The Scent of Murder (15 page)

‘Well, I think you look marvellous in it.’ Her companion rode as close as the horses would allow, brought her hand to his lips and kissed her gloved fingers.

‘I’m glad you’ve cheered up,’ she said.

‘How could I stay miserable in such charming company? I’m sorry if my mood has depressed you, Flo. I assure you, I am over it now.’

‘But something is the matter, Tristram, I know it. Is it something to do with the bones we discovered?’

‘There is that, yes, but I also need to speak to my uncle about something else, something I discovered last night. He was busy with his friends then and I missed talking to him about it this morning.’ Sir Desmond had taken his male guests shooting, and they had already departed the Hall by the time Tristram and Florence met at the stables. ‘It doesn’t matter, it’ll keep,’ Tristram added.

Florence waited for him to tell her more, and had to hide her disappointment when he reverted to silence.

The wind had died down and the air was grey and still. The low boom of shotguns reached them from across the woods and fields. Warrior shied periodically, nervously skittering from side to side. Speedy did not flinch.

While the women guests at the Hall were encouraged to hunt, it was not considered acceptable for them to join the shooting party. The alternative for Florence to riding with Tristram was to wait in the drawing room with the other female guests, building jigsaws, playing dominoes or sewing: in other words, doing nothing that was the least bit physically or mentally taxing. Caught up with manners and social niceties, the women would have no time for in-depth conversation or anything but the forging of superficial friendships. Most of the women would be preoccupied, wondering with whom their husband had slept the previous night, or the reverse: savouring the memory of those who had shared their own bed. The game ones would be joining the men for a shooting luncheon under an awning in a field, to flirt and surreptitiously show off their conquests. The ‘country set’, bar Tristram, existed in a world of gossip and innuendo that Florence wanted no part of. Not that the women of the bohemian set, with whom she had run briefly while she was with the poet, were morally any better; they just didn’t bother to hide their promiscuity. And even those women, with a few notable exceptions, were quite happy to enslave themselves to those who made the rules — the men.

To totally break away from men was one of the many reasons why she had become involved with the militant suffragettes, for whom chastity remained the greatest of virtues. While it still needed its male supporters, the Women’s Social and Political Union was at heart a female-only club where, socially, men and their complications barely existed, and where the ice-maiden reputation Florence had gained since the end of her liaison with the poet stood her in good stead.

A flicker of a smile crossed her face as she pondered her situation. If Christabel Pankhurst were to look into her mind and see how crowded it was with thoughts of the pleasant young man riding beside her, she’d probably be thrown out of the WSPU on her ear!

They passed through an open gate and ambled down a bridle path. The frosted corrugations on either side of the ploughed field looked as hard as iron, and remnants of mist still floated in the hollows.

‘We don’t want to go falling off on this,’ Tristram remarked.

Florence agreed and tightened the grip of her knee around the saddle’s hook.

‘Just before I went out for my ride last night, I caught someone stealing from the tack room,’ Tristram said, glancing at her as if to gauge her reaction.

Florence frowned, looking back at him. ‘Is that what you need to talk to your uncle about?’

Tristram nodded. ‘It’s tricky. I know the fellow, he’s a member of staff.’

‘Who?’

Tristram shrugged. ‘I can’t say until I have spoken to my uncle.’

‘In other words,’ Florence said with a roll of her eyes, ‘you don’t want me to worry my pretty little head about it.’

‘No, Florence, I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just not fair on the chap concerned, especially as he might have an innocent explanation.’

Lord, there ought to be a handbook of all the codes Tristram’s type live by, she thought. He could at least tell
her
. She gave him a black look and swiped Speedy on the rump with her crop, goading him into a slow trot and gaining several yards. ‘Come on, Speedy, let’s go. Man or mouse, Tristram Slater?’ she called over her shoulder.

‘You’re on, Flo. I’ll give you twenty yards’ start.’

Florence managed to coax her mount into a knobble-kneed in-hand gallop. The wind whipped at her face and the ground flew by beneath her. This was more like it: she felt in control, the complete opposite of her dreadful fox-hunting experience. She’d show Tristram what this fragile little woman was capable of.

The thunder of hooves bore down on her from behind and soon Tristram had overtaken her, churning up the frozen sod. He whooped and called out, ‘Eat my mud, Flo!’ and headed toward a thick hedge at the end of the field.

‘Be careful, Tristram,’ Florence called, heaving at Speedy’s reins and pulling him back into a trot. The hedge looked far higher than the gate Tristram and Warrior had leaped during the hunt, and furthermore it was impossible to see what was on the other side.

‘Don’t worry, we’ve done this hundreds of times, it’s quite safe,’ Tristram shouted, his voice uncurling behind him.

‘We’re not going for that, old boy,’ Florence murmured to Speedy, stopping him some yards from the hedge to watch. Tristram and Warrior took off, a magnificent spectacle of man and horse, flying tail and mane. Florence heard the thud of a heavy landing on the other side of the hedge and saw a cloud of cawing rooks take off from the adjacent field.

And then silence.

Florence trotted towards the hedge but could see nothing through the screen of foliage and pickets. ‘Tristram, are you there? Tristram? Speak to me.’

Warrior whinnied from the other side. Speedy whinnied back, his bony body shuddering. ‘If you think I’m jumping that, you’re sadly mistaken,’ Florence called.

The only response came from the agitated rooks circling above the field. This game was getting tiresome. She scanned the hedgerow, noticed that it parted for a wooden stile about fifty yards from where she stood, and headed towards it at a trot. She dismounted, tied Speedy to the stile and climbed into the other field. Warrior stood further up the hedge, nuzzling at something on the ground. Florence broke into a run, her footsteps crunching through the field’s frosty crust. As she grew closer, she saw the something was a saddle, and next to it lay the crumpled form of Tristram Slater.

‘Tristram!’ She sank to her knees by his side. His eyes were closed. She pushed a lock of hair from his face. His skin felt warm and his chest rose and fell, cloudy breath mingling with hers.

‘Alive, thank God,’ she murmured, feeling tiny muscles of anxiety jumping beneath her skin. ‘Tristram, can you hear me?’

The dark eyes opened.

‘My darling — are you hurt?’

‘I — I don’t know. I feel strange. Let me just lie here for a moment, Flo; catch my breath. Is Warrior all right?’

‘He looks to be, and he hasn’t run off.’

‘Wait a minute. The saddle,’ he said, ‘it fell off, damn it. Girth must have snapped.’

‘Can you ride without a saddle? I don’t know the first thing about repairing a snapped girth, I’m afraid.’

Tristram grunted and raised his head. Then he froze. He stared down the length of his body towards his feet, his eyes turning into two dark pools of fear. Florence clasped his hand and lowered her face to his. ‘You are hurt. Please tell me where so I can help you.’

‘My legs,’ he cried, ‘I can’t move my legs!’

Florence bit her bottom lip until she tasted blood. ‘It’s only temporary. You’re going to be fine, don’t worry.’ She picked up the saddle blanket and slipped it under his head as a crude pillow. If only Dody were here, she’d know what to do. His teeth were chattering. Cold. He was cold. Taking off Lady Fitzgibbon’s jacket, she laid it over him.

What to do, what to do? ‘I’m going to get help, Tristram. I won’t be gone long, I promise.’

Florence had only one option. Speedy, the slower horse, was on the other side of the hedge, while Warrior was standing practically next to her, on the shooting party’s side of the hedge. She led him over to a tree stump, hitched up her riding habit and climbed aboard. Her jodhpur-clad legs slipped on his satin flanks, but she hardly noticed; she did not give bare-backed riding a second thought. All she had to do was think forward and the horse began to move, think gallop, and off he took, thundering towards the sounds of gunshots.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Being thrashed by Matron for taking head lice to the Hall was bad enough, Edie thought, but being blamed by the girls in her dormitory for the shaving of
their
heads was even worse. No one would speak to her or sit next to her at the breakfast table; in other words, she had been sent to Coventry.

She pretended she didn’t care and bent her head to pray before the meal, but not so low that she couldn’t keep an eye on what was going on. When you were in Coventry, you had to have eyes in the back of your head. One of the girls glared at her. Edie looked up and stuck out her tongue, then pulled it in quickly when Master approached, tapping his cane against his high boots. She was so sore from last night’s leathering by Matron that she didn’t think her skin could take much more. She wasn’t sure which was worse — the Master’s cane, Matron’s wide-buckled belt, or the stinging nettles favoured by both Master and Matron in the warmer months. Edie bowed her head again and mouthed her prayers.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth
— yes, but when? Edie wondered. She wasn’t sure she could wait that long.

The workhouse girls took their meals in a huge draughty hall along with the rest of the inmates, but at separate tables. The whitewashed walls were decorated with rules and regulations drawn up by the board, and lists of acceptable punishments for those who broke them. Master and Matron ignored the parts that said only the boys could be flogged. If anything, according to Edie’s reckoning, the girls got more floggings. Matron and Master were king and queen of this place and governed according to their own set of rules.

The girls finished their watery porridge, drained their cups of thin, bluish milk and stood for a prayer of thanks. Then they gathered in pairs. No one wanted to stand with Edie so she had to walk next to Mr Clover, the dimwitted porter, as they were marched in a crocodile formation towards Matron’s dispensary. The stink from the vagrants’ table was so bad that they held their breath as they went past. Those who had mothers tried to catch their eyes at the women’s table.

Bessie Teadle, with the humped back, told Matron she was feeling poorly. You never knew what would happen when you told Matron you were ill. Matron had once worked in a real hospital and could tell a malingerer a mile off. Sometimes the doctor was called and you were sent to the infirmary, and sometimes you were slapped around the face and told to buck up. Poor Bessie was slapped on both cheeks and told she was a hypo-something, and had pot-emptying duty added to her list of jobs for the day. Still, even after all that, Bessie wouldn’t let Edie comfort her, wouldn’t even look at her. Stupid old Coventry.

It was Tuesday, and on Tuesday the girls in service were dosed with brimstone and treacle to counteract the richer meals they’d been given over the weekend. It was horrible stuff and stayed in the gums and teeth all morning. On Fridays, those not working were given senna pod to ‘encourage digestive activity’ after a week of workhouse stodge.

Once in the classroom, the schoolmistress, Miss Bern-a-aard (as she insisted on being called), gave them more prayers to say. There was a limp Union Jack at the end of the dusty room, above the caption ‘For King and Country’, to make the boys want to join the army, if they were fit enough. Not many of them passed the medical test, but those who did really enjoyed military life. Discipline was a toddle compared with the poorhouse, Edie’s friend Joe had told her. He’d heard whispers back from some of the older boys who’d joined up. But she mustn’t think about Joe.

The girls were ordered to get out their slates without slamming their desk lids. Miss Bern-a-a-ard wrote on the blackboard
For the wages of sin is death
and told them to copy it in their best writing. Edie finished before the others and turned her slate over while the teacher wasn’t looking. On the other side she had drawn a calendar so she could count off the days until she went back to the Hall — two more days to go after today.

The teacher approached. Edie quickly flipped her slate over, showed her writing and got a big tick for it. Not everyone did as well. Poor Bessie Teadle was given a ticket to hand in to Matron, Miss Bernard saying her writing was worse than chicken scratches. Edie felt sorry for her — her being poorly as well — and on top of her other troubles too. She and Bessie shared a bed. Sometimes Bessie cried in the night, great gulping sobs, because her back was hurting. She’d never get a job in service; no one wanted a humpbacked maid, except maybe a humpbacked toff. Miss Bernard felt sorry for Bessie too, Edie suspected, and only gave her the ticket to curry favour with Matron — everyone in this place feared Matron and wanted to stay on her good side, even the staff. As for Master, Edie shivered. Best not to think of him at all.

After a lesson in arithmetic, they were allowed to play in their yard for fifteen minutes. The girls wouldn’t let Edie skip with them so she sat by herself and watched. They skipped with a rope of plaited straw that had come from an orange box, and when that broke, the girls from Edie’s dormitory gathered in a huddle and whispered about her. By next week she knew they would have forgotten all about their shaved hair. It would have started to grow back and within a few weeks would be as long as they were allowed to grow it. Edie would be back from Coventry by then. Before it had been shaved off, Edie’d had the longest hair of all the girls. Mrs Hutton from the Hall had got special permission from Matron to let her keep it; she said girls in service looked better with a bun of long hair under their cap. It was kind of fitting that Mrs Hutton was the one who got to shave hers off, Edie thought.