The Duke's Agent (22 page)

Jack was cross. He and Mr Duffin were particular friends; he would have been a much better messenger than a silly maid. ‘I did ask her.' His round face was creased with irritation. ‘But the foolish piece didn't know, Mr Jarrett. She only helps out sometimes and I wasn't there.'

‘Was there any message?' Jarrett asked.

‘That this man had information for you and you were to meet him by Johanson's tomb in the churchyard.'

‘Johanson's tomb? Do you know which one that is?'

‘It's the great big one with carvings on it – on the rise at the back of the church, by the door where the choirmen go in.' Jack found this all very thrilling. He eyed Mr Jarrett with attentive respect. Mr Jarrett looked out across the yard to the shadowy street. It was a dark night. The moon was hidden behind clouds and the wind was up, tossing the trees in the darkness of the churchyard beyond. He sent the boy to fetch a lamp and descended the stairs, searching the yard with thoughtful eyes. He spotted a short piece of lead pipe leaning against a wall. He crossed over and picked it up, balancing it in his hand. It had a good weight and was not too unwieldy. He turned to the lad who hurried towards him bearing a lighted lantern.

‘Jack, I need you to be my watchman.' He took the lantern from him, speaking decisively. ‘Stay here, on this side of the street, and listen out. If you hear any shouts from the churchyard, or if I am not back by the time the church clock strikes the next half hour, you fetch me some help. Will you do that for me?'

Jack drew himself up to his full height, his bright eyes wide. ‘You can count on me, Mr Jarrett; I'll not let you down.'

‘Good lad. And if help is needed, you fetch your father – do
you understand? I don't want you following me.'

Jack nodded. He was a sensible lad, and besides, he was afraid of the dark. He swallowed hard as he watched Mr Jarrett cross the street and melt into the shadows around the wicket gate.

*

Moving softly on the grass, the lantern cloaked under his coat and the lead pipe held ready by his side, Jarrett worked carefully around the deserted church. As he came round the back of the building he spotted a large coffin tomb from the last century. Its elaborate carvings of trumpets, skeletons and cherubs were barely discernible at that distance but as he crept closer the moving shadows transformed the carved cherubs into unsettled spirits, half-formed creatures protruding from the stone, striving to break free into the dark. There was a distinct sense of movement to his right. Jarrett searched the shadows half-hoping to see a familiar yellow shape emerge. But there was no sign of the poacher's dog. With a jolt he realised where he was. It was standing on the other side of this same tomb that Sunday that he had first laid eyes on Black-Eyed Sal.

An aggressive figure sprang up on the far side of the tomb. Jarrett caught the glint of light on a blade and stepped back on to the path where he could sense clear space around him. He hoped that the sound of movement on gravel would be distinct enough to give him some warning if an assault was to come from behind. He placed the lantern on the ground and crouched down a little, balancing his weight more evenly, feeling the heavy pipe in his hand.

It was not Duffin but a smaller man, his face in shadow. His shape bobbed from side to side as he shifted his weight nervously. He edged closer around the tomb. Stepping towards the lantern light the man thrust a hand forward, holding out a printed piece of paper.

‘This mean money?'

Jarrett did not recognise the voice. He suspected the accent was not local. Taking care to keep out of range of the man's knife, Jarrett advanced a step. The man was holding a copy of the handbill he had had printed concerning the assault on the road to Greta Bridge. Jarrett looked into the face of one of his assailants. It was the smaller of the two; the one Walcheren had winded. Apparently the man could not read.

‘The intention was to offer money for information leading to your arrest, and that of your companion,' he explained, trying not to sound amused. ‘For your assault on me, you understand.' The miner ignored him.

‘But you'd give money for information?'

‘What kind of information?' Jarrett was puzzled.

‘Word is you've been asking after the Tallyman.'

‘You have information about the Tallyman?' Jarrett was sceptical.

The man stepped back from the light. He seemed to be struggling to unwrap something from around his waist. He shook out a bundle of material. Keeping a firm grip on it, he spread it out towards the light. It was a coat. A blue coat, large in size. Too large to fit the man holding it – and there were dark stains on it. Jarrett stretched out a hand to finger the material but the man twitched it out of his reach, pushing the blade towards him to warn him off.

‘It's blood,' he stated.

Jarrett straightened up thoughtfully.

‘Why should I give you money for this?'

‘Not for the coat. This tells you I know what I know. You give me money and I'll tell you more.'

‘What can you tell me?'

‘I know plenty; about him – the Tallyman.'

‘And his master?'

The miner snorted. ‘I've no mind to stir him against me. I reckon you know enough about him, and if you don't I'm not the one to tell you more.'

‘This coat matches a description of a murderer's coat – a case of the murder of a crofter up on Stainmoor a few days back. There's an offer of twenty pounds for information that leads to the capture of that villain.'

‘Twenty pounds!' The man gave a humourless laugh that caught in his throat and made him cough. ‘That's a tidy sum. But you have to catch him first.'

‘Do you know if this Tallyman killed the crofter?'

The man's face grew cunning. ‘I'd say that were his blood.'

‘What reason could this Tallyman have to kill some poor wretch of a crofter on Stainmoor?'

‘Tallyman was told to disappear for a while, you arriving all of a sudden, asking questions. Tallyman was travelling and he got hungry. Reckon the stupid bastard woke, that's all. It'll be a daft turn if he hangs for that after all he's done,' the man reflected.

‘So you're telling me he is back in Woolbridge, this Tallyman?'

‘His kind always come back.'

‘And you're not afraid of such a man? Why betray him to me?'

‘I'm not from here. I'm moving on – and I need travelling money.'

The miner jerked forward, his knife at the ready. Jarrett shifted the lead pipe into the light.

‘Maybe your information is worth a coin or two.' Jarrett spoke crisply, as if they were bargaining in a market rather than squaring up to kill one another. ‘But there is something else I would pay real money for – if you are a man to get it for me.'

The shape before him stilled. ‘Speak on.'

‘Books – some half-burnt books. The Tallyman fetched them for his master from the manor house where James Crotter died. If you can bring me news of those, I'd pay you well.'

‘How much?'

‘Ten pounds?'

The man rubbed a hand over his pallid mouth. ‘Books? Tallyman's no reading man. Them books'll be his master's business. I've told you, I've no mind to bring him down on me.'

‘Twenty pounds.'

The man stared and licked his lips. ‘He has no suspicion of me,' he muttered to himself.

‘A man can travel a goodly distance on twenty pounds,' commented Jarrett. ‘If you cannot bring me the books themselves I will still be interested in their whereabouts.' He did not believe that the man had any chance of performing such a task. So cunning a manipulator as Raistrick would be unlikely to let such a pawn near any of his secrets. Still, it was worth setting off a ferret or two; it might stir something up.

The man made his decision. ‘Done,' he said. ‘I'll be here tomorrow night then.'

‘That is not convenient – the next night.'

The man was reluctant, but Jarrett was not to be moved. ‘If you cannot wait an extra day…' He shrugged and picked up the lantern as if to leave.

‘Night after next then,' the man called out. ‘I'll be here when the clock strikes midnight – and I'll not linger.'

Jarrett threw a golden coin into the light. ‘For good faith,' he said.

The man snatched it up, slipped around the tomb and disappeared as suddenly as he had come.

Jarrett waited a moment, listening to the wind moving about the silent graves. An interesting interview. Picking up his lantern, he pondered the odds that the man would keep their rendezvous. Then, the lead pipe resting jauntily on his shoulder, he marched back to the Queen's Head to relieve his watchman and make for bed.

‘I am advised to sweat, sir. I have a merino gown, a shawl, a wadded cloak and a fur tippet and I perspire, sir, I perspire. It does me no good at all but the doctors wish it.'

Lady Yarbrook was ensconced in a low wicker chaise, her round face flushed and polished with sweat. Her hair was dyed an improbable shade of foxy brown and supplemented by lavish curls of false hair. Instead of the usual carriage bonnet, a Spanish mantilla hung in swags from a silver comb, its airy lace in strange contrast to the bundle of clothes in which she had wrapped her stout frame. She squinted at Jarrett's letter of introduction, held at arm's length between thumb and forefinger.

‘Earewith sends you – but how delightful. And how is the sweet boy? You have come just in time to join me on my promenade, Mr Jarrett. Smithers!'

This last proved to be a command to the groom who stood by the head of the plump grey pony snoozing between the shafts. Touching his hat to his mistress, Smithers roused the animal and they set off, Jarrett striding to keep pace with the chaise, while its occupant offered up conversation in a penetrating voice.

‘There is a repose, a freedom and a security in a
vie de château
, do you not agree, Mr Jarrett?' she announced, looking about her with a proprietary air. ‘When I set out to walk, I feel as if alone in the world — nothing but trees and birds.'

Jarrett tried to look agreeable while he searched his mind
for an appropriate response to this opening gambit. His hostess's head was turned from him, regally contemplating the view while awaiting some apposite riposte. They jogged comfortably past an exquisitely clipped hedge. The hedge terminated and behind it a woman in a gingham dress and a black bonnet appeared on her knees picking up weeds. Nature in Lady Yarbrook's solitary world was remarkably well schooled. His companion was becoming restless. Her fingers drummed a tattoo on the carriage side in the manner of a grand master waiting on a dilatory pupil.

‘And add to these retired leisure, That in trim gardens takes his pleasure,' he quoted with as much air as he could muster.

Lady Yarbrook shot him an acute look. ‘Milton?' she demanded, swift to congratulate herself on her own erudition. The mood that had looked likely to turn stormy set fair with a playful smile. ‘Frederick Jarrett,' she mused. ‘As I recall, you are a kinsman of Earewith's, are you not? On the dear Duke's side?'

Jarrett bowed diplomatically. ‘I am fortunate to be held as one of the family, ma'am.'

His hostess's shrewd dark eyes weighed him up. ‘I believe you are a soldier and a painter, sir,' she stated abruptly. It clearly amused her to see she had taken him aback. Jarrett's intimate circle knew of his hobby but it was not a talent he boasted of. The liquid brown eyes held a note of triumph as well as humour. ‘Ha!' the lady exclaimed complacently, settling back once more.

Jarrett recognised the type. One of those capable women born with too much energy and intelligence to suit the confines of society; under-employed souls in whom boredom breeds a passion for ferreting out the secrets of others. He would need to step warily. Her small coup, however, seemed to have assuaged Lady Yarbrook's mischievous curiosity for the moment.

‘Well, this is delightful. I was feeling very dull today and now I am sent an unexpected cavalier to improve my constitutional. Fortune smiles indeed!' she announced, bestowing a particularly winsome smile of her own on her guest.

The path before them turned and a brick orangery appeared, set above a lawn. Its high windows were unpegged and removed for the summer, leaving an open cloister. Through the arches the orange trees could be seen, ripening fruit nestling among the dark leaves. Scattered artlessly before the trees was a collection of cherubs with foreshortened legs, posed on speckled marble plinths.

‘How do you like my Seasons?' asked Lady Yarbrook as the chaise paused before the arcade. ‘That is Winter – the sweet boy.'

The sweet boy was plumply naked. In concession to the cold of his theme he had a sort of fat blanket draped over his head and shoulders. The resigned look of stately piety he wore deflected any sympathy Jarrett might have felt for his predicament. He produced a polite sound of general appreciation while he made a show of inspecting the group. His hostess's rich voice cut short his performance.

‘And what brings you to me, Mr Jarrett? I fancy you are not come to admire my statuary.'

He turned to find her contemplating him, her fantastic head cocked to one side. She had a plain face but her countenance was animated by wit and a directness of spirit that was engaging.

‘You are not going to try gammoning me that you are in the habit of doing the pretty about the neighbourhood? I would not believe you, you know,' she ended, a roguish lift of an eyebrow robbing the statement of any offence.

He grinned back. ‘To tell you the truth, Lady Yarbrook,' he lied, ‘I have a fascination with playhouses. I intend to build one of my very own at my house in Lincolnshire,' he elaborated, as if in a rush of enthusiasm. ‘Learning of the
theatre you have constructed here and finding myself within calling distance, I begged Charles to give me an introduction.'

The lady crowed with delight. ‘A fellow Thespian! But I am charmed. My good angel must have sent you, Mr Jarrett. Your visit is perfectly timed. Why, at this very moment my guests and I are getting up a performance of
Volpone
 – Jonson's play, you know. You are not familiar with his work? Oh, but Ben Jonson is a great discovery!' She snatched up a leather-bound volume from the seat beside her and began to search through it as she talked. ‘I have the part of Celia. A female of great virtue and much beset by perfidious men. The play is most curious. I swear you will be mightily amused. There – you may read Volpone for me while I rehearse my lines; he is a great rogue who wishes to seduce me. Let me begin.' She pointed at the opened page and cleared her throat. ‘“Oh, God and his good angels! Whither, whither is shame fled human breasts?”'

She had a formidable voice and she threw it with great clarity. At this rate they would be overheard in Gainford, he thought, as he attempted to gather his wits to respond. He scanned the page. Celia's speech was short. Volpone's part appeared to bear the burden of the scene.

It is no simple matter to declaim a passage sight unseen whilst walking alongside a carriage along an unfamiliar path. Somehow he managed to reach the end of his allotted piece without stumbling either vocally or physically. His hostess appeared to approve of his reading. She fastened her eyes on him as he spoke, following every shift of expression, her features rapt with attention. Out of the corner of one eye he saw her swell and gather herself up as he came to his last line.

‘“Now art thou welcome!”' he declared.

‘“Sir!”' his Celia responded with energy.

‘“Nay, fly me not”,' Jarrett read on gamely.

His hostess waved a practical hand. ‘Aye, aye and all the rest. You may skip the song. Only give me my cue. Come now: “To be taken, to be seen, these have crimes accounted been”,' she prompted. ‘I think that very fine, do you not agree?'

‘Indeed, ma'am, very good,' he responded and repeated the cue obediently.

‘“Some serene blast me”,' exclaimed Celia, rocking the little chaise as she flung up one massive arm in a classical gesture, ‘“or dire lightening strike this”,' she paused, modulating her rich voice, ‘“my offending face”,' she intoned.

The painted clock over the stables chimed. Smithers slowed the pony and a polite cough drifted up from his stolid back view.

‘The clock has struck three, my lady.'

His mistress dropped her part with disarming swiftness.

‘Dear me, but you are right, Smithers! When I am with the muse I am quite forgetful of the passing of time! Mr Jarrett, I must return for my rest. The doctor insists upon it. Regular rest and a careful diet – lamb and potatoes with raspberry vinegar and a little light wine. 'Tis the one remedy for biliousness. It is tiresome but I must have a care, I am so easily done up.' She sighed gustily. ‘It is an affliction to be born with a fragile constitution but I never complain, for what is the use, say I?' She favoured her guest with a sunny smile. ‘You make an elegant Volpone, Mr Jarrett, your voice is excellent. I could hardly believe you did not know the play, you read so well.'

She flung out her hands towards him, her sturdy body swept up by a sudden thought. ‘I wonder – might I persuade you to join my little band of players? To be candid, my current Volpone is not up to the task. It is a part that requires a reserve and dry wit he lacks, but you, sir…' Her eyes pleaded with him.

‘You flatter me more than I can say, Lady Yarbrook, but
I regret I cannot. Besides, I fear you have formed too high an opinion of my talent. I understood you have some professional players among your troop; I could not hope to rival their skill.'

‘Professionals!' she scoffed, then relented. ‘I dare say Francis Mulrohney makes a tolerable Mosca but he cannot double up to play Volpone as well, and so for the present my chaplain takes the part. Don't mistake me, my boys are well enough, but they are outward men, entirely unstuffed, not one idea or
qualité
of understanding between them. Will you not take pity on me, Mr Jarrett?'

They were back at the house by the time he managed to convince her that pressing business forced him to forgo the considerable pleasure of performing opposite her Celia.

‘If you cannot join my players, Mr Jarrett, will you return to dine with me? The hour is too advanced to be thinking of journeying on today. Why do you not rest at Gainford for tonight? The Blue Boar on the green is the best hostelry. You must go there. But first my man will show you my jewel, my little theatre. It will amuse you.'

He suspected, given the complacent look with which she said this, that Lady Yarbrook would in truth be mightily offended if her theatre did anything less than profoundly impress him. He countered her dazzling smile with one of his most charming and bowed his eager acceptance of her kindness.

‘Smithers will see to you. Until five o'clock then.'

*

He was standing in what had once been an elegant dining room of regular shape on the ground floor. The fine proportions of the room had been stopped up and unbalanced by a proscenium stage that took up a good third of the space. The exterior of the arch was painted in soft blue and white and adorned with cartouches within which Greek gods disported themselves, picked out in gilt. A half-finished backdrop, held
within a painting frame, filled the back wall. Before it was slung a painting bridge on which the artist could be winched up and down his canvas. The ghost of his recent presence lingered around a carelessly pushed-aside trestle table, covered with a muddle of pots of paint and long-handled brushes.

Jarrett climbed the miniature flight of gilt steps up on to the boards to take a closer look. The flat depicted a grand Italian interior in which a pair of glass doors opened out on to a sun-baked terrace with a prettily rendered perspective of green countryside beyond. The English view sat oddly beyond the Italian setting. As he inspected the half-finished canvas with professional curiosity he had an odd association. In colour, light and space the scene through the windows somehow recalled to his mind the view from the white rock opposite his folly. He shook off the thought. The matter was so much on his mind it intruded in everything.

He whiled away twenty minutes to give his supposed admiration decent rein, then allowed the bored servant to show him out. As he followed in the wake of the man across the chequered marble hall he heard voices. Through the open door of a library he sensed the presence of a convivial group.

‘I don't believe a word of it, Mulrohney! Don't listen to the rogue!' exclaimed an unseen listener.

‘Neither do I,' chimed in another. ‘But he tells the tale so well I hardly care. Go on, Mulrohney – what happened next?'

Mulrohney resumed his tale in a voice redolent with Irish charm. There was a ripple of laughter and movement in the room as the story-teller repositioned himself. He stood bisected by the half-open door, his back to the hall. He was a medium-sized man, about Jarrett's own height and build. A glancing shaft of sunlight illuminated his bright hair – as bright as a guinea of gold.

*

‘Have you come from London, Mr Jarrett? Do you bring news? How fares the Government? I hear His Highness the Prince Regent is to be found dining with the ministers. The wretch! I never thought to see us so betrayed!'

His neighbour was a lively person of a certain age, an actress who had gained some popularity in comic roles at Drury Lane. Although she had a pretty figure, she suffered from a massive nose, the protrusion of which pulled every other feature after it. Rarely had a nose tyrannised so completely over a human face. Since its owner was also good-humoured and in the habit of baring the white teeth beneath it, Jarrett's fixed impression of his dinner companion was dominated by bone and teeth, behind the mass of which lurked a pair of merry eyes.

‘You are a Whig, ma'am?'

‘And you are not, sir?'

‘I am no politician, ma'am.'

‘Surely you cannot be so careless of the affairs of the nation as to be content to abandon them to the petty plots and ploys of puny politicians, sir!' A philosopher leant across the table towards him with the staring intensity of a human carp moulded in wax. ‘See where that attitude has led us, sir! To sink our prosperity in the mire of Spain and Portugal, that is where, sir!'

‘Mr Price, I cannot allow you that!' exclaimed his neighbour, leaping to engage this challenge with obvious relish.

He left the antagonists to bombard each other with verbal salvoes. Lady Yarbrook held court opposite him, seated between an aging poet with a vast appetite and the actor, Francis Mulrohney. The impression of nakedness was startling. Not that the lady of the house displayed a greater proportion of flesh than any of the other females scattered about her board, it was merely that the ampleness of Lady Yarbrook's charms covered a greater acreage. It was as if he faced a mountain of nakedness across the table; a mountain
topped by a mercurial countenance about which humour and emotion flashed like a summer storm. There was an undeniable fascination about her. Her vitality was mesmerising. One minute she entranced with her lightning wit, the next she appeared almost clownish in her exuberance and foolish prejudices. She had a habit of folding her vast naked arms across her ample chest when the debate became fierce or the wit too barbed. Jarrett found himself touched by an unexpected hint of vulnerability under the mass of brilliance and clumsy arrogance. To her clients and protégés, however, Lady Yarbrook was clearly a hard mistress.