Cheating the Hangman (17 page)

Despite his penchant for using irony himself, this morning Hasbury was not a man for subtlety. ‘Quite right. I suppose I must tell Beresford to convey my gracious permission.’ He reached for the bell pull.

‘I fancy you will find Mr Beresford is heavily engaged with my father just now.’

‘Your father?’ Taking me by the arm he spun me round to face the window. ‘Great heavens, you’re Hartland’s son! Hardly recognised you in that rig.’ He did not intend a compliment. ‘First you turn up looking like a tramp that
had seen a ghost and now you’re masquerading as a small-town lawyer. What does your father say? A man of the
ton
, always such a stickler for … No wonder he cast you off without a penny.’

‘If he cast me off, sir, it was not because I patronised a provincial tailor.’ I would have taken my leave had I not recalled that it was I who had wanted to speak to him. ‘Now, My Lord, has your steward had sightings of any miscreants on your land? Because there have been further … disturbances … in Clavercote. Not once but twice my life has been in jeopardy. I have put enquiries in train, as you may imagine, but I lack your authority, of course.’

He sighed, an action to which his waistcoat took exception. ‘I suppose you want me to press once again for the appointment of a parish constable. Well, I tell you straight, sir, that my steward informs me that there is no man in Clavercote reliable enough to take on the task, not a man whom he would pay in beans, let alone shillings and pence. Such was your man Coates’s view too, I gather. I suppose I could send for the man from Claverbourne. But he has no great reputation. Best you carry on yourself.’

‘But I am a clergyman, sir, not a man in need of a shilling a day. Furthermore, and possibly more germane, though I beg you not to mention this to anyone else, I am currently most reluctant to return to the village where a determined attempt to lynch me occurred but two days ago. Perhaps I have won them over – but it is not something I would wish to put to the test.’ And I would certainly not make the attempt without Mrs Trent at my side – though I cannot
think Lord Hasbury would appreciate my taking my housekeeper as a bodyguard.

‘Lynch you? Campion, the details if you please. Let me summon Beresford to write everything down. He would probably rather serve the son than the father, especially one as Friday-faced as yours.’

‘He has much cause to be in a fit of the blue-devils: he comes here expecting the hospitality for which you are famed, sir, and is confined to his room in great pain with none of the diversions he expected.’ Had I ever defended my father before? If so I could not recall it. ‘I understand that Dr Hansard will permit him a little exercise in the fresh air very soon.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘For a duke’s son you keep some strange company. Look at Hansard, a man who gambled his fortune away twice or even thrice and is now reduced to being a country quack. And Toone, with his predilection for cutting up cadavers. Where on earth did you find him, Campion?’

‘He found me at Eton, sir. And were you to have the deepest purse in the country, I warrant you would not find a physician more able than my two good friends.’

He brought the quizzing glass into play. ‘No need to fly into the boughs, sir.’

Yes, there was – every reason. But I contented myself with an imitation of my father’s chill hauteur. ‘Indeed not, sir. I will trouble you no longer. But I will be visiting my father within the next few days to play chess, a game at which I am sadly inadequate. Perhaps in the meantime one of your other guests might find it in their hearts to challenge him. It would be a kindness.
And now, if you will excuse me, I have work to do.’

As he pulled the bell rope, he stared. ‘Work?’

‘My Father’s work, sir.’ Next time I visited, the clothes I wore would make it quite clear to which father I alluded.

What Maria had said to Toone I know not, but to my amazement he was far more sanguine than Edmund about Dan’s ability to travel into Worcestershire. However, equally to my surprise, he offered to accompany in his curricle the farm cart carrying his patient. No doubt such a handsome vehicle would draw many eyes en route. Good, kind Binns would go too, of course, both to keep horse and master looking respectable and, should a crisis arise, be at hand as a nurse.

Mrs Trent, whose second cousin was providing the accommodation, begged the favour of being allowed to spend a few days with him and his family in a village a few miles from Pershore, provided that I promised not to venture anywhere near Clavercote or its environs while she was absent. I did not want to give such an undertaking. However, Jem and Robert promised on my behalf, and she felt able to leave me. When Toone, all courtesy, offered her a place in his curricle, her cup was clearly ready to overflow.

As Mrs Trent told me, the problem arose of what to
do with Susan and Robert. Clearly the Hansards expected me to take advantage of my chamber at Langley Park, and were more than happy to offer hospitality to them and to my horses too. But emphatically they did not want me to leave my home unattended – ‘Remember that outbreak of housebreaking,’ Maria said, with some exaggeration.

To my surprise, Jem dealt with the problem without even referring to me. Meeting my churchwardens on the village green as they practised for the new season, he asked to borrow some of their strongest outdoor servants, all twice the size of my poor Abel, who was so afflicted with rheumatism I dare swear a snail might outrun him. Young and ripe for an adventure, but so far prevented by the earnest prayers of their parents not to take the King’s shilling, apparently the young men had been delighted to prove their excellence at something other than hitting a cricket ball out of sight. Four of them would act as guards, patrolling the gardens, checking on the stables and, if the weather were inclement, setting up their camp in the hallway itself. Mrs Trent, who had admitted to last-minute qualms, pronounced herself delighted with the scheme, donned her newest clothes and finest bonnet, and set off like a queen.

My heart as light as on my extravagant trip to Coventry, I let Robert lead my little entourage on Titus, with Susan pink with pride as any villagers we passed doffed their hats or tugged their forelocks to us – to her, I rather think, because Mrs Trent had mysteriously found a length of apple-green cambric, very much Susan’s colour, and together they had sewn it in time for her visit to what she called the great house. I did not mention another young woman who might
be patiently waiting for largesse from Mrs Trent: Sarey would have to wait until her kind patron’s return.

But some things would not wait. The chess game with my father was one of them. In my vanity, I was thinking of asking Marsh to cast a critical eye over my apparel, though this time I would prefer to look like a member of my calling than a provincial lawyer. I was on the point of asking for a note to Papa to be sent warning him of my imminent arrival when Burns appeared, looking uncommonly grim.

‘’Tis a message from Clavercote, sir,’ he told Hansard, with a sideways glance at me. ‘Seems there’s someone there needs your help. Dying, his friend said. And to be honest, his friend – that’s Ethan Downs – doesn’t seem to have much longer for this life either. Sir, forgive me if I speak out of turn, but what if it’s a trap, like the one for Mr Toby?’

‘Mr Toby will no doubt be finding out,’ I said grimly. ‘If a man is dying he needs his parish priest – and in the absence of Mr Coates and the rejected curates, who else is there but me?’ How fortunate I had not fixed a date for the chess game.

‘You have a desire for premature martyrdom?’ Maria asked, so crisply that I suspected she might be trying to stop her voice shaking.

I touched her hand lightly. ‘Not at all. I should imagine that all our minds are pondering how this can be accomplished with no loss of life.’ I looked at Burns’s broad shoulders – he would be handy in a mill. But he was no stronger than Jem, who had been powerless in the face of the lynch mob. At length I smiled. ‘Edmund, why do we not put this conundrum to the man asking us to help his friend?’

‘He’s out in the scullery, sir, on account of he – to be honest, he stinks, sir,’ Burns told Hansard.

‘Maria, my dear, will you excuse us while we speak to this man?’

Her lip trembled. ‘I know you have your callings – but for God’s sake do not put yourself in harm’s way – or you, Tobias. Please!’ She turned from us, dashing tears from her eyes.

Leaving Edmund to comfort her, I motioned Burns from the room and followed him to the scullery, the door of which someone had hopefully propped ajar. He had not exaggerated when he said that the messenger looked ill.

Nonetheless, I kept my voice stern when I addressed him. ‘Ethan Downs, when I came to Clavercote the other day, my friend and I were nearly lynched. By rights I should have summoned the militia and had the ringleaders executed for their pains on the tree meant for me. I am a charitable man, Ethan, a man of God – but I will not put my head into another noose of your making, and I will do all I can to keep my friend Dr Hansard safe too, even if this means refusing your request to visit a dying man. So tell me, as you hope to be saved, if you can guarantee our safety if we come. If, and how, please.’

‘It was them young hotheads – and they’ll all be in the fields today.’

‘Not good enough. One breath of a whisper that I am about my work and I give not a click of my fingers for our safety.’ How dared I vent all my anger on this helpless old man? But I could not back down and take Edmund to his probable death. For a wild moment I thought of taking our pistols and shooting our way out of trouble, but I could not
conceive such an act. I stared at him – all skin and bone. ‘How did you manage to get here, Ethan? Did you walk?’

He mumbled something about a lift from a carter.

‘And how do you propose to get back? It is a good three miles, maybe more.’ Despite myself, I was so overcome by pity for the poor old man that I softened my voice.

‘May I make a suggestion, Dr Campion?’ Edmund had stepped up behind me. ‘Let us send for the worthy churchwardens, and ask them to guarantee our safety. And one of them could return our friend here to the village. I dare swear you could manage some bread and cheese while you wait? But I think,’ he added tactfully, registering the foul odour and holding open the scullery door even wider, ‘that you might be warmer in the herb garden – it gets all the morning sun, and as you see there is a seat and table there. Our maid prefers to sit there to shell peas. I’m afraid the crops will be very late this year, will they not?’

He joined Maria and me some minutes later, smelling strongly of the lavender water he and Toone had such regular recourse to in the sickroom. ‘Ethan has less than six weeks, I’d say – it must have taken a huge effort of will for him to get here. I have told William to return with Boddice or Lawton – both, for preference. They will convey him back.’ He added with a half-smile, ‘I have given him a verbal message, which I think he would die sooner than forget – or pass on to anyone else. Now, Tobias, do you have all you need?’

‘When I decamped here I thought of every eventuality,’ I assured him. Less blithely I added, ‘But I am anxious, I will not deny it. I fear betrayal.’ I found my fingers creeping to my neck, where the assailants’ bruises were now yellowing
reminders of the first attack on me. ‘I cannot carry a pistol,’ I said. ‘But is there any reason why you should not?’

He exchanged a long glance with his wife. ‘I have promised Maria that if I sense danger, I will turn back. And so, my friend, should you.’ In a different voice, he continued, ‘Where is the best place to receive these wardens of yours? My study? Or here, with Maria as a witness?’

‘I don’t know why you wanted us, and I don’t know why you wanted us to come in a gig, not on horseback like any Christian,’ Lawton said truculently. His eyes fell on the pistol that Edmund had been cleaning, lying on his desk. He mouthed something, then stopped.

‘Ethan Downs is not well enough to walk back to Clavercote: we rely on you to get him there,’ Edmund said firmly. ‘More than that, we require you to guarantee our safety should we agree to visit Mr Downs’ sick friend. I repeat, guarantee. There shall be no repetition of Saturday’s unfortunate events, for instance – and no one to ambush us as we return home. Is this clear? No bluster, please, gentlemen.’

Red-faced and gobbling, Lawton, the squire out-squired, looked likely to have a seizure. Edmund’s expression might have been unkindly described as appraising. I suspect, however, he was not calculating a possible fee, but working out a diagnosis and possible prognosis for the future when the man must needs become his patient.

‘I always said we needed a parish constable,’ Boddice observed. ‘Always. I’d have been glad to put myself forward. Glad. But that Lord Hasbury was always keener on wining and dining those harum-scarum friends of his than paying me a fee. I told him, I said—’

‘Shut your mouth,’ Lawton suggested without particular animus.

‘Do we have your word? Will you escort us everywhere we go?’

‘Look here,’ Lawton said, ‘we had a warning. We told you. Threats. Dire threats.’

‘Contained in a note I never saw because you had thoughtfully burnt it,’ I said, scathing as my father would have been. ‘Perhaps you wrote it yourself –
if
it ever existed.’

The result of that chance piece of sarcasm was amazing: both men turned colour, Boddice pale and Lawton purple. Lawton was already talking, suddenly co-operative. ‘We’ll go with you as far as Sarey Tump’s. Talk to her. See if she’ll walk with you.’

‘Assuredly she shall not,’ I said, perhaps stung at the thought of relying once again on a woman for protection. ‘Can you imagine taking a young babe to a deathbed? Use the sense God gave you, man! Indeed it is you two or no one. And I suggest you make up your minds soon, lest the poor man dies before we get there. Ethan, too – he is a very sick man and should be in his bed, not on his feet.’

Boddice looked at Lawton and then at Edmund. ‘And who will be paying for these here medical visits?’

Before Edmund could assure them that his services would be free, I stepped in again, my voice icily reasonable. ‘The village owes me reparation for my injuries. The village will pay – presumably, gentlemen, you, inasmuch as you represent the village. So are we ready to set out? Dr Hansard and I are ready as soon as our horses are brought round from the stable.’

Edmund left me to speak to his wife, while Marsh located our boots and our bags. We both fell silent as Edmund joined us.

‘Has Maria accepted your decision?’

‘Without enthusiasm, shall we say? I would hardly be surprised to find her in the stables, directing Tom to fasten kitchen knives to the wheels of the gig so she can ride like Boadicea to our aid. She suggested, in fact, that we might ask Burns to abandon his usual peaceable duties and accompany us. I concurred. He might be the epitome of restraint, but his size has a certain abstract value, especially if he wears everyday clothes. And he is an excellent shot. Yes, against all my instincts, and – you may shake your head all you like – I have pistols for two in my bag.’

There was little Edmund could do for poor Luke Stokes except give him some draughts to ease the pain. But he assured me, almost sadly, that though the old man was suffering, he too still had a long way to go before his death. We prayed together before some of Edmund’s laudanum drops eased him into a merciful sleep. As his eyes fluttered, he squeezed my hand. ‘Should have told you – but I know not what. I was to say I was sorry.’ Whatever it was he regretted, I was not this time to learn.

Despite the presence outside of the reluctant churchwardens, we were both braced for perhaps an attack, or at the very least unpleasantness, as we left Luke’s dwelling, stolidly guarded by Burns. There was nothing to raise our pulses. The village seemed as deserted as our next patient had predicted, with all the men and probably all the children in the fields. Then I waited in the sun with Burns,
talking about the developments in the cricket team, and in particular Robert’s still pleasing progress, while Edmund did what he could for Ethan, now stretched on the rags that made up his bed. This was, as he explained, little more than to provide a quantity of sweet-smelling dressings for his awful lesions. Then I entered and offered him Communion, but he lay face averted, with his eyes tightly closed. So I asked for God’s blessing upon him, and retreated, quickly, to the spring air.

Boddice and Lawton accompanied us to the village boundary, and showed signs of quitting us there, until Lawton suddenly bethought himself of his manners, inviting us to join him in a glass of sherry. Surprised, indeed, nonplussed, we accepted, despatching Burns back to the Park to assure Maria of our safety. When he dragged his feet, Hansard asked blithely, ‘What on earth can go wrong?’

Burns was too disciplined to reply, but his darkling glance spoke volumes.

‘Don’t forget, Burns, we rely on you to reassure Mrs Hansard with as much fervour and sincerity as if she were your mother, not your employer,’ I said.

He bowed his assent. ‘Rest assured,’ he said, solemn as if he was in the drawing room, ‘I shall do no less.’