Death of a Dishonorable Gentleman (4 page)

“Kenneth Grahame, you know,
The Wind in the Willows.
He ate a tremendous amount at dinner and seemed quite disinterested in all of us.” Olive Shackleton laughed good-naturedly at her failure to recognize a dud in lion's clothing.

“Probably speechless because he was shot at three times in his bank.” Teddy was obviously enjoying his own inner joke, and Clementine decided to make sure it remained that way. She steered Harriet across the room toward Olive.

“Teddy dear, how on earth do you know a thing like that?” Olive Shackleton exclaimed as they joined her. “Was he shot at because of the book?”

“Well, I hardly think so. No, this was a socialist demonstration of some sort at the Bank of England. I think he just happened to get in the way.” Teddy looked around for someone else to talk to and had already turned away as Clementine and Lady Harriet joined them.

“I simply loved
The Wind in the Willows
.” Clementine narrowed her eyes at Teddy, touching him on his elbow, insisting he turn back into the conversation. “An utterly enchanting poem to pastoral England; Althea and I had such fun deciding who among our friends were Ratty, Moley, Badger, and Toad. The Wild Wooders of course are all up in London shooting at people in the Bank of England.” Clementine laughed, inviting them to play the game with her.

“Oh … I see … well, that's easy,” said Teddy, and he lifted his voice to include everyone within earshot. “Lord Booth is the Badger with his silver-and-black hair, and those terrifically broad shoulders; but, there again, perhaps not. Badger was an uncouth, old country bachelor and Lord Booth is evidently not interested in … bachelor ways.”

Clementine glanced over at Lady Waterford on her sofa, exhaling a thin stream of smoke over the top of Lord Booth's head as Teddy, far too pleased with himself, continued.

“Sir Wilfred Shackleton is Mole—dreaming of adventure on his dig in Egypt.” Olive nodded her head in agreement. “So who is Ratty? The poet, the true countryman, immersed in his love of the bucolic paradise that is England?”

Teddy lifted his voice to be heard and Clementine discerned a slight sharp edge: “Well of course, my uncle, Lord Montfort, is undoubtedly Ratty,” Teddy laughed, “which leaves us with Lord Booth as Badger—at heart a dedicated bachelor.”

There followed one of those natural pauses that sometimes occurs among large gatherings, and Clementine was horrified that Teddy's voice had carried clearly across the room.

“And you, Teddy, undoubtedly you are the Toad.” This came from Lady Waterford, reclining on her sofa. “A conceited, puffed-up, and naughty little Toady.” Uncertain laughter greeted this, and Teddy made an acquiescing bow, but the expression in his eyes was not kind, and neither was there a smile on his face.

Clementine was utterly grateful when Ellis Booth lifted his voice to distract attention from his father and fill an awkward gap.

“Did any of you hear about the Derby today? Apparently, some deranged woman, wearing the suffragette flag wrapped around her middle, threw herself under the king's horse at Epsom this afternoon.” This news had inevitable reactions.

“Which horse … oh, surely not Anmer?”

“Mind you, that horse didn't have a hope of winning!”

“What's wrong with these ruddy women?” Lord Booth's fruity tones were dropped in favor of an outraged male bellow, but he was careful to stand up and rejoin Lord Montfort and Jack Ambrose.

Clementine glanced over at Hollyoak. There passed between them the silent understanding that perhaps there had been enough parlor games on empty stomachs for one evening, and Hollyoak announced, “Dinner is served, m'lady!”

Lord Montfort offered his arm to Lady Booth, and Clementine took a quick look around to make sure their procession into dinner observed precedence, and saw Lucinda Lambert-Lambert standing at the far end of the room, her back to everyone.

She walked across to her and put her arm lightly around the girl's waist. “Lucinda, dear, are you unwell?” She looked searchingly into Lucinda's face. Had the girl had too much to drink? Lucinda straightened herself in the traditional schoolroom response to authority.

“So sorry, Lady Montfort, quite all right, thank you.” The expression on her face conveyed distress and hurt. Clementine was reminded of the stunned expression of a child who has been too harshly chastised.

“My dear, you need some fresh air straightaway, so stuffy in this room when the weather is this close.”

Even as she said this, Clementine hesitated over the wisdom of handing Lucinda over to Teddy, who was waiting to take her in to dinner; the girl was clearly upset and Teddy had rather a cruel streak.
Oh dear, she thought, this is unfortunate but there's no one else and I must go in.

“Teddy, take Lucinda outside for a moment for some air, she'll be fine then, won't you, my dear?” The girl nodded her reassurance, and Teddy tucked her arm into his as he escorted her from the room.

Walking behind them with Lord Booth, Clementine heard Teddy say as they walked across the hall, “Poor old Lucy, such a dreadful shock, come and tell me all about it,” and watched Lucinda jerk her arm free of Teddy's and cross the hall ahead of him, ignoring him completely when he caught up with her to open the door to the terrace.

Well now,
Clementine said to herself.
This is certainly rather interesting. Is everyone upset with Teddy today?

 

Chapter Four

After dinner the Iyntwood house party reassembled in full costume and crowds of guests arrived to join them for the ball, filling flower-laden rooms with a shifting carnival of colors. Standing in the hall with her husband, Clementine's sense of occasion was completely gratified as they welcomed their friends, dressed in a vivid array of flamboyant outfits representing half the world's monarchy, at one time or another, as well as their more infamous subjects. Music cascaded from the ballroom, and she reminded herself to tell the orchestra to include more modern dances. Pretty paper lanterns were lit to illuminate gardens, pavilions, and hidden walks to the lake. Hollyoak and his brigade of footmen offered champagne throughout the house and on the terrace. Amid flickering golden candlelight, the creamy scent of roses and the chatter of voices lifted in greeting and delighted laughter, the Talbots' summer ball was fully under way.

*   *   *

After the ball, Clementine turned over in bed just as dawn was breaking, barely an hour since she had come up to her room. The new day was obscured behind heavy clouds and she heard the rattle of rain outside her open windows. As the ball had drawn to an end, heavy black clouds had started to roll in from the southwest, sealing in the thick, humid night air. Clementine usually enjoyed untroubled sleep and she wondered what had awakened her as she lay listening to the rain.

There was a blue-white flare of lightning, and out of childhood habit she counted, one-one thousand, two-two thousand, followed by a heavy crackle and thump of thunder as the storm moved rapidly toward them. She hopped up and stood in the window closest to her bed. As if the thunder had been a signal, the rain tripled its efforts and smashed straight down, hitting the terrace with the force of a monsoon.

“Poor roses, they'll be a mess tomorrow,” Clementine said as she closed the casement window, scrambled back into bed, and snuggled up to her sleeping husband.

Another flicker of lightning lit the room and this time the crash of thunder was immediate as the storm moved in overhead. She was vaguely aware of a sense of foreboding, as if she had forgotten to take care of something. The greatest social event of her year had exceeded all her expectations and she should have slept soundly, delighted with the outcome. But Clementine didn't feel particularly elated, or even complacently relieved at its success, instead there was a restless unease and she found herself anxious and wakeful. To distract herself as she waited for sleep to come, she settled back among the pillows with her arms crossed behind her head and sought to replay the highlights of her ball. It had been a resounding success. An event fit for London's society columns to gush over the details; an invitation to her summer ball had become one of the most sought-after occasions of the season. Smiling to herself in the dark, she remembered Constance Ambrose in a ravishing costume, representing strumpets through the ages, surrounded by admirers. Lord Booth as Bluff King Hal, whirling partner after partner, except for Gertrude Waterford, who, with her inevitable élan, had chosen to dress as la Dame aux Camélias, obviously inspired by Sarah Bernhardt; Lady Staunton got up in her favorite costume, which was supposed to be an accurate reproduction of Madame de Pompadour from Boucher's portrait, and miraculously for once not wearing her famous diamonds; and with an inward giggle she remembered Lady Booth as Britannia, a gleaming bronze Corinthian helmet clamped firmly down over her eyes, champing slowly and deliberately through a generous plate of lobster salad.

Clementine relaxed her jaw, let her shoulders sag, and consciously slowed her breathing as she drifted back into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

Chapter Five

The following day after luncheon, Lord Montfort, grateful that his social duty was done, and done thoroughly well at that, retired to his study to enjoy the company of his closest friends, Sir Hugo Waterford, Lord Booth, and Colonel Jack Ambrose. Happy to accommodate his friends in a comfortable chin-wag on one of their favorite topics—the end of England's rural life as they knew it—Lord Montfort settled back in his favorite chair and made himself comfortable. He completely accepted that their afternoon discussion would be a heated one as his friends aired their fears for the future of a world in which they had been bred, born, and educated to serve, and which they now felt was doomed to an unspeakable end, nominally at the hands of free trade and the middle classes. He surrendered to the inevitable, knowing this conversation could go on all afternoon. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to drift off.

The door opened and, across the room thick with cigar smoke and heated rhetoric, he saw his butler standing on the threshold with such an overtly serious expression that he was already halfway out of his chair as Hollyoak reached his side. As his butler bent to speak in his ear, mild concern was replaced with confusion and then alarm. Excusing himself to his friends, he followed Hollyoak out of the room. Once Lord Montfort was penned up in a dark corner of the hall, his butler dismissed a footman in waiting, before he spoke.

“Theo Cartwright has come to the house, my lord, and wishes to speak to you rather urgently. He is most agitated.”

“Oh really? Did he say what it might be about?” Lord Montfort could not imagine what his head gamekeeper could possibly want at this time of day.

“It appears that he has found the body of a dead man in Crow Wood, and is convinced it must be one of our guests.”

“Good God!” His words were loud in the silent hall and he stared at his butler for so long that the man was about to repeat himself when Lord Montfort came to his senses and asked in a low tone, “Did Cartwright say who?”

“He wouldn't say, my lord.”

“Well then you'd better tell him to wait for me at the terrace door. I'll meet him there. In the meantime, better keep this to yourself.”

“Yes, my lord,” said the worthy Hollyoak. “I thought perhaps you might need someone other than Mr. Cartwright with you, he's so badly shaken. I took the opportunity of asking Mr. Stafford to come over to the house.”

“Thank you. Did you tell me where Lady Montfort was?”

“She's in the long drawing room. Shall I alert her, my lord?”

“Not yet, but I would like you to send someone over to the dower house to find out if Colonel Valentine is still a guest of my mother. If he is, ask him to come over immediately to Crow Wood in the pony and trap. We will need his help, and we should have a vehicle at hand. Please make sure someone directs him to that part of the wood.”

Lord Montfort joined his gamekeeper and Mr. Stafford on the south terrace and they walked the entire distance from the edge of the gardens to the stable block and from there down the lane past the home farm and through the pasture to Crow Wood, in silence.

As the three men drew near to the edge of the wood, the oppressive sky darkened and a light shower of rain came down on them. Grateful for the protection of the trees, they proceeded in single file deeper into the wood. The fresh, light green of trembling beech leaves formed a filigree canopy high overhead, providing a translucent roof between woodland floor and gray cloud above and offering a little protection from the rain.

When they approached the area where Iyntwood's gamekeepers reared the young pheasants for the yearly shoot, Lord Montfort noticed that Cartwright's hand stole upward to his mustache and beard, carefully and protectively grooming them as if seeking comfort before confronting the sight he had discovered earlier. When Lord Montfort had met him on the terrace, he had been disconcerted by Cartwright's agitated manner. And then as he listened to Theo describe how he had come across a young man's body hanged by his neck from his gamekeeper's gibbet he saw, with concern, beads of sweat break out on the man's forehead.

“Who is it, d'you know?” Lord Montfort asked him.

“I can't be sure, my lord, the body is in bad shape and some of the crows have been at him.” Cartwright looked like he was going to be sick.

Now Lord Montfort walked forward with a feeling of dread and unease building in his stomach. He cast a glance at Cartwright, who became paler as they went deeper into the wood.

He had always found gamekeepers' gibbets gruesome and depressing. Wooden posts with crossbeams pinned above the main supports, on which were nailed the rotting carcasses of birds and animals that were thought to prey on young pheasants. Lord Montfort, a true countryman, was committed heart and soul to the preservation of his lands, woodlands, and wild game but had long ago come to the secret conclusion that predators were not deterred one jot by the sight and smell of the dead and rotting carcasses of their kind. He found the pitiful, shriveled bodies of animals and birds exhibited this way repellent, but forbore to comment to his gamekeeper on what he felt was after all Cartwright's business.