CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Morning broke over Clevely. Thin patches of fog still clung here and there, but the sun was coming up wide and crimson over Layer Wood, bringing promise of a fine autumn day. Mrs Clopton might have eyed it with bitterness, thinking ‘If only …’ Actually she spared it no glance, being far too busy organising hot water in the best brass cans, and a stylish breakfast with three extra places. For the party had been a marked success; despite the fog the whole Thurlow Lamb family had driven out from Baildon, and towards the party’s end the persistent fog and some remark about the trying drive back had emboldened Mrs Clopton to suggest that they stay the night. Everything had worked out wonderfully well and young Mr Thurlow Lamb had been most attentive to Ella.
Breakfast was also the concern at Fuller’s. Sally had slept and waked feeling cheerful and well and ravenously hungry. She greeted with joy the laden tray which her mother-in-law, with a fond loving look, plumped down on the bed, bidding her eat hearty, for the newcomer was a lusty lad and would take a deal of feeding.
Downstairs again, Mrs Fuller said to Danny, ‘You’d hardly believe it was such a touch-and-go job, would you? I feel almost as though I’d dreamt it.’
Matt Ashpole couldn’t face his breakfast at all. His head was in two halves which kept parting and then coming together again with a sickening clash; all his bones were hollow and brittle; his tongue was thick with sour
dust; he shook as though he had palsy, and he was sicker than Mrs Ashpole had been after her surfeit of chitterlings. But he was not unhappy and he lacked entirely the sense of remorse which is the usual accompaniment of his condition. In fact, discounting his physical woes, he was happy as a lark. It was damned good liquor; half a pint of it had made him drunk as a lord. He knew how to make it, and he was learning how to handle it. Watered down it would be grand, and it’d sell like hot cakes. Later on today, if he felt better—or, if he did not, tomorrow—he’d go on his rounds and look out for more damaged barley and some old bottles, cheap; and all through the dirty winter days he’d just sit at home and work his still. The two halves of his head clanged together and he thought, There never was such a brew! One part liquor to four of water, I reckon. I’ll make my fortune yet.
Hadstock hadn’t breakfasted either. He was riding over to carry the news to Sir Edward Follesmark, who was the nearest justice of the peace, a friend of the Shelmadine family and a man of sound good sense for all his eccentric ways. As he rode, Hadstock tested his story again and again. So far as he could see, it all fitted together. One man stabbed in the chest, another with his throat torn out…. What else, short of the truth, could be the explanation? And the truth was unthinkable, no one would believe it; and, besides, Linda had said, ‘I did love him once, and this is such a filthy way to die. Couldn’t we … Hadstock, we must hide the truth.’
And what was the truth exactly? Only one person on earth knew that. The girl to whom the yellow silk dress and the other clothes belonged; the girl who had run away, wearing her shoes and one of the grey robes to cover her nakedness; the girl who had left the door open for Simon. And, thought Hadstock, the secret was safe with her!
As it was, being locked away in some remote cell of her brain where even she would never find it again. She thought—as she went about the task of caring for the
now-very-sick woman—that she remembered everything perfectly clearly. She could have summed up the whole experience in very few words. Once upon a time she had been, or tried to be, a good Methodist, and because of that she had lost Danny and fainted and gone to that different world and chosen evil. Evil had led her to agree, happily, to take part in Mr Mundford’s experiment; he’d given her something to drink which had made her drunk, then he’d done something cruel and disgusting and she’d fainted, just as she had before, and gone to that different place again, and this time chosen good. Then she’d come round and was naked, but there was the grey hooded cloak to slip on quickly and she had put on her shoes. Neither Sir Richard nor Mr Mundford had attempted to stop her and she had run. Along the passage it was easy, she could guide herself along the wall. Then she was lost until all at once the shape of a door was outlined in light, and she’d gone towards it and opened it and there was a lantern on the floor as though someone had left it there purposely for her use. She’d picked it up, run along a passage, reached a door, opened it and hurried as well as she could through the fog along the gravelled road. She had believed that she was a long way from Clevely, and she had gone on believing that until she reached the Lodge gates, which were … surely … they must be … the gates of the Manor. She realised then how Mr Mundford had tricked her with his talk of a long drive and his driving round and round___
She had got Miss Parsons to bed with a hot brick at her feet and another in the small of her back and a mug of hot blackcurrant tea to warm her inside; and although she was trying to hold fast to the memory of that other place and the glimpse of truth which had been given her, it was fading all the time, just as the pattern on a fabric would fade after repeated washing and exposure to the sunlight.
(Despite all the precautions, Miss Parsons’ cold was worse in the morning and by midday she was breathing with a crackling sound as though her chest were stuffed
with brittle straw. Damask sent for the doctor, who, when it was all over, said he had never, in all his life, seen more devoted, selfless nursing than that received by this patient. Mr Turnbull, too, happening to pay a visit during this distressing time, was deeply impressed and reassured that in making the new will he had done the right thing. The poor girl hadn’t even spared attention for her own appearance and her manner was … well, dedicated. Mr Turnbull disliked high-falutin expressions, but that was the word—dedicated.)
Sir Edward, roused from his bed a little untimely, came down wearing his dressing-gown and nightcap, which gave him a vulnerable look, so that Hadstock found himself breaking the news more gently than he had planned. Even so, Sir Edward was profoundly shocked.
‘I’ll come back with you at once. What a catastrophe. Have you breakfasted?’ ‘I didn’t feel like it.’
‘No, of course; naturally not.’ He knew a pang of self-reproach because his own appetite was unimpaired. Still, he reflected, he had positively disliked Mr Mundford on the few occasions he had met him, and had not much cared for Shelmadine except just at first, when his warmth of feeling, he realised later, had been due to relief at finding him less black than he had been painted. Nevertheless this was, of course, a shocking tragedy.
‘Poor Lady Shelmadine,’ he said feelingly. ‘Poor lady! How is she taking it?’ ‘She is prostrate,’ Hadstock said truthfully. ‘You look somewhat upset yourself,’ said Sir Edward, eyeing Hadstock’s haggard, unshaven face and red-rimmed eyes. ‘I know what would do us both good,’ he went on kindly. He bounced over to the cluttered sideboard and routed about and at last produced a bottle of brandy and two glasses—one clean, one cloudy and smeared. He was rich and the house was full of servants eating their heads off, but he was the worst-served man in England. ‘I think we’d better take this up to my room and you can
tell me more details while I get into my clothes. This dog, for instance,’ he began as he charged up the stairs, ‘was it naturally savage? Ever attacked anyone before?’
‘Not naturally savage, but it had-bitten Mr Mundford earlier in the day; so Lady Shelmadine brought it over to my cottage and asked me to keep it while Mr Mundford was at the Manor.’ ‘And didn’t you?’ ‘Yes. I left it locked in, but it broke out through the
window.’
‘And where were you? Did you not go home last
night?’
‘No. There is a room above the stables which I use if I
have reason to be particularly early in the morning, or if
the weather is bad. Last night was foggy.’ He was deeply