A New Dawn Over Devon (8 page)

 5 
Hector's Surprise

Hector Farnham, longtime faithful groom and servant to the Rutherfords of Heathersleigh Hall, awoke, as was his custom, an hour before the rest of the household.

He rose, dressed, went downstairs, and ambled out into the kitchen, where he stoked the coals in the stove and added two fresh chunks of oak to make the fire ready for the housekeeper, Sarah Minsterly, and Lady Jocelyn when they awoke. He put water on for his own tea, then left the house by the kitchen door and made his way toward the barn to give the horses their first installment of breakfast, two fresh piles of fragrant alfalfa hay.

He moved more slowly than in previous years. But even at sixty-one he still put in nearly as long a day as twenty years ago, and was more devoted than ever to his mistress and her two daughters now that the war had taken their men from them.

He opened the barn door and entered. The familiar aromas and a few snorts and stamps of waiting hooves greeted him, the very sounds and smells of heaven to one who loved these majestic beasts as Hector did.

He paused. Something was different this morning. The animals seemed jittery and agitated.

Hector glanced about in the semidarkness. Could one of the horses be down? he wondered. Or had one somehow managed to get out of the barn during the night? Slowly he made his way farther inside,
checking each of the stalls. He petted each long nose as he went, mumbling a few words of affection to each, while the breathy snorts of the occupants indicated their impatience to be about the business of breakfast.

A sound disturbed the quiet behind him.

“What's that?” he exclaimed, spinning around with a start. “Who's there!”

Had a weasel or fox managed to get in and mistaken the barn for the chicken shed?

His hand fell upon a nearby pitchfork as he crept toward the corner farthest from him. He didn't want to come upon any uninvited guest unprepared.

Another sound. Louder this time. Whatever the intruder was, it was too large for a fox.

Hector squinted into the darkness. Suddenly a form darted out of the shadows toward the door.

“Not so fast!” shouted Hector, deftly lunging to the right with his fork and blocking the way.

“Whatever you are, this is—”

The broken light from the door behind him fell on the face of the creature he had roused from its hiding place. The sight momentarily silenced his tongue.

“Why . . . why you're a bit of a girl!” he exclaimed.

 6 
Bath and Breakfast

Hector walked into the kitchen with the waif in tow. Sarah had just come down to begin her morning duties. She took one look at Hector, then turned and ran back upstairs to fetch the lady of the house.

It took less than a minute of his attempted explanation of the dirty, cold, straggly haired, wild-eyed thirteen-year-old at his side before Jocelyn's mother-heart took over. While Hector still stood with a bewildered expression on his face, Jocelyn and Amanda were already climbing the stairs with the girl. Catharine had disappeared ahead of them to begin preparing water for a bath.

“What is your name, child?” were the last words Hector heard his mistress say as they disappeared around the landing. He turned, still shaking his head at the strange affair, and went out for a second time that morning to attend to his creature friends.

Meanwhile, in the first-floor bathroom, after the bath had been prepared, Jocelyn handed their new guest, whose name she had at last managed to ascertain, a towel, a stack of fresh clean undergarments, and a nice fluffy robe.

“When you are finished with your bath, Elsbet, dear,” she said, “come out and I will be waiting for you right here. We will find you a dress and then have breakfast together.”

Still too bewildered at the turn of events that had so suddenly come over her, and hardly knowing what to think at finding herself
whisked from a cold, smelly barn into the lap of luxury, little Elsbet Conlin merely nodded, expressionless.

Jocelyn began to close the door, wondering whether the child had ever taken a hot bath in such a tub before, then paused. A strange expression had come over the girl's face. She seemed to be trying to say something.

“What is it, child?” Jocelyn asked.

“Why is there red all over your face?” she said. “Is it blood?”

“No, dear,” smiled Jocelyn. “This is a mark God gave me to remind me how much he loves me.”

“But it looks funny.”

“To some people it does. But that is only because they do not know it is God's fingerprint.”

Again Elsbet hesitated.

“Would you . . . would you keep this?” she said. Slowly she held out her hand. In it she held a small framed oval photograph with several dark splotches on it. “I don't want it to get wet.”

“Of course,” said Jocelyn, taking it from her. She glanced down at the photo. “Who is it, dear?”

“My mother,” replied Elsbet, then turned away. Slowly Jocelyn closed the door, now with more to think about than before. Catharine and Amanda stood waiting behind her.

“She just handed me this,” said Jocelyn, showing her daughters the photograph. All three looked at it for a moment in silence.

“She is a beautiful lady,” said Amanda. “I wonder who she is.”

“Elsbet said it was her mother,” replied Jocelyn.

“But look,” added Catharine, “—those dark stains . . . they look like dried blood.”

“That is what I thought too,” nodded Jocelyn. “I noticed similar stains on her dress and arm.”

“Do you think she is in trouble?” said Amanda.

“I don't know,” sighed Jocelyn. “If so, we can only hope she will let us help her.”

They returned downstairs to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, talking and wondering together where the poor child could have come from, and what she was doing alone so far out in the country.

Forty minutes later, the three Rutherford women sat around the table in the kitchen. Their guest had already gobbled down two eggs
and several pieces of toast with jam. She showed no sign of slowing down as Sarah continued to bring more food to the table. As she ate, however, she cast suspicious glances about the room, as if she still hadn't made up her mind yet whether to trust them, but was not about to ask too many questions before her stomach was full. All their attempts to engage her in conversation had been unsuccessful. She reminded them of a frightened animal.

Amanda sat silently watching the girl, unable to get out of her mind the parallel between herself and Sister Gretchen at the Milan train station. How ironic, she thought, that
she
now occupied just the opposite role, and was involved in the attempt to befriend a young girl in need, possibly on the run exactly as she had been.

When she had eaten her fill, Elsbet rose without a word, again clutching the photograph of her mother that Jocelyn had laid beside her place at the table, and made for the door. Then she seemed to remember something. She paused and turned around.

“Where are my clothes?” she asked without expression.

“You may wear that dress, Elsbet,” replied Jocelyn.

“I want my own,” the girl replied.

“Sarah will wash them for you.”

“I do not need them washed. I must go.”

“Where . . .
why
must you go?”

“I don't know. I just must. They might find me.”

“Who might find you, Elsbet?”

“Nobody. Please—may I have my clothes?”

“You may stay with us, Elsbet. No harm will come to you.”

“I want to go,” she repeated.

“Where are you going, then, Elsbet?” asked Jocelyn. “Perhaps I can drive you there.”

“No—I am going nowhere. I just must go.”

“Are you going to your mother, Elsbet?”

“No—my mother is at the sea. I cannot go to her.”

“Where, then?” said Jocelyn, more perplexed than ever. “Would you like us to help you find your family?”

“I have no family.”

“Your mother is very beautiful—what about her? Does she live near the sea?”

“The sea took her. I cannot go to her until the sea takes me too.”

“What about your father?”

“He is—”

Her voice began to choke, and Jocelyn saw her eyes begin to glisten.

“—he is dead,” said Elsbet, starting to cry.

Tears filled Jocelyn's eyes. But her eldest daughter, weeping freely by now, was already moving across the floor ahead of her. Amanda approached and placed two loving arms around the poor girl and drew her to her chest. The poor waif melted into the embrace and cried freely.

“Then stay with us for a little while, Elsbet,” she said softly. “My mother will take the best care of you in the world.”

 7 
Rollo Black

How Gifford Rutherford obtained the name Rollo Black might have been an interesting inquiry in its own right. His banking associations, though mostly carried out with three-piece suits and silk shirts, occasionally put him in touch with another class of individuals, namely those facing financial and other sorts of difficulties that would not generally be found in Mayfair. From one such contact had the name of the shadowy Mr. Black surfaced. The banker had filed the contact away for future reference, in case he should ever need someone with the kinds of skills this Black reportedly possessed.

That day had now come.

As Gifford made his way along the dark street of Seaton on the south Devon coast, glancing about nervously for sight of any thugs who might be lurking in the shadows of this waterfront district waiting for an easy mark, he found himself wondering if coming here had been such a good idea.

Ahead he saw a hanging sign waving back and forth in the wind.

R. B
LACK
, D
ISCREET
I
NVESTIGATIONS
.

He continued forward, turned and made his way up the rickety flight of outside stairs, and knocked on the door that presented itself at the landing.

A gruff noise bellowed from inside. Gifford took it as a summons to enter and tried the latch. The door opened.

The man he saw behind a cluttered desk inside wore at least a four-day growth of beard and looked as if he hadn't slept in days. The fellow's red beady eyes squinted imperceptibly at sight of his well-dressed potential client, revealing that, despite his appearance, he was a shrewd judge of character.

“Are you Black?” said Gifford.

The man nodded.

“I was told that you can find out anything about anybody.”

“Perhaps not quite,” Black rasped in reply. “But what there is to be found, I can uncover. What is it you want to know?”

“I need information regarding some old deeds and property transfers.”

“What kind of information?” asked Black.

“That is for me to keep to myself for the present.”

“Look—I don't know who you are,” Black shot back. “From the sound of your tongue and the cut of your clothes I take you for a Londoner. But that means nothing to me. If you want my services, then you tell me everything. Otherwise, get back to London and take your money with you.”

“All right, no need to get testy,” rejoined Gifford. “I simply want to authenticate the deeds I mention, as well as look into certain other facts pertaining to the property in question.”

“You wouldn't have come to me unless you had more in mind.”

“If the deeds are genuine, I want to know what loopholes might exist. That is where the rest of the information comes in. If they are not genuine, or if the loopholes are sufficiently ambiguous, then the information will provide me grounds for asserting my rights of ownership to an ancient family estate.”

“I thought as much. You're trying to get your hands on someone else's property, and you want me to help you. Why don't you talk to your solicitor?”

“I have. He's the one who sent me to you. If you find what I am looking for, he will take steps to file the necessary documents. Until then he doesn't want to dirty his hands.”

“Who is he?'

Gifford told him. Black nodded.

“We've had dealings together in the past. A conniving bloke. He's willing to bend the law if need be.”

“I don't care what he is so long as I get what I want.”

Black did not reply immediately, but continued to stare at the banker in front of him, as if making one final assessment of whether he wanted to involve himself in this man's affairs.

“All right, then,” he said at length, “show me the color of your money, then tell me about this estate.”