The Duke's Agent (24 page)

Jarrett smiled back. ‘I think I agree with you, innkeeper.'

He lingered over the papers, trying to work up the energy to set out once more on the road to Woolbridge. There was a knock on the parlour door and the innkeeper put his head round.

‘You have a visitor, Mr Jarrett.'

The innkeeper stepped aside to reveal his companion of the night before. Francis Mulrohney came into the parlour dressed with a careful correctness, marred only by the slightly over-exuberant yellow of his waistcoat. He came forward stiffly. His casual conviviality seemed to have abandoned him in the broad light of day. His sallow skin bore the marks of excess, and there was a chalky look about his red-rimmed eyes. He put together a smile that was but an echo of his old charm.

‘You are returning to Woolbridge today, Mr Jarrett?'

‘I am. I took my leisure this morning. May I offer you some coffee?'

‘No, I thank you. I brought you this.' The Irishman handed him a letter addressed in a florid black hand: ‘“To whom it may concern”. Read it. I'll wait,' he added awkwardly.

Darting the man a puzzled look, Jarrett unfolded the document and read:

The other signatories to this document included an archdeacon, a poet whose name Jarrett recognised and Mr Wilsbury of Chichester himself. He looked up at the Irishman.

‘I told her of the matter,' he explained. ‘My generous patroness, Lady Yarbrook, has offered to pay my expenses should I be required to travel to Woolbridge to testify before the magistrates,' he added formally.

His face melted into a disarming frankness and the real Francis Mulrohney slipped out, a wry, shrewd Irish adventurer, well acquainted with himself and the world.

‘You've no need to say it, Mr Jarrett, and I've no need to ask who you are, but you think Sally Grundy was murdered and there is no reason on this earth why you would trust the word of an unknown Irish vagabond.' He shrugged, indicating the document. ‘So I took me precautions.'

‘This must put you beyond suspicion.'

Mulrohney nodded. He let out a breath and offered his hand. Jarrett shook it firmly.

‘I am glad to make your acquaintance, Mr Mulrohney.'

The actor's face lifted with a roguish smile.

‘Would that it had been under happier circumstances,' he agreed. As he reached the door he paused and turned. ‘Last I saw of Sally Grundy she was swinging away down the lane, light as a bird. She laughed at me and said she was off to give a performance that night. When I asked her to tell me more, she just called out that she might tell me one day. She was a nice little creature. It'll be many a long day before I forget Sally Grundy.'

Jarrett dawdled his way back towards Woolbridge after the interview with Mulrohney. Somewhere a mile or two beyond Gainford he took a wrong turn. It was not until a blissful sweep of country opened out before him, and he gave Walcheren his head, that it occurred to him the mistake had been deliberate. The big bay's legs stretched out below him and they flew over the ground. They galloped up rises of turf and jumped down steps of moor like mad things. On Walcheren's back he was free of the past; free of the looks, the murmurs and speculations. In those brief, self-sufficient moments there was nothing but sunlight and sky and open ground and two healthy animals moving in harmony.

At last they were both tired. Walcheren's chestnut flanks foamed white and Jarrett's own muscles grew dull. He reined the animal back and turned him for home. The hedgerows were lengthened by shadows as he brought them back to the valley where Woolbridge lay. Lulled by the rhythm of Walcheren's hooves striking the baked earth, he found himself in the lane that led past the gateway to Oakdene Hall. Perhaps Sir Thomas had returned. He should call to present his apologies. The Colonel's petty session now fixed for the next day would prevent him keeping the appointment he had made with the baronet. Besides, he had several hours to fill before his assignation with his informant in the churchyard and he was loath to drag them out at the Queen's Head with Tiplady fussing around him.

The drive forked and he took the left-hand branch that
circled to the rear of the hall. Cresting a gently rising lawn, he saw a rose garden encircled by a set of clipped box hedges. He caught a snatch of the pastel rose of a woman's dress as it flitted past a gap between the dense green blocks. Intrigued, he dismounted and led his horse across the lawn.

The honeyed amber light of the setting sun seemed to encompass him in a dream. Spikes of parched grass snapped under the leather soles of his boots. The long shadows from the rose garden stretched out to draw him near. Wafted through the soft stillness, with the scent of roses, he heard a woman's voice singing. It was an Irish air with a strongly marked beat. The dreamlike quality of the scene was accentuated by an unmistakable pianoforte accompaniment executed with forceful precision.

sang the voice gaily.

It was a tuneful voice and it conveyed the words with playful aplomb. Jarrett approached the hedge and paused, concealed, to peep into the magical enclosure of the rose garden.

First he saw Lady Catherine, a large white chip hat forming a pavilion over her eccentric shape. She rested her hunched frame on a high stool while her thin hands jumped about the keys of a decorative little pianoforte. As she struck out the gay melody her body moved from side to side with the lilt of the music. Before he could recover from the astonishment of this sight, he saw the singer. Bound up in the spirit of her song, Henrietta Lonsdale danced in a pale pink dress against the rich backdrop of a profusion of crushed-velvet roses.

An Englishman's upbringing does not excel in preparing him to meet unconventional behaviour with equanimity. Jarrett's first reaction was a sort of smirk that so respectable a pair of ladies should disport themselves in such a fashion. But as he stood at the edge of the garden, peering in on the scene, its charm crept up on him. Henrietta's graceful form embodied the joy of the music completely, uninhibited by the plastic manners that society imposes. He caught himself admiring her honesty and sensed a fleeting melancholy that his own nature would never allow him to experience a similar freedom. As the first flush of embarrassment receded, his artist's eye gradually perceived in Lady Catherine's awkward movements a graceful dancer made clownish by the misfortune of a misshapen body. He watched in rapt silence, the spirit of the rose garden infecting him with a sliver of regret that he should be excluded from the intimacy of the two performers.

The song ended. Henrietta bowed to her pianist, flushed and laughing. Lady Catherine beamed back in a way Jarrett would previously have thought inconceivable. All at once he was aware of his dilemma in lurking behind the hedge. The violent consciousness of his guilt in trespassing on so private a moment rooted him to the spot. Embarrassment piled up on confusion as he overheard Miss Lonsdale speak his name.

‘What connection might Mr Jarrett be to the Marquess, do you suppose, Lady Catherine?'

There was a ribald chuckle from the old lady.

‘Connection? Connection, Miss Henrietta? It seems to me Mr Jarrett don't wish to acknowledge any connection between them.'

Miss Lonsdale's tone shifted, reflecting curiosity half-reined in by a desire to smooth over a potential
faux pas
.

‘I only ask because,' she began slowly, ‘I had a notion they might be related. They have a similar ironic glance they give
one when something in the company amuses them. And I fancy there is a resemblance about the lower portion of the face – some look about the mouth.' Miss Lonsdale seemed to catch herself and ended with an airy question. ‘Is Sir Thomas an intimate friend of the Duke's, Lady Catherine?'

‘Intimate enough to be discreet,' responded the old reprobate.

In any normal circumstances Jarrett could exonerate himself of the sin of gossip. Friends and family were in the habit of teasing him for his indifference to the minutiae of acquaintances' emotions and opinions of one another. And yet, although every social instinct told him to slip away, Raif Jarrett lingered behind his bush.

‘Do you not find Mr Jarrett a fine artist, ma'am?' asked Miss Lonsdale. ‘That portrait he took of Sally Grundy was very like. Of course, she was a strikingly beautiful girl. It is only natural that a man would notice her.'

‘And what concern is it to you if Mr Jarrett noticed her, girl?'

Walcheren chose this particular moment to protest at having to stand so long. He tossed his head against the stiff bush with a deafening snort, and nudged his master impatiently. Rudely pushed from concealment, Jarrett was forced out into the garden to face its startled occupants.

‘Lady Catherine – I beg your pardon. It was not my intention to intrude. I was passing and – Sir Thomas – I wondered if Sir Thomas had returned? Your servant, ma'am. Miss Lonsdale.'

Miss Lonsdale stood frozen, her left arm stretched out to rest on Lady Catherine's pianoforte.

‘Why, Mr Jarrett.' The young woman spoke as if she were quite accustomed to visitors leaping out unannounced from behind bushes. ‘I have a message for you…' All at once, a rosy flush suffused Henrietta's skin and she looked away in confusion. The old lady rose from her stool, her
face composed into a polite mask that Jarrett found several degrees more unsettling than her habitual look of mischief. Threading her arm through Jarrett's she hurried him to a little bench.

‘Come in, come in, Mr Jarrett. You will drink tea with us. Fancy! Take his horse and fetch us some tea.'

The bewildered Mr Jarrett noticed the maid who had been sitting behind her mistress. Fancy had a distinctive face that appeared to have been moulded out of uncooked dough. Two dull button eyes looked him up and down. Returning the compliment he stared back. Lady Catherine's maid was a short woman with a deep bosom that preceded her like the prow of a ship. The weight of carrying this ample endowment gave her a ram-rod bearing, as if nature's humour had been to contrast the curve of the mistress's back with excessive straightness in the servant's. Fancy began to take Walcheren's reins from him.

‘Oh, no, Lady Catherine, I cannot stay! As you see,' he pointed out reasonably, ‘I have ridden some way today and my horse needs attention. I do not mean to disturb you.'

Reason, however, was as nothing to Lady Catherine.

‘Nonsense. Take the animal to Finlay in the stables, Fancy; tell him to have a care of the beast or he'll answer to me. Hurry, girl. We're thirsty. Tea, now!'

Jarrett seldom felt so powerless as in exclusively female company. It was too absurd to begin tussling with a middleaged maid for possession of the reins, so he let them go. He looked after the woman as she led the big horse away, half hoping that Walcheren would not take kindly to so unconventional a groom. Indeed, a few paces across the lawn, the tall bay stopped and took a hard side-glance at the diminutive figure beside him. Fancy's pugnacious face tilted up, she mouthed some short simple words and the pair resumed their progress. Fancy, it seemed, was to be intimidated by neither man nor beast.

Lady Catherine settled herself on the bench, arranging Jarrett between her and a somewhat reticent Henrietta.

‘What news, Mr Jarrett, what news?' she demanded.

‘Well, ma'am, I have spoken to Miss Grundy's play-actor friend and I judge him to be out of the running.'

‘That is no way to tell a tale, Mr Jarrett. Begin at the beginning. How did this Lady Yarbrook receive you?'

Reconciling himself to his predicament, Jarrett embarked on the tale of Lady Yarbrook's promenade performance and the fashion in which he was press-ganged into her rehearsal. Lady Catherine was particularly tickled by the image of Lady Yarbrook bowling along in her little wicker carriage declaiming the improbable part of a virtuous young wife, and she made him repeat his story until Fancy returned with a procession of footmen bearing tea and a tea table.

The sunset was well established. The amber light deepened and became suffused with violet. The box hedges framing the garden seemed to form a bowl in which the rosy light reflected the decadent glory of the setting sun.

‘Will you pour, my dear? You know my wrists. Weak wrists, Mr Jarrett,' Lady Catherine explained. ‘Have a need for a good healthy young companion with strong wrists or I'd never get me tea!' She threw her head to one side, as others might throw their heads back, and cackled at her own humour. ‘We have not been idle here, Mr Jarrett.' Her bright eyes twinkled. ‘No, no. We also have news, do we not, Miss Henrietta?'

After her first moment of discomfiture, Henrietta formed an oasis of serenity in the midst of this extraordinary scene. Her own manner could not be faulted, yet at the same time she managed to treat her companion's behaviour as if it were entirely unremarkable.

‘My aunt's cook, Mrs Grundy, would very much like to speak with you, Mr Jarrett,' Miss Lonsdale explained. ‘She has had a visit from Mrs Munday, the woman in whose
house Sally Grundy lodged, that has distressed her. I do not know what passed between them but she has been most insistent that she must speak with you.'

‘Would it be convenient for me to call on Mrs Grundy tomorrow, perhaps?'

‘Nonsense. You're a man of action, Mr Jarrett. Grasp the opportunity and escort Miss Lonsdale home tonight.' Lady Catherine did not wait for anyone else's opinion. ‘A gentleman escort to see you home,' she informed Henrietta. ‘Your aunt would approve.'

‘I assume, Lady Catherine, that Sir Thomas has not yet returned?' Jarrett asked, hoping to divert his hostess's attention. Miss Lonsdale hardly seemed to relish the prospect of his escort, while his own mind was increasingly on his forthcoming meeting with his informant. He did not want to be late.

‘No. We expect him in the early hours. Zachary Ison sent word to him about this petty session of his.'

‘Sir Thomas's business must have been pressing. I imagine it troubles him to be absent when such affairs are afoot in the parish. The magistrates will be regretting the lack of his counsel.'

Lady Catherine snorted. ‘Thomas! Poor Thomas has a weakness, Mr Jarrett.'

‘Not constitutional, I hope, ma'am?'

‘Constitutional! You could say so – to his pocket! For all Thomas likes to fancy his health bad, he's as strong as a mule. He'll outlive us all.' The wizened apple face tilted towards him with sly wisdom. ‘Two things you should mark about Thomas, Mr Jarrett. One, Thomas don't like to trouble himself. And two, Thomas's revenues are tied up in mines; lead mines, Mr Jarrett.' The old lady paused for effect. Mischief buzzed, a palpable aura about her. ‘Don't know what I'm talking about, eh? Think the old woman's babbling?' She pecked her pointed head at him.

‘Lady Catherine, how should I ever dare to suggest such a thing?' he asked in a deliberately satirical fashion. Even allowing for her physical misfortunes, Lady Catherine's behaviour was deplorable. For a moment he watched her debate whether or not to fling into one of her sulks. He judged she enjoyed the game too much to leave it unfinished.

‘There is money in mines, Mr Frederick Clever Jarrett. Money; so long as the men go down the workings. In these parts it is our Mr Raistrick who sees that they do – or don't.' The old lady settled her hands over her rounded stomach. Her posture with her hump gave her the look of a leering turtle raised up on its hind legs.

‘Can the mine-owners not find another agent, Lady Catherine?'

‘Open your eyes, Mr Frederick Raif Jarrett. There is no other agent in this district. If His Grace the Booby has held on to any interest in mines, Mr Raistrick will be his agent, too. He is a cunning fox,' she pronounced, as if she liked Raistrick rather better for it.

‘He is a brute, Lady Catherine,' exclaimed Henrietta unexpectedly.

Lady Catherine flicked her a cynical glance, softened with a sort of affection.

‘Don't let your nicety cloud your judgement, girl. Brute he may be, but he is mighty clever and determined.'

‘I see now how a plain provincial lawyer might find his way on to the bench,' commented Jarrett.

‘Not necessarily a quick-witted boy, but he comes round in the end.' Losing interest in her topic, Lady Catherine began to shift restlessly. ‘I shall tell Thomas you will meet him at tomorrow's petty session,' she ended petulantly.