7. Chapter 7- Bradford #2
“Oh no,” Mr. Thornton said lightly. “She’s no longer a miss, is all. Her name is now Mrs. Colmby. She lives a tidy Christian life with her ferrier husband and their six children. I met her myself. She’s quite comfortable and happy, I assure you.”
Bradford was too relieved to speak; he nodded instead.
“You tracked your governess to Blyth, is that correct?”
Bradford nodded and frowned—if the man needed confirmation of such a basic fact after hearing the saga twice, then perhaps he should have taken notes, after all.
“As I said, the trail grew cold there. The hounds could no longer track her—there were too many smells, too many people and horses and fish.”
Bradford only ate fish when it was exceedingly fresh—he couldn’t stand the smell, otherwise.
Mr. Thornton inclined his head toward the glass. “What further inquiry did you make in Blyth?”
“I checked all the taverns and inns near the docks, where it’s cheapest to stay. She was a governess and only had a month’s wages. I’m a fair employer, but that’s still not much money.”
Mr. Thornton cocked his head. “Did you check any of the more expensive inns?”
He shook his head. “There was no way she could have afforded to let a room?—”
“We can’t assume she didn’t meet someone at a more expensive lodging.”
In that moment, Bradford regretted ever sending for the man. In fact, he thought Mr. Thornton should leave immediately and never come back. He barely managed to retain his civility and said stiffly, “I don’t have much experience with ladies, sir, but I know an innocent when I meet one.”
Mr. Thornton waved the implications away lazily. “She said her brother had recently come into a fortune. You just told me as much. Twice. So what if it was him she was meeting?”
Bradford frowned and chewed on the thought, then promptly cursed himself an idiot.
Mr. Thornton continued, “I find it peculiar that a young lady—an innocent, as you say—would tromp a distance of nearly fifteen miles across the countryside, at night, past several villages, all the way to Blyth unless she was meeting someone. Besides, I think her story about her brother being in India was probably true. Or at the very least, she knew someone who was a sailor, who was close enough to her to give her a keepsake.”
“Why is that?”
Mr. Thornton smiled at the windowpane, his eyes tracking something that Bradford couldn’t see from his spot behind the desk. “Because she obviously had a compass.”
“Pardon?”
“It isn’t easy to navigate between two points without using roads or pathways, and yet by your description, the lady did it twice—once from Ballam Hall to the crossroads at Stannington, and yet again between Stannington and the crossroads at Blyth.
Remember the route you tracked, Lord Hayes, if you can.
If she headed due east from your back field, would it lead her to Stannington? ”
“More or less.”
“And then by your own admission, she overheard that you were looking for her, that you had tipped off the townspeople. My guess is that the lady had originally planned on making it only to Stannington. There she could easily have rented an inexpensive, clean room, and sent a messenger into Blyth to tell her brother where to fetch her.”
“That’s quite a leap in imagination, isn’t it?”
“Not at all.” Mr. Thornton finally turned from the window.
“It explains the carpetbag. If she’d wanted to leave all her belongings behind, she wouldn’t have packed them in the first place.
I surmise that she did overhear you. That’s why she changed her gown and left the carpetbag behind—because her journey wasn’t over, as she’d thought, but only halfway completed. ”
Bradford felt a creeping chill. “And the bag was only going to slow her down, now that she had further to walk and night had fallen.”
“Precisely. If it were simply a matter of Miss Hughes not being strong enough to carry it and ditching it as soon as it became cumbersome, that would have happened miles prior. For certainly, an old carpetbag filled with practical gowns is not a light load. No—if it were a matter of convenience or failing strength, you would have found the bag miles before that, in one of those muddy fields.”
Bradford closed his eyes. He had been poring over every moment he and Miss Hughes had shared together, especially those around her last days in the house.
Certainly those surrounding her disappearance—the near miss of her tormented him day and night.
Yet he had missed so many telling details it made his fingers curl into fists atop his polished desktop.
Though Mr. Thornton certainly noticed, he ignored the reaction and calmly said, “The carpetbag also supports her story about her brother coming into a fortune.”
Bradford shook his head with the realization. His voice sounded slightly dead when he said, “Because otherwise, she never would have abandoned all her worldly possessions, no matter how they slowed her travel.”
“Yes. She left them behind because, at least in her mind, she was guaranteed new gowns. Better gowns.” Mr. Thornton narrowed his eyes at the window again. “I only hope that she wasn’t deceived. Lured out under false promises for a more nefarious purpose.”
“What?” Bradford’s head whipped up. His was voice sharp. “Who would have lured her away? To what end?”
“You were very delicate in your phrasing, Lord Hayes, but I recognize a man describing a beautiful woman when I hear it. I’ve been listening to people’s most private stories for nearly ten years now. Your Miss Hughes was pretty?”
“Very.” Bradford gave a curt nod and hoped the man would question him along those lines no further.
“And did you have anyone through your house in the four months she was here? Not long-term servants, unless any of those went missing around the time Miss Hughes did?” He arched an eyebrow.
Bradford shook his head. “My servants have all been with me for years. None of them have left, and they all live on site.”
“Very good. That’s easy enough to cross off, then.”
“As for visitors, my cousin and his wife came from Edinburgh to visit Rebecca.”
Mr. Thornton was shaking his head before Bradford had finished the sentence. “Not relatives. I’m speaking of day labourers, delivery men, someone trustworthy enough to allow into your house, but not so trustworthy that you’d send your footmen out of the room. Anyone of that nature?”
Bradford ran a hand through his dark hair.
It was probably standing on end with all his agitated tugging.
It was too thick—pomade would barely tame it, which was why he had to keep it so closely trimmed at the sides.
It was either that or his head would soon bear a resemblance to a dark, fluffy mushroom.
It never lay flat, no matter how often he put a comb to it.
“We had the roof fixed. A ratter came out, twice. And I have the chimneys swept every month.”
Mr. Thornton narrowed his eyes at Bradford. “That seems excessive. Do you have faulty chimneys?”
Bradford shook his head and took a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say. He’d promised Mr. Thornton the truth, and he’d give it to him, no matter how painful.
Haltingly, he said, “There was…a fire. When my daughter was an infant. She was burned, and I fear I’m the one who’s never recovered.”
Mr. Thornton nodded. “And there’s a fireplace in the nursery, where Miss Hughes possibly might have supervised the cleaning or met the sweeps?”
“Two of them.”
After the line of questioning that very nearly made Bradford ill, Mr. Thornton asked if he might examine the governess’s quarters.
Bradford rang for Mrs. Clark and asked her to have Mrs. Holland and the maids take Rebecca down to the library for an hour, followed by a special luncheon in the dining room.
That would keep them all out of the way.
He didn’t wish to start rumors or frighten his daughter.
Bradford stood in the doorway as Mr. Thornton turned and carefully examined the rooms. Bradford tried his best to see it through the investigator’s eyes.
There was a single bed, a nightstand, a desk, a wardrobe, and a narrow door that led to the modest bathing room.
It was a white-washed room, simple but comfortable, with a cheerful view of the gardens and the rolling landscape beyond.
Mr. Thornton returned from peeking in the bathing room. “And the furniture?”
Bradford had already confessed that he’d moved Miss Hughes’s furniture out and a completely new set in before Mrs. Holland arrived. He didn’t fully understand his reasoning for doing so, but it had made perfect sense to him at the time.
“This way.”
He led the man to the storage room at the end of the hall. It was an oddly shaped space built into an eave. Most of the room was unusable due to the low, sloped ceilings.
Mr. Thornton wasted no time. He examined the single bed and mattress closely, running his fingers along every seam of the ticking until he was satisfied there were no holes in it. Then he tipped the wooden bed frame over and gave it the same treatment, checking every inch.
“You should get rid of that mattress,” he said. “It will only attract rats, and it’s close to the nursery. Besides, even if Miss Hughes were to return, I doubt she’d have need of it.”
Bradford narrowed his eyes at the man, but since he’d already proved himself useful, he didn’t punch Mr. Thornton in the nose as he would have liked.
After that, Mr. Thornton examined the wash basin, the narrow dresser and the wardrobe. It was only when he yanked out the desk’s single drawer—as he’d done with the drawers of the dresser before—that he hummed.
Bradford craned his neck. “What is it?”
Mr. Thornton handed him a crumpled piece of parchment once he’d finished scanning it.
It was a list of names—some people, some establishments—and a list of amounts, all written neatly in a close, looping script.
Bradford would know that handwriting anywhere—he’d read Miss Hughes’s letters repeatedly since her departure.