by Issy Brooke
Finally a woman who worked in the kitchens was able to give him some real information. She was a matronly woman, sturdy and solid and plain-speaking. She looked drawn and tired, as she had worked the previous evening and was now back on her feet for a full day and night of more work. She took him out to the yard at the back where the ostlers were preparing the stables for the evening, and she pointed at the archway that led out onto the street.
“I saw him go out that way, driving his carriage like a maniac, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir.”
“I want you to speak the truth and it doesn’t matter what words you need to use,” he told her. “And was he alone?”
“For sure, sir, he was alone, up top and driving himself like any common cabbie; and there was no one in the carriage, sir, I am sure of it.” She whistled one of the grooms over. “Harry, was you working last night?”
Harry seemed to be about twelve years old. “Off and on,” he said.
“Harry sleeps here,” she told Theodore, “so he jumps up and works when he is needed, and sleeps when he can.”
The lad nodded.
“Do you remember a very drunk man, Lord Beaconberg, driving a Brougham something after midnight?” Theodore asked him.
“I already told the police. I told them, yes, I seen him. He were in a wild way, calling for his horse and his carriage, and leaping up and going off almost afore we was ready.”
“And did anyone get into the carriage?”
“No, sir. I can promise you that.”
“Do you know why he was in a wild way?”
“No, sir. Drink is all I thought, sir.”
“Thank you.” Theodore let the lad go, and folded his arms as he looked across the yard. He turned back to the helpful kitchen servant. “Did he go left or right?”
“Right, sir, as far as I can tell.”
That made sense. It was the direction of home for Lord Beaconberg.
“And then that man went after him. Or at least, he went in the same direction. But as there is only two directions – left or right – I didn’t think nothing of it. Unless you think something ought to be thought of it, sir.”
Theodore’s heart thudded twice. “What man?” he asked in excitement. Surely if it were foul play, everything was about to fall into place.
“Sir Arthur Glanville, sir. He came out and said good evening to me and I asked if he was looking for a horse or a cab and if he were to go back inside I’d arrange it, for he didn’t ought to be out in the yard when he was a gentleman.”
“And did he go back in?”
“No, sir, he said he was just out for some fresh air and had come by the closest door to where he had been, which makes some kind of sense, for oftentimes the gentlemen do step outside to clear their heads for a moment. But then instead of going back inside, he went on foot in the same direction that Lord Beaconberg had gone, and I didn’t think anything of it, for what is it to me? Like I say, right or left, there’s no more choice than that.”
“Quite so. How soon after Lord Beaconberg had departed did Sir Arthur come out?”
“A few minutes, sir. My lord had long gone.”
It had been a red herring, Theodore told himself in a curious mix of relief and disappointment. Sir Arthur could not have caught Lord Beaconberg up on foot, and especially not at the rapid pace that Lord Beaconberg had been going. Theodore had seen Lord Beaconberg go past, but not Sir Arthur. He felt a little dejected, because the two men had clearly argued which gave Sir Arthur a motive; but also relieved. He liked Sir Arthur a lot, and didn’t want to consider he might be in any way involved in the dreadful business.
He thanked the woman, and wandered thoughtfully back into the club.
HE TOOK HIS EVENING meal at the club, sending a silent entreaty through the ether to Adelia, begging her forgiveness and indulgence. She knew he had come into York, and when he didn’t return for the evening meal at the Grey House, she would assume he was dining in town. She’d be annoyed but at least they were staying with family who would understand his absence. If he had been a guest in any other house, his actions would be seen as rather rude.
After dining well, and speaking with as many people as possible in the club, he was no wiser as to why Lord Beaconberg had left in such a fury, except that he had been seen talking closely with Sir Arthur just after Theodore himself had left. Theodore knew that already; he’d left the men together. Theodore decided to let the matter drop. But, just to assuage Lady Beaconberg’s suspicions, he engaged a cab driver to help him retrace Lord Beaconberg’s route home the previous evening, and he paid the man handsomely to put up with frequent stops and pauses in the journey.
At every crossing and waypoint, he called on the cabbie to halt, so that he could swing out and speak to the people who were hanging about. There were beggars and crossing sweepers which, he knew, frequented the same spots; indeed, there was a hierarchy of good pitches from which the street folk could ply their various trades, and certain places were particularly sought after and jealously guarded by their incumbents. Many of these people could recall, or claimed they could recall, a carriage driven recklessly that previous night; but no other information came to light.
It was only as they left the town that Theodore discovered one piece of information. At the old toll bar, now disused, a man was sitting on a bench outside, and he had the air of one who spent all his day and most of his night in the same position, watching the world go by. Theodore asked if he had seen the Brougham fly past.
“No, I did not,” the man said, to Theodore’s surprise and disappointment.
He was just about to say that he was sorry to have troubled him, when the old man said, “It were stopped – just there.”
“Stopped?”
“It came past here, perhaps a little fast but the nag were tired, fair dropping its head with exhaustion, and then all of a sudden it pulled up sharpish and there was a neigh. It were spooked, I think, by a rag in the hedge – see?”
There was a piece of grey fabric fluttering on a twisted hawthorn by the road.
“And then what happened? Did you see anyone else?”
“I did not, sir, no. I went inside anyway. I didn’t want to be drawn into anyone else’s business at that time of night.”
Theodore thanked him, though he wanted to shake him, and let the cabbie continue on their way.
When they got to the place of the accident, they stopped one more time. Theodore jumped out to look at the damage but it was dark now, and even with the carriage lights turned to show the broken fence, it was hard to make anything out.
Perhaps he should return in the daylight.
Then he jumped up wearily into the cab once more. Why? What would be the point?
He still thought it was a tragic accident, and nothing that he had learned that day could point to anything else.
Seven
The Reverend Matthew Newbolt was a travelling preacher and seemed an unusual sort of man to turn up at the Grey House. If any clergyman was likely to call, Adelia would have expected a solid and dependable Church of England vicar not this relatively young, sparkling-eyed and erudite man who smelled of leaf litter and sea breezes.
Adelia had glimpsed Sibyl as she had crossed the hall to where the Reverend was awaiting her. But Adelia turned away before Sibyl could ask why the Reverend had turned up at the Grey House, and why he had asked to see Adelia specifically. She had a suspicion that it was to do with Harriet, and she was quickly proved correct. And if it was to do with Harriet, then it was to do with her brother, and she wanted to keep that to herself. Sibyl could not openly linger in the hall and out of the corner of her eye, Adelia saw her reluctantly walk away.
“I bear greetings from Mrs Hobson,” Reverend Newbolt told her in a low voice, with a smile playing about his lips. He was of middling age, with still-dark hair unflecked by any grey. “She has written to me with many entreaties to act only in your best interests, which of course I cannot promise to do, being bound as I am to
a higher power.” He said it lightly and she was not sure how far he was joking or not.
“I am glad to make your acquaintance,” she replied, and her eyes flicked to his hands, expecting him to hand over a letter and be on his way.
He noticed the movement and knew what she meant. Again, a smile flickered across his face. He extended his hand like a gentleman, his fingers however devoid of any letter, and said, “I find that I can think and converse much better when I am in motion. I should be honoured if you would walk with me.”
She didn’t want to converse with him. She wanted to see the message from Harriet. She wanted to know what her friend thought she ought to do about Jane Pegsworth and her incessant demands for money. Adelia’s own feelings now were inclining her to simply ignore the demands, but she didn’t trust either Jane or her brother Alf to accept that. They would turn up and petition her husband and make a public scene and expose all the half-truths and hidden things she had brushed over. And that she could not bear.
But the Reverend Newbolt seemed intent upon conveying her out into the open air, and she had to admit that it was a pleasant day for a stroll. To her surprise he did not escort her around the gardens of the Grey House. Instead, he steered her gently but firmly down the drive and out into the lane.
“And just like that, we are free!” he said, stopping. “I feel the confines of the building fall away from me like petals from a flower. Which way now?”
“I thought you had a direction in mind,” she said.
“Not at all. I leave it to the Good Lord to send his messengers to me – and there, see, is one of them now!”
“The sparrow?”
“Exactly so. And see, he flies to the right. That, then, is the way we shall go.”
She realised that his initial question – which way now – had never been directed to her at all. He had been talking to the hedge.
She managed to get about fifteen yards before she broke and said, in an insistent voice, “But sir, forgive me, but what word comes from Mrs Hobson?”
Suddenly there was a letter in his hand and he passed it to her. She had not seen him reach into his pocket. He grinned like a schoolboy showing off a trick. “I learned some of the conjuring arts in my youth,” he said.
“You have had an unusual youth, then,” she said. There was more she could have said. Adelia was inclined to like him, but was wary of him too; he seemed awfully clever, and that worried her when she encountered it in a churchman. She wanted her religion to be presented to her in an uncomplicated manner, packaged nicely and with no hidden questions to trap her and make her think about her faith. But clever vicars had a way of snaring one with their sermons and making one feel uncomfortable. His voice bore traces of many accents. His long stride was one that was used to an outdoor life, and his eyes missed nothing of what was going on around him, even as he appeared to be listening to her.
“I have,” he replied. “I have been lucky enough to have been without a home from a young age, and the terrifying freedom of this thrust me into the worlds of many different sorts of people, and I seized every chance to watch and listen and learn and meet and travel. I was also given ample chances to starve, to thirst, to wander lost, to be beaten and to be fooled; such sufferings have I shared with Our Lord, and He has sustained me through the worst of times.”
It did take a particular type of religious mind to see one’s travails as a gift, and Adelia personally did not take to the notion, but it was a common enough idea and she decided not to raise her private objections. He had scripture on his side and she only had emotions. Instead she looked at the envelope now in her hands, and longed to turn around and run back to the house so that she could read it in private.
But the Reverend Newbolt seemed to have other ideas. He was still holding her arm, and when he began walking she was bound to follow alongside. To wrench herself free of his grasp would have been rude.
For him to hold on and steer her along was probably also rude, but she was only a woman after all. So she walked and did her best to make polite conversation anyway, while privately hoping she could nudge him into tripping over a rock and twisting his ankle.
“How do you come to be carrying this letter to me?” she asked. “I assume you must have been travelling this way.”
“No. I had no intentions of coming north. I called in on the Bishop as I passed his house and they gave me their customary warm hospitality; I have known the Hobsons a long time. Mrs Hobson then asked for my advice, wondering if I knew anyone coming this way. As you can see I am a travelling preacher, thrown to the winds, conveyed by the will of the Lord; this, then, was a sign that I was needed up here. So I took her letter and came here by a variety of means. And here I shall wait, and if I am called to progress south, I can take a reply.”
That suggested to her that if he saw a sparrow coming from another direction, he’d head off east or west. Adelia was not entirely sure she’d trust her messages to a man directed by wildfowl.
But she stammered a polite list of thanks and he seemed happy to accept them. He began to point out tiny depressions in the grass which marked, he said, the habitual runs of mice or shrews. She could see nothing, but bent to look nonetheless. He interspersed his natural history lecture with quotes from scripture and as she had scant knowledge of either, save what she had gleaned in the schoolroom as a girl, she was unable to reply with much more than “Oh, I see!” and “Quite. How interesting.”
“But I weary you,” he said suddenly and without waiting for her to speak, he spun around and faced down the lane in the direction that they had come.
“Oh – no – it’s all fascinating.”
“You are very good but you are telling an untruth, dear lady. You wish only to get home and read the letter.”
“I...” she stumbled and stopped. “Yes,” she admitted. “It is true.”
He smiled as if he had won some victory in a game she hadn’t known they were playing. “Let us hurry you back to the Grey House, and you can closet yourself up and attend to your affairs.”
She wondered, as they went, how much of the situation Harriet had told him. She didn’t dare ask, in case he knew everything. She couldn’t imagine what judgment he might make of her.
He darted suddenly sideways. “This path will take us to the house much more quickly.” He was pulling open a wooden gate before she could stop him.
“It goes by the river,” she said.
“There is a bridge. I discovered it earlier as I sought my way to the house.”
“Yes, but ...” and then she remembered her daughter Mary’s delight that there were travellers camped down there, in spite of everyone else’s horror, and decided that as she was in the company of a man of the cloth, no harm could really befall her. Mary would enjoy the tale of Adelia seeing them. “Very well.” She picked her way through, and followed him over the dry grass, a little annoyed that she was not in her walking dress and Smith would be berating her about the stains the minute she saw the state of her clothing.
“Your reluctance was soon overcome,” he remarked as they made their way across the field. They turned around a corner and there clustered in front of them was a small encampment of wooden wagons, horses and rough tents. “I take it that you do not share in the common prejudices against the travelling folk?”
“Are we not all God’s creatures?” she said, pleased to be able to shoot back at him a little.
He grinned and again she had the sense that she had lost in an invisible battle. “Indeed we are,” he replied. But then, instead of walking past the camp at a respectful distance, to her horror he began to hail each person that he saw, and they lifted their caps and raised their hands in return greeting.
No one came to speak to them, to her relief, and they were soon over the bridge and approaching the grounds of the Grey House. “They are a lot closer to us than I had thought,” she said aloud.
“Yes,” he said, misunderstanding her in a way that might have been deliberate. “
Identical, in fact. Do we not all wish for health and happiness for ourselves and our loved ones? Do we not all long for eternal life?”
She could agree with the first but was undecided on the second point. Eternity was awfully long, after all.
But that was a discussion she did not want to enter into. He escorted her to the door of the house, and left her, with a flourish and a bow, and promised to call again in a day’s time to see if there was any reply for him to take back to Harriet. She asked where he was staying, in case she had need of him, and he indicated that he had begged a room from the local incumbent of the nearest parish church, the Reverend Staines.
She watched him go, strolling so casually away from the house and talking to the birds and peering at the grass and glancing up at the sky, and she thought: there is a man who has never been truly alone for a single moment in his life.
Eight
Adelia scurried through the house and managed to reach her room without being waylaid. She stood by the window, finding that her advancing years made reading difficult unless she was in a strong light. She had one last check over her shoulder at the closed door and then eagerly ripped open the envelope.
Harriet wrote with great flourishes to her letters, the ascenders and descenders encroaching on the lines above and below; her handwriting was like the woman herself, uncontainable and determined to dance outside the prescribed lines. She opened with assurances that the Reverend Newbolt was “as batty as a teeming belfry but totally trustworthy” and “as reliable as anyone whose first allegiance is to God” which was a sentence that could have been interpreted in different ways. But having met the man now, Adelia understood. “Now, regarding your dilemma. I think it is obvious that you ought not to send a scrap of money,” Harriet went on to say. “But you also ought to do your duty to your family and not be tied up with greed and the evils of hording wealth so you also ought to send all of your money.”