The Path of the Wicked (20 page)

We took our seats under a tree. The lemonade arrived. Mr Littlecombe uncorked his hip flask under the table and poured from it into his lemonade so deftly that I almost missed the action. When he saw I hadn't, he gave the grin of a naughty schoolboy and waggled the hip flask at me with an inquiring lift of the eyebrow.

‘No, thank you.'

He chattered on, about a horse he intended to buy, an atrocious bill for which his saddle-maker was threatening to dun him. Then, at last, something nearer the purpose.

‘Did you hear Paley's horse was brought home yesterday? Some horse dealer just walked into his old man's yard with it, cool as you please. Wouldn't say where he got it.'

I decided not to say that I knew the last part of the story was untrue.

‘And no news of Mr Paley himself?' I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Dead, everyone thinks. Perhaps somebody shot him and took the horse off him. Dashed shame. A thorough sportsman, Paley was. Everybody liked him.'

‘Except Rodney Kemble,' I said.

For a moment he looked ill at ease. ‘Bit of a misunderstanding between them. I'm sure they'd have made it up if—'

‘Hey, there you are, Littlecombe. Thought you'd gone to ground. What are you doing, inflicting your clod-hopping presence on this lovely lady?'

Just when my companion might have been on the point of saying something useful, he was interrupted by another loud-voiced young man in riding clothes. I recognized him as one of the group I'd seen up on the racecourse. Two more young men of the same stamp were standing behind him, grinning. Their red faces suggested they too had been at their hip flasks, probably without benefit of lemonade.

‘Well, if it isn't our belle amazon,' the newcomer said, lifting his hat to me. ‘Are you arranging a return match with her, Littlecombe? If so, my money's on the lady.'

The three of them ordered Henry to introduce us properly and then asked my permission to sit down with us at the table. I gave it. As far as the Promenade was concerned, my respectability was already past saving and I was determined to salvage some scrap of information from the situation. Their four heads combined might be more useful than Henry's alone, though there probably wasn't much sense in any of them. The new arrival, referred to by his friends as Postboy (because, they explained, he'd once raced a Royal Mail coach for a bet and won), seemed determined to lead the conversation. He asked me why they hadn't seen me at last month's races.

‘Because I wasn't there,' I said. ‘Did I miss a lot?'

They shook their heads sadly. ‘Dashed tame,' Postboy said. ‘Dullest they've been for years. If the killjoys have their way, it will be all temperance banners and Sunday school picnics.'

‘I gather it was livelier two years ago,' I said.

‘I should say so. We had to hide young Henry here under a circus wagon because a leg he owed was out for his blood. Then there was a fist-fight between two Gypsies over the lurcher racing and . . .'

And so on, all of them contributing to the catalogue, voices growing louder, sidelong glances to see who was impressing me most.

‘Then the police and magistrates arrived,' I said.

Sudden silence. They looked at each other. In the end, the one who'd been slightly less noisy than the rest answered.

‘Truth to tell, things did get a little bit out of hand that year.'

Henry Littlecombe made a sound midway between gulping and chortling.

‘It was Holy Fanny's fault.'

The others shushed him and looked at me.

‘He means the Reverend Francis Close,' the less noisy one explained. ‘He took it on himself to lead a crusade against the infidels.'

‘Beadles, magistrates, the lot of them,' Littlecombe said, only slightly subdued. ‘Knocked over the booths, arrested people right, left and centre.'

‘While the races were going on?'

‘Afterwards. There was a certain amount of drinking and gambling and so on, but no harm done.'

‘Were any of you arrested?'

‘No. It was mostly the commoner sort, the legs from out of town, the gambling booth keepers and so on.' Another gulping chortle. ‘I'll tell you who did . . . I mean, very nearly got arrested, and that was Paley and Kemble.'

‘What for?' I asked.

‘Public brawling.'

‘Brawling?' It seemed a long way from the Kemble I'd met.

‘They had their jackets off and were squaring up to each other; then Penbrake comes running up, wanting the constables to arrest both of them. Paley senior appears and gives the constables a piece of his mind, so Penbrake went off to find some easier game.'

‘Luckily for Kemble,' Postboy said. ‘Peter would have floored him.'

‘If he could see him,' Littlecombe said. ‘Paley was pretty drunk and Kemble was as sober as a judge. Angry, though.'

I'd known the two disliked each other, but had no idea it had gone this far.

‘What was he angry about?' I said.

Littlecombe and Postboy looked at each other. Male secrets.

‘We don't know,' Postboy said. ‘Whatever it was, they've been on bad terms since.'

‘I heard it was over a girl,' the less noisy one said.

They didn't actually shush him, but he was given a couple of warning looks.

‘Was that before the engagement between his sister and Peter Paley had been broken off, or after?' I said.

‘Just before.' Littlecombe said it quietly.

He seemed more subdued now. I stood up, thanked Littlecombe for the lemonade and said I had another appointment. Postboy and his friends pressed me to stay, or come back at least. Their clamour attracted attention and I felt eyes turning to me again as I walked away. But one pair of eyes, at least, wasn't curious or hostile. The eyes belonged to a tall man in yellow waistcoat and gaiters, standing in the shade of one of the trees. It looked as if he'd been there for some time. Goodness knows how Amos Legge had found out where I was, but he'd been watching in case one of the sportsmen overstepped the mark. He took off his hat to me.

‘Good afternoon, Miss Lane.'

‘Good afternoon, Amos.'

In a public place, it should have been ‘Mr Legge', but the sense of what a good friend he was came over me, and how much better he was than the sportsmen I'd been sitting with, even though the world would regard them as his betters. As I walked the short distance to the Queen's Hotel, I knew he was watching me and the devilment drained out of me, leaving only sadness.

Mr Godwit was waiting at the hotel, with tea things laid out and an older man sitting beside him. They stood up, the older man rather unsteadily, and Mr Godwit introduced him as his fellow magistrate, Septimus Crow. He made the introduction with that slight ‘don't blame me' air of a man burdened with an unwanted companion. Since Mr Godwit had described the third magistrate on the bench as old, deaf and entirely under the thumb of the chairman Penbrake, I'd envisaged somebody small and quiet. Mr Crow was certainly elderly and deaf – an ear trumpet on the table among the tea things confirmed that – but he was plump, cheerful and loud. Since he had trouble hearing other people, he assumed that they had equal trouble hearing him and spoke in a voice that could be heard on the other side of the tea room. At first we discussed the usual things – the heat, the number of visitors, the difficulty of finding anywhere to park carriages. I could see that Mr Godwit was anxious that I might let slip my true reason for visiting, and tried to calm him by playing the obscure female relative as well as I could. I was only too grateful that he hadn't seen me with the sportsmen.

Mr Crow remarked it had been hot in court. Mr Godwit tried to change the subject, worried that any mention of the court might set me asking inconvenient questions. Mr Crow wouldn't be deflected.

‘And the smells, eh? I hope you won't think I'm being indelicate, Miss Lane, but there was a fellow we sent up the hill for poaching – you'd have thought he'd brought his ferrets into the dock with him.'

Teacups rattled all around the room. A plump woman fanned the air in front of her nose as if the smell had been carried in by the mention of it.

‘Up the hill?' I asked.

‘House of correction in Northleach. He'll be taking his exercise on the treadmill for the next three months. We sent them a brace of poachers and a pickpocket today. Fifteen on the clerk's list and most of them wasted our time pleading not guilty when we knew their faces as well as our own.'

Mr Godwit murmured something about not discussing the affairs of the bench in public. He was disregarded.

‘Total of twenty-two pounds, fifteen shillings and sixpence in fines,' Mr Crow bellowed cheerfully. ‘And what about the young Prewett fellow, eh? Five pounds, eighteen shillings and sixpence, all on his own. If he'd been able to pay up, it would have made it a record for the day.'

The last part was said in what was intended to be a confidential aside to Mr Godwit, which meant that only the neighbouring three tables would have heard it.

‘He couldn't pay up?' I said.

‘Not a chance of it. So it was up the hill for him too, young dog. At least he won't be making himself liable for any more up there.'

By now Mr Godwit was acutely uncomfortable, signalling to the waiter to bring his bill.

‘Nearly six pounds is a pretty stiff fine,' I said.

‘Ah, but he'd been building it up every week over eighteen months, hadn't he? Eighteen months and one week exactly. He'd never have got away with it so long if the board of guardians had been—'

Abruptly, Mr Godwit stood up.

‘Miss Lane and I really have to go. I hope you'll excuse us. See you next week, Crow.'

He plonked half a crown down on the table and practically marched me outside.

‘I do apologize for Crow. He's a good enough man in many ways, but does tend to forget himself.'

I said I'd liked him. Mr Godwit insisted on walking with me to the Star to collect Rancie. The gardener was waiting for him with the gig at another hotel not far away. There was no sign of Amos in the yard. An ostler brought out Rancie and helped me mount, and I rode out of town towards the hills in the cool of the evening.

On the way, my mind kept going back to the indiscreet chatter of Mr Crow. I wondered how the young dog Prewett had come to build up such a fine. Eighteen months' uninterrupted poaching would have been a tall order. Drunkenness, perhaps. I'd have liked to ask Mr Godwit over dinner, but took pity on him. In my room, the small question still nagged at my mind, perhaps as an escape from all the large ones. Idly, I picked up a pencil and did sums on the blotter. Five pounds, eighteen shillings and sixpence, divided by eighteen months and one week – seventy-nine weeks that would be – to give the weekly total of the young dog's fine. When I'd worked it out, I stopped being sorry for Mr Godwit and was angry with him again.

‘O
ne shilling and sixpence a week,' I said. ‘That's eighteen pennies.'

It was just after breakfast on Saturday morning. Mr Godwit had disappeared into his study with unusual promptness. I'd invaded it and found him in the urgent task of labelling a collection of dried fern leaves. He looked up at me, face pained and apprehensive.

‘Mr Crow was about to say that the fine wouldn't have mounted up for so long if the board of guardians had been paying attention,' I said. ‘You're on the board. He was talking about something to do with the workhouse, wasn't he?'

‘Properly speaking, it's not precisely a fine,' Mr Godwit said. ‘Crow could never be made to understand the difference.' He was playing for time. I didn't give it to him.

‘What is it, then?'

‘It's a matter of paying for upkeep.'

‘Upkeep for somebody in the workhouse?'

A nod. Remembering Crow's tone of voice and a certain look on his face, I was certain that the young dog's debt had not been incurred for maintaining his mother.

‘Or rather, I should say, for two people in the workhouse,' I said. ‘A mother and her baby.'

A law had been brought in quite recently, vulgarly known as the Bastardy Act. The flush on Mr Godwit's face showed I'd hit the target.

‘Crow shouldn't have talked about it in front of you. I'm afraid Prewett is quite a deplorable case.'

I wasn't interested in Prewett. ‘If a man fathers a child out of wedlock and won't marry the mother, he can be made to pay towards her keep and the baby's in the workhouse. That's the case, isn't it?' I said.

‘It's not fair that all the charge should fall on the parish,' he said, not looking at me.

‘And the amount he has to pay is eighteen pence a week. Which is precisely the amount the men threw at Colum Paley. One of the men shouted that it should see his lad all right for the week. I told you about it. You must have seen the connection, but you didn't tell me.'

‘It wouldn't have been right to tell you about it.'

‘Because you didn't think it was respectable to talk about it? How can I work if you won't tell me things in case they shock me? I assure you, I'm not so easily shocked.'

‘I don't doubt it.' He looked at me now, prepared to be mildly combative. ‘I meant that it wouldn't be fair to Colum Paley and his son.'

‘You don't even like the man very much. But I suppose it's a case of gentlemen holding together. The likes of Prewett go to the house of correction and the likes of the Paleys laugh over their brandy about the number of bastards they've fathered.'

He gasped. ‘That's a very irresponsible allegation.'

I sat down on a chair opposite his desk.

‘Very well. If I'm irresponsible, then you won't want to go on employing me. But before I leave you're entitled to a report on what I've found out so far. Is this a convenient time to give it to you?'