Chapter 12 #2
A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver and gold.
Two other frames held sketches, one of a pretty young lady in the garb of the last century, one of a very young boy, still in dresses.
“I believe his mother stitched that sampler,” Sir Clive said. “It used to hang in the nursery. Haven’t seen it for years. That’s her late ladyship.” He nodded to the larger sketch. “She was as sweet as she was pretty.”
The countess looked sad to me, or wistful, rather. As for the sampler, Proverbs 22:1 was an odd choice for an earl’s wife, but then, the late Lady Dantry hadn’t always been married to a peer. I examined the bound books occupying a full bookcase.
Of all the unexpected possibilities, the earl was reading novels. Mrs. Burney’s works were well represented, marching along the shelves with the lurid tales of Mrs. Radcliffe and Mr. Lewis. The sole volume on the desk blotter turned out to be Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto.
The novels yielded to poetry and plays and, eventually, to sketchbooks.
I pulled out one at random and found accurate renderings of the Knot, along with Sir Clive, Sheldon, and Dulcie Weatherby.
She’d been sketched repeatedly, as if Dantry had been trying to catch both her quick wit and the burden she carried as a result of that bad knee.
“The earl is not allowed in here,” Sir Clive said.
“This is the retreat of a man. I am surprised to note that they are somewhat at variance with each other, but I shouldn’t be.
Dantry’s father was all starch and propriety in the churchyard, but get him alone over a hand of cards late at night, and he was a much more approachable fellow. A pragmatist with a sense of humor.”
Much more like Sir Clive, in other words.
“I am glad Dantry has fashioned this apartment to suit the remainder of a whole person,” I said. “The earl is not the entirety of the man, and I must say, that somewhat relieves my mind.”
My picture of that man was still incomplete, but I was closer to him, and I took that for progress toward the truth of his disappearance.
I followed Sir Clive from the room and closed the door. Very likely, neither maids nor footmen were permitted therein, and for Dantry’s sake, I wanted to keep them out too.
“Let’s have a look at the bedroom, shall we?”
Sir Clive snorted. “And you think marriage will cure you of your curious mind and investigatory tendencies. Good luck with that, young man.”
I ignored his observation. What did he know of my curious mind, anyway?
Then it occurred to me that Sir Clive was on confidential terms with my mother, and he had trusted my curious mind to find his missing cousin.
I conducted my inspection of the earl’s bedroom in silence, a somewhat troubled silence at that.
Morning arrived with bearable weather, meaning the sun was obscured by a high overcast. The air was still and chilly, though I put the temperature above freezing. Sir Clive’s impending return of cold could descend in the next hour or hold off until sunset.
“Based on a tour of their respective apartments,” I said, the ground squishing beneath my boots, “I would have thought Claude was the younger son and Sheldon the peer. Dantry’s rooms are comfortable and understated.
Sheldon’s are dauntingly elegant.” The same divide characterized their wardrobes, footwear, and appointments.
A gilt-framed full-length mirror in Sheldon’s dressing closet.
For the earl, the standard speckled cheval mirror stood in a dim corner of the bedroom.
Hyperia walked beside me as we made our way down to the Dovecote’s stable. “Sheldon probably thinks he should have been the earl. I wonder if he thinks that still. What else did you discover?”
“The earl reads novels, Perry. He is a passably good painter. He loves the Dovecote as Sir Clive loves the Knot.”
As I loved Caldicott Hall. Not as a possession, but as a refuge, a monument to family, and a home, all rolled into one formidable edifice.
“No letters, no pamphlets, no treatises?” Hyperia asked.
“Not a one. No writing implements in plain sight either. He misses his mother.”
“How could you tell?”
“Her sampler and likeness adorn the walls of his study, as does a sketch of the earl as a very young boy.”
“That sounds a little bleak, Julian.”
“Spare, but not spartan. More humble, I’d say, or perhaps a reminder of the women and children whose fates Dantry seems to take seriously.”
I liked that theory, finding it both possible and plausible. Such a man did not deserve to disappear without an explanation, nor would he have put Sir Clive and Miss Weatherby through the anxiety of an unannounced departure.
“What of Sheldon?” Hyperia asked. “What details did you spot that require further pondering?”
“More of an impression, really. If Dantry takes a wife, Sheldon might well have to move to a gatehouse or dower property, and Sheldon is enjoying the accommodation at the Dovecote as thoroughly as possible while he has the chance.”
“Dantry shows no inclination to take a wife. The hostesses despaired of him five years ago. He is married to his politics.”
No, he wasn’t. Though he might be smitten with one cause after another, the earl yet held a part of his heart away from Parliament’s machinations. The quiet little study full of books spoke the part of him Parliament would never know.
“Sheldon has not pawned the earl’s jewelry yet,” I said, “if it is the earl’s.”
We paused at the edge of the stable yard, the better to avoid being overheard.
“Dantry had it with him at Sir Clive’s, Jules. Why bring it along if not to wear it?”
“I found matching cravat pins in Sheldon’s jewelry box.” Clearly, the sleeve buttons, cravat pins, and matching rings were of a piece. Three sets of jeweled accessories, though not the only three in Sheldon’s collection. “You did say he cuts a dash in Town.”
“Was Dantry borrowing from his younger brother’s hoard?”
“What is an impoverished younger brother doing with a hoard, Perry?”
She glanced over her shoulder at the Dovecote, which rose in golden glory above the tops of the bare trees of the hedgerow. “Sheldon isn’t impoverished, is he?”
“Either Sheldon has no financial restraint—which is common enough in younger sons—or he has means enough to acquit himself very fashionably. And whatever his circumstances, they might have no bearing on Dantry’s disappearance.”
Hyperia’s expression turned thoughtful. “Shall I quiz Lord Huffnagel on Sheldon’s situation when Her Grace and I call upon him later today?”
“Quiz carefully. Will you also call on Fletcher?” I hadn’t asked the ladies to chat up the neighbors, but reconnaissance often benefited from multiple sorties.
“Her Grace does not care for Mr. Fletcher’s company. I suspect your late papa and Mr. Fletcher had some sort of gentlemanly falling-out.”
“The late duke did not favor enclosures. Papa said kitchen gardens required walls, and pastures required fences, but common land was for the benefit of all.”
“Does Fletcher still have an enclosure act pending before Parliament?”
“I don’t know.” But I could find out. “Good question.” We had privacy, I was in no particular hurry to look in on Sir Clive’s truant butler—I’d offered to take on that errand—and Hyperia had no pressing engagements either.
I wanted to kiss her, there in the fresh air where any passing stable hand could see us, but the fact that I had yet to discuss my latest memory lapse with her held me back.
“Perry…”
“I know, Jules. If you persist with your questions and peering behind bushes, you are likely to annoy Dantry’s neighbors. If you don’t, and instead you meekly retreat now, you will not forgive yourself.”
Well, yes.
“Press on, Caldicott,” she said with mock sternness. “For Miss Weatherby’s sake, if nothing else. She has grown worrisomely quiet.”
“Does she know more than she’s saying?”
Hyperia kissed my cheek. “I believe it more the case that she feels more than she’s admitting. I will offer a sympathetic ear, of course, while you spy on the enemy forces.”
“I hope to run into Alphonse Fletcher. Sheldon says he’s one for hacking out of a morning, and his holdings lie in the direction of Cleverton Unthank.”
“You’d best be off, then. Until luncheon, my lord.”
She dipped a curtsey and strode off up the path, taking my heart with her.
Hyperia looked all sweet and pleasant and unassuming, but her sheer force of will carried me along when my own spirits were flagging.
She was, in every meaningful sense, my commanding officer, and I owed her the truth of my decision to give up investigations, sooner rather than later.
Burdened by that thought, I climbed onto Sir Clive’s gelding and turned him in the direction of Cleverton Unthank. He was stiff at the walk, probably much like his owner early on a winter day, so we took our time navigating the muddy lanes.
I passed the gates of the Fletcher estate—closed, which was almost unheard of—and was put in mind of Sheldon’s plea for Claude-pate to mind the bills. The barbarians are at the gate…
And yet, nothing I’d seen supported the notion that the titled branch of the Arbuthnot family was short of funds. Just the opposite.
Though Dantry apparently did not give to charities, when he of all peers was sympathetic to the less fortunate, at least on paper.
The horse tugged at the bit, suggesting he was ready for faster paces.
His trot was a little jarring at first, but by the time he lifted into a canter, the old fellow had found his rhythm.
When we swapped leads for the sake of keeping his venerable joints limber, he was once again initially stiff, but soon back on his mettle.
They go the way we ride them. The cavalryman’s saw was the plain truth.
I reached the outer purlieus of Cleverton Unthank and found my way to a sizable cottage at the end of a wooded lane. The thatching was in good order, the windows sparkling, and the front terrace flagstones swept clean.