty, so she closed the window, and climbed into the huge bed. But that, too, reminded her of Mr Huntly, for it was the first time since her marriage that she had occupied the bed alone. Miserably, she curled up under the blankets, closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
Astonishingly she did indeed doze for a while, waking with a start in the depths of the night. Noises… someone was moving about in the corridor outside her room. Low voices, and the soft sound of a door being opened.
She slid out of bed, lit a candle, threw on a wrap and went to the door. Opening it a crack, she saw several candles moving about, Mrs Cumber and Sheffield, still fully dressed, and several men carrying something wrapped in a sheet on a hurdle—
She knew what they were carrying. Her husband’s body was being returned to his chamber. She turned back into her room and shut the door firmly, turning the key in the lock. Then, in sudden irrational terror, she tore through to her dressing room and locked the connecting door.
Her heart racing, she paced about the room for a while, telling herself firmly that he was dead and a dead man could not hurt her. He would never come through the connecting door again. And gradually, by infinitely slow degrees, her panic subsided.
Annie realised that she was both hungry and thirsty. She measured a small amount of a soothing syrup, ate some cold meat and bread and drank half a glass of claret. To her surprise, she felt much better. Realising her earlier panic was quite foolish, she unlocked the doors again and when she returned to bed, she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.
~~~~~
The doctor arrived before she was even dressed.
“Well, you have a much better colour this morning,” he said, as her felt her pulse. “The laudanum has done you good. How much did you take?”
“None of it,” she said. “I preferred something of my own.”
“Hmpf. What did you take? Some foolish herbal concoction, I’ll warrant.”
“Syrup of water-lily flowers, made with violets, lettuce and purslane. I find it more cooling to the body than poppies, and it helped me to sleep.”
His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Well… your mother is a herbalist, I suppose?”
“My uncle is an apothecary. I often helped him make his mixtures and medicines.”
“Ah. Nevertheless, a little knowledge can be dangerous where such matters are concerned. He is presumably fully qualified and experienced in such matters, whereas you…”
“I assure you, I only employ the simplest infusions and decoctions, and only those known to be safe. The syrup I took was one prepared to my uncle’s instructions.”
“Good,” he said, with an abrupt smile. “Very good. You are perfectly lucid today, therefore I see no need to bleed you. I shall tell the housekeeper to ensure there is beef tea always available for you. Drink that, and half a glass of claret or other wine three times a day, do not exert yourself in the slightest, and you will do very well.”
Annie blinked. “Thank you,” was the only response she could manage.
Betty had managed to unearth a mourning gown — “Your mama insisted when your wedding clothes were being made. Said that a lady should be prepared for every eventuality.” — so Annie dressed herself from head to toe in deepest black.
“I have no widow’s cap,” she said.
“I’ll stitch a bit of black ribbon onto a plain one,” Betty said. “Just wear your usual cap for now. You won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
“I never went anywhere before this,” Annie said gloomily.
“And now you can,” Betty said cheerfully. “No man can tell you what to do or where to go now, and although I don’t wish to speak ill of the dead, Miss Annie, it’s my opinion that you’re better off without him.”
Annie opened her mouth to reprimand her, then snapped it shut again, recognising the fierceness in her expression. Besides, was she wrong? Somewhere at the back of Annie’s mind, buried deep below her sense of duty and wifely loyalty, she knew that there was truth in Betty’s words. Yet what was to happen to her now, widowed only two months after her wedding? She had entrusted herself to Mr Huntly, and whatever his failings, he would have taken care of her. What would become of her? Like Judith, she would lose her rightful place here to a new master and mistress. She might even have to leave Willow Place. Where did widows go when there was no dower house — to the poor house? Or could she go back to her uncle? That would feel too much like failure.
The daily routine asserted itself to keep her from dismal introspection. She dutifully drank the chocolate that had been sent up to the dressing room, trying not to think of the man who had ordered it, his shrouded body lying even now in next room. Then she made her way to the hunting room to await Mrs Cumber. It was not yet eight o’clock, so perhaps she should start her correspondence for the day. But how could she, when Mr Huntly was not there to put her letters into her hand?
Annie sat in her chair before her empty desk, completely nonplussed. Such a trivial little detail, foolish in the extreme, yet she could not see a way past it. So she simply sat, her hands in her lap, until the clock struck eight and Mrs Cumber knocked. Annie jumped up, her heart racing… she was not in her proper place! She should be sitting on the sofa to receive Mrs Cumber. Mr Huntly would be so cross—
She was halfway across the room before she remembered that he was dead, and would never be cross with her again. Even then she was so flustered that she could not think straight. Whatever Mrs Cumber asked her, she replied mechanically, “Whatever you think best, Mrs Cumber.” The new lady’s maid to be dispatched back to Salisbury, whether to send Billy out to buy some fish, would she prefer the last of the strawberries or peaches… all of these she left to Mrs Cumber. It was too difficult to think about any of them.
“Should you like Mrs Herbert to sit with you, madam?” Mrs Cumber. “Or Betty can bring some sewing in here, if you prefer. Forgive me for saying so, madam, but I don’t think you should be on your own.”
“I… I cannot say. There is nothing for me to do,” she said, still unsettled by the change in her usual routine. “I have no letters to read or reply to.”
“Billy will collect the letters later this morning,” Mrs Cumber said. “The post boy leaves them at the gamekeeper’s cottage on the Salisbury road around noon.”
“Oh. I did not realise… But where do the morning’s letters come from? Mr Huntly always gave me my letters well before noon.”
“I expect those were yesterday’s letters, madam. They were always put into the master’s hands, the bag unopened, and he distributed them himself. I expect he put them away somewhere safe.”
“Oh. Yes. He said they were yesterday’s letters. He liked us to do our correspondence in the morning, before breakfast. Thank you, Mrs Cumber.”
“Are you all right, madam?”
“Yes. Yes, I am quite all right, thank you.”
“Would you like a pot of tea sent in, madam?”
“Oh no! Mr Huntly does not like me to drink tea. I have had my chocolate, and there will be coffee at breakfast. More nourishing than tea.”
“Yes, madam.”
After Mrs Cumber had gone, Annie went to sit behind her desk again, but there were no letters to read, no replies to write, nothing for her to do. Perhaps there were letters for her somewhere in her husband’s desk, but it was unthinkable to search for them. Without her husband, she felt oddly adrift, as helpless as a child awaiting instructions. It was hard to remember the way she used to be at her uncle’s house, when she had been busy all day and yet no one had ever directed her time. She had worked out what needed to be done, and then she had set herself to do it, without fuss. Yet somehow, in two months of married life, she had lost that ability altogether. How strange!
Judith arrived to sit with her, together with Janet, her daughter of six years. They brought with them some wooden pieces that slotted together to make a map of Great Britain, and a collection of wooden letter blocks. Then they sat quietly at a table together, as Janet worked away and Judith corrected her mistakes and praised her successes. The low murmur of their voices was soothing. After a while, there was breakfast, when Annie drank the beef tea prescribed by Mr Grey, and half a glass of claret, and Judith persuaded her to eat a little of a Bath bun. Then she drank the cup of coffee that Mr Huntly had insisted she take. After that, they returned to the hunting room.
The morning saw a succession of visitors. Sir Leonard arrived with another gentleman whom Annie had never met before, a Squ
ire Thornton. He was a magistrate too, and they asked her gentle questions that were easy to answer. When had she last seen her husband? Was she aware of where he had gone? At what time had she expected him home? Had he ever been late before?
Then the coroner came to ask her permission to examine her husband’s body. He, too, asked her much the same questions. Then Mr Grey again, to see how she was, to take her pulse and frown over her. Mr Popham came, also to see how she was, and to pray for her husband’s soul, and to enquire in the gentlest terms possible about the funeral, and whether she had any particular wish for a delay, given the current unfortunate spell of hot weather. He spoke of the cellar, and ice, which made Annie shudder.
Sir Leonard returned, this time with a constable, requesting permission to talk to the servants. Mrs Grey came, in a great flurry of black ribbons, to condole with Annie, and ask in the most sympathetic tones, how she was. As always, Annie replied instinctively that she was perfectly well, although a little shocked, naturally.
“Oh, but of course, my dear!” Mrs Grey said. “Such a dreadful thing to happen, quite dreadful. How distressed you must be! It is of all things the most horrifying, and so sudden! With illness, one has at least some little time to prepare oneself, but in this case—! How shocking for you, my dear. I do feel for you, most sincerely. It is most unfortunate, most unfortunate. And you are quite well, you say? You are a trifle pale, perhaps, but you have never had a great deal of colour, have you? And you feel… entirely well? Not the least disorder? Well! Let us hope it remains so.”
Annie was sitting in the peacock chamber with Judith and just beginning to wonder if it would soon be time for her rest, at which time she might have a cup of tea, when a rider was heard arriving in a clatter of sprayed gravel from his horse’s hooves and imperious shouts for the groom. Then came stentorian knocking on the door, which made Judith jump.
“We must get some crepe on the knocker,” she murmured.
The sound of boots echoed across the hall and the door flew open, followed immediately by Adam, with Mrs Cumber scurrying in his wake, too far behind to announce him.
The Apothecary (Silver Linings Mysteries Book 3) Page 8