The housekeeper laid one hand under the girl’s elbow. Rachel nodded, and not daring to look the woman in the face, retreated back into the salon.
‘Where is the body to go? Do you have something in mind?’ Crowther asked.
‘I have sent a note to the younger son of Thornleigh Hall - Hugh. I despatched your man, in fact, while I was waiting for you to dress. If this
is
Alexander, I imagine they will wish him to be taken to the house. If not, we may receive him at Caveley, my home, and wait for the Squire.’
Crowther decided not to offer his thoughts on people who gave orders to other people’s servants, merely remarking, ‘Mrs Westerman, you know I have made it my business this year to learn as little as possible about my neighbours.’
She smiled sideways at him. ‘Other than to observe the types that pass in front of your house, you mean, sir?’ He looked at her with a frown as she said almost gaily, ‘Your habit of watching your neighbours go by like exhibition specimens from your parlour window has been noted.’
Crowther felt a little exposed, but Mrs Westerman did not wish to tease him. She became serious.
‘I expect you would like to know more about the Thornleigh family? Very well. Thornleigh is not the richest estate in the county, but it is one of the largest.’ She pointed with her crop to the north. ‘Lord Thornleigh is the Earl of Sussex, and the extent of the lands reflect his exalted state. Theirs is the land to the horizon there, and they own some of the farms beyond. The house itself is magnificent, hidden from its neighbours in a great park, and full of treasures ancient and modern. A wonder. I have not been there for some time, though the housekeeper gives tours to the curious, and we are told the last King himself has rested there. I understand they have a pocket-knife that belonged to James the First in a drawer ready to be displayed to anyone who asks to see it.’ The crop flicked back over her shoulder up the hill they had just climbed. ‘They own all the land to the west of the village, of course. It is a fine estate, though I suspect it to be run these days in a cheese-paring sort of way.’
‘Lord Thornleigh is still in residence?’
‘Yes, as is his second wife. But he is very ill. He had a seizure of some sort shortly after we arrived at Caveley and has not spoken since. He is very rarely seen and never mentioned. I believe he is cared for by his own staff in the upper part of the building. There are three sons. Alexander - the eldest, and missing heir to the title - and Hugh, whom you will soon meet, are sons of Lord Thornleigh’s first wife. His second wife also has a little boy, Eustache.’
‘I have seen her with him driving past my house.’
‘Yes.’ Harriet paused, as if unsure what further to say. ‘Hugh served with the Army in the Americas, and was wounded. He returned almost four years ago when his father was taken ill.’
Crowther thought of a gentleman he had noticed in the village; he had been searching for the book that had been his company over dinner one evening and from the front parlour, where he found it, he had seen this gentleman meeting friends outside the Coaching House, some little way along the street from his own front door. Or rather, he had heard a loud greeting and turned to see who it was who had reason to be so demonstrably pleased with themselves. He had seen a young and solid-looking gentleman in profile and Crowther had recognised in himself the typical mix of envy and contempt men of his age commonly feel for the young, and was meditating on the emotion in the gloom of his empty house, when the young man turned to greet another - and Crowther saw that the right side of his face from the middle of the cheek to the hairline was badly scarred, and one eye milky and dead. Even in the darkness of the evening the skin looked freshly torn. It was as if some devil had so envied the young man’s looks, he had forced a partial trade.
‘A musket misfired,’ he said, almost to himself, then catching Harriet’s look of surprise: ‘I have observed him from my front window,’ this with a wry smile, ‘and the injury is distinctive.’
Almost at once Crowther heard steps coming up the path from Thornleigh. The gentleman himself was approaching fast.
He should, given his features and form, have been handsome, but the wound was violent, his expression was ugly, and his dress a little slovenly. As the distance between them shortened, Crowther took the chance to study him as he would a subject on a table: broken veins around the nose, a high colour and darkly rimmed eyes. A drinker. Liver disease in all likelihood already advanced. Crowther would not be surprised to smell wine on his breath even this early in the day. It still surprised him how many great houses could turn out sons who failed, in his opinion, to be gentlemen.
The man began to speak in a hoarse baritone before he had quite reached them.
‘Mrs Westerman, do you know how many times in the years since I came home I have been asked to look at corpses of men likely to be my brother? Four. Two itinerants who decided to die in Pulborough without leaving any convincing address, one unfortunate drowned in the Tar and dragged up a month later when his own mother wouldn’t know him, and one corpse in Ashwell who turned out to be dark-haired and a foot shorter than Alexander was when he left home. And now
you
, ma’am, are scouring the countryside to find me others.’
Crowther glanced across at his companion. For the first time that morning she looked a little shocked, and he thought he saw a tremble in her hand. He stepped forward and bowed - low enough to suggest sarcasm.
‘Well, at least, sir, this gentleman had the consideration to be murdered relatively close to your home. So the inconvenience is kept to a minimum.’
The young man started and turned to face him, Crowther realised he had been standing where Mr Thornleigh’s damaged vision might have missed him, and wondered if he would have spoken in such a manner to a lady if he had not thought she was alone. He looked strong, powerful still in spite of the drink. Riding probably, though youthful bulk was already beginning to turn to fat. Crowther imagined what his muscular forearm would look like with its skin removed. The younger man cleared his throat, and had the decency at least to look a little embarrassed.
‘You are our natural philosopher, Mr Crowther, are you not?’
‘I am.’
‘I am Hugh Thornleigh.’ He bowed and shook his head, and seemed to deflate a little. ‘My apologies, Mrs Westerman. I spoke very ill-naturedly. Thank you for your note, and I hope the shock of finding this unfortunate has not been too great.’ He paused again, and cleared his throat. ‘I hope your family is well.’
Crowther could almost like him now. There was a residual charm under the ill-temper, a pleasing deference to Mrs Westerman. It was as if when he had shaken his head it had dislodged a mask, and he had found his own better self beneath it. He was a bear in a frockcoat. A beast - domesticated. Crowther remembered his own brother.
Mrs Westerman, though, was still angry. Her voice was cold, and she looked through the young man as she spoke rather than at him.
‘We are all well, Mr Thornleigh. Here is the body.’ She flicked aside the cloak again from the body’s face with the tip of her crop. Thornleigh sucked in his breath.
‘I had thought perhaps a vagrant. You did say murdered . . .’ He stepped nearer. ‘Was anything found on him?’ Harriet dropped the ring into his outstretched hand then withdrew, pulling on her glove again. Hugh shuddered a little as it hit his palm and caught the sun. Then he looked at them again quickly. ‘Nothing else?’
‘We have not completed rifling through his pockets, I’m afraid,’ Crowther said. ‘May I ask, sir, do you know this man?’
Hugh caught his tone and steadied himself.
‘I am sure he is not Alexander, though this man is of his age and colouring. Again my apologies, madam. I do not know how he came by the ring, though. That is indeed Alexander’s. I wear one very much the same.’ He extended his left hand, showing them the twin of the ring they had found, shining on his middle finger.
‘Can you be sure?’ Harriet asked. ‘I think you once said you have not seen Alexander for many years.’
‘I saw him last in sixty-five, shortly before I joined my regiment. But I am sure. If Alexander ever lay before me, I would know him, however many years had passed. This man means nothing to me. I believe, therefore, it cannot be my brother.’ He turned to Crowther. ‘My brother broke his leg badly as a child in a fall. After, he walked always with a slight limp. Would you be able to tell if this man had had such an injury, were you to examine him more fully? But perhaps I ask too much.’
‘The injury would show, and I am happy to examine the body further.’
Hugh nodded shortly. ‘Well, that may serve as confirmation for the Coroner and his men, and you have my thanks. But I am sure in my own mind that this is not Alexander. And thank God for that.’
Mrs Westerman sighed. ‘Well, I am glad to hear it. I believe the body is just in Caveley Park lands, so I will have this poor man taken into my house till the Squire arrives, and we find out what is to be done - unless you have any objection, Thornleigh.’
Hugh looked at her longer than perhaps he should have done before he spoke, and as he looked, Crowther saw an expression of longing and shame that made him think of a whipped dog, pass over his face. Crowther found himself speculating. The young, battle-scarred neighbour, the husband away at sea . . . Then he smiled at himself. He was turning romantic.
‘Of course, Mrs Westerman. Can I be of any further assistance?’
‘No. The men from the park will be here shortly and we will accompany the body.’
‘Very well.’ And with no more than a bow to them both, Hugh turned and made his way back down the hill again - as fast, it seemed, as he could manage without running from the place.
‘He drinks,’ Crowther said, as he watched the blue frockcoat swallowed up again by the woodland. Harriet had leaned against one of the ash trees on the edge of the path.
‘Yes, I’m afraid he does. The steward, Wicksteed, runs the place while he keeps company with a bottle.’
‘It will kill him in the end - and fast, I think, if he is already at this stage in such relative youth.’
‘Good.’
Crowther twisted round to stare at her. An unusual woman certainly, but to say such a thing! He had not realised he could still be shocked by the speeches of a gentleman’s daughter. His manners must have remained more nice than he had thought. Mrs Westerman continued merely to look at the ground in front of her, tapping her crop. It was only moments before he heard more footsteps and saw Harriet’s groom with another man approaching up the path. She sighed and lifted her eyes.
‘My poor peaceful copse. It is as busy as Cheapside this morning.’ She straightened and gave the men their orders with calm good sense, then turned back to Crowther. ‘Come over to the house with me, Mr Crowther. We shall meet with the Squire and then examine this man a little more closely.’
As her servants made ready to carry the body to Caveley, Crowther noticed her gaze at the path down which Hugh had disappeared. Her anger seemed to have dissipated, and her face was filled now only with regret.
I.5
T
HE FEAR THAT she was about to hear that Hugh had slit his own throat nearly within sight of her home had left Rachel pale and nervous for some time, but she had recovered enough to greet her sister and Mr Crowther when they arrived and pour tea for them both without any shake in her hand.
She had seen Mr Crowther once or twice in the street, and once through the upper windows of his own house, staring out into the road apparently unaware of anything before him, and naturally she had heard the gossip about him from her maid when he first arrived. A recluse and a mystery. She had not thought of him a great deal, however, over the year he had been in Hartswood, her mind being much engaged with her own concerns, but she was glad of the opportunity to study him more closely now. She guessed him to be in his fifties, he wore his own hair, was very pale and almost painfully thin, but his height and the steady confidence of his deportment gave him a presence she could not help admiring. She had expected the brusqueness she associated with professional men, but his movements were smooth. There must have been a time, she thought, when he was used to company. His features were fine, though the lips were thin and his expression was, if not welcoming, then not outright hostile either. He looked around their salon with polite curiosity and so she decided to like him.
Rachel had often thought her sister was not the most gracious of hostesses, but even she was surprised at the complete lack of any attempt to make conversation with their guest. Harriet was staring out across the room with her chin in one hand, rapping her fingers against her cheek. Rachel felt the duty of the house fall on her shoulders; she was young and therefore keen to supply what deficiencies she sensed in others.
‘I am glad to meet you, Mr Crowther. You are a man of mystery in our society.’
Crowther looked at Mrs Westerman’s sister and struggled for a minute to remember her name.
‘I am not sociable, Miss Trench. I am sure it is my loss.’
Harriet snorted. ‘Oh, most definitely, Mr Crowther. My sister is a fiend at backgammon and whist. You have missed any number of stimulating evenings by your refusal to know your neighbours.’ There was an unmistakable sneer in her voice, and Rachel felt it directed at herself. She blushed and got up a little quickly.