The True Darcy Spirit (26 page)

Ratchet stood before him, sleek and with a slight smile on his face that was almost, Horatio Darcy thought, a smirk.

He didn’t care for the look of the man at all, he would never employ someone like this as his personal servant, and he thought with a moment’s satisfaction about his own grizzle-haired and grizzlefaced Marston, honest, reliable, and utterly trustworthy, although sometimes too inclined to speak his mind with the frankness he felt he’d earned after a lifetime of service to the family; he had started as a page boy in Darcy’s grandfather’s house a great many years ago, and had never left them.

This Ratchet was altogether a different kind of servant, a Londoner from his crown to his boot tips, wily, wise in the ways of the nobility. Trustworthy?

Darcy wouldn’t pass judgement on that. He probably was trustworthy as far as it went, which was with regard to Lord Usborne, who would make a ferocious master, Darcy imagined, and one who would expect, demand, and get the trust he needed, and who would dismiss any servant who did not serve him in exactly the way he wanted.

Did Ratchet know about Lady Usborne’s spy? Horatio Darcy was prepared to bet that he did, in which case, it was no doubt a useful piece of information that he would keep to himself until it became of use to him. This impression was confirmed as he went through the
household staff with Ratchet. The man knew the most intimate details of all their lives, what the weakness of each one was, how long they had been in the Usbornes’ employment and a great deal more beside.

Darcy had the feeling that all of this was a waste of time. “Ratchet, you think you know who has taken the contents of the box from his lordship’s room, is that not so?”

“I have my suspicions, sir.”

“Why have not you told his lordship?”

“His lordship has under his protection, or had, until recently I should say, a young lady by the name of Harriet Foxley.”

“Go on.”

“She is a demi-rep, sir, a bird of paradise as the gentlemen have it, and she has been living in a house with all found at his lordship’s expense for nearly two years. Quite settled, you’d have said, until she ups and offs,” he added in a venomous tone. “Which put his lordship into quite a state.”

“That has nothing to do with why you’re here.”

“No, and I beg your pardon, sir. Anyhow, this hussy, when she was still on terms with his lordship, sometimes came to the house. When her ladyship was absent, away in the country or visiting friends. It does occur to me that on these occasions, late at night generally, with the staff mostly asleep, she had the run of the house, and more than once I came across her where she had no reason to be, snooping.”

“Snooping?”

“Looking at her ladyship’s papers in her writing desk, I caught her doing that once.”

“What explanation did she give?”

“None, she just gave me a saucy answer when I asked her, and said I was not to speak to her in such a way. I desisted, since it is true that his lordship’s particulars, at least while they keep their looks and their figures, are allowed a great deal of freedom.”

“Was she looking for anything special, do you think?”

Ratchet hesitated. “I couldn’t say, sir. And another time, she was
going through the pockets of his lordship’s coat, which he’d removed and left lying across the back of a chair.”

“And she had no reason for doing that, either?”

“She did say that his lordship had put one of her earrings that had come off in his pocket earlier that evening. That was when she was looking in his coat, as I said.”

“Was it there?”

Ratchet gave a genteel sniff. “There was an earring.”

“And while she was at her ladyship’s desk, she might have been looking for a pen, to write a note, or some such thing?”

“She might, sir. She was a bold piece, if I may say so, for another time, when I found her casting her eyes about some papers on the desk in his library, and I said she should not be there, and his lordship should hear of it, she mocked me, and said to go ahead and tell him, and she’d be ready to die laughing when he snapped my head off and told me to get back to the iron and seeing to his ruffles.”

Darcy thought for a moment. What secret papers, what papers of anything other than personal importance, might Lord Usborne’s mistress expect him to have at home, were she to be in the pay of someone? Usborne played no part in politics as far as Darcy knew; it weren’t as if he worked at the Foreign Office or the Treasury, where he might have access to state papers.

No, clandestinely acquired private papers were more like it, and his instinct told him that Usborne’s demi-mondaine was unlikely to be looking for anything in particular, merely fishing for something that looked to be of value.

“I doubt if it was anything more than curiosity,” he said.

“That is true. Only”—and a look of animation crossed Ratchet’s face for the first time in this interview—“that was when all was well between her and his lordship. The last time she came, which was shortly before she walked out on him, left his protection, his house, everything, just like that—then she seemed to me to have something on her mind.”

“What kind of something?”

“I couldn’t say. It was just an impression I got. And she was in his
lordship’s study, she chose to wait for him there, while he went upstairs to change; some oaf had spilled wine on his coat.”

“Did it not occur to his lordship when he noticed his papers were missing that Miss Foxley had been in that room?”

Ratchet coughed, making an unpleasant rasping sound, which irritated Darcy.

“Come on, man, answer me.”

“His lordship was not precisely in a state where he would be fully aware of his surroundings, nor of exactly where his piece might be.”

“Disguised, was he? Why the devil didn’t you say this to him when he first asked you about the papers? I dare say he wasn’t inebriated then.”

Ratchet’s face was wooden again. “It’s not my place to talk about his lordship’s guests, of whatever station. He asked me about the servants and that’s quite another thing, and perfectly in order.”

“And making accusations about his mistress…”

“Excuse me, ex-mistress.”

“What difference does it make? That’s a line you don’t care to cross, very right and proper, I feel sure. Now, perhaps you could be good enough to furnish me with Miss Foxley’s address.”

“Like I said, sir, she isn’t there. She upped and offed.”

“Yes, I heard you. However, I shall see that a thorough search is made of the premises where she was previously living, and that any servants employed there are also questioned. Or have they been turned off?”

“No, I believe a new friend of his lordship’s is moving in shortly.”

Darcy’s face darkened. He knew who that was. He hoped to God she wasn’t already there; well, even if she were, there was no need for him to meet her. His lordship’s pocket was a deep one, he could pay for a couple of sharp-eyed men to look around the place and talk to the servants. They could also obtain Harriet Foxley’s present address for him; he needed to have a talk with Miss Foxley.

Which proved more difficult than he had expected, although it had been easy enough to trace her to the lodgings where she had gone after leaving Lord Usborne’s house and protection. He went himself
to talk to Mrs. Hodgson, who kept the lodgings, for he felt almost sure that Harriet Foxley was behind the disappearance of the papers. It was a bright, sunny day, as he rode up to 53 Lisson Grove. This was not a part of town that he was at all familiar with, and he looked around with interest, impressed by the pleasant, tree-lined street and the air of neat, middle-class worth and respectability.

Not so respectable as all that, he soon found, as a tiny maid opened the door of number fifty-three, and his nostrils were assailed by a strong smell that he couldn’t for a moment identify.

“Linseed oil,” said the little maid, seeing his expression. “Ground floor front is a painter. We’ve got a poet, as well.”

She offered this information with some pride, but Darcy wasn’t interested in poets or painters. “Is your mistress at home?”

A loud voice came down from the top of the stairs. “That depends who wants her, and in my day, a gentleman removed his hat when he came into someone’s house.”

Darcy raised his eyebrows, but took off his hat. “You are…?”

“If you don’t know my name, why are you asking for me?”

“It’s regarding a woman who rented a room here. I believe…”

“If you mean Miss Foxley, I’ve got nothing to say to you. Good day.”

Darcy wasn’t able to make out the woman’s features, or anything about her except that she was uncommonly tall. He put his hand into his pocket and drew out a note, which he crinkled suggestively between his fingers. “It might be worth your while just to have a few words with me?”

“And who is this ‘me’? Don’t you have a name?”

“My name is Horatio Darcy. I’m a lawyer.”

“Ah, she’s got the law on her now, has she? Well, you don’t surprise me, you don’t surprise me in the least. I should never have taken her in; you’d think I was too old a hand to be bamboozled by a pretty face and a well-spoken manner. I should have known she was up to no good. Come on up, and we’ll talk in my sitting room. If there’s business to discuss, there’s no need for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to hear what’s being said.”

Horatio Darcy glanced up as his clerk showed Mr. Cribbe into the room. Henty looked as though someone had thrust a lemon beneath his nostrils; he didn’t care for the likes of Cribbe, one of that subtle, insinuating breed of men who passed unnoticed amidst the low life of London, and with equal skill among the merchants and tradespeople of the town, gleaning information, looking for people who would rather not be found, picking up snippets of information for anyone who paid them a reasonable fee.

Horatio Darcy, unlike his clerk, got on well with Cribbe. He was an honest man, or as honest as one in his line of business could be expected to be. And he had a dark sense of humour, regarding his prey with a world-weary cynicism that was refreshing to Horatio, used to fustier professional associates.

“The landlady, one Mrs. Hodgson, is a cagey soul,” Horatio told Cribbe. “I don’t think she has told me all she knows, but I have a feeling that what she isn’t telling me may not be relevant to the whereabouts of this Harriet Foxley. I do have Miss Foxley’s former address, which is nineteen King Street.”

Cribbe gave a low whistle. “Bit of a come-down, Lisson Grove after King Street.”

“That is why you must go carefully with any enquiries at the King Street address. There may be another young lady living there now.
Miss Foxley was in Lord Usborne’s keeping and discretion is essential.”

“You don’t want his lordship to know anyone has been making enquiries.”

“The servants in King Street were questioned in order to obtain information about Miss Foxley’s whereabouts, but that was all. Now we need to find out more, and any information you can glean from that establishment as to when and why Miss Foxley parted company from Lord Usborne would be useful.”

Horatio didn’t tell Cribbe what the letters were, and Cribbe didn’t ask.

Letters, especially those tied with a ribbon, were part of his stock-in-trade. “Ladies will write them, and they nearly always regret it. The best thing the top ten thousand could do is to make sure none of their daughters ever learn to read or write, and then we’d have none of this nonsense.”

“And you’d be short of clients.”

“Very true, Mr. Darcy.”

Cribbe got up, hitched his snuff-coloured coat into slightly better order, and received the roll of money that Darcy handed him with an impassive face.

“No expense spared on this one, then, I take it,” he said, looking down at the roll of soft.

“No.”

“And you want all that I can dig out, and you want it yesterday.”

“I do.”

Even to mention the address in King Street brought an aggrieved feeling to Darcy’s breast. For some reason, he didn’t care to think of Cassandra installed there, didn’t care for it all.

Why was he aggrieved? he asked himself, as he reached for a quill pen and flipped open the lid of his inkstand. What was it to him, if she had chosen to throw away the last vestiges of reputation she possessed? And, speaking as a humane man, it was doubtless better that
she should have a roof over her head than be starving in the streets. But she had been offered a roof; two roofs, and had spurned them both, in favour of a life—or a year or two of her life—with Lord Usborne.

It was bad taste on her part, moreover. Doubtless Usborne might be considered a handsome man, and he was certainly wealthy, but even so…No, this was a waste of time. His concern was Harriet Foxley; Cassandra had briefly entered his life, on a professional basis, and had then left it. There was no reason why he should ever see her again. In fact, he told himself, as he settled down to draft a letter about the case of
Noakes v. Stewart,
due to be heard in a week’s time in front of that shocking old rip of a judge, Lord Lusgrove, he never wanted to see her again.

Before he went into court in front of Lord Lusgrove, Mr. Cribbe came sidling into the office, and laid a sheet of paper on Darcy’s desk.

“Your bird’s flown the coop,” he said succinctly.

Darcy took up the paper and read through it rapidly. Then he swore, briefly and fluently. “America, by God. Why America?”

“Mostly, they go to get away from trouble, and to make a new life. You’ll see that she left his lordship’s protection a good few weeks back. She was married to one Mr. Richard Morris on the twenty-ninth. He’s a respectable man, well thought of in his trade, which is engraving, but two days after they was wed, the bailiffs got him and he was in the sponging house, a writ against him drawn up by Lord Usborne.”

“Ah,” said Horatio. “Not very pleasant, not if there were no good reason for it.”

“There wasn’t. A trumped-up charge, if ever I saw one. But a man like Morris hasn’t a chance if he comes up against such as Lord Usborne in a bad mood.”

“He wasn’t in debt?”

“He had his creditors, same as any man in a trade is likely to, but nothing he couldn’t and didn’t intend to pay.”

“So it was a malicious move on Usborne’s part.”

“It seems likely. Howsoever that may be, his young lady, wife I should say, who seems a redoubtable sort of woman, she got him out of there, don’t ask me how, for I didn’t think you’d want the details, and then they were off as quick as could be. No doubt with the letters tucked up in her box, for I’m near sure as I can be that she had the letters.”

“Why would she take them? I wonder if she realised what they were.”

“I doubt it,” said Cribbe. “My guess is that she took them before she’d broke with his lordship, and suspected that he was carrying on with another woman. Maybe she contemplated a spot of blackmail; maybe, having some experience of his lordship’s nasty temper, she took them to have some hold over him if he turned unpleasant.”

“But she never used them,” Darcy said, half to himself.

“In the circs,” said Cribbe, shifting his weight from one stout leg to the other, “I dare say she wanted nothing more to do with his lordship. She just wanted to scarper, and scarper she has done, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean.” He paused. “Will you want me to send a man after her? It’d come expensive, but if the letters are important…”

“They are,” said Horatio. “Not in themselves,” he added hastily. “But to my client they are.”

Cribbe nodded. “Mr. and Mrs. Morris have sailed on the old
Lord George,
and she ain’t no flyer. If I put a man aboard the next packet, which is due to sail this evening, wind and weather permitting, he can be waiting on the dockside when Harriet Morris trips ashore. Will that suit?”

“It will have to,” said Darcy.

“One thing you can tell your client,” Cribbe added as he went out. “At least if she got hold of those letters unlawful, she won’t be showing them to no one and so they won’t be doing whoever wrote them no harm.”

True enough, thought Darcy as he reached for the robe he would need in court. But in this case, his client wanted the letters so that
they could be read. Anyhow, he would seek out Lord Usborne this evening, and tell him that the letters had gone abroad, and it would be some weeks before he had any further news of them.

Lord Usborne was not pleased with the news that Horatio brought him; Horatio chose not to name names nor to say which part of the world their present possessor might have taken them to. Lord Usborne had already tried to wreak his revenge on Harriet Morris, née Foxley, and Horatio saw no reason to make any trouble for her; even on the other side of the Atlantic, Lord Usborne would have friends and the ability to make mischief. No, he did not think they were on their way back to the person who had written them; there was no question of that.

“At least, you can set your mind at rest that the letters have not been lost or sold to the highest bidder,” Darcy pointed out. “And also”—lowering his voice—“the Prince Regent will have other things to occupy his mind over the summer; he will be going down to Brighton, I suppose, as usual?”

“Yes.”

“Then, by the time he returns to London, after the summer, I shall have news for you.”

Lord Usborne had to be satisfied with that.

Too bad if he doesn’t like it, Darcy thought, as he left Brooks, where he never felt at home; he was not any kind of a Whig. And if Prinny was worried about the succession, taking a repairing lease this summer and shedding some of his blubber might make his chances of getting an heir more likely, should he in fact marry again.