The Duke's Agent (28 page)

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Miss Lonsdale stood in the light of the parlour window, her elegant face determined. She laid a slim hand on Mrs Munday's sleeve to emphasise some words as she spoke. The contrast between Miss Lonsdale's refinement and the landlady's shorter, coarser outlines had elements of a caricature about it. ‘The Maiden and the Fishwife' was the title that occurred to him. He dragged his errant thoughts back to the matter at hand.

‘I'll say my piece here but I'll not repeat it. 'Tis Hannah
Grundy weighs on my mind. She deserves better.' Mrs Munday swung round to the miserable figure who sat concealed in the window seat. ‘And you're no connection of mine, Maggie Walton.' Nora Munday addressed Jarrett. ‘I'll speak out this once and you can make of it what you will,' she declared with every show of one determined to perform a distasteful duty.

Miss Lonsdale greeted him with seamless reserve.

‘Good-day, Mr Jarrett. Mrs Grundy was unwell, so I bid her stay home and rest but, as you see, Mrs Munday has come to talk with you – and Maggie too. Come, Maggie, stand up and make your curtsey to the gentleman.'

Miss Lonsdale was at her most distant and capable. Her manner contrasted so strangely with his glimpse of the nymph of the rose garden that he found himself momentarily confused. He subdued the brief twinge of offence at her blithe neglect of his part in calling the meeting. He told himself he should be grateful for Miss Lonsdale's presence. He could claim little familiarity with the ways of serving maids and female domestics.

‘Now you may sit down again, Maggie. There is no need to be afraid. No one here means you harm. Why do we not all sit down, Mrs Munday? We will be more comfortable. There. Now, you told me you were wakened that night Sally Grundy died – the night of the storm?' Miss Lonsdale prompted.

The landlady nodded brusquely. ‘I rose up thinking a shutter had blown loose. The wind was howling about and carrying on. I found no shutter.' Mrs Munday narrowed her eyes at Maggie and Jarrett was swept back to the inquiry in the tollbooth chamber. The landlady had cast the very twin of that look at her lodger when Maggie first gave her evidence. ‘But the stairs were wet,' Mrs Munday was saying. ‘And the next day she' – she poked a sturdy forefinger at Maggie – ‘went out in her best petticoat, for all it was a Thursday.'

Although he had wit enough to realise there was some significance in this piece of sartorial information Jarrett was not sure what it was.

‘Her best petticoat, Mrs Munday?'

‘Her crimson petticoat!' the woman repeated with emphasis.

He looked to Miss Lonsdale for assistance.

‘Her best petticoat – the one kept for Sundays and holidays, Mrs Munday?' Henrietta suggested.

‘Aye,' came the impatient reply. ‘Her Sunday wear. And what's more it set me thinking. So I goes up to her room and there was her everyday one spread out over the chair. Fresh washed and wet through it were.'

Maggie hunched in the farthest corner of the window seat staring down, her face blank, as if she heard nothing. Her scrawny ankles protruded pathetically white above the wooden clogs that dangled an inch off the floor. She was a pitiful specimen.

‘You tell them, Maggie Walton, where you were that night.' Mrs Munday's tone expressed her resentment at being drawn into such a public affair. Her patience with her lodger was fast running out. The girl's plain features registered no response. Jarrett moved to squat on his haunches before the window seat so that he might look up into the closed face. He concentrated his full charm on that charmless creature. His deep voice reached out to her, detached and lilting as if he were narrating a child's story.

‘I know where you went that night. You followed Sally Grundy to Lovers' Leap in these very clogs here,' he brushed one shoe with a careless finger, ‘and hid by the white rock, in a bush out of sight. What did you see?'

Maggie gave a hiccup and twitched. He caught a glimpse of blue pop-eyes watery with tears. He cocked his head closer to catch the mumbled words.

‘What was that?'

‘I didn't mean wrong! I didn't!' she wailed, suddenly animated and loud. ‘Sal was took. The spirits took her. I never should have gone. I never should!'

Jarrett ran a perplexed hand through his hair. God preserve him from hysterical females. Henrietta Lonsdale was fussing over the wench. She shot him an accusing look as if he were Torquemada himself. Was it his fault the girl was soft in the head? With a combination of bullying, measured sympathy and a glass of strong spirit supplied by Mrs Bedlington, the women gradually coaxed Maggie into coherence. The girl fixed her reddened eyes on Jarrett's face like a timid mongrel, eager to please but fearful of cuffs. Cautious in case she might fragment into another storm of emotion, Jarrett began with a slightly lopsided smile.

‘What did you see that night up on the rock, Miss Walton?'

‘Maggie,' prompted Henrietta, conscious that formality was more likely to oppress than impress the girl.

‘Maggie,' repeated Jarrett dutifully.

‘I didn't see – not much. It were dark and I was frightened. I didn't think Sal would go so far and the storm started. And I was afraid of the ghosts – them spirits that walk out on stormy nights.'

‘But Sal went to meet someone at Lovers' Leap?'

Maggie nodded hard, like some wooden toy. Now that she had begun her confession she seemed eager to unburden herself, as if the gentleman held the hope of her absolution.

‘And you could see Sal – just a little, through the branches?'

Maggie bobbed her head again.

‘And what did you hear?'

‘The wind was blowing and the trees made such a noise – and the river was rushing and roaring.'

‘What else did you hear?'

The girl squirmed in her seat and began to gabble again.
‘Sal was possessed. She was talking and crying out. She cried out to the good Lord and his angels and cried him shame and flung her arms about.' Maggie flung out her own thin arms in imitation. ‘And the good Lord sent down a lightning bolt and threw her into the river for doing wrong!' Tears overflowed the pink eyes and she ended in a convulsive gulp.

‘Not again, girl!' Jarrett exclaimed. ‘Steady now,' he resumed in a more measured tone. ‘You said Sally Grundy was speaking – who was she speaking to? Who did you see there on the rock with her?'

‘No one! I saw no one. There were demons on the rock that night. Only Sal saw them!'

The fear the girl had suffered that night appeared to have driven the last remaining particles of sense from her brain. She was convinced that Sal had been tumbled from the rock by supernatural agency in punishment for a sinful life. While biddable in other ways, Maggie was utterly determined on this tale. Her face assumed the stubborn, cunning look of the foolish who know what they know. She could not be talked out of her belief by reason, sense or scolding.

‘If you don't believe me, ask him!' she cried out. ‘He'll tell you!'

Jarrett spun round in the direction of her pointing finger. Will Roberts filled the doorway. The perfect apparition to illustrate such a gothic tale.

‘Will Roberts – were you there?' Jarrett heard himself ask. Henrietta glanced at him, astonished at the agent's composure.

‘Not at the rock, but after,' insisted Maggie, stamping her foot in frustration. She sprang up and ran to Will, grasping his coat in her conviction. ‘You tell them! You know. Will, you know I'm telling the truth!'

Save for his obvious physical solidity, Will Roberts might as well have been an apparition for all the reaction he gave. His bemused eyes stared out over the head of the girl who
hung on his coat. There was a moment of silence, then both Mrs Bedlington and Mrs Munday bore down on the unfortunate Maggie; two ample, bustling figures, determined on confining the rising tide of hysterics.

‘There's no sense to be had from this one,' Mrs Bedlington pronounced flatly. ‘We'll be in the kitchen if we're needed. You'll be wanting a bit of peace.' Casting a shrewd look at young Will as she passed, she ushered Mrs Munday and her weeping lodger from the room.

Will rubbed a big hand over his face. The pale skin clung to hollows and plains, accentuating its gaunt beauty. The mournful eyes seemed to notice Miss Lonsdale for the first time.

‘Miss Henrietta. You were always good to me.' His voice was soft and slow. He trailed off and hung his head. Henrietta stepped towards the towering youth, her face full of compassion.

‘Oh, Will.' The quality of her voice made Jarrett's heart jump. The emotion set up a counter-twinge of annoyance. He might have little skill with hysterical kitchen-maids but Captain Jarrett was well versed in the ways of men. Such feminine sympathy would only unman the lad further.

‘Perhaps you should leave us, Miss Lonsdale?' he suggested quietly.

Roberts raised his head. A weary child in a six-foot frame.

‘No, Miss – will you stay?'

‘Of course I shall stay, Will,' Henrietta responded at once. There were tears in her eyes as she led him to the window seat. ‘You shall sit here and tell me what you have come to say – and Mr Jarrett shall listen. You went to meet Sally Grundy that night, did you not?'

The young giant nodded. He gave her a side look and a half-smile, struggling to hold back the tears that welled up in his averted eyes. She smiled back in encouragement.

‘Why would you meet so late?' she asked brightly.

He swallowed and began to answer by rote, nodding his great head as if to mark time. ‘Had to slip away so my father-in-law wouldn't know. Drink's usually got the sergeant by ten or so.'

Jarrett watched Sal's lover encourage himself with another dip of his head, then the sad eyes came up to fix on Miss Lonsdale's face with a simple directness.

‘When I got there it was well dark and the storm was blowing up. It was a daft night to be out. Sal was there before me. We'd often met there. She was not in her right mind. She was speaking strangely. Didn't understand the half of it. She kept flinging up her arms and moving about. She cried on about shame and men putting off their honours and how she was withering and I'd exiled her for money. I tell you, she was raving. She was as one possessed. She'd have never spoken those words in her right mind.'

Will's story was carried on by its own momentum. Jarrett could imagine the young man rehearsing it to himself again and again, evolving it into a ritual that contained the pain.

‘I saw she was too close to the edge. I said: Don't be daft, lass, step back from there. But she wouldn't hear me. There was a flash of lighting and she must have slipped – it all happened so quick. She just fell. It was black as pitch. I couldn't find my way down. I near fell after her. She was on the rocks, all twisted. I sat by her such a long time, then the breath came out of her and I knew she was gone.'

‘And you lifted her up?' Jarrett asked.

The great head with its melting eyes turned to him. ‘The rain had started. River was rising. I couldn't let the river take her. Sal was always afeared of drowning. I couldn't carry her up.' A sudden note of hysteria sprang up in Will's voice. He braced his muscles against it, then settled back once more. ‘It was too steep. So I laid her on a piece of rock where it was dry. I closed her eyes and I left her there.' He
appealed to Miss Lonsdale who sat silent at his side. ‘There was no one to ask for help. No light anywhere.'

Jarrett drew his attention back. ‘So you made your way back to town and you met Maggie Walton?'

‘What was she doing out that night? It was madness. She gave me such a start – leaping out at me and gabbling on about demons and Sal being taken.'

A spark of annoyance flared out from beneath the numbness and for a moment the confidence of youth reasserted itself. ‘I thought she'd seen the blood on my coat, but it was dark and the silly baggage thought the ghosts had taken Sal. She hadn't seen me at all. So I let her think it. I told her to go home and stay safe in her bed and tell no one – for who would believe her? I got back to the Swan and he was up. Just my luck. Drink hadn't taken that night.' Unconsciously Roberts wiped a grimy hand against his breast as if to clean it. ‘He saw the blood on my coat. He made me tell him. He said: You're nothing. You're a little bit of a man.' Jarrett could hear the sergeant's sneering intonation faithfully represented by his brow-beaten son-in-law. ‘Where'd your wife and your new baby be if they hang you for that whore? You hold your tongue and say nought. But I canna hold my tongue, Mr Jarrett. I have no peace. I must speak though they hang me. I'd be dead soon any road if I'm to go on like this.'

The lad was utterly weary. Jarrett's blue-grey eyes were keen as they watched him.

‘Did you kill Sally Grundy, Will?'

‘She died because of me.'

‘You caused her to fall?'

‘No, I never! I'd have given my life for Sal. I would – even though I sent her out of her mind by marrying another.' His voice broke on an edge between reproach and shattering bewilderment. ‘Oh, Sal! What did you do it for? You weren't that kind. If I'd have thought it, I never would have gone out that night.'

The agent stood up and walked away to leave Roberts to compose himself. Behind him Miss Lonsdale was murmuring to the boy about how it could not have been his fault; he was foolish to speak so. He had a new wife and a baby on the way. His family needed him. What kind of man would he be if he let this tragedy pull him down and them with him? Jarrett rubbed the back of his neck and stretched out his shoulder blades trying to release the tightness there. Miss Lonsdale clearly believed the boy. He watched the posture and the desperate way the lad tried to listen to the woman by his side. Jarrett sighed. The story was plain foolish, and tragic enough to be true.

There were sounds of bustle outside in the yard. Duffin's laconic head appeared at the open window. The grey eyes under the brim of his disreputable hat were lively and he moved with a spring in his step.