The Reckoning (70 page)

She stopped short, catching her breath. Rosamund stared
at her, unwelcome speculations arising in her mind.

‘
Were you lovers?' she asked at last, quietly.

Polly looked more miserable than Rosamund had ever seen
her. 'Once,' she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
‘Only once. But Minnie never knew about that, I swear it! No-
one knew. We were so careful – it wasn't at Stainton – oh, I
regretted it afterwards! It was a torment to me, but I was
weak, weak –!'

‘
You love him?’

Polly nodded. 'Always. And he –' She stopped, swallowed,
and resumed. 'He wanted me to go away with him. But how
could I leave her? And anyway, we would have been outcasts.
But he would never have – never have –'

‘
Of course not,' Rosamund said soberly. Dear God, she
thought, what a torment they must have been to each other!
And what price now, her suspicion that Minnie might have
made an end of herself? If Hill really had told her all ... Rosa
mund knew how much her sister had loved Polly, probably
more even than she loved Harvey. Minnie killing herself in
despair over the loss of her babies had seemed far-fetched to
Rosamund, for after all, there could always have been more
babies, and as long as she had Polly, she had everything to
live for. But Minnie's was just that dogged, humble,
unswerving sort of love that can make the supreme sacrifice.
Once believing that she stood in the way of Polly's happiness
with Harvey, she might – yes, it was horribly possible to
imagine her doing it – remove herself from the path with a
kind of insane but single-minded logic.

And was that, Rosamund asked herself, what Polly had
been believing all this while? No wonder she had fretted
herself almost to death. Hill's wild accusation of murder must
have been almost a relief next to her own dreadful suspicions.

Rosamund offered her cousin her own former comfort.
‘Even if Minnie did know anything about you and Harvey, I
don't believe for a moment that her death was anything other
than an accident. Even if she'd wanted to make away with
herself, she would never have done it like that. Not Minnie.’

Polly hardly seemed to have heard her. 'Do you think –
will that woman talk?' she asked faintly.

Rosamund frowned. ‘I'm afraid my dear mother-in-law
has made it rather more likely that she will. But I'm sure no-
one will listen to her if she does. They'll put it down to
insanity, which after all is what it is. Harvey was with you all
day in Aylesbury.'

‘
Yes,' Polly said, looking at her with a dreadful fear in her
eyes. 'Yes, he was. Except –'

‘Except what?' Rosamund asked, startled.

‘
Except that I was asleep some of the time,' Polly whis
pered.

‘Asleep?'

‘
For four hours, in a room at the Crown. And I don't know
where he was.’

 
The State Trials of the Pentrich rebels in October 1817 may have occupied the attention of the reformists and the radical
press to the exclusion of all else, but in society at large there
was only one topic of conversation: the arrest of Lord Harvey Sale for the murder of his wife and twin daughters. The news
had so shocked his brother, the stout and rubicund Marquess
of Penrith, that he had been taken with an apoplexy at his
club and was not expected to live out the week.

‘
So then Harvey Sale will be a marquess and a murderer –
and driven to it all for love of Polly Haworth. How romantic!'
cried Miss Violet Edgecumbe, perched on a sofa in Lady
Tewkesbury's saloon where she was paying a morning-visit on
the countess's daughter, Lady Corinna Tulvey.

‘
Harvey Sale is such a handsome man, and so charming,' sighed Lady Corinna, who had had hopes of him before his
marriage. 'I hate to think of him languishing in Aylesbury
gaol like a common felon.'

‘
Murder is a common felony,' snapped Miss Lavinia Faun
cett, who had once not been asked to dance by him at
Almack's.

‘
Oh La
^y
, you're so hard!' cried Lady Corinna. 'Surely you
don't think he's guilty? Poor Harvey Sale would never, never do such a thing. Poor Minnie Sale, and those poor dear little
babies –!'

‘Well, someone did, didn't they?' said Miss Fauncett. 'I was speaking to Julia Knaresborough yesterday –'

‘
Oh, have the Knaresboroughs come to Town? I thought
they were quite fixed in the country,' said Miss Edgecumbe
brightly.

‘
I haven't seen Julia since her wedding. Such a pretty
wedding, too!' said Lady Corinna. 'I thought her wedding-
gown was the sweetest –'

‘
Of course they've come up,' Miss Fauncett nipped this in
the bud. ‘Knaresborough is first cousin to the Sales, and now
that Georgie Penrith is
hors de combat,
there's only him left
on that side of the family. I suppose they've come to see what
they can do to get Sale off. But Julia says it certainly wasn't
an accident. I suppose they'll try to pass it off as suicide. That
must be their best hope.’

Miss Edgecumbe's eyes opened wide. 'Oh no, how dreadful!
Poor Lady Chelmsford, to have her sister set down as a
suicide!'

‘
That would be just as bad as murder as far as the
Morlands are concerned, wouldn't it?' said Lady Corinna. 'It
would mean that Lady Harvey was driven to it by her
husband's conduct with Polly Haworth.'

‘
Were they really – you know – all the time?' Miss Edge
cumbe asked breathlessly. 'Ever since the marriage?’

Miss Fauncett was enjoying her position as Fount of Know
ledge, and looked at her young acolyte witheringly. 'Of course
not, Vi! That was the whole point – that she wouldn't, which
drove him to despair.'

‘
Oh, like Anne Boleyn and Henry the Eighth!' said Miss
Edgecumbe. 'I remember my governess telling me that story
– quite thrilling!’

Miss Fauncett hesitated on the brink of repeating some
thing she had overheard said by Lady Greyshott, but thought better of it in view of Miss Edgecumbe's extreme innocence.
Helena Greyshott, another Sale cousin, had remarked
privately to a friend, not realising Miss Fauncett was behind
her, 'These virtuous women! They cause more trouble than
all the rest of us put together. Why couldn't the silly little fool
just follow her instincts, instead of acting a Cheltenham
tragedy over it, like some early Christian martyr! Who the
devil would have been any the worse – or any the wiser – for
the loss of
her
virtue?'

‘
Really, you know, I never thought Miss Haworth so very handsome,' Lady Corinna was saying now. 'I came out in the same Season as her and her cousins, and I can remember she
was never very much admired. She had good features, but no
countenance, and no
brio.
She was reserved to the point of
stupidity. All the men thought her very insipid.'

‘
Except Harvey Sale,' Miss Fauncett noted.

‘
But if he loved her so much,' Violet asked, 'why did he
marry her cousin?'

‘
Oh Vi, don't be such a greenhead! Miss Haworth was a
nobody, and she had no portion. It was all arranged by Lord
Harvey's papa, the old marquess,' said Lady Corinna. 'He'd
never have let Lord Harvey marry beneath him.'

‘
It must have been a thorn to Miss Haworth, all the same,'
Miss Fauncett said thoughtfully. 'Flaminia Chetwyn was
neither handsome nor clever, and yet she won Harvey Sale.
And then for Miss Haworth to be obliged to dance attendance
on her rival every day – she must have come close to hating
her.’

Lady Corinna looked shocked. 'Oh Lavvy, what are you
suggesting?'

‘
I'm not suggesting anything,' said Miss Fauncett blandly.
‘But stand Polly Haworth and Harvey Sale side by side, and I
know which I'd say was the more intelligent, and which had
the most to gain by Lady Harvey's death.’

The silence which followed proved even to her that she had
gone too far.

*

Marcus returned to Chelmsford House accompanied by Lord
Anstey. It had been Parslow's private advice to Rosamund
that Lord Anstey should be consulted, and she had immedi
ately wondered why she hadn't thought of it herself. He had
contacts throughout the Government at the highest level, and
was liked by everyone; and as he regarded himself almost as a
brother to Lady Theakston, there was no doubt of his will to
help her daughter in this dreadful crisis.

He shook his head, however, as he followed Marcus into
the Chinese drawing-room, where they usually sat in the
evening. Lady Barbara was there with Barbarina, and she
flung a question at him without even waiting for the formal
ities of greeting.

‘
Nothing, I'm afraid,' he said. 'Eldon says it's gone too far
for him to interfere.'

‘
But he's Lord Chancellor!' Lady Barbara interrupted. 'Of
course he can stop this nonsensical business! It must not come
to a trial, at any cost. You can't have explained it to him
properly.'

‘
Mama, Lord Anstey and I had a long talk with Lord Eldon,
and told him everything in detail,' Marcus said gently. 'He
understands perfectly what the situation is, but he says that
now the processes of law have been put into motion, he can't
intervene –'

‘Won't, you mean!'

‘
Yes, ma'am, if you wish,' Anstey said. 'The law must be
seen to be impartial, or it will lose respect. Eldon is in the
process of putting through an enormous programme of
reform. He can't jeopardise that by impairing his own
standing and integrity.'

‘
Then it must be stopped at some other point,' Lady
Barbara said. 'The magistrate that this wretched serving-
woman went to – surely he can be bought off?'

‘
Mama!' Marcus cried. 'You want to bribe a magistrate to
corrupt the processes of law?'

‘
Oh, not with money, of course,' Lady Barbara said,
unmoved by his outrage. 'That would soon get about, and
then we should look no how. No, no, I meant we should bring
some other sort of pressure to bear on him. Who is the man?
He's only a petty squire, after all, not a saint. He must have
done something he'd sooner not have known, or want some
thing we could get for him.’