Camp Follower: A Mystery of the American Revolution (13 page)

"His name
is Arthur Sims.
 
He lives in a hovel near
the wharf.
 
Here is the
direction."
 
Fairfax extended a
folded paper.
 
"Lack of steady
employment suggests he was ripe to be hired for burglary."

Helen couldn't
stop herself from gaping at Fairfax.
 
If
his information about this suspect was accurate, then his talent at
investigation was preternatural.
 
Sweat
trickled down her back, and she shivered.

Gaynes
retrieved the paper.
 
"Just
how
did you figure all this?"

"I spotted
Mr. Landon in White's Tavern two nights ago, before he was murdered.
 
After an analysis of evidence in Mrs.
Chiswell's study, I returned to the tavern with an adequate description of the
burglar.
 
The tavern owner recognized
Mr. Sims and confirmed that she'd seen Mr. Landon and Mr. Sims in conversation
just after midnight.
 
In fact, they left
the tavern together.

"Since you
aren't adverse to working on Sunday, apprehend the suspect today and recover
the pistol.
 
Interrogate him to reveal
who hired him and why his employer was motivated to frame Mrs. Chiswell."

A man bellowed,
"Don't tell us how to do our job, you bastard!"

"Then do
your job.
 
I've completed ninety-five
percent of the investigation.
 
A halfwit
committeeman could close the case from here."

"Stay
where you are, Dan."
 
Gaynes, aware
that his fellow deputy prepared to lunge across the parlor at Fairfax,
sniffed.
 
"Show me this broken
window."

Fairfax
gestured, palm up, toward the foyer.
 
"This way to the study.
 
Since the room is small, I suggest you bring only one attendant, Mr.
Gaynes, and instruct the others to leave the house."

At Gaynes's
orders, men muttered, filed past Fairfax on their way out.
 
Most eyed the lieutenant as if he were a
coiled rattlesnake.

Her blood
emptied of frenzy, Helen attempted to breathe calmness and experimented with
the sensation of catastrophe averted.
 
But calm eluded her, and her head still pounded.
 
She didn't feel protected.
 
From where she stood, she could see the case
with one pistol resting on the couch, the absence of the second pistol a
damning piece of circumstantial evidence.
 
Lieutenant Fairfax had enough evidence to arrest her.
 
Why had she placed her salvation in his
hands?

Chapter Eleven

HELEN CLOSED
THE pistol case and handed it to Enid.
 
"Put this back."
 
Enid
glanced at the door to the study, and Helen, certain her housekeeper again
fancied use of the pitchfork, felt her patience fray.
 
"Give Mr. Fairfax no trouble in there."

Enid studied
her face, an uneasy marriage of skepticism and chagrin roving her
expression.
 
"He defended you, as
if he'd some honor in him."

Honor.
 
Hypocrisy embittered Helen's heart.
 
She wasn't the person she'd thought herself
to be and hoped Enid possessed the judgment to not regard Fairfax as a hero.

The reproving
edge melted off Enid's frown.
 
"He
saved
you."

"Damnation."
 
Helen left the parlor and rushed out the
back door, just reaching the vault in time to puke.
 
Despite the heat, the flies, and the stink, she remained inside
with the door closed a few minutes after the heaves subsided.
 
Anger denied her the relief of tears, and
she was angry with just about everyone: herself, Badley, Prescott, Silas,
David, Arthur Sims, Fairfax, Enid.
 
Charles, too.
 
She pounded the
wall with her fist.

Self-pity
exhausted, she stumbled out, dizzy and sweaty, at the same time Enid emerged
from the house.
 
The servant rushed
forward and caught her about the waist.
 
"This has been too trying for you.
 
Lean on me, now.
 
Upstairs you
go, and let's get you to bed."

Helen might
have shrugged off the housekeeper and lurched up to bed by herself, allowing
Enid space for her own grief.
 
But all
she wanted that moment was freedom from the fiery spear in her temple.
 
Enid whisked her past the study, where
Gaynes and Fairfax discussed evidence, and upstairs to the bedroom, where she
stripped Helen down to her shift and tucked her into bed.
 
"I shall be back with chamomile tea
after those men leave."
 
Enid
supported her shoulders and pressed a goblet to her lips.
 
"Drink this.
 
All of it."

Parched, Helen
gulped the water.
 
Near the bottom of
the goblet, a faint aftertaste registered on her tongue.
 
Laudanum.
 
Knowing her sensitivity to the poppy, Enid hadn't added much.

Her tone gruff
yet gentle, the servant eased her back onto the pillows.
 
"You sleep a few hours."

Already the
headache thrashed her with less ferocity.
 
Enid drew the drapes, and as she let herself out, Helen heard the
committeeman and Fairfax in the foyer.
 
Gaynes, grudging and subdued, said, "How long you been piecing
together evidence this way?"

"When I
was a boy..."
 
The bedroom door
closed on Fairfax's response.

The poppy
cradled Helen, cushioned the throb in her head, eased her passage into slumber
she'd craved.
 
When I was a boy
,
she thought with curiosity.
 
Then sleep
swallowed her.

***

Night had
fallen.
 
Feet on the floor, Helen
realized she'd been sitting on the edge of the bed several minutes, traveling
from the sleepy haze of narcotic to a wakefulness that was, at last, headache
free.
 
Enid puttered about the floor
below.
 
Helen imagined smelling a
multi-course meal: roasted chicken, buttered rice and squash, an apple tart,
fine wine.
 
For almost a year, she
hadn't had the money to afford it.
 
She
shook off the fantasy.
 
In another
minute, she'd awaken enough to realize she was ravenous and thirsty.
 
She'd make do with soup, bread, and
coffee.
 
But first she had to remember
her dream.

Except, she
recognized as she came more fully awake, it wasn't a dream.
 
It was a memory from almost two decades
past, when she'd been about eleven years old.
 
With a frown, she rose from bed, padded to the window, and pushed back the
drapes, allowing cool night air in.

Relax, she told
herself, relax, and it will return.

***

His
expression a prune of piety, Vicar Hopkins paced before village children in the
parlor at Redthorne Manor and tapped the palm of his hand with his cane.
 
He seemed jumpy that morning, more eager
than usual to apply the cane and remind a distracted student how fortunate he
or she was to belong to the special group that received the educational
largesse of Lord Ratchingham's second wife.

She finished
the final algebra problem on her arithmetic slate, as usual well ahead of the
others, stood, and approached Hopkins, gaze lowered.
 
"Master, I have completed the assignment and beg your leave
to visit the vault."

The vicar
snatched the slate from her and inspected it.
 
"How can a girl be more intelligent in mathematics than boys in
this class?"

She didn't
answer.
 
No answer was expected of her.

"Go on,
then, and no dawdling.
 
I expect you to
read Proverbs 31 from the tenth verse to the end.
 
'Who can find a virtuous woman?
 
For her price is far above rubies.'
 
In one quarter hour, you will tell me the proper applications of
mathematics for a virtuous woman."

"Yes,
Master."
 
She curtsied.
 
"Thank you."

Outside the
parlor, she noticed two chambermaids and the butler snooping through study
doors left ajar.
 
"Lud,"
whispered the butler, "this is going t' be rich."
 
Curious, she joined them without a second
thought for the vicar's cane.
 
They
allowed her to crouch at their feet.

Inside,
Ratchingham paced the furniture-crowded study.
 
Bewilderment and worry trampled his amiable expression.
 
Too many adults were edgy that morning.
 
Dick Clancy posed behind the desk, a smile
to sour milk upon his lips.
 
A boy stood
beside the desk, as motionless as death, head bowed, fine wool breeches,
waistcoat and coat impeccable, silk stockings without wrinkle.

She stared
at the boy and summoned recognition.
 
Stepson.
 
Yes, that was it.
 
Twice, at a distance, she'd seen Lady
Ratchingham's only child by her first marriage.
 
He wasn't very old, not more than seven.

Ratchingham
halted, almost blocking the boy from view, and faced his stepson.
 
"Tell me the truth.
 
Did you mutilate those frogs?"

Sunlight
warmed russet highlights through the boy's brownish hair when he raised his
head, but his eyes stared past the man and through the wall like chips of
ice.
 
"No, sir."

"Did
you place the carcasses where Vicar Hopkins could step on them this
morning?"

"No,
sir.
 
I was in my chamber studying
mathematics this morning."

"Lying
scoundrel," whispered the butler.
 
"I saw him do it."

Exasperation
flooded Ratchingham's voice.
 
"For
god's sake, we've a witness.
 
Jedediah
says he saw you drop them in the vicar's path just before eight."

An
emotionless void occupied the boy's face.
 
"The blacksmith's son and the dairyman's son resemble me in stature
from a distance.
 
And the butler has
cataracts."

"You
little shit," muttered Jedediah the butler.
 
"I'll get you for this."

"Lad, I
want you to be happy.
 
Is there anything
you lack?"

Something
moved in the arctic wasteland of the boy's eyes: hatred.
 
"No, sir."

Ratchingham
gestured in futility.
 
"We've not
yet discussed this man-to-man, but what would you like to do when you grow
up?
 
I've the means to help you on your
way.
 
What is it you dream of doing when
you're older?
 
Law?
 
Medicine?
 
Banking, perhaps?"

The boy's
response was prompt.
 
"I should
like to be an officer in His Majesty's army.
 
Sir."

Clancy's
smirk vanished.
 
His face screwed up in
disbelief, and he jiggled a finger in his ear.

"A
military officer!"
 
Ratchingham
clapped his hands once.
 
"Excellent
career choice, lad.
 
I shall be
delighted to fund your commission.
 
Let's talk about this again soon."
 
He patted the boy on the shoulder.
 
"Back to your science lesson.
 
Remind Master Gerald that I'll have no more of that business of
dissecting frogs."

***

The breeze
wafted in through the window, stroking Helen's face, but she ignored it.
 
When I was
a boy
.

Lord
Ratchingham's stepson was Dunstan Fairfax.
 
She shuddered, repulsed.
 
It was
all wrong.
 
The eyes of a seven-year-old
boy shouldn't harbor such malice.
 
Even
street urchins — impoverished, hungry, cold — didn't possess that level of
loathing.
 
Why was Fairfax that way?

Jonathan might
remember more.
 
A peculiar emptiness
panged her soul.
 
Back in April, he'd
mentioned an upcoming trip to England.
 
She missed their spirited academic and philosophical conversations.
 
She missed
him
.
 
She should have contacted him after David's
visit in May.

David.
 
She hung her head.
 
By then, she'd have to be a fool to believe she'd ever see him
again.
 
She told herself that she must
let him go, but her heart tangled resolve.
 
Grief, guilt, and confusion moistened her eyes.
 
Why had she always been so stubborn over
David?
 
Why had her heart skirted love
with him instead of embracing it?

A hot tear
tracked down her cheek.
 
She sagged
against the windowsill in relief when another tear followed.
 
Thank all the gods she could weep after all.