The Duke's Agent (4 page)

‘Fear not, ma'am. I am not a man to take offence at honesty. It is clear that many here are uneasy at my presence.'

‘The ninnies can't place you,' interjected Lady Catherine. ‘They must always know where to place a stranger or it quite unsettles their stomachs. Ninnies!' The little woman rocked back and forwards in derision.

Jarrett found himself overcome by a vision of the old lady as Humpty-Dumpty in some old print and he had to pretend to cough before he laughed. He was not fast enough for Lady Catherine.

‘Find me amusing, eh?' she said fiercely. Jarrett looked straight at her, catching a fleeting glimpse of the depth of misery pent up in her eyes.

‘An unfortunate association in my mind, ma'am,' he said as honestly as he could.

All at once the fire was gone and she half-smiled. ‘Unfortunate association,' she repeated. She nodded with her whole body. ‘Apt.' She looked up appealingly at Henrietta. ‘Don't you think, my dear?'

‘You must be tired, Lady Catherine,' Henrietta said, her manner betraying her affection for the old woman.

‘Not tired; tedious. These people.' She waved a thin, wrinkled paw at the assembly. ‘I shall go to my room,' she announced and scrambled off her chair. A servant appeared to help her. A few feet away the old lady turned and addressed Jarrett. ‘You'll do, young man. If you need help – and you may – ask me. He's no good,' she said with a half-fierce, half-loving toss of her head in the direction of her kinsman, Sir Thomas. ‘A booby. But I am no simpleton.' With that statement she made her exit.

They were left standing in silence in an oasis of polished boards. Henrietta surveyed the agent. His blue eyes were very bright against his sun-darkened skin; it gave him quite the
buccaneering look. He caught her watching him and smiled. The expression transformed his face with an unexpected gentleness.

‘I do not know why Lady Catherine thinks you may need assistance, sir.' Now why on earth had she said that? It was most inappropriate. Henrietta was flustered. It seemed important to justify her friend to this stranger. ‘For all her eccentricities she speaks only the truth.'

Jarrett considered his companion's attractions. They were considerable – the more so when her poise was softened by confusion. He watched her mouth frame its words with care.

‘Lady Catherine
is
no simpleton, you know – and an excellent friend.'

*

Back at the Queen's Head the tap and parlour were full of customers. Meeting Mr Bedlington at the foot of the stairs, Jarrett asked when the post left from Greta Bridge.

‘The letters to the North go at seven in the morning each day and to the South at four o'clock,' the innkeeper answered. ‘Might there be a letter you want taken, sir?'

Jarrett felt a familiar tightening sensation at the back of his head and shoulders; the sense of being watched. The whole tap could overhear them. He looked about the room, but every group seemed deep in their own conversation.

‘No, not as yet, I thank you. I shall doubtless be riding out that way myself in the next day or so.'

Mr Bedlington hurried off towards the parlour.

Jarrett found his room stuffy and he opened the window. He was feeling confined and restless. Towns were well enough but he preferred open spaces. Out at the manor he might pursue his investigations relatively free from prying eyes. In these small towns the gossips picked over your every step. He came to a decision and went in search of Mrs Bedlington. He found her in the kitchen nook basting fowls.
Her fleshy face was an alarming shade of puce and sweat ran off her cheeks.

‘Such company we have tonight, Mr Jarrett!' she exclaimed. ‘There's the Box Society up for its quarterly dinner and, as luck would have it, a recruiting party's just arrived from Gainford – and all demanding to be fed. And me shorthanded.'

‘In that case, Mistress B, let me relieve you of one burden at least. I shall move out to the manor. I find no hardship in sleeping rough and there is much to be done there.'

For a moment Mrs Bedlington seemed likely to be offended at the desertion of her favourite guest, but as the officer with the recruiting party had just sent word that he was in need of a room she was soon reconciled. Within the hour Jarrett was riding Walcheren out of the stable yard.

He left Woolbridge by the eastern road, the way he should have come the night before. He had crossed a toll bridge that stood below the ruins of an old abbey when he noticed the mouth of the path he had mistakenly taken on his arrival. He had a notion to see what it looked like in full daylight, so he turned Walcheren down into the wood.

The river path was pleasant by sunlight. The river gleamed pewter between its white rocks. There was a flash of exquisite blue, highlighted by a dab of orange, and he caught a delightful view of a kingfisher as it darted over the surface of the water. The track was much overgrown and Jarrett debated with himself as he rode the merits of setting some men to clear it. The horse climbed the incline, leaving the river behind. Just as they were mounting the brow of the hill, as the trees grew wider spaced, Jarrett caught a whiff of tobacco smoke. A yellow dog ran into the path and barked.

‘Hold your peace, Bob, you know him,' said a voice. And there, sitting at his ease on a log, smoking his pipe, was the poacher.

Duffin removed his pipe deliberately from his mouth. ‘Fine evening again, sir,' he commented.

‘And a fine prospect, too,' responded Jarrett appreciatively. The man had chosen a spot at the mouth of a gap in the trees. An alder and a graceful willow framed a broad sweeping turn of the river below. With a flash of a white breast, a swallow skimmed over the golden water, catching flies in the lazy summer air.

Duffin drew contentedly on his pipe. ‘Aye,' he agreed.

‘I trust I find you recovered from our unfortunate encounter of last night?'

‘You find me dry, sir.'

The burly man leant down to knock out his pipe on the stump. He was hatless and his hair short. It stuck out in a mat of bristly spikes all over his square, bullish skull. ‘Ezekiel Duffin's my name; countryman,' he said gruffly. ‘And this here is Bob.' The yellow dog sat on its haunches panting slightly, his pointed ears pricked up and a lively look of expectation in his eyes. He was a mongrel that seemed to have reverted to plain hound. Jarrett reflected he had seen his ancestor once among images of Egyptian hunting dogs in a collection of antiquities he had visited in London.

The younger man nodded in a friendly fashion. ‘Jarrett,' he said cheerfully. ‘My name is Frederick Jarrett. I am staying at the manor up the track here.'

Duffin was watching the swallow through narrowed eyes. Following the curves the bird carved through the air below,
he scarcely acknowledged the introduction, but nodded to himself as if confirming something. Jarrett became aware that the sharp eyes had returned to him.

‘Back from soldiering, are you?' Duffin asked abruptly.

‘I am in His Majesty's service, yes.'

‘Household Cavalry maybe?' The tone of the question seemed to imply that Duffin made certain assumptions about gentlemen who took up service in such a regiment. ‘You handle the beast well,' he added grudgingly, as if to soften the question.

Jarrett laughed. ‘Do I look as if I've just stepped off a gingerbread field day? No. Light Dragoons, the 16th. Lately in Portugal – though I had some years with the 68th Regiment of Foot in the West Indies.' He smiled engagingly. ‘Are you an old soldier yourself?'

‘Me? We-ell, happen I did a spell once. Didn't take to it.' Duffin stood, thrusting his pipe into a deep pocket, and picked up his pack. He slid a wry glance at the rider above him. ‘Didn't reckon you got that dark complexion these parts. Portugal, you say?'

‘Aye – and Spain.'

‘Invalided out?'

‘On leave – an unlucky chance. But I am sound enough now.' Jarrett gathered up the reins to move on.

‘I'll walk a ways with you, sir,' volunteered Duffin unexpectedly. ‘If you've no objection.'

‘None in the world,' responded Jarrett. ‘Glad of the company.'

The dog Bob foraged before them, in search of rabbits and other potentially interesting creatures. He frequently disappeared from sight, re-emerging at intervals to check on the progress of his master. They passed the folly, crossing the stone bridge, and on through the fields. As they approached the outer edge of the plantation the roofs of the old manor house peeped up above the trees.

‘Did you know the previous tenant of this place, Mr Duffin?'

‘Me? Crotter?' The poacher snorted. ‘Not to speak to.'

‘But you passed this way many times?'

Duffin shrugged his pack into a more comfortable position. ‘In the summer, I reckon,' he answered in an offhand manner.

Jarrett glanced down at the man below him. He had an idea and he wondered how his new-found acquaintance might take it.

‘If you have no urgent business,' he ventured, ‘I wonder if you might assist me at the house. There are some tasks to be done – I would be grateful for the aid of a strong back. I have not had time to engage any men as yet. It would take no more than an hour or so. Paid work, of course,' he added.

Ezekiel stopped in the path and examined the face above him. Jarrett gazed calmly back. Humour warmed Duffin's pebble-grey eyes. He shot out a large and none too clean hand, a smile transforming his dour features.

‘Aye, why not?'

Jarrett clasped the proffered fingers and they shook hands formally.

‘Can always do with a few shillings,' Duffin remarked as they set off again.

‘Shillings, Mr Duffin? The price of labour is steep in these parts.'

‘Nay. Quality's to be paid for. As you'd know, being a gentleman.'

The men fell silent as they approached the abandoned manor. A miasma of decay clung about the entrance, unsettling the horses. The dog too crowded closer to his master, making little whimpering noises in his throat.

‘Even been a gravedigger, Duffin? As you can smell, there is a corpse to dispose of,' said Jarrett as he swung off his horse.

‘He was a good dog, that one,' returned Duffin, unperturbed. ‘Fearsome beast but a good watch dog.'

Jarrett looked sharply at the man, his hand stayed above the latch, but Duffin was turned away instructing his dog to stay outside.

‘Creatures don't like to see their own kind in decay. Alike with men in that, I reckon,' Ezekiel observed philosophically.

Seemingly unaware of his companion's surprise, the poacher was keen to set to the task at hand. ‘We'd best bustle, sir,' he prompted, ‘he's ripe enough. There'll be implements in one of them byres if some varmint's not carried them off.' With that he walked off towards one of the outhouses in the manner of a man who knows where he is going.

True to his word, he returned in a few minutes with two spades and a piece of sacking. It was unpleasant work. The stench that had collected in the pent-up space of the hall had physical force. The decay was well advanced and the flies in no mind to be disturbed. What with the rank, sweet stink and the swarming insects there was not a breath of clean air to be had. Both men worked swiftly and silently, handkerchiefs tied about their mouths. They bundled the remains of the hound on to the sack and carried it out into the yard. There they buried it between yew trees.

‘So you've been here before, Duffin,' challenged Jarrett as soon as the outdoor air permitted conversation.

Duffin paused as he balanced a heavy load of soil on his spade and tipped it into the hole with a grunt. ‘As I said, I pass this way now and then. That dog would bark. We knew one another but he'd bark whenever a body passed.'

‘How was it you knew it was the dog we had to bury?' Jarrett pressed him.

Duffin was busy with his spade and did not look at him. He was no fool, Jarrett was ever more certain of that.

‘Passed by and he didn't bark no more. You and I know that smell – and they took Crotter to the church days back,'
he ended with a sly grin. ‘That'll do,' he said, putting the spade aside and picking up his coat.

‘Come in and we'll see if there is any refreshment to be had,' said Jarrett, retrieving his own coat and discarded cravat. ‘Perhaps you may show me where it is kept,' he added over his shoulder.

‘No, sir. Mr Crotter didn't invite the likes of me to drink with him,' responded the poacher blandly.

Jarrett decided to try the frontal assault.

‘Do you know what happened here, Duffin?' he asked as they entered the house. Watching the man, he sensed, with some amusement, that he was taken aback at the directness of the question, almost as if the younger man were not playing the game by the proper rules. Duffin retreated into a know-nothing truculence.

‘Why would I? It was none of my doing,' he said. It seemed that the poacher was more offended at the thought of being accused as a dog-killer than of housebreaking. ‘I'd have no need to cut his throat – a good dog like that. I'd sooner cut a man's.'

‘I beg your pardon, Mr Duffin,' Jarrett soothed him. ‘I do not mean to accuse you. I merely wondered whether, being so familiar with these parts, you had not seen something of the men who broke in here and did this. Come, there must be something to wet a man's throat somewhere in this god-forsaken place. I saw bottles enough in the other room on my first visit.' He led the way to the oblong room he had examined the day before. Duffin followed, nursing his affronted honour.

Looking about him, Jarrett resolved that no manner of tidying or housekeeping would reconcile him to living in that house. The gloom of the room seemed to enter his bones. It did not bear any sense of threat, but rather a stifling melancholy, salted with damp. Opening a sturdy corner cupboard, he discovered a couple of bottles of decent brandy.

There was a chink of glass on glass behind him and he turned to see Duffin adjusting his knapsack. Jarrett's eyes made a swift inventory of the room. The chair by the fireplace and the newspapers strewn about it were undisturbed. Then he noticed that the pile of square bottles that had stood behind the log basket was considerably diminished. Duffin followed the direction of his host's gaze.

‘There's a woman as'll pay a farthing a piece for those down on Fish Lane,' he commented airily.

‘What, Duffin, would you steal?'

The poacher bridled. ‘Steal, your honour? I never steal. Stealing is taking from honest men. I only pick up what's not wanted. You might call it foraging, being a military man.'

Jarrett laughed. ‘You're welcome to them, Duffin. Only say – have you foraged here before? At the time the dog died perhaps?'

Duffin's features set into familiar dour lines. ‘If you've no need of anything more, your honour, I'll take me due and be on me way. Bob'll be a-frettin' and a-wanderin' if I don't see to him.'

Jarrett seemed unaffected by this rebuff. A bottle of brandy in each hand, he strode across the room. ‘So be it, Duffin. But stay and take a glass with me before you go.' He headed out of the room towards the library. ‘Maybe you can advise me on another mystery. We'll have to make do,' said Jarrett, passing Ezekiel a bottle as he fell in behind him, ‘no glasses.'

In the library Jarrett stood with his back to the window looking about the room.

‘Now what do you fancy could be missing?' he asked.

‘What might you be looking for?'

‘Ledgers? Books a man might set his figures down in. No. Anything. They must have come for something.' He spoke as if to himself but he watched Duffin as he said it. The man gave no reaction.

‘He was a warm man but not so as you'd know in his dress,' commented Duffin, looking about the shabby room in disgust. ‘Never had a thing about him worth a shilling. Must have all gone on drink.' He sniffed piously and took a pull at the bottle in his hand. Jarrett, who was crouched over the confusion around the desk, looked up. The poacher, it was clear, had a hard head. Jarrett closed his teeth against the mouth of his own bottle to hold the liquor back.

‘What, he had nothing – no fobs, or watches, or …'

‘Aye,' Duffin interrupted him. ‘He had a watch. Fancy thing, imported from foreign parts.' In answer to Jarrett's unspoken question, the poacher elaborated. ‘Reason I recollect is it broke. Aye, some time back now. And he made a fearful to-do about hows Nathan Binks was not craftsman enough to have care of it. Binks was grieved, he was – griped at the ole tap for days, he did.'

‘Nathan Binks?'

‘Watchmaker on t'market. We sometimes partakes in the same establishment.'

Jarrett contemplated the pieces of the desk. ‘A man might keep valuables in his bureau.' He turned over a fragment of a drawer idly. ‘What manner of watch was it?'

‘How would I know?' responded Duffin roughly. ‘It was fine and foreign, that's all. He had this habit of pulling it out when he was talking, just to show what a big man he was.' Duffin stuck out his gut and parodied a self-important man consulting his watch.

Jarrett smiled. He stirred the debris of the desk with the toe of one boot. ‘Well, it is not here now.'

Duffin was gazing about the room with an expression of mournful disgust, his bottle clasped to his broad chest. ‘'Tis a powerful drear place. Haunted, I shouldn't wonder.'

‘By Crotter maybe, do you think?' asked Jarrett lightly. ‘I should like to encounter his shade. I have a question or two to put to the gentleman.' He stood up. ‘Ah well, I suspect I
shall not have the pleasure. Crotter is dead and buried, but a pretty puzzle he has left us.'

The whole room was dank. The high windows with their mullions reminded Jarrett of a prison. Outside the glorious evening was spreading its colours across the sky.

‘I will not live in this house,' declared Jarrett, more to himself than the company, but none the less Duffin nodded in dour approval. ‘The little house down by the river, the folly – it is deserted, I think?'

‘None lives there to my knowledge – 'cept maybe an hoot owl.'

‘Excellent. That will serve my needs. I shall set up there. I must be getting old,' Jarrett said as he led the way out of the room. ‘Bivouacking under the stars no longer holds the charm it did. Now I confess I prefer a roof over my head – but not one such as this. Here I should likely find myself wandering the halls at night with a bit of chain hoping for some ghostly company.'

*

The little tea-house Jarrett had passed on his arrival was solidly built and the roof mostly watertight. None of the gentry had visited it for some years. The square room with its balcony was barren save for a few abandoned pieces – an elegant spindle-legged table that had seen better days, two chairs and an ancient carved wooden chest empty but for dust and a nest of earwigs.

Duffin, who showed no inclination to be on his way, helped Jarrett forage some straw and other essentials from the old manor house. His knowledge of the place and its contents convinced Jarrett that he had been a frequent visitor there. A rough lean-to at the back of the folly provided just enough stabling for his horse. After little more than an hour Jarrett found himself at his new door, sweeping the last of the debris from the floor. Behind him the hearth was cleared, his bedroll was laid out on a mattress of straw and
his other belongings neatly stowed in or around the chest. Beyond the balcony the river kept up a constant musical sound. Jarrett contemplated the scene with a guilty thrill. He could anticipate Charles's exasperation at such gypsy behaviour. But after all, his valet Tiplady had abandoned him after their unfortunate quarrel in York. The Lord alone knew how long it would take his servant to mend his temper and follow him to Woolbridge.