The Reluctant Assassin

by FIONA BUCKLEY

  ‘I taught him his figures,’ I said. ‘But I didn’t go further than that.’

  ‘Mr Hewitt obviously tried,’ Philip said, ‘but Harry clearly doesn’t like the subject and has little talent for it. All the same, there are things he really must learn. I want, with your agreement, to give extra time to figurework. In particular, I would like to concentrate on aspects of arithmetic that will be of practical use in adult life. Double-entry book-keeping is something anyone should understand who is one day going to manage an estate and a stud farm. Keeping track of the accounts will be essential. But though double-entry really isn’t a difficult concept to grasp, he hasn’t managed it so far. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘Entirely. Please make what arrangements seem best to you. What about history?’

  ‘History? In that, he is already quite well read. I am happy about his progress there. Is he back yet, by the way? Since I wanted to report to you this morning, I gave him some time off and told him that he could go out for a ride. I know he must learn to be proficient and self-reliant in the saddle so I gave him permission to go alone.’ He smiled. ‘I suggested that he should take a route that would give him a good chance of seeing some deer. Where the path towards the house called White Towers is crossed by another, if you take the right-hand track, it leads to a part of the woodland where deer often wander. You know the track I mean, I dare say. But I told him to be back in time for an arithmetic lesson before dinner.’

  I nodded. The route he had described led through thick woods where there was plenty of cover for deer, both red and roe, and then continued out of the woodland to farmed country and fields whose owners, every time the corn was ripening, furiously complained of depredations. The red stags, who like Roman nobles, liked to eat lying down, were particularly exasperating, since they squashed as much as they ate. But they were beautiful animals and Harry always enjoyed catching a glimpse of them.

  ‘Well, he must certainly have time for riding,’ I said. ‘That’s part of a gentleman’s education and he must also learn such manly arts as swordplay and archery. We mustn’t forget that.’ I smiled too. ‘He is growing fast and your father and I have just promoted him from his little pony to a full-size horse – the one that your father himself rode before I bought Firefly for him. The brown cob with the pale nose, Mealy. He’s somewhat broad in the back but Harry’s legs are getting long already. His father was a tall man. And it’s a good use for Mealy. We tried to train him to harness,’ I said ruefully, ‘but it wasn’t a success.’

  It had been a disaster. Nothing, it seemed, would reconcile Mealy to the idea of being fastened to a cart that followed him, rattling, wherever he went. He was a good-tempered animal as a rule but when he bit Brockley, who had stepped up to him with an armful of harness, we decided to give up.

  Harry’s need of a bigger mount, however, provided a use for Mealy. They were already making friends.

  ‘I expect he’ll be back very soon,’ I said. ‘He’s usually quite obedient. I’m sure he’ll be here in time for some further forays into double-entry book-keeping.’

  We both laughed, and Philip’s laugh was so reminiscent of his father that it jerked oddly at my viscera.

  There had been a time, years ago now, when Roger Brockley and I had come near to becoming lovers. It hadn’t happened, but a bond had been formed, nevertheless, of heart and mind. Sometimes there was a union of our minds so complete that we could read each other’s thoughts. We were careful, because Dale was aware of the link and had at one time seriously resented it. She knew now that she had nothing to fear, but she could still be hurt and we knew it.

  I rose and went to the window. The small parlour was next to the great hall and both looked out on to the courtyard, with a glimpse of the gatehouse to the right. ‘Though there’s no sign of him yet,’ I said, turning away. ‘Perhaps he went further than he intended.’

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you, if I may, Mistress Stannard. I’ll go to the schoolroom and prepare for the lesson. Perhaps you would send Harry to me when he comes back?’

  ‘Yes, certainly. Straight away. Ah!’ Out in the courtyard, hooves were clattering. ‘That is probably him now.’ I stepped back to the window. ‘He may not like arithmetic lessons very much but he’s usually very good about being in the schoolroom on time … Oh!’

  ‘What is it? Mistress Stannard?’

  Philip had moved to stand beside me and we stared in alarm at the scene in the courtyard. Mealy was there, certainly, but his saddle was empty, the stirrups were loose and flapping, the reins were lying slackly on his neck. Brockley was at Mealy’s head and our youngest groom, Eddie, was there too, stroking the cob’s neck and looking distressed.

  There was no sign whatever of Harry. I abandoned the window, and ran, with Philip hard behind me.

  ‘Master Harry must have been thrown,’ Brockley said as we came rushing into the courtyard. ‘Though how it could have happened … he rides well and Mealy is quiet enough under saddle, and not given to shying. We’ll have to search. Did Master Harry say which direction he meant to take?’

  ‘You suggested a route to him,’ I said to Philip. ‘Do you think he took it?’

  ‘Very likely. He really does like to catch sight of deer,’ Philip said. His face was full of anxiety.

  Arthur and Joseph had now appeared from the tack-room, and had joined us, also looking concerned. Brockley was paying close attention to Mealy. ‘There’s something wrong here, madam. This horse came in at a gallop. Look how his sides are heaving. He’s sweating and he’s trembling. He’s been upset, frightened, perhaps.’

  I was trembling too, but trying to be practical. ‘We must search. We must find Harry at once. Make haste! Get the horses saddled! Everyone must come who can. Where’s Simon?’

  Simon was my fourth groom, a very competent young man. ‘Out exercising Rusty,’ Arthur said.

  ‘All right, we’ll manage without him. But everyone else! Now, quickly, everyone!’

  They were quick. There was a flurry of saddling up, and in minutes, I was up on Jewel and Philip was mounting his own flea-bitten grey mare.

  There were six of us: Philip, myself, Brockley, Arthur, Joseph and Eddie. We took the westward track, as Eddie said he had seen Harry set off in that direction. It led through the woods and came after a few miles to White Towers, the house that Philip had mentioned. I had friends there. If Harry had been thrown when he was close to White Towers, but had not been much hurt, he might have gone there for help. I could only hope so. They would have looked after him and perhaps lent him something to ride home on. We might meet him coming towards us on one of their horses. We might … We reached the place where the track was crossed with another, leading north and south. This was the place where Philip had recommended Harry to turn right. Still, we couldn’t be sure that Harry had followed his advice, so I sent Eddie and Joseph off on the left-hand branch, just in case, and told Arthur and Philip to go on to White Towers. Brockley and I went to the right.

  None of us found anything. The right-hand path led us northwards under a canopy of branches, now coming into leaf. It wound a good deal and round every corner I hoped to meet Harry making for home on foot, but there was no sign of him. The path was hard-packed, and would not have taken Mealy’s hoofprints very well, but all the same, I kept thinking that there ought to have been something, if Harry had passed this way. There were a few damp patches that might have taken hoofprints, and had not.

  In the end, we turned back and made for White Towers, hurrying hopefully towards its white stone walls and ornamental turrets, only to find Philip and Arthur in anxious conference with my old friend Christina Ferris and her husband Thomas.

  Harry had not been there.

  Thomas Ferris called four of his men and all five saddled up, to quarter the woods more thoroughly, without sticking to the tracks. We met Eddie and Joseph returning from a fruitless search to the south and added them to our party. Thomas organized us into groups, each covering a differen
t part of the woods, and a fresh hunt began. We searched and searched, calling Harry’s name, peering among the tree trunks for any trace – broken twigs, a piece of torn cloth, signs of trampling. All in vain.

  ‘If only Mealy could talk!’ Brockley said, gnawing his lip in frustration.

  At last, we parted from Thomas and his men and turned despairingly for home. We were bewildered.

  ‘There’s a limit to how far Harry could have gone,’ said Philip. ‘He only left just over an hour before I came to talk with you, Mistress Stannard. We’ve surely covered all the ground he might have reached, even if he set off at full gallop and why ever should he?’

  ‘He wouldn’t,’ said Brockley. ‘He doesn’t ride wildly. He considers his horse; I’ve taught him about that. Besides, Mealy couldn’t keep up a full gallop for all that long. He’s no racehorse.’

  ‘He’d been galloping when he came back here,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, and he was out of breath, and sweating. Something must have scared him. I don’t understand this.’ Brockley shook a puzzled head.

  The afternoon was almost spent by the time we reached the house. We hadn’t dined, so we were all hungry and the warm day had turned humid.

  ‘There’s a storm coming,’ Brockley said glumly. I shuddered, thinking of Harry, wondering if by some awful mischance we had missed him, and he was lying unconscious somewhere among the trees. I didn’t want to stop searching but I knew that we must eat and rest the horses. We could resume the hunt later.

  When we rode in, most of the servants came out to meet us, along with Sybil, Dale and Gladys. Their faces were full of questions and hope, which vanished when they saw our grim expressions. I slid exhaustedly to the ground and Sybil, wordlessly, put an arm round me.

  Dale glared at Philip and said: ‘You were supposed to look after him!’

  ‘Now, Fran,’ said Brockley. ‘The boy has to have some liberty. He has to develop independence and no one would expect him to come to harm, riding a reliable horse close to home. It isn’t Philip’s fault.’

  ‘I feel as though it is,’ said Philip contritely.

  I had an unreasonable urge to agree with Dale. I wanted to blame someone, to shout and scream accusations. I choked the impulse down and turned instead to John Hawthorn, who was there with all the rest. ‘We need food,’ I said.

  Hawthorn had been prepared for that. He produced stew and bread and plum tart and small ale and most of the search party, grooms included, ate together in the hall, including Simon, who had returned while we were out. Over the meal, we tried to think of further plans. Brockley, like a terrier with a bone, was still puzzling over the state in which Mealy had come home.

  ‘He must have been frightened, if he threw his rider. He wouldn’t do that, normally. I should know! But what frightened him? Did any of you see anything, anything at all that might have upset a horse?’

  No one had. We planned a new strategy, involving search parties who would go all the way round the Hawkswood property, and also search within it, in case Harry hadn’t ridden through the woods at all but had for some reason changed his mind and ridden round or through it instead. When we had eaten, I had Jewel saddled again and I rode to the stud premises, to ask if anyone there had seen Harry. Perhaps he had taken a fancy to look at the trotters. The three under-grooms hadn’t seen him. Laurence Miller wasn’t there. He had gone to Guildford, apparently, to place an order for some new harness. He hadn’t returned. No one knew for sure where he was now.

  I came home disappointed. But it was still light and there was time to renew our hunt. This time, we took the dogs with us. I kept two half-mastiffs, Remus and Goldie, both quite young and both intelligent. Their keen noses might find traces that we could not. We gave them some of Harry’s clothes to smell and set out in hope, putting our new plan into effect by riding about the Hawkswood grounds and land, and then circling the property outside.

  We found nothing and neither did the dogs.

  In the evening, we all gathered again in the hall. Dusk was falling and the air was now very heavy. The storm that Brockley had prophesied was surely on its way.

  Harry would be out in it. Somewhere.

  Or would he? It was Brockley who said: ‘There is one thing we haven’t considered but it’s been getting bigger and bigger in my mind.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘We’ve found no trace. If he had been thrown, we would have found him; we must have done. He can’t have been swallowed up by the air. People just don’t vanish into the void. Suppose he’s been kidnapped?’

  FIVE

  The Stallion in the Parlour

  I was exhausted and bewildered. I kept expecting Harry to appear, just to walk into the house. It was impossible to believe that he simply wasn’t there, that I had no idea at all where he was. I stared at Brockley and said, ‘But that’s absurd. Who would want to kidnap him? Why? What for?’

  ‘Ransom?’ suggested Philip. ‘If it’s that, then they’ll get in touch with us. At least, then we’ll know what’s happened.’

  ‘Why Harry?’ I said wildly. ‘I’m not that wealthy. There are so many people who are richer than I am.’

  ‘You … forgive me … you are a widow, Mistress Stannard. You have no husband and Harry has no father.’ Philip spoke with embarrassment. ‘Perhaps … someone thought you were vulnerable?’

  ‘If I get my hands on them,’ I said viciously, ‘they will find out how vulnerable I am!’

  Sybil, gently, said: ‘Dear Ursula. We can do no more tonight, least of all with a storm coming.’ We had had to light the candles early because of the darkening sky. ‘I think Gladys should make you a potion to help you sleep. In the morning, we can search again. After all, we don’t know that Harry has been kidnapped. But we can do no more tonight.’

  She was right, of course. I was not the only one reeling from sheer weariness and we could not search in the dark, let alone in a storm. The horses had had more than enough, as well. To call off the hunt was unbearable, but we had to do it. ‘We begin again tomorrow,’ I said.

  But as yet, no one wanted to go to bed. Feeling the need for companionship, the Brockleys and Philip and most of my grooms, along with Sybil and Gladys, sat on in the hall, except for the groom Joseph Henty. He and his wife Tessie, who had once been Harry’s nursemaid, had moved into the cottage that had originally been occupied by Joseph’s parents. They had died, not very long ago, within a year of each other, Joseph’s father of heart disease and his mother, I think, of sheer sorrow. Since Harry had by then outgrown Tessie, who was in any case expecting a child of her own, I had offered the couple the cottage. Their small daughter was ten months old now. Joseph usually went home for his supper and Tessie would be worrying. He must get back to her, Joseph said.

  I sent him off, not without an unjust and sickening surge of envy. Tessie might have been worrying but her missing love was about to return home. Mine was not.

  Joseph hurried away, hoping to race the storm, which had not yet arrived though thunder was now rumbling in the distance. He had some way to go, since the cottage was beyond the formal gardens, out on the edge of the fields I had leased for the stud. He sometimes lent a hand at the stud with foaling mares. His quiet nature seemed to be helpful to them.

  Gladys brought me a potion but I refused it, badly though I needed rest. I kept thinking of Harry, frightened and alone, perhaps among strangers to whom he was nothing but a means of making money. Perhaps they would ill-treat him. Oh, Harry, my Harry …

  I had loved his father very much though I was never very happy with Matthew de la Roche. That sounds like a contradiction, but it was the truth. Our link was passionate but he was a supporter of Mary Stuart and an enemy to Elizabeth. I had lived with him for a while in France, but circumstances had caused me to visit England without him and while I was there, the queen and William Cecil had put their heads together.

  I had been told that Matthew had died. So I stayed in England and married Hugh, my dear Hugh.
I didn’t learn until long after that I had been deceived, that Matthew still lived. He had been informed that I was dead. I chose to stay with Hugh, and never regretted that choice. But after Hugh had also died, and I had occasion to go back to France, Matthew and I briefly came together again. I would not stay with him; our loyalties were too divergent. But from that short reunion, Harry was born.

  Matthew really was dead now. But something of him lived on in Harry, and something of that old passion lived on in me. It always would. And to be deprived not only of my son but also of this last link with Harry’s father …

  Harry was my son and that alone would have been enough to make me desperate now. But that second dimension heightened it. I would not and could not sleep. Not yet, anyway. So I sat on in the hall, trying to be calm and not succeeding.

  A fierce flash of lightning made us all jump. It was followed almost instantly by a mighty roar of thunder and then the rain came, swishing out of the sky in a deluge. The storm had broken with a vengeance.

  ‘That’s not going to do the young crops any good,’ Brockley said prosaically. ‘Rain’s fine, but this sort of thing can flatten them.’

  ‘They usually recover. Nature goes in for surviving,’ Philip remarked, and young Eddie nodded earnestly and said: ‘That’s true.’

  I knew they were talking in this commonplace way because they were trying to ease the tension in the room, and I longed to scream at them to stop babbling about rain and crops and do something about Harry. I held my tongue because I knew I was not thinking sensibly. No one could possibly do anything in such conditions. I cleared my throat and said something trite and silly about the Hawkswood lake, which had been low. It would be full enough after this.

  Adam Wilder came in to ask if we wanted anything further to eat or drink. I requested a round of ale and he went away to fetch it. He looked glad of something to do.

  Phoebe, my senior maid, came in next, to say that it was growing chilly now that the rain had come; should she light the fire? I said yes. She called another maid, Margery, and they went to the fuel basket that stood by the hearth and started to lay a fire with bits of wood and pieces of dried moss and tiny twigs. They were on their knees, coaxing the moss and twigs to catch light from candles, when the pounding started at the door to the courtyard and we heard Tessie’s voice crying to be let in.