The 4th day of August 1752

Lammastide

Luminary: Day 14 hours and 20 minutes long.

Observation: Quadrature of Saturn and Mars, Jupiter and Mercury.

Prognostication: A siege of other battle in which the way is blocked.

 

Following Joshua into the airless heat of Parson Dilks’ study, Tabitha recognized illustrations from Fox’s Book of Martyrs, pasted on almost every inch of the walls. She tried not to stare at the pitiful bodies racked upon machines, screaming in flames, stretched between trees or devoured by beasts. Even the crucifix in pride of place on the mantelpiece was a grotesque, the Christ figure showing His muscles twisted in agony.

‘Constable. Miss Hart. You may sit. How may I oblige you?’ Dilks sat behind his desk, a lumbering toad, tapping his fingers together over piles of paper. Joshua turned to Tabitha, in a mute plea for assistance.

‘Pray forgive me, sir,’ Tabitha said, mustering all her sweetness, ‘but I worry so about my mother’s soul. Were you in the neighbourhood the night she died, Parson? Did you have any opportunity to bless her poor remains?’

As if she were not even present, Dilks turned to Joshua.

‘A minister cannot chase around the parish every time a cottager expires. As it happens, I was in Chester that same night, at the invitation of the bishop. I dined at the Bishop’s Palace and returned directly to Netherlea the next morning.’ Now he faced Tabitha.

‘Your mother was decently buried, with all the necessary rites. What more do you expect?’

‘I am grateful to you, sir.’ As before, she found him as resistant to her charms as if he were made of ancient, shrivelled leather. ‘Yet I should so like Mother to be buried beside my father. When I have the means to buy a headstone, might you grant such a memorial to be raised?’

The parson seemed to take pleasure in shaking his head. ‘Memorials are not for the likes of common old women. They are for freemen and gentry alone.’

He turned abruptly back to Joshua. ‘I had hoped you had called about a more godly matter. A widower with a young daughter, and a woman with an unlawful child; you would do the parish good service if you married.’

Joshua had at least the grace to appear astonished at this, though he spoiled the effect by casting a sheepish glance in Tabitha’s direction. She attempted a bright little laugh.

‘I have been home for only four days, Parson, and I am still in mourning.’

‘God created matrimony as a remedy against sin. To avoid fornication,’ rasped the clergyman, making poor Joshua shift uncomfortably. What was it Poll had used to say? A cross on the chest, a devil in the breast – the clergymen that Tabitha had encountered in the private rooms of the capital had left her wary of this hypocritical breed.

The silence that followed stretched awkwardly until Dilks broke in, with impatience.

‘Well, if you want to make yourself useful, Saxton, you might keep a watch on our vestry. Someone has been tampering with our parish books.’

Tabitha’s heart thumped at the memory of her small deception over her mother’s entry in the book.

‘The sexton has seen a stranger meddling where he should not; by the time I arrived, he had vanished. I intend to keep the records locked away from now onwards – therefore, should you need to perform parish business, young woman, you must apply directly to me for the key. And I expect to see you attend my church henceforth. Your absence has been recorded.’

She nodded meekly, her cheeks fiery with relief. The parson stood, and bid them good day, moving around his desk. Sensing her chance slipping away, Tabitha loitered before a hunting print of a fox caught in the jaws of two fighting hounds, only a little less cruel than the tortured martyrs.

‘The hunting season soon returns?’ she said.

For the first time, the parson’s jaundiced features brightened. ‘Yes. Come the autumn, it is a joy to ride with the hounds.’

‘It is a pity old Towler passed away.’

Dilks grew still more animated – more so than she had ever seen him. ‘The finest pack leader his Lordship ever bred. That kennel master should be flogged for not taking better care of him.’

There was no doubt the parson spoke with sincerity. Unless he was a finer actor than Mr Garrick himself, Dilks was an unlikely dog-killer.

Tabitha strode irritably back to the cottage in Joshua’s wake. She was wretchedly tired; her sleep the previous night had been as fragmented as a broken mirror. A dozen times, in half-dreams, she had heard the rattle of harness, the gate’s rasp, and steps upon the garden path – but when she finally woke in the darkness, all was silent. Then the strange matter of the latch had surfaced in her mind. How had it been broken, that wooden rod that had held the door safely locked for decades? Had it been violently forced open as her mother cowered in the same bed Tabitha lay in now? The horror of it had led her to picture a hammer blow, falling on a skull as delicate as a hollow shell. She had lain very still, her skin prickling hot. There was no doubt she might be in danger, too. Parson Dilks must have been in Chester the night of her mother’s death, said the cold voice of reason. Surely, then, suspicion weighed all the heavier upon this Darius fellow – and also on Nat Starling? At once, the magnetic pull of her attraction to him was commingled with deep and no doubt sensible fear.

She remembered what Poll had called her ‘dark transactions’; the contrary desire of a good woman for a bad man. She had known plenty of town girls who surrendered themselves to ‘guardians’ who later destroyed them. Had not Poll, a lovely, well-schooled, though reckless girl, fugitive from fond parents, surrendered to such a devil? They had always puzzled her, those women who pursued men who rewarded them with pain. What the devil was this dangerous perversity that possessed her, this yearning for Starling to enter and lay claim to her?

In the darkest part of the night she had woken again to a tap at the door – this time a real, resounding rap. Tabitha had got up and moved quietly through the cottage. In the parlour, she picked up the poker and listened hard from behind the front door. She thought she heard a whisper, distinctly young and male.

She suddenly whipped the door wide to find three boys, no more than twelve years old, laughing and showing their heels as they pelted off down the path. One of them turned to taunt her: ‘D’ye take a penny for a grope?’ With whoops and jeers they disappeared.

She had returned to bed entirely wide awake and miserable. So her old reputation did live on, and would probably follow her to her dying day.

‘Are you satisfied now?’ Joshua burst out, dragging Tabitha from her reverie as they arrived at the cottage. No doubt his pride was hurt by her renewed refusal of his hand. ‘What did you expect – that the parson held some ridiculous grudge against your mother?’

Why was he so agitated? Jennet waited at the door; he was upsetting his daughter too. The girl was eager to leave, fumbling with her bonnet.

‘Will you question Darius next?’ Tabitha asked, hoping to distract him.

‘I sent men down to Tinkers Wood this morning, but damn him, I was too late. He ran off like a hare while I wasted time with the parson. But I have a warrant for his arrest. He’ll not get far. As for Starling, I’m hopeful of a warrant to pull him in too.’

As he took his leave, a further reason for Joshua’s ill-temper presented itself. Pulling a letter out of his coat, he thrust it at her. To her delight, it bore her own name in Robert’s beautiful hand. Only when Joshua and his daughter were far out of sight did she break the red seal.

My dearest girl,

I am heartily sorry we parted so miserably, my chicken. I write with good news, as business takes me to Chester on the 21st of this month and I shall hold you in my arms again at last. How can I mollify my sulky darling? You must hire for me the finest chamber in the town for that same night, and, once my day’s business is done, I shall give you such proofs of my ardour that I swear you shall not sit easy for a week. I write in haste, but much troubled by the wanting of you,

Your most ardent servant,

Robert

At a stroke, all was as clear as crystal. She would persuade Robert to take her with him back to London and leave this misery over her mother, this hopeless inquiry, behind her. Only seventeen days remained. True, she still needed to find a place to lodge the troublesome infant, but Robert could pay for that, too. Joshua, Dilks – even Nat Starling – all must go hang. She kissed Robert’s letter, catching a faint scent of his citrus-sharp cologne. Robert, bless his restless loins, had cast her a line of hope to haul her back to the civilized world.