A Traitor's Tears (7 page)

‘I wonder where Mother has got to?' Christina remarked.

We had been walking at the side of the house, moving towards the rear of it. We turned the corner into the other arm of the L. Here there were beds of scented herbs as well as flowers and a few evergreen bushes, and in a far corner, there was a gap in the wall and a path leading away into the inviting green shade of a shrubbery. The path we were on led past another well-weeded bed of heartsease, skirted one of the bushes and brought us to a patch of deep pink gillyflowers.

We stopped short. Christina uttered a shriek and threw herself on her knees beside the flowerbed, and the nurse, her eyes wide with horror, turned Anne's face into her shoulder so that the child shouldn't see. I stood rigid, a hand jammed against my mouth to hold back a shriek of my own, unable to believe what was before my eyes.

We had found Jane. She lay on her back among the gillyflowers and a silver dagger hilt jutted from her heart. It had an engraved pattern of curving lines, interlinked as in a plait, and it sparkled in the sun. Her blood had spilled round it, drying on the cream silk of her dress, running down to darken the pink blooms of her flowery deathbed.

Pale in death, her too-plump features might have been moulded in uncooked dough. Her left hand had been flung out, palm up, and the sleeve from which it protruded was, once again, tautly creased by the short fat arm within. When I saw her at that disastrous dinner party, I had thought she was beginning to look ugly. Now, she just looked pitiful.

She was quite dead.

‘T
hey've taken Roger away!' Dale screamed. ‘Ma'am, those sergeants have taken my husband away! They're taking him to Lewes. Where's Lewes? I've never heard of it! Will I ever see him again? Oh, God, they'll hang him, I know they will, ma'am, can't you do something? They've taken Roger away!'

‘I tried to argue with them,' I said wretchedly. ‘I said to them, the inquest jury only brought in a verdict of murder by someone unknown. But they wouldn't listen. They said they had orders. Dale – Fran – I'm sorry …'

‘They've taken
Roger
!' Dale shrieked, and threw herself down on the floor of the hall and pounded it with her fists.

Coaxing, crooning as to a child, I somehow pulled her back on to her feet and shouted for assistance. Sybil and Gladys came running, their faces frightened.

‘We saw!' said Sybil. ‘We were in the kitchen. We heard those two men – from the sheriff's office, weren't they? – ride in. We went to the door and we saw them dismounting and heard them asking where Brockley was, and then Brockley came out of the hall door and they seized hold of him and the young groom Joseph went rushing off to fetch you …'

‘We saw you run from the garden,' said Gladys, ‘and Dale was there all of a sudden, pleading and crying. You tried to argue with them but they took no heed of either of you. Faces like stones they had, and they took Roger Brockley off with them, on that spare horse they brought, white as the moon in the sky, he was, horrible!'

‘They'll kill him!' Dale wailed. ‘And all for nothing! He never harmed that Cobbold woman! That dagger – I didn't see it but you told me what it was like, ma'am, and Roger never had such a thing, never. I'd have known! It wasn't his! He didn't do it!'

‘Gladys,' I said, ‘do you have any of your calming valerian and camomile draught made up ready? If not, make some! Quickly. And put it into warmed wine and bring it up to Dale's room.'

‘They've taken Roger!' Dale moaned, sobbing in my arms.

‘I know, Dale, dear. I know. But we'll get him back, you'll see. Now come upstairs. I'm putting you to bed. Gladys will bring you a potion to soothe you. Then we'll plan what to do.'

‘We know it's a mistake,' said Sybil reassuringly. ‘We all know that, and we'll get the authorities to know it as well. You'll see.'

‘He had fights because of the things the Cobbold woman said and they've no one else they can fasten it on and what
can
anyone do?' The tears streamed down Dale's face. ‘They've taken my Roger away and we've never really made it up after we had that great quarrel …'

‘Never mind that now,' I said. ‘We have to think about how to help him, not worry about bygone arguments. Come along.'

Somehow, between us, Sybil and I persuaded her upstairs and settled her in bed. Gladys followed with her herbal potion. Gladys could be and often was utterly maddening but in times of crisis, she showed her worth. Most of her troubles had come about because she was old and ugly, had been at times ill-used on account of this, resented it, and said so, roundly. She was sound at heart.

Dale turned her head away from the potion at first but somehow we coaxed her into swallowing it and got her to lie back on her pillow. I gave the empty glass to Gladys to take away and she went out of the room but came back almost at once.

‘Met Wilder on the stairs, mistress – he says Sir Edward Heron's here asking for you.'

‘I'll stay with Dale,' said Sybil.

Dale heaved herself upright and said: ‘It was him who decided Roger was guilty. The jury didn't! I'm getting up! I'll tell him …'

‘You won't tell him anything!' I said. ‘I'll go down and talk to him myself. Sybil, stay with Dale and don't let her out of this room. Dale, if you don't lie down and do as I bid you, I … I'll have to lock you in! Gladys, go and tell Wilder I'm coming!'

I went downstairs on shaking legs.

It had all happened so fast. That morning, we had all awakened to an ordinary day. After breakfast, I had gone into the rose garden with Tessie and Harry. Harry was vigorously engaged in trying to toddle more efficiently and Tessie kept a careful eye on him while I cut away dead blooms and thought of Hugh and how much he had loved his roses. Then Joseph, our youngest groom, came running to say that there were sergeants in the courtyard, and they'd come to arrest Brockley.

‘Take Harry indoors!' I barked at Tessie and then I picked up my skirts and fairly raced to the courtyard, to find that they had already got Brockley on to a horse, and had tied his hands. Dale was there, weeping and imploring. Brockley himself was silent but, as Gladys had said, horribly white.

The sergeants told me that he was being arrested for the murder of Jane Cobbold and was being taken to Lewes until the assizes. They rode off, leading him. I led Dale back into the hall, where she collapsed in hysteria, and engrossed in looking after her, I had scarcely had time to take in what all this meant to me. But it was coming home to me now.

Brockley, despite the suspicions that Dale had once had, had never been my lover but throughout his many years in my service, he had been my friend and in times of danger, my ally. If anything happened to Brockley, my heart would break as completely as Dale's would. And, as I knew perfectly well, it would all be because he had fought in defence of my good name. There was no other reason to accuse him of this killing. He would – he might – die because he cared for me enough to use his fists on my behalf.

Halfway downstairs, just before the turn that would bring me in sight of the entrance vestibule below, I stopped short, feeling faint. I couldn't bear it. If Brockley came to harm because of his friendship for me, then Dale would blame me and she would be right. She would not forgive me. I would lose her, too.

Black spots whirled before my eyes and I sat down on the stairs and put my head between my knees. Gradually, the spots faded. I stood up, warily, holding on to the banister, telling myself to stop this. This was no time for me to have the vapours. Hideous though the situation was, I must deal with it, not retreat into a swoon. The world steadied. I went slowly on, round the turn and saw Wilder awaiting me in the vestibule.

‘Madam, I have asked Sir Edward to wait in the hall.'

‘Thank you. I'll see him there.' With a great effort I managed to speak calmly.

Sir Edward was pacing round the hall when I entered. He turned to face me and bowed. I looked at him fearfully.

‘Mrs Stannard.' Like Roland Wyse, Heron always used the short modern forms of address.

‘Sir Edward. Please sit down.' I did so myself, glad to take the weight off my uncertain legs. ‘What brings you here?'

‘I felt that, since my men this morning arrested your manservant Roger Brockley for the stabbing of Mrs Jane Cobbold, I should at least call on you to explain why. I believe you hold Mr Brockley in some esteem, and of course, in view of your relationship to the crown, you are owed some courtesy.'

He had once come within inches of having me arrested for witchcraft. Possibly, I was on his conscience. I folded my hands in my lap, kept my back straight and said with as much composure as possible: ‘I would certainly like an explanation, Sir Edward. I know perfectly well that Roger Brockley did
not
murder Jane Cobbold and I would very much like to know why anyone supposes that he did.'

‘I am aware,' said Heron, ‘that he has repeatedly been in fights because of gossip concerning you, Mrs Stannard, and the child you have borne out of wedlock.' He spoke with distaste. ‘I am also aware – I make it my business to be very aware of what goes on in my county – that the source of some of that gossip was probably Mrs Cobbold, who admittedly was something of a scandalmonger. I may say that I have learned of the circumstances surrounding the, er, arrival of your little son and I realize that the matter is less scandalous than Mrs Cobbold wished to believe. However, that is beside the point just now. The point is that she was the source of gossip, and your man Brockley objected to it, and said so, at times with violence.

‘On the afternoon of Mrs Cobbold's death, the man Brockley was seen in Woking, which is not far from Cobbold Hall. He could easily have gone to the hall and been there at the right time. In any case, no one else could possibly have done it.'

‘Except that someone else most decidedly did do it,' I said. ‘Have no other possibilities been considered? What about that dagger? The hilt looked costly. Can nothing be learned from that? I can tell you that it doesn't belong to Brockley. If he possessed such a dagger, I would have seen it. So would Dale.'

‘That dagger,' said Sir Edward, ‘isn't what it seems. The patterned hilt is actually common bronze, made in a standard mould, and then washed over with a thin skin of silver. It's one of hundreds. They're made by a smith in London and half the smart young men about town have them. They're popular with the ones who want to make a show but can't afford solid silver or jewels. The blades are good steel, though, and very sharp; most of whatever value those daggers have lies in the blade. I sent you and the other women out of the room before I pulled the thing out of the wound. It had gone in to the hilt and the sharpness was the reason why.'

I shuddered. I had been thankful enough to be shooed away after the body had been brought indoors. I had seen violent death before, more than once, but I would never grow used to it. I was shaking with shock, as much as Christina and the nursemaid Mary were. Christina sent for some wine, and the three of us drank it as we sat shivering in the parlour. The only one who remained obliviously serene was the baby Anne, who had fallen asleep in Mary's arms.

I said again: ‘Brockley never had such a dagger!'

‘Are you so sure? He carries one, does he not? But I don't suppose he often takes it out of its sheath. He could have bought a new one the last time he went to London but has never had occasion to use or display it, and you might never have seen it.'

‘Dale would know and she says—'

‘Your woman? Of course she would say it wasn't his.' Sir Edward was dismissive. ‘She's his wife. Other names besides Brockley's have been suggested, of course. Anthony Cobbold, who seems to share your good opinion of Roger Brockley, had some to offer – at least, he did when he had had time to pull himself together. He was more shattered even than Christina, their daughter.'

‘I know,' I said. ‘I saw.'

I remembered how Christina, kneeling by her mother, had wailed that Jane was dead,
dead
, and how she had then cried out that she must fetch her father and Sir Edward, and had sprung to her feet and run off to do so. She brought them back within minutes. When they had joined us beside Jane Cobbold's body, she began to weep, but her father had stood looking down at his wife's body, his body as rigid as a statue and his face so blank with shock and disbelief that it seemed wiped clean of all emotion. He said nothing at all. After a few moments, he turned away and walked off, back to the house, blunderingly, as though he couldn't see clearly where he was going.

‘You'll remember,' Heron said, ‘that when we had got the poor lady back to the house, we found Mr Cobbold just sitting in the parlour, grey in the face and near to collapse. His daughter called his valet, who persuaded him to lie down.'

‘Yes, so I recall.'

‘But later, after I had given you permission to go home and you had left, he came downstairs again and it was then that he offered his ideas, which I did indeed consider. I assure you, Mrs Stannard, that I have studied all possibilities with care.'

‘What – who – who were they?' I asked.

‘The two gardeners who had been weeding the flowerbeds that very day, and a cottager called Jack Jarvis. But none of them can have done it. They exonerate each other, and both I and Mr Cobbold can to some extent bear out the accounts they give.'

‘Can you tell me about them?' I asked.

‘If you wish. Mr Cobbold suggested the gardeners at first – he said they didn't like his wife. He had more than once heard them complain about her.
But
… well, firstly, to take things in order, I took dinner at Cobbold Hall, and Mr Roland Wyse was there as well. He left for London straight after the meal, and a little while later, Mrs Cobbold went out to call on Jarvis, the cottager, about ten minutes away on foot. She was going to ask him to supply the hall with some eggs. Jarvis is by way of being one of Mrs Cobbold's charities, having fallen on hard times which were not his fault, or so he claims.'