The talk with his sister had been difficult for Henry Tulkington, it being of a kind he had not been obliged to endure for many a year, certainly not since the loss of his father who had ever been an uncomfortable presence in his life as he grew to manhood, given whatever his legitimate son did never seemed good enough.
If he reckoned himself strong as a negotiator, he was less gifted at dissimulation with a person as close to him as Elisabeth. Where other men might have laughed off what she was enquiring about, he lacked the skill for manufactured amusement and pretend ridicule, making his denials too assertive. He could not be sure, by the time she left, they had been taken as truth, but it took no time at all to identify who must be the source of her information.
It could only have come from Brazier: Elisabeth had contact with other people, but certainly none who would even have alluded to his more clandestine business affairs even if they knew of them, and very few did with certainty. His Aunt Sarah would not be the culprit. Quite apart from his near certainty of her being equally ignorant, she would never dare challenge him when, for her, a place in the workhouse would be the best she could hope for.
Should he have challenged Elisabeth regarding her damned nuisance of a naval captain? On reflection he was glad he had not, for to do so – the mere mention of his name – might have given credence to the suggestion he had been responsible for arranging his beating. At least he was no longer claiming a riding accident, but that did leave the conundrum of what to do about the sod, given the options once floated with John Hawker had evaporated. If anything happened to Brazier now, Elisabeth would immediately lay it at his door.
Troubled merely by the fact of Brazier’s arrival and purpose, he was possibly a greater cause for concern than originally envisaged. He had visited Walmer Castle, while Henry Tulkington could only speculate on what he and William Pitt might have discussed. A letter had arrived from his Uncle Dirley this very morning, which shed a more worrying light on that meeting. It informed him Brazier was under a cloud of royal disfavour, one which more or less debarred him from future employment, this for a man who did not come across as the type to welcome inactivity.
Was he conniving with Pitt for a new role, akin to the duty he had carried out in the Caribbean against the colonials? What did William Pitt know or suspect? Was Elisabeth just a ploy? For a fellow given to worry, these were deep concerns.
According to Dirley, and in the same missive, Elisabeth had written to ask him to find out, on the possibility of forthcoming nuptials, about selling her plantations, enquiring as to what price they might fetch and how long would it take for them to be disposed of, so she was clearly planning to remain in England, no doubt wedded to Brazier.
It would have troubled Henry more if he had known to where Elisabeth had gone immediately afterwards, riding out on Canasta and leading another pony with the excuse of returning her rental to Mr Flaherty. She was determined to call upon Annabel Colpoys. Since getting the cold shoulder from such an old friend, Betsey had searched her mind for a reason, something to explain the alteration in reception from one day to the next, never mind the subsequent rebuffs.
How could it be? Surely Annabel would not take Henry’s part against her, when they used to guy him as young girls and with not too much subtlety. It was one of the few advantages gifted to her sex, who were seen as frivolous and silly by men and boys, creatures who were unaware of how the platitudes drawn from the men, as well as those gaucheries extracted from the boys, brought on later giggles.
The Colpoys’ gate was opened without comment, which was a plus; at least there were no instructions to deny her entry should she call. Likewise both mounts were taken without even a nervous glance, so the rap on the brass knocker of Long Farm House was loud and confident, the door soon opened by the head servant, the fellow who had been witness to her previous embarrassing departure. Suspecting a request to see Annabel might be refused, Betsey pushed past him in a way that left him no time to react, to then burst in on her friend, finding Annabel at her embroidery, quick to shut the door to cut off prying eyes.
‘Annabel, I cannot abide that you will not speak to me, especially when I’m at loss to know why.’
‘It’s not fitting that you should just barge in here.’
‘It’s not only fitting, Annabel, it is required, for if I cannot ask you in public, I must do so in private. What have I done to turn you against me?’
‘I have not turned against you, Betsey.’
‘The evidence of the last weeks does not support such an assertion. You ignore me and so does Roger: Lord above, not even your children are allowed to speak to me.’
‘I fear I’m unable to explain.’
‘You must, Annabel, for I will not depart this room until you do. I suspect that will not be welcomed if Roger returns from his fields.’
That Annabel blushed deeply and began to fiddle with her needle, while avoiding her eye, gave Betsey the clue she sought. ‘Is he at the seat of this?’
‘He is my husband,’ was the whispered response.
‘You are − were − my friend.’
Annabel roused herself to fight back. ‘Perhaps if you had married a stronger man, you would know what it is to obey a spouse. But no, you could twist sweet Stephen around your little finger, which is no doubt why you wanted him as a husband.’
‘You have been unkind to me, but that is worse by far: wounding from a woman who helped as a maid of honour to give me away. I grant you Stephen was not like Roger, but he was man enough. If Roger is at the seat of this, I require you tell what his cause is.’
‘Your damned brother, that’s what it is,’ Annabel spat.
Blurted out it was, very obviously, immediately regretted. Annabel put her hands to her mouth, while the look of shock on her face, as well as eyes filling with fear, stood as testimony to the realisation of what she had done. Betsey moved to take one of those hands off her mouth and hold it tight, lowering herself onto the settle beside her.
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You must.’
‘Roger forbade me to receive you, Betsey. Please accept I hated myself for acceding to it.’
‘What was his reason? You blame my brother. Why?’
The tears began to flow as Annabel’s resolve weakened, so what followed was much interrupted by the need to both clear them and for her to blow her nose. Much was said about male pride, about a good man laid low and unable to admit the cause even to his wife, but it could not be a coincidence that Roger was in a legal dispute with Henry at the time. High words had been exchanged, with Roger Colpoys swearing he would see Henry damned and horsewhip him if required. That was until he came home, covered in blood. The suit was never mentioned again and nor was the Tulkington name derided.
‘Yet you both attended my fete.’
‘Roger did not want to go but feared it would smack of a rebuke if he declined.’
‘So Henry, you suspect, was responsible for what happened to Roger?’
‘I cannot say with certainty your brother was the cause, Betsey. Any attempt to force the truth from Roger is unwelcome and I’m not sure he knows, for he had been drinking on that night. For me, I can only guess.’
It was a sad friend of many years’ standing who replied, as well as one who had so recently talked to Edward Brazier on the same subject. ‘You may have no need to do more.’
‘You must go, Betsey, if Roger—’ Another sniffle. ‘I fear he will chastise me harshly. The servants are bound to say you called.’
‘Then we must give him no cause to be angry.’
Any observer would have said both women played their parts to perfection, for now it was Betsey who appeared to be sobbing as Annabel came close to physically throwing her out of her house, with the necessary imprecations to go with it. This was followed with an instruction to the servant who had opened the door never to let her across the threshold again.
They had, of course, arranged a place to meet away from prying eyes and nosy servants. Annabel was quick to hide in her sewing box the little sketch showing the location of the broken gate. Roger would never find it, for it was in a place he would not deign to look.
Betsey had met Vincent Flaherty at Quebec House on one occasion, he dragged in when she visited, in an attempt to lighten, with his Irish banter, an atmosphere ever made heavy by Sarah Lovell. She could, through him, get a message to Edward, one in which she would not confirm his suspicions regarding her brother but neither would she deny they might be true. He was asked to use the gate the next morning, with a gnomic message that she had something of great import to say.
‘And Mr Flaherty, I am minded to buy Canasta from you, so please take good care of him, and do not even think of giving him to anyone else.’
‘You should never tell a horse dealer you’re fond of an animal, Mrs Langridge.’
‘Even one as sweet as you?’ Betsey asked, as she mounted the other horse.
‘And here’s me thinking it was I who had the silver tongue.’
Subterfuge was required when Betsey returned home; she had to behave as though she had been satisfied with Henry’s denials, with no mention of Roger Colpoys or her visit to Annabel either, only to find him absent but expected back for dinner. She was determined to get to the bottom of things, though for the life of her Betsey could not begin to see anything untoward that might have been missed.
Cottington Court ran smoothly: visitors came, most of them on business it was true, but no hint of their being under threat had ever been shown. Even an acute eye revealed nothing; Aunt Sarah went about her domestic duties, Henry was on his business affairs, much of which took place out of the house, making it easy to manufacture lurid imaginings of what he might be up to.
The decision to look through his papers was a spontaneous one; she found herself close to his study door when no one was within sight of it to bar her entry. She went swiftly through almost without thinking, closing it behind her. There had been a fire in the grate but it was now more ash than logs, yet the residue in a room with the door and windows closed rendered it still warm.
Going to the desk she saw it was neat, which was Henry’s way − indeed, she could never recall it as untidy. There was a half-burnt candle in a holder, an inkstand with an upright quill, more of those in a narrow tray, as well as a pot of fine sand, but the paper laying on the surface was blank. One top drawer held the detritus of the things Henry required: a bottle of ink, red ribbon to tie documents, wax as well as the seal in a box, both engraved with the initials HT. The opposite drawer held a pile of linen handkerchiefs, beside them a series of bottles, no doubt containing the questionable potions with which Henry unnecessarily dosed himself.
The central drawer was locked, and that applied to the other four, which had her looking about the room and the numerous ledgers that lined the shelves of a large glass-fronted cabinet. Taking one out, she opened it to examine a list of figures, soon realising they related to the domestic expenditure of the house, so it was quickly returned. Given the quantity of the whole – there were dozens of ledgers – Betsey knew she would require a great deal of luck to find anything that hinted at information Henry would not wish to share.
The door to a corner cupboard she knew to be permanently locked, for that had been home to a safe since her father occupied this room, so she did not even try a pull at the handle. The thought that she was being foolish surfaced; it would take days to go through everything she could open and that did not include the desk or the safe, even if she could open the locked door. It was also obvious that if Henry had anything to hide, he would not leave around paperwork that anyone could see, so she made for the door to exit, closing it with care behind her.
‘Elisabeth?’
‘Henry, I was just looking for you.’ Startled for the second time that day, it was her propensity to blush that made her exclamation, to her brother, somewhat unconvincing. That said, outside those slightly reddened cheeks he had to admire her quickly restored composure. ‘I wanted to apologise to you.’
‘For what?’
‘I fear I was foolish to query you on matters that, on reflection, no one with sense would attribute to you.’
‘I must own I am curious as to where such fantasies came from.’
‘While I would be too embarrassed to say. It would please me if you did not enquire.’
Henry Tulkington was thinking that for all the bravura he did not believe a word of it and, if that was the case, she had certainly not been in his study looking for him. Even the silent way she had shut the door gave the lie to that. So what was it she was looking for – not that anything could be found without she had a crow bar to break open the desk drawers? At that thought, a hand went in an automatic gesture to his waistcoat pocket, to check he had the desk keys.
‘Well, you have found me now, sister, and please do not trouble yourself for anything you said earlier. Given I knew it to be nonsense, my only concern was that you were being misled. Were you, like me, engaged in several businesses and prospering, you would know that idle and jealous minds seek ways to denigrate and diminish success.’
The smile on Betsey’s face felt like a grimace, so fixed was it, and she wondered if Henry had noticed, as his hand went to his waistcoat, that her eye had, for a fraction of a second, followed it, for it was a movement that sent to her a message. He did not believe her, which could include her apologies for being in his study uninvited. Asked to explain, it would have been hard; it was a gut feeling, not a certainty. Nor was she fooled by the benevolent expression on Henry’s face.
‘Then all is as it should be,’ she exclaimed.
‘I had a letter from Uncle Dirley this morning.’
‘Did you?’ came with another slight blush.
‘You have definitely decided to sell up in the West Indies?’
‘It is far from decided, Henry,’ was delivered with something of a manufactured laugh. What was Dirley doing telling him something that was none of his business? ‘I merely want to get some idea of what they would fetch.’
His hands, palms open, came away from his side in a gesture of enquiry. ‘What are we doing standing here in the hallway, Elisabeth, talking of sugar plantations like a pair of strangers? Do you wish to come into my study and discuss the matter there?’
‘Not at this moment, Henry. I have things to attend to and, I suspect, you do too.’
‘Then I will see you at dinner.’
As she nodded and passed him, Betsey felt it necessary to brush his arm with her hand, which she hoped would be taken as a gesture of affection: it was anything but and, by the time she had got to her suite of rooms, her feelings had turned to concern. If Annabel was right, and Edward too, and mischief was in the air, there was no telling what Henry would do.
He was sat in his study thinking that matters were coming to a head in both the problems he faced, and as of now Spafford seemed the one more likely to be resolved. Elisabeth could only have been seeking something incriminating in his study, as if he would leave anything to be found. She must think him a fool. Such thoughts played on his mind and, once more, he imagined himself the dispenser of justice, not just for his sister but Brazier too.
A whipping seemed not to be enough and the thought occurred he might have to dispose of them both. He could recall the way Elisabeth, as a young girl, had teased him, which he had hated but could do nothing about. She was the parental favourite, always indulged when he was often chastised for seeming trifles. It would go too far to say he hated her, but there was an absence of familial love. At this moment she presented a threat and one it would be wise to deal with.
It was a pleasant diversion to speculate on a solution that would have to be impossible to prove, and on how it could be achieved, this interrupted by a servant bringing him a note just delivered at the main gate. The superscription read JH, which showed Hawker to be sound in the matter of discretion, while the contents told him the meeting with Spafford was arranged for noon the next day. There was a question too, politely posed, asking what was planned if he did not show?’
‘We have his boy, John, his Achilles heel,’ Henry said out loud, before going to the fireplace to find the last bit of glaring red in the ash, the edge of Hawker’s note set to it until the paper began to burn. That was held until the flame had consumed most of it, the residue then dropped into the grate.
Given what he had been cogitating on prior to its arrival, there occurred another thought that tickled his fancy. What if Spafford could be persuaded to take care of both Brazier and his sister? It was a bit of make-believe, disturbed by the gong sounding to say dinner was ready. This rendered it necessary for Henry Tulkington to compose himself, so nothing of his imaginings should be apparent. He looked forward to being very nice to Elisabeth.
Daniel Spafford knew he had no choice but to comply, and nor could he contemplate what had been his first thought: that he should take along a knife and threaten to cut Tulkington’s gizzard unless Harry was returned safe and sound. It would not wash: Hawker had checked he was unarmed before and he would do so again.
Those who would escort him were within the farmhouse, but creeping around whispering to each other. Even Daisy was keeping a distance and it took no great wit to surmise what they were all thinking on. Would the man who led them sell all down the river for that useless turd of a son?