The Heiress of Linn Hagh (12 page)

‘What do you mean?’

‘Does it not strike you as strange that she has disappeared now, just weeks before her twenty-first birthday, when she would have been entitled to access her inheritance? In six weeks’ time, she would have been an independent woman with ten thousand pounds, and could have walked out of Linn Hagh forever. Why go now—with nothing but the clothes on her back? Even if there were a lover waiting for her out there—which everyone seems to doubt—all he had to do was bide his time until January and then marry the girl. There would have been nothing that George Carnaby could have done to stop their marriage after she came of age—baby sister or not.’

‘Do you suspect foul play?’

‘Possibly—but not from George Carnaby. Ignorant brute that he is, he seems as irritated and confused by her disappearance as the rest of us. But there is one thing I am sure about.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Helen Carnaby was scared of something.’

Chapter Eleven

Sunday, 21st November 1809

L
avender and Woods arrived at St Cuthbert’s Church in Bellingham a good half an hour before the rest of the congregation. Lavender said he wanted to examine the graveyard before they joined in the service, and he intended to watch the worshippers as they arrived.

St Cuthbert’s was only a couple of streets away from The Rose and Crown, in a low-lying spot next to the River North Tyne. There had been a sharp frost overnight, and the roads were treacherous with ice. The sky had cleared, and weak northern sunlight smiled down on them as they slithered down the hill towards the small twelfth-century church, which stood apart from any other building.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ Woods exclaimed. ‘Even the church’s got a stone roof. Don’t tell me that those bloody reivers used to burn down the church as well?’

‘Repeatedly.’ Lavender smiled. ‘And did you notice the strong buttresses alongside this one-storey building? They’re to support the weight of the stone on the roof.’

The isolated graveyard went right up to the very edge of the silent river. Beneath their boots, the long grass of the churchyard, which had frozen into icy spikes, crunched like glass.

Edged with ice, the North Tyne River was black with peat, slow moving and deep. Barely a ripple shimmered across its surface. The trees on the opposite bank and a nearby stone bridge were perfectly mirrored in its glassy surface.

After a while, they began to search for the Carnaby graves. It didn’t take them long to stumble across ‘Martha Carnaby, 1752–1784, beloved wife of Baxter Carnaby.’

‘It must have been hard to love a mad woman,’ Woods commented.

Lavender bent down, reached out with his gloved hands and pulled away the tangled briars and weeds at the bottom of the gravestone. ‘I see that Baxter Carnaby was buried with his first wife,’ he said.

‘Was he?’

‘Yes, look here. “Also, Baxter Carnaby, 1749–1804, beloved husband of the above” .’

‘There’s a lot of “beloveds” in there.’

‘Mmm,’ Lavender agreed. ‘Somebody was determined to make a point. I guess this is George Carnaby’s doing. I doubt his grieving stepmother would have been happy with this arrangement.’

He paused for a moment and reread the inscriptions. ‘I see that Baxter Carnaby was a widower for four or five years before he remarried and had his last child, Helen, in January 1789.’

‘Is that significant?’ Woods asked.

‘It might be. Most men I know who are left with no wife and three young, motherless children usually remarry quite quickly.’

‘According to Mr Armstrong, the mad first wife was in an asylum for several years before her death. The poor bloke had probably just got used to the peace and quiet.’

‘Yes, you may be right. Now, if Baxter Carnaby is here with his first wife, where is Esther Carnaby, the second wife, buried?’

It took them a while to find her. Esther was buried in a remote corner of the graveyard, with a plain headstone that bore the simple words: ‘Esther Carnaby, 1764–1809’. A small posy of wilting wild flowers lay across the grassy mound in front of the headstone. Lavender bent down and picked them up.

‘Hellebores. How long have these been here, I wonder?’ He stared at the dying flowers and frowned while he tried to remember how long they lasted after they were picked.

‘A couple of days, perhaps?’

They didn’t get the chance to discuss the flowers further. The congregation started to arrive for the service. Lavender and Woods stood at a discreet distance and watched family after family drift through the low door of the ancient church. Both Isaac Daly and Jethro Hamilton had been transformed into respectability by the Sabbath. Sober, combed and besuited—if still a little bleary-eyed—both farmers were accompanied by their wives and a gaggle of lively young children.

The Carnabys arrived in a carriage with two other men. Poor Anna sat shivering beside the driver. Woods winked at her discreetly, but she ignored him and looked away. George Carnaby climbed down first and hailed Lavender to join them.

‘I didn’t know they had a coach and four,’ Woods commented.

‘They don’t. It must belong to one of the other men.’

‘Lavender,’ George Carnaby said abruptly, ‘this is Mr Ralph Emmerson and Mr Lawrence Ingram. They were guests at Linn Hagh on the night of my sister’s disappearance.’

Lavender made a short bow.

‘Yes, it was a rum do, that,’ the man called Emmerson commented. ‘Quite the mystery.’ He had thick bushy sideburns and a bristling ginger moustache. His wool waistcoat strained over his huge belly.

The other man, Ingram, helped a plain, dark-haired woman climb out of the carriage.

‘Miss Isobel Carnaby, I assume?’ Lavender bowed again. ‘Pleased to meet you, ma’am.’

‘Yes, that’s Izzie,’ Carnaby said.

The woman looked pleased with Lavender’s manners, but her dark eyes examined him shrewdly.

‘George tells us you want to speak to us regarding the gal’s disappearance,’ Ingram said. He was thin, with a poor complexion and lank, greasy hair. Flecks of dandruff spotted the shoulders of his expensively tailored coat.

Lavender nodded. ‘When would be convenient, sir?’

‘Ingram is staying over at Greycoates Hall with Emmerson at the moment. I’m riding over there tomorrow,’ George Carnaby said. ‘You can call on us all at eleven o’clock.’

‘Certainly, sir.’

The Carnabys’ party swept past him into the church. The corpulent Ralph Emmerson offered his arm to Isobel Carnaby. She simpered like a young girl as he escorted her inside the church.

The next family group to arrive were the Armstrongs. There were dozens of them. Lavender suspected that the entire family had turned up in Bellingham to celebrate Mr Armstrong’s seventieth birthday. They swarmed up the path to the church, chattering noisily. Two middle-aged men—clearly his sons—helped the frail Mr Armstrong along the icy flagstones.

A gloved female hand tapped Lavender lightly on his arm with a prayer book. Sharp-eyed Katherine Armstrong had spotted them at the edge of the crowd.

‘Don’t forget, you promised Papa that you would call on us after dinner,’ she reminded him.

He bowed again.

When Woods and Lavender finally entered the heaving church, they managed to find a seat right at the back amongst the poorer members of the congregation. But despite the squash, Lavender still had a good view of the family pews ahead, which contained the Carnabys and the Armstrongs.

The service began with a desultory hymn accompanied by three screeching fiddle players and a breathless man on a harmonica. Lavender grimaced as the congregation and musicians massacred the music, but he distracted himself by scanning the faces and backs of the rest of the congregation. Beside him, Woods belted out the hymn in a rich, deep baritone that bounced off the vaulted roof and white plastered walls of the church. He was surprisingly tuneful. Only the wealthy, literate churchgoers at the front had hymn books. Most of the people around Lavender and Woods just shuffled or chatted during the song, although several were clearly mesmerised by the singing policeman from London.

After the last notes had died away, the vicar gave out a few notices: the fee charged for the family pews was to be increased by two shillings; Mr Armstrong was to be congratulated on reaching his seventieth birthday; new worshippers were welcome (here his gaze seemed to linger on Woods). Next, the sullen man launched into a tirade about several church members who had not attended a service for three weeks. Woods and Lavender shuffled uncomfortably.

The vicar took around the collection plate himself. Lavender tossed a few coins into the plate and looked away. Woods made the mistake of pausing over his handful of change, trying to select an appropriate amount, and then looking up at the vicar. The small man glared back. Hastily, Woods tipped the entire handful of coins into the plate.

Lavender recognised the theme of the sermon instantly; like many others in the Church of England, the vicar in Bellingham was upset at the number of his flock who had left to join the Methodists. The man spat out his disgust with vitriolic fervour.

‘I see this coming up everywhere—a belief in simplicity, services held in the open air—or a lazy resting in squalid homes because the worshippers are too slothful to attend church! Bible reading undertaken by the unordained and uneducated who then lead their misguided followers in prayer. Children are baptised without holy water! Worship for God, undertaken without altars, fonts or churches consecrated by a bishop and blessed by God!’

‘He’s upset,’ Woods whispered.

‘This is veneration for modesty that borders on the hypocritical!’ shouted the vicar. ‘A veneration so profound that we must not venture upon a remark, for straightway of sinners we
are
chief.’

Now the clergyman lowered his voice until the tone became deep and menacing. ‘Here is the essence of Lucifer, peeping up under the garb of a decent respect for sacred things. It is impossible but that this creeping Methodism must spread, when we, who are watchdogs of the fold, are silent and let them be.’

Suddenly, he brought his hand crashing down onto the pulpit.

‘It’s the Devil’s work, I tell you!’

He roared so loudly that a small girl began to cry.

‘Lucifer himself is gently and smoothly turfing the road to perdition for these fools, and making it as soft and smooth as possible, that those converts to Methodism may travel down to the nethermost level of hell!’

‘Blimey!’ Woods said when they stumbled, blinking, back into the wintery sunlight an hour later and headed back towards The Rose and Crown. ‘It’s a while since I’ve heard a service where so many folks are damned to hell.’

‘I’m glad you enjoyed it,’ Lavender said, smiling, ‘because you’re going back again tonight—for the evening service. With any luck, you’ll get to hear it again.’

‘What?’

‘Mistress Norris, the cook, was not with the Carnabys. I guess she has remained at Linn Hagh to cook their dinner and will probably attend the evening service. I need you to question her away from Carnaby.’

‘If she has any sense, she will sneak off to join the Methodists,’ Woods muttered grimly.

Chapter Twelve

I
t was mid-afternoon when they called on Mr Armstrong. The rooms of the large house overflowed with chattering, well-dressed Armstrong relatives and gangs of noisy, rampaging grandchildren. Led by the maid who had answered the door, they manoeuvred their way down the packed hallway past a large group of men in scarlet uniforms, whose brass buttons and leather boots gleamed. Most clutched a china plate of food in one hand and had their regimental hat tucked beneath the other arm. Interspersed between the men, women floated around in a sea of muslin, perfume and bonnet ribbons.

The elderly Mr Armstrong had retired to his study for some peace and quiet, but he greeted the policemen warmly and pretended to be annoyed with his guests.

‘I had ten children of my own, Detective,’ he pouted, ‘and looked forward to the day when they would all leave and I could have some peace and quiet. Unfortunately, Katherine seems determined to move them all back in again.’

‘Nonsense, Papa,’ Miss Armstrong chided. ‘You know how much you enjoy company.’

‘What news of Helen?’ Armstrong demanded.

‘In a couple of days, I believe that I may be able to explain to you—or demonstrate to you—how Miss Carnaby got out of her locked bedchamber,’ Lavender said.

Father and daughter looked startled and leant forward with their mouths opening, to demand more information. But Lavender had not finished.

‘However, it’s still too early to be sure, and I need a couple more days. Please bear with me. I’m sure of one thing, though. I believe that she walked out of that room unharmed and went of her own volition. I suspect that wherever she is, she is probably safe.’

He paused. Miss Armstrong glanced at the silent, grim face of her father.

‘That is some comfort—is it not, Papa?’

‘Yes,’ Armstrong said shortly, but he still looked despondent.

‘I need to know if the authorities in Whitby and her friends there at the school were alerted to her disappearance.’

‘It was one of the first places we checked,’ Armstrong told him. ‘I had a lovely letter back from the headmistress of the school; she told me that no one had seen anything of Helen since she returned to care for her mother last February. Apparently, Helen was invited back in September to resume her position at the school, but declined.’

‘So she chose to stay at Linn Hagh instead?’

‘Yes.’

‘I also need to ask you if anyone in the family has visited Esther Carnaby’s grave recently?’

Katherine Armstrong threw up her hands in frustration and blushed.

‘Oh, I forgot!’

‘What did you forget, Miss Armstrong?’

‘It was Esther’s birthday three days ago—I meant to visit the grave and leave some flowers. But with all the fuss of arranging this party for Papa, it went clean out of my mind.’

Lavender pulled the small bunch of wilting flowers out of his pocket and held them out. ‘So you’re not responsible for laying these at her grave?’