Death in the Setting Sun

Death in the Setting Sun

DERYN LAKE

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by
Allison & Busby Limited
Bon Marche Centre
241-251 Femdale Road
Brixton, London SW9 8BJ

http://zvzvw.allisonandbusby.com

Copyright © 2004 by Deryn Lake

The right of Deryn Lake to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by her in
accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior
written consent in any form of binding or cover other than
that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent
purchaser.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN
978-0749083656

Printed and bound
by Creative Print & Design, Wales

For my special Amelia –

with Grandy’s best love.

Acknowledgements

My thanks, first and foremost, to Beryl Cross who introduced me to Gunnersbury Park and showed me the two houses which now stand there, together with the Round Pond, The Temple and the Bath House. Princess Amelia’s house was destroyed years ago but the Rothschild family built two mansions on the site which I found fascinating. I hope others will too. Next, thanks are due to Keith Gotch, now retired to Devon, but still an expert on bodies. His help with the drowned victim was terrific, as usual. I would also like to thank my editor, David Shelley, always ready to laugh, and my agent Vanessa Holt. Finally come Henry, Elliot and Fintan, whose visits make my day; and Susan Carnaby and John Elnaugh, who brighten my life.

Chapter One

L
ike many seasons that are destined to be severe, the winter of 1764 started moderately enough with mild evenings, crisp leaf falls and a lot of fine clear sunshine in the daytime. A golden October thus gave way to a misty November, though the fog itself was warm and vaporous. But round about the beginning of December the wind changed direction in the night, blowing from the north, with a hint of snow on its breath, so that John Rawlings, closing his shop in Shug Lane and hurrying home to Nassau Street, found himself almost running to keep out the cold. Bursting into the hall, blowing his hands, he thanked the footman who helped him divest his greatcoat and hat, and hurried to the library where he knew the fire would have been lit.

The room was empty as he had half expected but indeed there was a great blaze in the hearth and John held his hands out to it before pouring himself a sherry from a decanter that stood on a side table. Then, having taken two small sips, he braved the chill once more and hurried upstairs to the nursery where his daughter, Rose, who had been born two and a half years before, awaited him together with John’s wife, Emilia.

He paused in the nursery doorway, they as yet unaware of his presence, and looked at them with much fondness. Emilia still had that angelic quality which had so attracted him: fair hair and blue eyes and a slim, slight figure unaltered by child-bearing. At present she was three months pregnant with her second child but nothing of this showed as yet and, with the candles and firelight reflecting in her hair and on her skin, she looked young and untouched. Rose, however, had been born with ancient wisdom, though only her father was aware of this, but as he looked at her now she sensed his gaze and smiled at him, lighting up like a flame. Her hair was a deep rich red, curling round her small face in spirals. Dominated by a pair of huge dark blue eyes, fringed by black lashes which brushed against her creamy skin, it was an exceptional face that one day would grow and mature into true beauty.

Emilia, seeing the child smile, followed her glance and saw her husband leaning against the doorframe. She stood up straight.

“John. I didn’t know you’d come in.”

“I was watching the two of you. It was a pretty scene.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Come and join us. We’ve missed you.”

He entered the room and Rose ran into his arms as he bent to pick her up. “And how are you, lovely girl?”

“I am very well, thank you Papa.”

Her speech, like the rest of her, had a curious maturity which was extremely charming.

John, gathering her into his arms and holding her against him, felt the spring of her mop of hair and buried his nose in it.

“What’s in there? A little mouse?”

Emilia remonstrated. “Oh, sweetheart, you’ll frighten the child.”

But Rose was laughing, wriggling in John’s grasp, and shouting, “Yes, yes. Do you want to see?”

He peered into her hair then closed the whorls of red again quickly. “I mustn’t disturb him. He’s sitting at supper.”

At this the child exploded with mirth and John gently placed her on the floor. Crossing to where Emilia stood, he gave her a kiss, then put his arm round her. “And how have you been today, my dear?”

“Reasonably well. And you?”

“Well, I don’t know if I am geting old but my new apprentice seems incredibly slow-witted.”

“Why, what has he done?”

“It’s rather what he didn’t do. I had left two packets on the counter, one of Saxifrage root, finely chopped, for an old man with toothache. The other was for another old boy suffering with piles. I’d given him oil made from infusing the flowers of Mullein. Anyway, while I was out calling on a patient he gives the wrong packet to the wrong chap, if you follow me.”

Emilia giggled naughtily and John tightened his grip on her, thinking how much she meant to him, how much they had grown together.

“Can you imagine the confusion? One fellow wrestling with the root, the other staring in horror at the oil. God’s life, my reputation will be in shreds at this rate.”

“But he’s a willing boy.”

“Yes,” John answered thoughtfully, “he’s that all right.”

He stared into space, thinking how sad it was that Nicholas Dawkins, known as the Muscovite because of his exotic ancestry, had finally left him and had now himself been made free of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Yet “left him” was hardly describing the case. For Nicholas had gone to Kensington and was running a shop into which John and his adopted father, Sir Gabriel Kent, had invested money in equal shares. Though Nicholas was still without a bride, John imagined that this state of affairs would not continue for long, in view of the Muscovite’s weakness for the female sex. However, at the present time the Apothecary was labouring in the company of one Gideon Purle, who was, as Emilia said, willing but lacking in flair.

John sighed aloud. “No doubt he’ll learn in time.”

“What did you do about his error?”

“I sent him on the run to the house of the man with piles lest he try to put the root of Saxifrage up his —“

“John! Not in front of the child.”

“Sorry. I momentarily forgot her presence.”

He bent down to Rose guiltily but she was already absorbed in playing with a wooden horse and had not heard him. Straightening up, John looked at Emilia over her head, then he winked. Emilia gave a delighted laugh and said, “Husband, you’re incorrigible. Come, let’s hand Rose over to her nursemaid and sit together awhile. Rose, say goodnight to your father.”

The child looked up from her play, then got to her feet. “Goodnight, Papa.”

He bent to kiss her once more, pulling her close to him with a sudden urgency, almost as if they were going to be separated. Rose’s deep blue eyes looked slightly startled but she kissed him none the less, her cool lips against his cheek.

“You’re rough, Papa.”

John laughed, fingering his chin. “I need a shave, Rose, that’s all.”

Just for a moment he had a vision of himself with several days’ stubble on him, and he shivered slightly despite the fire that glowed in the nursery. Fortunately Emilia had turned away so did not notice but John, standing upright, felt an inexplicable finger of melancholy. He quite deliberately fought it off and forced a smile at his wife.

“Are you ready?”

“No, give me a moment or two. You go down. I’ll join you shortly.”

“Very well.”

He hurried down the stairs, not totally warmed by the fire in the hall, and back into the sanctuary of the library. But still the dark mood was upon him and, finishing his sherry, he poured himself another one and sat down.

It had been two and a half years since he had last been called to assist Sir John Fielding, the famous magistrate known to the mob as the Blind Beak. Two and a half years in which Rose had grown from a newborn baby into a delightful little girl, whose powers of speech were well-advanced, Sir Gabriel Kent, her grandfather, was now aged eighty, having celebrated his birthday last summer in tremendous style. He had returned to London, to Nassau Street, and invited the whole of the town to feast and play cards and dance. It had been a sumptuous occasion and John had been amazed at how many important people came to celebrate with the old man, who still dressed to the inch in stunning ensembles of black and white, all topped by a very old-fashioned wig of three storeys in height.

One of the guests had been John’s childhood friend Samuel Swann, now quite definitely putting on weight, the thinness of his wife, Jocasta, fortunately hidden by the fact that she had been en
ceinte.
The Apothecary had to admit that marrying an heiress had given Sam a certain portly air of self-satisfaction which he found fractionally irritating. But all had been forgotten when he had looked at Sir Gabriel’s aristocratic face and seen it glowing with pleasure.

Other guests had included Sir John and Lady Fielding, together with their adopted daughter Mary Ann, actually a niece of Elizabeth Fielding’s. John had been highly amused to observe that the arrival of Lord Elibank, an old friend of Sir Gabriel’s, had the young woman preening like a cat while Milord had been covered with confusion. The Apothecary guessed at once that there had been some previous connection between the two, one which had presumably ended in tears. Still, he could hardly blame his lordship, for Miss Whittingham — or Fielding as she called herself these days — at the age of eighteen was gorgeous to behold indeed. And wasn’t the girl aware of it, casting her predatory eyes round the room and getting into conversation with the richest and best-connected men there.

“She’s after a fortune,” John had whispered to Samuel — and somewhat to his surprise his friend had blushed, conclusively proving that once upon a time he, too, had had a fancy for her.

But the little temptress was still unmarried and, as far as John knew, had not received any firm offers for her hand, which only went to show something or other, though the Apothecary was not quite sure what.

A log shifted in the fireplace and John went to throw another on, wondering what had caused his earlier dark mood. Imagination, he told himself, though he had to admit that these strange feelings often prefaced a disaster of some kind. Yet again he shrugged the presentiment away, glad that Emilia was coming into the room to keep him company.

They had been married five years, very happily. So happily indeed that he rarely thought of Elizabeth di Lorenzi, a woman he had met on honeymoon with whom he could have fallen in love had circumstances been different, and hardly at all of Coralie Clive, his former mistress. In fact, he had grown to love Emilia more in that time and now could say he was truly content.