The twins and I spent most of the next week getting to know Christopher, who seemed as pleased in our company as we were with his. By the second day we were calling him Kit, and by the third we had exchanged stories of how we had lost our parents. Christopher’s mother had died in a runaway carriage when he was seven. The loss of his father was still raw—Christopher told us bleakly that he had been shot by housebreakers only six months ago.
In spite of his loss, Christopher was as open and unaffected as Lord Dearborne was cold and withdrawn. Not that I saw much of the marquis; he stayed only a few days before returning to London to more sophisticated amusements and, so Christopher averred, his government responsibilities. To Christopher, Lord Dearborne was all things. Kit plainly worshipped the man, to no degree less than did Squire Macready. It was Uncle Nicky this and Uncle Nicky that with Kit. I thought glumly that there was at least one bone I would have picked with Uncle Nicky if I had the chance:
The marquis had sent workmen from London to undertake long-needed repairs to the estate. They were rough city-bred types who seemed to be everywhere, turning up at unexpected places. They were near the gatehouse when we took Christopher to see the new litter of kittens. One man came to hammer in the stables when I was feeding the old cob a carrot, and the same man went into Tenterly with us on the day of the inquest, saying that he needed to purchase some more building materials. In short, I got an uncanny feeling of being spied on. I should have been glad to have the men there making those repairs to the neglected buildings of Barfrestly—but I wasn’t. I felt tiny fingers of resentment prodding at me. Before Lord Dearborne’s arrival we had done very well, thank you. There had been no pesky workmen, no corpses in the bushes, and no coldly mocking blue eyes to disturb my dreams.
I decided that, perhaps, my unaccustomed tension was due to the upcoming inquest over Henri’s death. I had been assured and reassured by everyone from Mrs. Goodbody to the squire that there was nothing to fear, that I would merely have to tell my story of the events immediately leading to the discovery of Henri’s body and then answer a few simple questions. Still, Caro had read me well in guessing that I was shy at speaking before so many people. There is something unnerving about being the center of attention at a legal proceeding.
Fortified with an egg-and-bacon breakfast and a new Sunday bonnet, I set off for Tenterly in Lord Dearborne’s elegant carriage, Christopher and Caro on either side of me and Mrs. Goodbody and Christa across from us. Riding in this magnificent equipage had gone a fair way toward reconciling me to the trip. What lady could fail to be pleased by a ride in a carriage out of a fairy tale? My sisters leaned perilously out the window to shout greetings to passersby and to laugh at their expressions of awe at seeing those Cordell gals riding in such splendor.
I had laughed that morning as Mrs. Goodbody had packed a bottle of smelling salts in her reticule, possibly on the conviction that the inquest would leave me with a fit of the vapors. If the truth be told, however, there was a moment in the inquest when I was afraid that I might really end up requiring the services of that ominous little brown bottle.
As I sat on the stand giving my testimony, having sworn on a Bible to tell the truth, my narrative reached the point where I had seen the shadow and walked to investigate under the library window. The squire interjected, “and did you hear anything just then?” I of course took him literally for a moment and, blushing to the roots of my hair, I thought he wished me to recount the humiliating conversation between the marquis and Christopher concerning myself. I would rather have eaten all the ribbons on my new Sunday bonnet.
But I had sworn on the Bible to tell the whole truth, so it was either relate the conversation or go to hell! Thinking that never again would I be able to hold my head up in Tenterly, I closed my eyes and started to speak. Mercifully, the squire’s voice interrupted me to clarify that he only wondered if I had heard any footsteps or noises on the roof at that point. Saved by the donkey’s bray!
There were several others that gave evidence after me, including Roger and the coroner, though no new evidence came forth. After only eight minutes of deliberation the jury returned with a verdict of death by misadventure, just as the squire had predicted. Henri had been French and as we were at war with France, people were only too ready to believe anything bad of a Frenchman. I have no patience with that type of national prejudice, but what could I do? I knew nothing that would exonerate the poor chef from the posthumous charge of attempted robbery. I had never even met the man.
I was glad to leave the musty courtroom behind and step into the fresh breezes that blew upon Tenterly’s High Street. Here, surrounded by half-timbered houses, pubs, and small shops, one can see the tall spire of the church tower. It dwarfs everything around it into insignificance, which is not such an unpleasant feeling sometimes.
Christopher, the twins, Mrs. Goodbody, and I went to the White Lion for tea. We sat down and got cozy after Mrs. Goodbody had quieted the twins, and began talking over the events of the day. My mind was wavering in and out of the conversation, when I heard Caro speak, in her forthright way, to Christopher.
“Why, Kit,” she said. “Whatever are you looking at?”
Christopher was indeed staring intently out the window, even rising into a half-crouch, suddenly oblivious to what was taking place around him.
We were all growing very much alarmed, and I turned to look out the window myself, thinking I was missing some momentous occurrence. Perhaps the Prince Regent himself was passing by the inn with his entire entourage and I was missing it. But no, it was only Dr. Brent, standing and talking to one of the workmen from the estate, out in the road.
“Who is that man?” said Christopher. “That straight-backed, distinguished fellow standing in the road? He looks familiar to me.”
“Why, that’s only Dr. Brent,” I told him. “He’s not half so distinguished as he looks.”
“Who is Dr. Brent?” he said, still staring out the window.
“Only the new assistant to Dr. Lindham in the area,” said Caro disparagingly.
Christopher appeared to relax. Just then Dr. Brent turned, observed us all gawking at him through the window, gave us a huge smile and wave, and walked into the inn to stand beside our table. He was indeed a forward gentleman.
“Elizabeth, Mrs. Goodbody, and the dear little girls,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “And this must be the new guest at Barfrestly I have heard about—a sturdy young man to hold the walls up while the marquis is away.”
Christopher extended his hand. “Christopher Warrington is the name, Dr. Brent. Pleased to meet you.” Whatever had made Christopher feel ill-at-ease had vanished when Dr. Brent presented himself, and they soon fell into an easy banter. I was surprised at how well they hit it off until it occurred to me that what I was seeing was the well-mannered interplay of two determinedly charming people, and that all they did have in common was their late residence in London. Dr. Brent had taken his medicals there and Christopher had lived there with his family. I supposed this was London manners in action. I was surprised at the skill with which Christopher handled sociable small talk and it brought home to me that, though I was an aristocrat by birth as he was, our differences in upbringing were pronounced. He had been raised to his station, where I had been raised to be a simple country girl, polite in my way, but perhaps a little too direct and obvious. I felt like an openmouthed bumpkin as I followed the banter between Christopher and Dr. Brent.
“I heard you had some excitement at your house lately?” said Dr. Brent. His face was solemn but his eyes were twinkling in a way I did not really find amusing considering the ordeal I had been through. “Miss Elizabeth looks rather petite to be confronting housebreakers, trespassers, and things that go bump in the night.”
That last remark brought my chin up. Though his face was solemn I could detect a real note of mockery in his eyes. “I don’t think the entire story of the cook’s death came out in the inquest,” I said defiantly. It seemed to me that his eyes narrowed slightly, but perhaps he was only squinting at a sunbeam deflected from outside. I could detect no change in his easy manner. He leaned his hands on the table, bent forward, and looked intently into my face.
“Tell me, Miss Elizabeth, what is the real story of what happened that night?”
“I’m not sure,” I retreated. “It just seems to me that people were too easy with their judgments because the cook was French.”
His smile widened perceptibly. I stifled an unladylike desire to grind my teeth. I had already felt behind in the conversation, and now my ego was really bruised at being made sport of like a foolish child. I longed to recoup my stock in this entire enterprise.
“I just don’t consider the case closed, that’s all,” I declared ringingly, with much more bravado than I was actually feeling.
“So you are setting yourself up in competition with the Bow Street Runners, Miss Elizabeth?” said Dr. Brent, smirking.
It did nothing for my temper that I could think of no very clever comeback to this snide remark. Why was the man so obnoxious? We teased in my family, yes, but only for fun, not to humiliate. Caro’s hand stole underneath the table and softly patted mine. Christopher, reading my frustration and distress, changed the subject, and kept the conversation away from me until the coach arrived to take us back to Barfrestly.
As we rumbled down the road in the big carriage, Caro patted my hand again and spoke. “Never mind that horrid Mr. Medicine-Menace, Lizzie. He was just trying to show off, making fun of you like that.”
Mrs. Goodbody clucked mildly. “I’m sure he meant no harm, dears. Gentlemen,” she proclaimed importantly, “will have their jokes.”
“Well,” I retorted, “if that’s an example of their jokes, than the less I see of ‘gentlemen,’ the better!”
* * *
I hummed as I poured water into the old porcelain washbasin the next morning. My good mood sprouted like spring flowers after a May rainfall. I realized that I had put the inquest and all that went with it behind me. God bless the Fates for restoring me to my accustomed serenity. I think that because I feel pain so deeply when it strikes me, some merciful natural balance prevents me from feeling it for too long.
That day, Caro, Christa, and I were to begin work on our annual theatrical production. Every year since my twelfth birthday, I had written and directed a play as a parish fund-raising activity. It was presented on the same day as the church bazaar, and I must admit that it is usually one of the bazaar’s most popular attractions. Though our modest productions could never play Drury Lane, to the people of our parish who hardly ever see a show of any kind, they are a source of much enjoyment. The whole parish eagerly inundates us with ideas and suggestions that are often as humorous as they are impractical.
This production was to be the most ambitious since three summers ago when we had put on “The Plagues Visited Upon Egypt and the Subsequent Exodus of the Hebrew People to the Promised Land.” We had decided to pull out all the stops with a play so grandiose that it would, we hoped, leave our audience in a state of rapt amazement. We planned to enact “The Battle of Hastings Culminating the Norman Invasion of England in the Year of Our Lord 1066.” Unfortunately, the only thing in scarcity for our productions were those few souls fearless enough to risk forgetting their lines and embarrassing themselves before the village. So far we only had a scant half-dozen ferocious Norman invaders. I was stuck with the role of King Harold. No one else wanted to be the loser. Jane Coleman was to be the lachrymose Queen Edith. She showed a regrettable tendency to giggle when the news of her husband’s death was brought to her by the wounded messenger (Christa). The role of William the Conqueror was yet unfilled because every potential applicant had declared that the part had too many long speeches to memorize. I was beginning to think that I would have to cut out some of my most cherished declamations. I had taken particular care in writing William’s part, for I have always felt rather sorry for him. The only way that I can account for this strange partiality is that he is an unpopular figure in British history and I have what Caro says is a maudlin tendency to sympathize with the underdog. I brought the problem up to Christopher as we walked down the lane together.
“So here I am, having to choose which precious lines will go. I feel like a poor mother who has to decide which of her children will go to work in the city,” I told him in melancholy accents.
“Why cut any lines? Right at your doorstep is an actor willing to do lengthy speeches all day if only to please you, little Elizabeth,” Christopher said solemnly, with teasing eyes.
“If you mean Mrs. Goodbody, I can assure you that nothing would induce her… Why I believe you mean yourself! You must be jesting!” I was amazed. Hazy as my notions of the proper behavior for young bluebloods were, I knew that nothing could be more shocking than for one to appear in a public theatrical. So I told Christopher, who laughed so hard that he almost fell into a ditch.
“What a peagoose you are, sweetheart,” he said. “If it’s proper for you then it can hardly be too scandalous for me.” I replied huffily that I had only been trying to protect his reputation, but saw that this only threatened to set him off again.
“Well, it’s true for all that, Christopher. I don’t have a reputation to lose. As far as society is concerned I am nobody. If your guardian heard that you were going to act in public he would think it an unbecoming prank and yank you out by the ear.”
I had expected a grin to answer this sally, but to my surprise he grew quiet. After a minute he said, very gently: “Elizabeth, don’t go saying you’re a nobody because it ain’t true.” He paused reflectively and his face brightened. “Damn if I don’t set out to prove it to you, too.”
Considerably intrigued, I teased him to tell just how he meant to set about this mysterious task, when we were interrupted by mischievous Cleo who had flushed a partridge from the underbrush beside the lane. There was a great deal of commotion as the twins tried to retrieve the triumphant puppy before she damaged Mother Partridge’s hidden nest.
We were on our way to the village to pick up a large piece of lumber that the blacksmith was donating to the production. It was destined to become the historical vessel that carried the invading Norman army to the English shore.
The village is more accurately called a hamlet. It nestles in a valley’s dip about half an hour’s brisk walk from Barfrestly Estate and rejoices in the name of Mudbury. You may laugh, but it is surely no worse than being called Broughton Poggs, Bumpstead, or Sparrowpit, which also number among England’s more than thirteen thousand villages. Mudbury is a hamlet of such great charm that I think it picturesque, and I have lived close by it all my life! A tidy row of whitewashed cottages cuddles cozily about the little church with its Gothic stone cross. Separated from the buildings by a trim yew hedge, there slopes a wide piece of common land, now bright with marsh marigolds.
As the lane turned abruptly into the village, we were hailed by my friend Jane Coleman, hanging out a washing on a clothesline behind their cottage. After introducing Christopher to Jane, the twins took him across the village square and then disappeared behind a stone-built barn where the blacksmith carried out his trade. Jane and I sat together on the overturned clothesbasket to chat in the sun while they were arranging the transportation of our lumber. Fine brown curls frame Jane’s sweet freckled face, which reflects its owner’s quiet strengths and the graceful humor that she applies to everything she does, from frying bacon to being my friend.
Jane had gone into the cottage for another basket of wash when, to my exasperation, I saw Cleo come tearing around the side of the barn in hot pursuit of an angry young duckling. So intent was I upon catching the miscreant spaniel that I didn’t hear the drumming of hoofbeats until the horse was almost upon me.
The large bay stallion had been running hard. A dash of foam from its slavering mouth landed on my sleeve as it reared to stop only inches from where I was standing. It was close enough to blot out the sun. Thank God English boys learn to ride almost before they learn to walk or this country girl would have been but a memory. I was conscious of a snarling, adolescent male voice.
“What in hell do you mean running under my horse’s hooves, you paper-skulled twit? You could have been trampled!” The boy dismounted and angrily shook his riding crop in my face.
At that moment, Christopher rounded the corner of the barn, took in the scene, and ran up and punched the other boy in the face without a by-your-leave. Good for you, Kit, I thought as the reckless young rider landed in the dirt. But he was up in a flash and they were into it deep, all arms flailing like windmills, a donnybrook in the middle of the dusty road. Before too long, there was a gaggle of spectators, with the twins carrying on a running commentary, and the old village men gazing on speculatively, laying bets as to the outcome. The young rider’s anger had changed to fear under Christopher’s well-trained onslaught; he was definitely getting the worst of it but refused to yield before such a crowd. Boys are funny and I shall never understand them. I was beginning to get upset.
I saw Lord Peterby riding up the road on his mincing thoroughbred and I hailed him to stop and put an end to this scene of what looked to me to be incredible violence.
“It’s really too bad that Dearborne isn’t here to see this,” he said. “He taught the boy much of what he knows. However I love a mill though, I suppose it isn’t proper for them to carry on so in the village square.”
Lord Peterby swung himself down easily from the saddle, entrusting his reins to the blacksmith. He walked up to the milling pair, and, placing a firm hand on each wilted collar, pulled them apart.
“Take a damper, you two, or I’ll have you fighting in the pigsty.” They turned and looked at him; Lord Peterby was apparently known to both combatants, even though they themselves had never met.
“He was insulting Elizabeth, Lord Lesley,” said Christopher hotly. “He was raising his crop at her and he called her disrespectful names.”
“Insulting her? She ran in front of me and shied my horse!” said the unknown rider, pointing at me with a bloody finger.
“Ah, chercher la femme,” said Lord Peterby, casting his eyes heavenward. “Whoever is to blame, the matter does not warrant dueling pistols at dawn, would you say, Master Jeffrey? Sir Christopher of the Roundhouse Right?”
The boys shook hands, apologies were made all around, and Lord Peterby made us known to Christopher’s erstwhile opponent, who turned out to be Jeffrey Macready, the squire’s oldest boy. To my amusement, the two really began to hit it off, making plans to go and have target practice the next morning. Fisticuffs one moment and friends the next!
Lord Peterby remounted, advising Jeffrey to do the same if he wanted to get home in time to clean himself up before luncheon or his father would know he’d been brawling. He added that he would have accompanied us home if he were not on the way to an appointment. As he spoke he ran his eyes over me in the fashion that puts one forcibly in mind of the Wolf’s first view of Little Red Riding Cape. I was grateful that he had urgent business elsewhere.
“My goodness, Kit,” said Caro on the way home, as we four struggled with the lumber. “If we knew you were so ferocious we would have taken great care before this not to tease you so much.”
Ferocious indeed. By the time we had reached the house, Christopher had a horrible shiner, which closed his left eye and quite discolored his entire face. With his black eye and torn clothes he looked not like a member of the aristocracy, but a blind beggar who should be sitting by the roadside soliciting contributions.
“Poor Kit,” I said with heartfelt sympathy. “That must be very painful.”
“It do sting a bit.” He winced.
“If you want to go and get cleaned up, I shall bring you a piece of meat for poultice to keep down the swelling.”
“That sounds good,” said Christopher, walking in the direction of his room. I followed him after a bit, knocking on the door of his room with meat in hand.
“It’s Elizabeth.”
“Yes, come on in.” His jacket was draped over the bedpost. He was standing by the washbasin cleaning his face; there was a rent in the sleeve of his shirt.
“If you are to be my knight-errant, at least let me mend your armor for you.” He shrugged himself out of the shirt and handed it negligently to me. It was then I saw the jagged red scar on the left side of his chest, just below his collarbone.
“Christopher, how on earth…” I looked up at his face, and reached out and touched the wound.
He hesitated. “It’s just an old wound.”
“It’s not old, it’s recent. Tell me how this happened. Who did this to you?”
He looked uncomfortable, and said, “I’ll tell you then, but you can’t repeat it to anyone.”
“I’m listening.”
“I was with my father when he was shot and, as you can see, I caught one of the bullets myself. The men came while we were asleep; the memory is very hazy to me even though it happened just months ago. My father died that night, and they tell me I nearly died myself. I already told you my father worked in the War Office with Uncle Nicky. It seems they were after something other than mere plunder because none of our valuables were taken. Our library was left in a shambles; Father’s books were ripped apart violently, the bindings all slashed and destroyed, the pages strewn about the room.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll try and kill you again?” I asked, my voice tight with horror.
“I don’t know why they would. I certainly don’t remember anyone’s identity. I suppose the shock must have wiped it out of my mind because I don’t recall anyone wearing a mask, either. And I don’t know a thing about what the men might have been after. But Uncle Nicky is having me guarded; that is why I am here and that is why he suddenly hired that crew of rough-looking laborers. Among them are my bodyguards.”