Imogen Robertson: Instruments of Darkness

The third consideration, and perhaps this last was sufficient in itself, was that Mrs. Westerman’s father, an unambitious West Country clergyman already a widower himself for some years, had failed to recover after a riding accident and died, leaving his younger daughter, Rachel, without protection, poor and, at only fourteen, scarcely capable of making her own way in the world.

Mrs. Westerman came home then with her child and gave up any intention she might once have had of going to sea again. She made herself manager and guardian of the commodore’s lands and offered her sister a permanent home. Mrs. Westerman’s and Miss Trench’s arrival was celebrated in the neighborhood, and Harriet became a valued member of local society as soon as her sense, her sound principles and the value of the commodore’s lands were generally known. She could, perhaps, be a little sharp at times, and a little inclined to enthusiasm, even contradicting her older neighbors if she felt they erred in matters domestic or political, but these missteps were put down to her strange experiences following her husband around the world, and allowances were made. The sister was generally thought of as a good, refining influence in the household, and was encouraged by the matrons of the county to regard herself as such. However, her own disappointments had been the occasion of some sad reflections in the past, and her future was still uncertain.

Miss Rachel Trench had heard the commotion of voices in the hallway and the yap of her sister’s greyhound as she drank her breakfast chocolate, looking out at the view to the woods from the salon, but it was the little suppressed shriek from Dido, their maid, that caused her to stand up and open the door. Mrs. Heathcote glanced at her, then shooed Dido away toward the kitchen. William, their footman, nodded to her also, but set out through the main door before she could speak to him, pulling his hat over his ears as he went. Rachel looked at the housekeeper. She seemed very white, and Rachel felt herself pale in preparation for bad news.

“What’s happening, Mrs. Heathcote? My sister …”

“Mrs. Westerman is quite well, but there’s been a body found in the spinney, Miss Rachel. A man with his throat cut.”

Rachel felt the world shift around her and put out a hand to steady herself against the doorway. In the sudden blank of her mind she heard her brother-in-law’s voice. She had once demanded some useful knowledge from him after his years of travel as they dined one afternoon. He had laughed and said, “If there is an earthquake, my dear sister, stand under the doorframe and wait till it is over.”

Mrs. Heathcote took two small steps toward her, shielding her from the view of the retreating maid.

“Miss, be calm. They say it is a stranger.”

The housekeeper laid one hand under the girl’s elbow. Rachel nodded, and not daring to look the woman in the face, retreated back into the salon.

“Where is the body to go? Do you have something in mind?” Crowther asked.

“I have sent a note to the younger son of Thornleigh Hall-Hugh. I dispatched your man, in fact, while I was waiting for you to dress. If this is Alexander, I imagine they will wish him to be taken to the house. If not, we may receive him at Caveley, my home, and wait for the squire.”

Crowther decided not to offer his thoughts on people who gave orders to other people’s servants, merely remarking, “Mrs. Westerman, you know I have made it my business this year to learn as little as possible about my neighbors.”

She smiled sideways at him. “Other than to observe the types that pass in front of your house, you mean, sir?” He looked at her with a frown as she said almost gaily, “Your habit of watching your neighbors go by like exhibition specimens from your parlor window has been noted.”

Crowther felt a little exposed, but Mrs. Westerman did not wish to tease him. She became serious. “I expect you would like to know more about the Thornleigh family? Very well. Thornleigh is not the richest estate in the county, but it is one of the largest.” She pointed with her crop to the north. “Lord Thornleigh is the earl of Sussex, and the extent of the lands reflect his exalted state. Theirs is the land to the horizon there, and they own some of the farms beyond. The house itself is magnificent, hidden from its neighbors in a great park, and full of treasures ancient and modern. A wonder. I have not been there for some time, though the housekeeper gives tours to the curious, and we are told the last king himself has rested there. I understand they have a pocketknife that belonged to James the First in a drawer ready to be displayed to anyone who asks to see it.” The crop flicked back over her shoulder up the hill they had just climbed. “They own all the land to the west of the village, of course. It is a fine estate, though I suspect it to be run these days in a cheeseparing sort of way.”

“Lord Thornleigh is still in residence?”

“Yes, as is his second wife. But he is very ill. He had a seizure of some sort shortly after we arrived at Caveley and has not spoken since. He is very rarely seen and never mentioned. I believe he is cared for by his own staff in the upper part of the building. There are three sons. Alexander-the eldest, and missing heir to the title-and Hugh, whom you will soon meet, are sons of Lord Thornleigh’s first wife. His second wife also has a little boy, Eustache.”

“I have seen her with him driving past my house.”

“Yes.” Harriet paused, as if unsure what further to say. “Hugh served with the army in the Americas, and was wounded. He returned almost four years ago when his father was taken ill.”

Crowther thought of a gentleman he had noticed in the village; he had been searching for the book that had been his company over dinner one evening and from the front parlor, where he found it, he had seen this gentleman meeting friends outside the Coaching House, some little way along the street from his own front door. Or rather, he had heard a loud greeting and turned to see who it was who had reason to be so demonstrably pleased with themselves. He had seen a young and solid-looking gentleman in profile and Crowther had recognized in himself the typical mix of envy and contempt men of his age commonly feel for the young, and was meditating on the emotion in the gloom of his empty house, when the young man turned to greet another-and Crowther saw that the right side of his face from the middle of the cheek to the hairline was badly scarred, and one eye milky and dead. Even in the darkness of the evening the skin looked freshly torn. It was as if some devil had so envied the young man’s looks, he had forced a partial trade.

“A musket misfired,” he said, almost to himself, then catching Harriet’s look of surprise: “I have observed him from my front window,” this with a wry smile, “and the injury is distinctive.”

Almost at once Crowther heard steps coming up the path from Thornleigh. The gentleman himself was approaching fast.

He should, given his features and form, have been handsome, but the wound was violent, his expression was ugly, and his dress a little slovenly. As the distance between them shortened, Crowther took the chance to study him as he would a subject on a table: broken veins around the nose, a high color and darkly rimmed eyes. A drinker. Liver disease in all likelihood already advanced. Crowther would not be surprised to smell wine on his breath even this early in the day. It still surprised him how many great houses could turn out sons who failed, in his opinion, to be gentlemen.

The man began to speak in a hoarse baritone before he had quite reached them.

“Mrs. Westerman, do you know how many times in the years since I came home I have been asked to look at corpses of men likely to be my brother? Four. Two itinerants who decided to die in Pulborough without leaving any convincing address, one unfortunate drowned under Stopham Bridge and dragged up a month later when his own mother wouldn’t know him and one corpse in Ashwell who turned out to be dark haired and a foot shorter than Alexander was when he left home. And now you , ma’am, are scouring the countryside to find me others.”