Chapter Fifteen
From past habits of carelessness with his allowance, Rupert was adept at obtaining dinner invitations from people—usually females—who had not previously been aware how much they wanted him there.
But in this case, it was Lord Chadbon, who appeared to feel genuinely guilty about his part in Rupert’s incarceration, who invited him to dine at Chadbon Court that evening.
Five minutes later, Rupert was striding down the drive when a hiss reached him from the trees on his left.
Salter stepped out from behind the nearest elm, still dressed in Rupert’s spare clothes, which would have looked rather smarter on the sergeant had they fit better.
As it was, the sleeves were pulled back and the pantaloons held up with string, as well as what looked like Salter’s old military belt.
“Good man,” Rupert said. “See anything?”
“People wandering about the gardens or sitting jawing away. One or two faces at windows, but no weapons in sight. If you ask me, we need someone inside the house to be sure.”
Rupert nodded. “You’re right, we do. I’ll be there for dinner later. But in the meantime, I’m sure Lady Ambrose is under threat from one direction or another, so do your best, Salter.”
“Where you off to now?” Salter demanded.
“Sick-visiting.”
*
None of the parish’s sick flock turned out to have died in Rupert’s enforced absence from his post, though for some, he knew it was only a matter of time. He gave what cheer and comfort he could, hurting that it was not more.
“Do you need anything?” he always asked, of the sick as well as of their families.
The eldest son of the Grigsbys, one of the more notorious families who lived on the edge of Chadbon land, said mournfully that they had no coin to pay the doctor for his dying father’s treatment.
Rupert, who had no coin either at this point, replied, “I’ll speak to Dr. Paxton. When did he last visit your father?”
“Him?” said one of the daughters with undisguised contempt. “Never bothered his shirt after the first time when he saw how we lived.”
Which was shabbily enough. The one-room cottage was more like a hut. The furniture was sparse and rickety, even old Grigsby’s ancient bed. Cobwebs hung from most corners, and it smelled of damp and neglect and body odor, mingled with, incongruously enough, recently cooked meat.
“I expect Dr. Paxton is too busy to make follow-up visits without being asked,” Rupert said placatingly. “Do you never see him driving about the area? I know he’s out and about visiting patients at all hours of the day and night.”
Rupert had only known these people a matter of weeks, and he was still regarded as very much a stranger.
Outright questions about the Chadbon household or the squire’s would have earned him no more than blank faces and expressions of ignorance, even from this reprobate family.
His one hope was to elicit information by mundane comments about other “incomers.”
“Only for the likes of His Lordship,” young Grigsby said. “Saw the quack galloping up there fast enough in the dark, just a few days ago.”
“Did you?” Rupert said. “I didn’t know you could see the court from here.”
“Was out visiting meself,” came the response, which Rupert suspected meant he had been out poaching. Hence the cooked-meat smell.
Rupert merely smiled and continued his way to the door.
“Heard a maidservant at the court collapsed,” the daughter said, bolting to open the door for him, her eyes avid for gossip.
“I heard that too,” Rupert said.
“Magistrate was there.”
“Was he?” Rupert asked without obvious interest. “I expect a lot of people were out and about that evening. It was lovely and bright.”
“It’s the dark nights you need to watch for,” young Grigsby said ominously.
“Like last night.”
“Someone was poaching on His Lordship’s land.”
Someone who was not a Grigsby, judging by the self-righteousness of young Grigsby’s voice.
“What makes you say that?” Rupert asked.
“Heard a shot, didn’t I? Nearer the house than a sensible poacher would go.”
“Who would be that daft?” Rupert wondered.
“Couldn’t see, could I?”
It had been a faint hope, and Rupert let it go as he departed.
*
It was teatime before he returned to the vicarage, but although he hoped he had spread a bit of comfort, he hadn’t learned a great deal more, except that the Gibb family were despised by most of the community for their origins, though some grudgingly allowed that Miss Gibb, who was to marry the squire, was kind enough.
Despite the fact that a Carver might have been expected to do better for himself.
It had been a disturbing few days, and Rupert was undeniably tired as he joined Mr. and Mrs. Bancroft in their drawing room for tea.
Had it not been for his sense of urgency over Kate’s safety, he might have sought his bed.
As it was, it had struck him that Bancroft might be a good source of general information about some of the people concerned in Dinah’s death.
Kate had had the same idea, though perhaps they now had a better idea of questions to ask.
First, however, he had to negotiate the hostility of the vicar’s wife, who sniffed audibly at his polite greeting and looked him up and down with increasing outrage.
“You’re still here, then. I suppose you’ve thought better of leaving the vicar in the lurch.”
Rupert smiled winningly. “I would never willingly leave Mr. Bancroft in such a state. I am very glad to be back.”
“The bishop is not pleased,” she intoned.
So much for Chadbon’s discretion, Rupert thought sardonically. No one thought of the vicar’s wife blabbing about his absence to the bishop, who might have blabbed in turn to anyone. Thank the Lord he wasn’t acquainted with Winster.
“I’ll write to the bishop,” Rupert said.
“Let the boy sit down, Barbara,” the vicar said in his mild way, and his wife waved somewhat irritably toward a chair.
Rupert sat, and she poured him a cup of tea, which he rose again to take from her.
“Is this considered suitable dress in the Church these days?” she asked acidly.
“Why not?” Bancroft said. “I daresay you’re all the crack, eh, Grande?”
Rupert grinned. “I doubt it, sir. My other clothes seemed to have suffered in my travels. Mrs. Dale is taking care of them for me.”
“She’s taking care of some vagrant, too,” Mrs. Bancroft accused.
“He’s a soldier, invalided out after Waterloo,” Rupert said.
“I’m trying to smarten him up in the hope that Lord Chadbon might give him a job.
I hope you don’t mind if he sleeps in the stable and looks after old Matthew in the interim.
Take his keep off my salary, of course. It’s hard for those who lost limbs. ”
Mrs. Bancroft colored, as though she took the remark as an insult or a scolding in front of the vicar. She seemed to be the one person Rupert always said the wrong thing to.
For the remainder of tea, he confined himself to answering the vicar’s questions about the sick people he had been visiting, those recovering and those who never would. At last Mrs. Bancroft stood, signaling that tea was at an end, and Rupert rose with her.
“I’ll see you back up to bed, Theodore,” she said to her husband. “You have been up long enough for one day.”
“Oh, no, I’d like another hour,” Bancroft said with his sweet smile. “Just sitting in my study. I won’t work, my dear, but just sitting there makes me feel more alive.”
“I’ll sit with him, if you like,” Rupert said at once. “Make sure he doesn’t tire. He is looking much better, I believe.”
She glared at him in fury, taking him aback again. But the sudden dampness of her eyes made him follow her to the door and open it for her.
“I will look after him,” he promised her.
She sailed past him and out of the room.
He thought she wasn’t going to respond when abruptly she turned on him, her eyes still wet and fierce, her skin mottled with anger.
“Liar!” she said, her voice low and intense.
“I know exactly what you’re doing. You want him to die, or at least be so ill that you can replace him permanently! And then what happens to him?”
Rupert had understood her hostility from the first, but it suddenly occurred to him that philosophical silence and hope might not have been his most helpful response.
“Nothing will happen to him,” Rupert said gently. “I believe he is well on the mend. But even were the worst to happen as you fear, I could never turn either of you out, even if I had the right. Which I don’t have and don’t want. I am only learning.”
Some of her ferocity faded into suspicion. “Nonsense. A young man wants preferment.”
Rupert smiled. “Then why would he wear yellow pantaloons?”
She made an odd noise, which might have been fury or surprised laughter. He couldn’t tell which, for she flapped one hand and stalked away. He walked thoughtfully back to the vicar.
“Forgive my wife’s hostility,” Bancroft said. “She is good at heart and she will come round. I doubt she has met anyone like you before, so she has her doubts that you are a good man.”
“I’m not,” Rupert said honestly. “Do you really want to remove to the study?”
“I do. Help me up, my boy.”
The vicar leaned on him, but only lightly as they walked across the hall to the study, then he lowered himself with a sigh of pleasure into his favorite chair by the fire. Rupert gave him time to recover from the effort and to appreciate his view of the garden beyond his window.
“Sir, might I ask you about the Chadbon household?” he asked when Bancroft seemed settled and comfortable.
The vicar’s brows lifted. “What is it that troubles you there?”
“In confidence at this stage, because of danger to the living… The death of a young maidservant called Dinah Fenn.”
“Ah. Barbara said she collapsed and went home to her family.”
“I suppose she did, after the somewhat rushed inquest. Something is very wrong at Chadbon Court and I can’t put my finger on what it is. Discretion should not be more important than a stolen life.”