An Introduction To The Eternal Collection Jubilee Edition (117 page)

“Boddle !”she said in a low voice.

“Yes, m’lady.”

He touched his hat and bent down to hear what she was saying.

“You are to take the two letters I have given you straight to Brecon Castle. You are not to rest there or here in the village. Is that understood? You are to start immediately on the return journey to Mandrake. If you need to put up the horses, do so in the next village or when you get to Maidstone.”

“Aye, m’lady, but-”

But Caroline did not wait to hear his protestations. She knew it was essential to her plan that, the servants from Mandrake should not gossip in Cuckhurst. She turned and walked towards the Vicarage. It was a small, grey-gabled stone building set in an untidy, uncared for garden. As she passed up a narrow walk between, flower beds, the front door suddenly opened and a girl stood there with a startled expression on her face. She stared at Caroline and then began to run down the path.

“Caroline!” she exclaimed. “Caroline! But I was not expecting you. You wrote that a Miss Fry was arriving.”

Caroline put out her hand and drew the girl close to her.

“Listen, Harriet,” she said quickly, her voice hardly above a whisper. “Is your father within?”

“Yes, Caroline, I believe so, but – ”

“Then hear me! He is on no account to know who I am. I am Miss Fry. Do you understand, Harriet? I am Caroline Fry, who was at school with you.”

“
But Caroline I fail to understand. What does– ”

“I will explain everything to you later,” Caroline interrupted. ‘Just remember for the moment that I am Caroline Fry, the girl you were expecting. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Caroline, and I will do my best, but ‘tis all bewildering. I – don’t know what to think.”

“Then pray cease thinking,” Caroline answered. “Do precisely as I tell you, Harriet. It is vastly important, I assure you, or I wouldn’t ask you to utter a falsehood. But, please, make no mistake it is of the greatest importance to me!”

“Then of course I will help you,” Harriet said, and smiling, Caroline bent to kiss her.

She was small in height with a sweet expression and trusting brown eyes, and she might have been pretty except that her hair was badly arranged and her dress of striped cambric was ill-fitted and outmoded.

Caroline remembered that at school Harriet had always been kindly and unselfish, eager to help other people and grateful for any small favours the richer and more distinguished pupils would condescend to show her. She hoped that Harriet would also be staunch and reliable, but as she looked down into her brown eyes wide with astonishment and at the vulnerability of her thin, rather pinched little face, Caroline was half afraid.

“Shall we go into the house, Harriet?” she asked, as her hostess, bemused and astonished over what she had heard seemed to have forgotten her duties.

“Oh, but of course, be pleased to enter, Caroline,” Harriet said, a wave of colour sweeping up her face at the thought of her negligence.

They stepped through the stone porch into the hall of the Vicarage. It was oak panelled, the ceiling was dark with age and was damp with mildew, and everywhere there were signs of poverty. The rugs were threadbare, the chair by the empty fireplace was sadly in need of being upholstered and the other furniture was in no better condition.

Caroline pulled off her gloves and waited for Harriet to show her the drawing-room, but at that moment a door opened and the Vicar came into the hall. Elderly and red-faced, Adolphus L Vantage was both a snob and a bully. He had never wished to be ordained to Holy Orders, but as the youngest son of a none too prosperous country squire, it was the only career open to him.

He had but one real passion in life and that was hunting. The two horses which he kept in his stables were well fed and well groomed, however meagrely his household fared in consequence. He came into the hall at a leisurely pace, not putting himself out unduly to greet a guest whose position in life was such a lowly one as Miss Fry’s, but when he saw Caroline, her beauty and her deportment instinctively made him bow a little deeper than he would have done under ordinary circumstances.

“I must bid you welcome, Miss Fry,” he said in a deep, rather hoarse voice which sounded as if he suffered from a perpetual cold in the head.

Caroline dropped him a curtsey.

“Thank you, sir. It is exceeding kind of you to offer me your hospitality.”

“Harriet tells me that you have come from Mandrake. Surely the coach is not returning forthwith. I have made arrangements to put them up in the stables for a few hours at least.”

How exceeding kind of you, Reverend Sir,” Caroline replied, “but by Lord Vulcan’s orders they must be back to Mandrake as swiftly as possible.”

“A pity! A pity!” the Vicar exclaimed. “I would not like his lordship to think we could not accommodate his coach and servants. You left his lordship well, I hope?”

“Very well,” Caroline answered, and realising by the glint in the Vicar’s eye that he was interested in the doings of nobility, she added, “‘Lady Caroline Faye sent her love to Harriet and her best respects to you, sir. ”

“Indeed! Indeed!” the Vicar said. “Harriet was at school with her I believe.”

“Yes, sir, and she often speaks of Harriet and swears she was the nicest girl in the whole Academy.”

Harriet blushed, but the Vicar looked at his daughter with distaste.

“Her grand friends pay little attention to her,” he said in a grumbling voice. “Although it is not surprising when she is dull-witted and seldom makes the best of her appearance. Look at Miss Fry, Harriet! Why do you not furnish yourself with a driving dress and hat of such distinction? It is not impossible, surely, for Miss Fry, as we know, has her living to make, and so cannot be riotously extravagant.”

“Oh, sir, you flatter me,” she said, throwing the Vicar a languishing glance. “It is but a simple little garment that I made myself. You must allow me to assist Harriet in the choice of her wardrobe. She always looked charming at school.”

“And well she might,” the Vicar replied, “for the Dowager Lady Brecon paid both for Harriet’s schooling and her gowns while she was being educated. Now things are different, and Harriet has to economise, as we all have. But I must not bore you with these squalid details of our daily existence.”

“You would never do that, sir,” Caroline answered swiftly, “but pray speak to me of the Dowager Lady Brecon, for I expect Harriet has told you that I am to apply for the post of companion to her ladyship.”

“You will find her, as might be expected a true lady of quality,” the Vicar replied pompously, but Harriet interrupted quickly.

“Oh, Caroline, she is so sweet, so gentle, so gracious!”

“You have indeed reassured me,” Caroline said. “I only pray that my application will be successful.”

“Indeed we must hope so,” the Vicar said, “and if you do go into residence at Brecon Castle, perhaps you can contrive that Harriet is asked there more often than she has been this past year or so. Goodness knows what the stupid chit did to muff her welcome, but she hasn’t been invited there half as frequently as I might expect.”

“Oh, Papa, must you tell Caroline things like that?” Harriet said, crimson with mortification.

The Vicar merely looked at her, snorted and turned towards his study.

“I will see you at dinner, Miss Fry,” he said, and Caroline in reply dropped him a little curtsey.

Upstairs, sitting in her bedroom overlooking the garden, she related to the wide-eyed Harriet the real reason for her visit. Caroline had considered carefully whether it was wise to take Harriet into her confidence, but she had decided that it was essential for her to have someone in the neighbourhood to assist her. There were letters for one thing. Mrs. Edgmont must have some address at which she could write to her, otherwise she would become suspicious, and if Harriet was to intercept the postman, as she planned, she must be given a reason for Caroline’s disguise.

After thinking it over Caroline decided to tell Harriet everything of what had occurred, save the true reason why she was at The Dog and Duck on the night of the murder. It was easy to omit all mention of Sir Montagu and merely say that she had been forced to pull up at the inn owing to trouble with the wheel of her carriage.

Her explanation of her being in the wood was that she went in search of a lap dog which had got lost, and she told Harriet that she had hired a post-chaise to take her back to Mandrake because she was too frightened to return to the inn in case she should be involved in the investigations regarding the dead man.

As it happened, Harriet was not likely to notice any flaws or discrepancies in Caroline’s tale. She sat listening with an expression of the utmost astonishment upon her face, her hands clasped together, her mouth a little open, and only when Caroline had finished and had explained the part that she wished Harriet to play in helping her, did her hostess take a deep breath and cry out,

“But, Caroline, ‘tis the wildest, most intriguing romance I have ever heard. I can hardly believe ‘tis true, and yet, if you say so, then I must believe it but oh, how can you venture into Brecon Castle after all you have learned? Why, you may be murdered yourself.”

Caroline laughed.

“Nonsense, Harriet. No one has anything to gain from my death! Besides, what would you have me do? Stand aside, say nothing, and let a good man be hanged by such treacherous, dastardly means.”

“If he is a good-man,” Harriet said enigmatically.

“What do you mean?” Caroline asked. “Are you speaking of Lord Brecon?”

Harriet nodded.

“Tell me about him,” Caroline said. “Tell me everything you know.”

“Tis little enough!” Harriet replied. “I have known him, or course, since I was a child but he is much older than I. He seemed a very nice boy. He always smiled at me and once, when he was coming back from hunting, he gave me a lift on his horse. His mother was always been kindness itself and because Mama was a very, very distant cousin of hers, she sent me, as you know, to Madame d’Alber’s Academy.”

“Yes – Yes,” Caroline said. “Go on.”

“Well, Lord Brecon - his intimates call him Vane - was at Eton when I was a little girl and afterwards he went up to Oxford. Everyone liked him around here although they only saw him in the holidays. Papa liked him too and used to say what charming manners he had, what a good seat he had on a horse and how well he went to hounds. They all hoped that, when he was old enough, he would take over the Mastership and then – well, then he altered.”

“Altered?” Caroline repeated. ‘In what way?”

“Tis hard to explain,” Harriet answered. “You see, I have not been asked to Brecon Castle very often since I left school, it angers Papa, but really there is no reason why they should invite me. I am too young to be friends with Lord Brecon and besides, he has many friends of his own who certainly have nothing in common with the local Vicar’s daughter and Lady Brecon is bedridden. She never leaves her bedchamber.”

“I had no idea of that,” Caroline exclaimed.

“Oh, did I not tell you?” Harriet said. “I suppose it never occurred to me. She has been ailing for years. She never goes out or sees anyone. She just lies in her room with her books and her birds. They are the only things which interest her except her son. She adores him.”

“You were saying that he had altered,” Caroline reminded her. “Continue, Harriet.”

“It is so difficult to put into words,” Harriet said, knitting her brows. “Everyone talks about it in a sort of way, but there is nothing that they can actually say, if you understand what I mean. It began - this alteration - after he was twenty-five and took over the management of all his estates and wealth himself - there were trustees before that - I don’t know who they were, but Papa could tell you.”

“That is immaterial,” Caroline muttered.

“At twenty-five Lord Brecon became his own master,” Harriet continued. ‘From that moment - so they say - he seemed a changed person. He became wild and reckless. He was always risking his life in the most idiotic ways, for instance, they had a steeplechase blindfolded one night through the Park, along the river bank and across the Common, which is above five miles up the road. There are quarries there and it is very broken ground, and Papa says it is a miracle that no one was killed, although one rider broke his back and another his collarbone.”

“What else did he do?” Caroline enquired.

“Some of the things Father will not mention in front of me, but I hear that his friends changed,” Harriet said. “All kinds of strange people were asked to the Castle who had never been there before. These were not only raffish Society from London, but men and women of other classes too. I think Papa must have protested to Lord Brecon on one occasion when they had a rout at the Castle which lasted all through Saturday night and continued until after midday on Sunday when the villagers were going to Church. I don’t know what happened, because Papa would never speak of it for he was so angry, but I believe Lord Brecon was very autocratic and told him to mind his own business. Anyway after that Papa has always been against him, saying that he will come to a bad end, that he will break his neck or end in prison.”

Caroline gave a little exclamation.

“The village gossip about him too,” Harriet continued, “and being the Vicar’s daughter I hear them. The old people shake their heads and seem worried. You know how, when they have lived on an estate all their lives, they consider themselves part of the family. They are always talking about Lord Brecon more or less under their breath. There is nothing exactly that one can get hold of, it is just a feeling that things, are wrong and getting worse. Oh, Caroline, what a dolt you must think me, but I vow I cannot explain it better than that.”

Harriet threw out her, hands with a little gesture of helplessness, and Caroline bent forward and kissed her.

“You explained it exceeding well,” she said, “and it is indeed helpful.”

She rose from the bed on which she had been sitting and walked to the window.

“I have a feeling,” she said, “that I shall be able to help Lord Brecon.”