A Death at Fountains Abbey (14 page)

I lifted the latch upon the shutters and drew them back as softly as I could. Dawn had arrived: the sky was growing lighter and the birds were singing in the trees outside the window. A party of tiny goldfinches were lined up along a branch, piping sweetly. I thought of my sister Jane: goldfinches were her favourite. I’d taught her all the bird calls when we were young, holding her hand as we walked through the woods near our home. I must return to Suffolk soon to visit her, and my father. When I’d been found guilty of murder, I’d thought the worry and the shame might kill him. I had known too that I had destroyed any chance Jane might have had of a suitable marriage. Would that change, now I was an
angel,
a
miracle
?
Most likely not. The men of that neighbourhood knew me too well to believe in such a transformation.

I tapped my fingertips upon Sam’s door and counted to ten. Always best to give a boy of fourteen a moment before entering his bedchamber. But he was awake and dressed, sketching by candlelight.

‘Did you find the ledger?’ I whispered.

Sam shook his head, keeping his eyes upon the paper.

‘Did you search the library? The study?’

He lifted his chin.

‘Well, it’s a big house, it must be here somewhere. I’d be obliged if you would keep hunting, when it’s safe. Kitty’s here,’ I added.

Sam lowered his pencil and swung his legs off the bed. He stood up. ‘We should agree terms for my work.’

‘Oh. As you wish.’ I’d not considered the question of a fee, and he had never mentioned it before. But it
was
work: there was no denying that. I closed the door behind me, so that we might haggle without waking Kitty. We agreed upon the sum of two guineas. ‘And these,’ he added, gesturing to his clothes – a black coat and breeches, matched with a fawn waistcoat with embroidered pockets. I’d told Aislabie that Sam had lost his luggage on the road, and asked if we might borrow a suit. Bagby had brought it up last night – with a bill for six pounds.
Borrowing
, it seemed, was not in Mr Aislabie’s vocabulary, though
extortion
had slithered its way in.

The clothes had belonged to Aislabie’s son William as a boy. He would never need them again, grown up and living in London with his fortune and family. They fitted Sam’s slight frame far better than the coat and breeches I’d lent him, which now lay at the bottom of the bed, encrusted with a thick layer of mud.

‘What the devil have you done to my clothes?’ I picked them up, dismayed – and held them out for inspection. A year ago I would have declared this a tragedy. I’d had no idea how lucky I was to care only for such trifles. I scraped a flake of mud from my coat. ‘Where did you go last night? The pigsty?’

‘Sally will clean them.’

‘Yes, but she won’t like you for it.’

A slight blush tinged his cheeks. Not hard to guess the reason. I handed him a shilling. ‘Give her this for her trouble. She might forgive you.’

Kitty was still fast asleep, head buried in the pillow. I resisted the urge to wake her, closing the door behind me with the lightest click.

I walked down the sloping corridor, shoes in hand. The wallpaper was tattered in this part of the house and the whole wing had a neglected air. It could not be through lack of funds. Aislabie’s interests lay elsewhere, it seemed: in his horses and his gardens, and in other people’s land.

I thought I would explore while the house was sleeping. It would be wonderful, would it not, if I opened up an abandoned bedchamber and found a small green ledger lying under a dustsheet. I cracked open a few doors, but most of the rooms were empty even of furniture. I tested floorboards with my toes, searched every cabinet, and found nothing but dust and cobwebs.

I was reaching up into a chimney breast when I felt something cold and pulpy beneath my fingers. As I touched it, it shifted, and with a cloud of dirt a dead pigeon splatted to the hearth. I must have given a cry of surprise because a moment later the door creaked open.

‘Mr Hawkins?’ Metcalfe stood in the doorway, dressed in the same drab fustian jacket I’d seen him in the night before, patches of dried sweat under the arms. The wrinkles in the fabric suggested he had slept in it. But he looked better this morning, beneath the stale clothes. His eyes were not as dull, and he seemed more conscious of himself and his surroundings.

‘Good morrow,’ I said, offering my most innocent expression.

‘Are you lost?’ There was an intensity to his enquiry, a trick of the empty room matched with his deep and resonant voice. It made the question sound somewhat metaphysical.

‘I thought I might acquaint myself with the house. I must begin my investigations somewhere.’

‘Inarguable. Did the pigeon do it?’

I glanced at the mouldering corpse at my feet. ‘He refuses to answer my questions.’

‘Would you oblige me, sir?’ he asked, then left the room. I picked up my shoes and followed his spindly frame down the narrow corridor, avoiding splinters and loose nails in the warped oak floorboards. He hadn’t asked me why I was wandering about in my stockings.
To avoid waking the house
, I would have lied. I doubt he would have believed me.

He opened the door to his quarters and disappeared inside. I crossed the threshold into what I can only describe as his lair. The shutters were still drawn, the room lit by a single candle burned almost to the nub. I caught the pungent stink of a chamber pot in one corner, recently filled. The bed linens were rumpled and smelled of sweat and other fluids.
Venereal spasms
, as Mr Gatteker would have it.

Metcalfe was searching for something. The room was filled with books and papers; I recognised his jagged handwriting, the blotched ink. He plucked his bottle of laudanum from the windowsill, wiggling it so that the liquid sloshed against the glass. ‘I have not touched a drop since we spoke last night.’ He handed me the bottle. ‘I fear I am being poisoned.’

I opened the stopper and sniffed the contents. Sherry and the bitter scent of opium. A strong dose, by the smell of it. ‘How much have you been taking, Mr Robinson?’

‘Metcalfe, please.’

‘Is that a family name?’ It seemed unlikely that Metcalfe could be responsible for anything, let alone the threats against the Aislabies, but he clearly disliked his uncle intensely. I might as well learn what I could of him – and he was much less distracted this morning.

‘I was named for my great-uncle. And my dead brother.’

I began to splutter out my sympathies.

‘Never knew him. Died in infancy. First son. So they had another.’ He lifted his hands, presenting himself. ‘Dead child, reborn. Metcalfe redux. We both have a touch of the grave about us, Mr Hawkins.’

I frowned at him, and changed the subject. ‘Your family seat is close by, I believe?’

He tugged at his earlobe. ‘Six miles east, sir. Baldersby. My father has rebuilt it in the style of Palladio. Don’t tell Forster; he’ll ask me about it. My God that man’s dull.’

‘May I ask why you’re staying here, then?’

‘My father’s ill. Gout. I unsettle the air about his knee. I don’t really, that was a joke. I sensed he needed a rest from me. He worries, and . . . grieves. For what I’m not. What I’m unable to be.’ He sighed. ‘I am the worst son alive.’

‘Please, sir. You are not even the worst son in this room.’

He smiled at that, shyly, and looked away.

‘Why do you think you are being poisoned?’

‘Hmm . . .?’

I held up the bottle of laudanum.

‘Oh, yes. D’you know I slept almost three days solid. A prelude to the final rest.’ An ache of longing seemed to pass through him. He blinked, more of a twitch, really. ‘Would you take that blasted thing away for me, sir? Throw it in the lake?’

I slid it into my pocket. The room felt oppressive: the smell, the clothes scattered in disarray, the balls of crumpled paper strewn across the floor. I invited Metcalfe to join me for a pipe out in the deer park. The fresh air and tobacco might help to clear his head.

‘I like deer,’ he declared, hunting for his pipe under the bedclothes. ‘They come right up to the window at Baldersby. Press their noses to the glass.’ He pushed the palm of his hand to his nose. Dropped it. ‘I’m not sure I’m entirely well, Mr Hawkins.’

‘Perhaps we should send for Mr Gatteker. Did he prescribe the laudanum?’

‘I brought it with me.’

‘So . . . you poisoned yourself?’

He slid a hand under his shirt and scratched his shoulder, as he had done the night before. The hair on his narrow chest was grey and somewhat matted. ‘What was I searching for?’

‘Your pipe. Here – it’s on the desk.’ As I handed it over, I noticed a letter written in a very different hand from his: small characters laid out in neat lines, without flourishes. It had been placed on the top of a pile of journals, with a lump of rock to hold it down. I pulled it free and held it up to the flickering candle. Molly Gaining’s testimony. Mrs Fairwood had said that Metcalfe had borrowed it for closer study.
He believes I am a cuckoo in the nest.
I read it quickly, struggling in the gloom of the chamber.

November, 1727

—Mr Aislabie, sir

I pray you would take heed of this letter, from a Woman I am sure you have curs’d a thoussend times a Day since we last met. It is twenty-six years since I set the fire on Red Lion Square that killed your good wife Anne. It will bring you no Comfort I suppose to hear that I have lived a life since then of the verry gratest Regret and Rimorse and that no Baubles that I stole from you Might ever be enuff to Smother my Shame.

But the Gratest jewell of all what I stole from you is your daughter Lizzie who I tell you now with fear it mite kill you with Happyness and Greif combin’d is alive and the lovvliest Creture in the World. I rescued her from the terrible Flames that night but to my Eternal Shame I took her with me when I mite have sent her to You. The Devil took ahold of me Mr Aislabie and I knew if I ran away with Lizzie people would Think I was her Mother and not the girl who started the Fire, the Murderess.

We have spent our lives quitely in Lincoln I married a verry kind gentleman who knew No Thing of my Past save I had a Child which he brought up as his Own.

Sir I have watch’d your Lizzie grow into a Fine Gentlewoman who loves Books just as you do and I think she has your Eyes and other feetures tho’ it is a long time since I saw you I remember you Well, John.

I know you can do Nothing but Hate me for what I did I was a verry Foolish Girl and in Love with you but God will Punnish me soon enuf. I write this in my final Hours knowing I must face Justiss soon tho’ I escap’d it these past Several Years – how fast they have Gone.

I send your Lizzie to you now with the Brooch you once Promiss’d me do you Remember it? The Diamond and Ruby flowwer it is the only thing I kept.

I beg your Forgivness Knowing I shall not Have it but Hope you will See that I have Rais’d your Daughter well. If you Can find Forgiveness as the honnest Christian Man that I know you are then I beg you to Pray for your Poor Molly whose Soul quakes as she Prepares for Death but Most of all I ask that you Love my Lizzie as I call her still as I cannot help but Love her as a Daughter. I send her to You at the End of my Life may God have mercy upon my Soul.

I am, sir, your Obedient and Sorrowful servant

Molly Gaining

‘Breaks the heart, doesn’t it?’ Metcalfe said.

I read the letter through again. Aislabie swore he recognised the hand, and there was an idiosyncratical phrasing to it that must have reminded him of Molly. And then there was his wife’s brooch, and the suggestion of an affair.
I was a verry Foolish Girl and in Love with you.
Nor did Mrs Fairwood appear to have anything to gain from forging the note – indeed, she seemed horrified to discover her father was John Aislabie, and not the
kind gentleman
who had brought her up as his own daughter.

Metcalfe had pulled back the shutters and opened a window. He was gazing at the chaos of his room as if some violent storm had ripped through it, tumbling his clothes and possessions into great heaps. ‘Let us descend,’ he said, mock regally.

I followed him downstairs, pausing on the landing to slip on my shoes. In the great hall, Sally was on her hands and knees by the enormous stone fireplace, sweeping the hearth with a hand brush. The air was gritty with yesterday’s ash. She looked up in surprise as we walked down the stairs, then jumped to her feet and curtsied.

I paused to speak with her, while Metcalfe called downstairs for keys to the main doors. Bagby had interrupted our conversation the day before. I asked her if she had more to tell me.

She wiped her hands on her apron. ‘I saw someone, sir. When I were shooing away the crows.’