A Death at Fountains Abbey (32 page)

In the centre of the page lay charcoal studies of Mrs Fairwood and Mr Forster side by side. Forster was open-mouthed as if about to speak, his eyes bright with enthusiasm. Sam had caught Mrs Fairwood’s imperious beauty with great skill: the frank disdain with which she viewed the world beyond her books.

I studied them both, shifting from face to face. And then the spell broke and I saw it at last: their great secret. I saw it in the shape of the eyes, and the bridge of the nose. The fullness of the top lip, the straight brow. They differed in their colouring, even beyond Forster’s bronzed skin. But these subtleties were invisible in a charcoal sketch, allowing the similarities to leap to the fore. Sam, always watching, always noticing what others missed, had captured it with a careful hand.

Francis Forster was Mrs Fairwood’s brother.

As an apology for abandoning her, I promised Kitty that she could announce her discovery to the Aislabies. ‘But it must be gently done,’ I warned. ‘Aislabie still believes Mrs Fairwood is his daughter.’

‘Why should we care?’ she pouted. ‘All those mean-spirited things he said to you. He locked us up in here.’

‘I know.’ I thought of Lady Judith’s description of a climbing plant wrapped tightly around her husband’s heart. I feared that if we did not remove it carefully, the shock might injure, if not kill him. Aislabie was in many ways an infuriating man, but I did not want his death upon my conscience.

Kitty saw the reason to this. She slipped her blade beneath her stomacher, the jewelled hilt forming a brooch at her breast. ‘One must be prepared,’ she said, tapping it into place.

Leaving Kitty to put on her stockings and shoes, I hurried down to the kitchens and asked Mrs Mason if she would sit with Sam for a while. She gestured to the meat turning upon the spit, the stew pans simmering on their trivets. She offered to send up one of the footmen, but I wasn’t sure I could trust them – not until Metcalfe arrived from Baldersby with a decent description of Forster’s accomplice.

‘Is Mr Gatteker still here?’

‘You’ve just missed him. He sat with Mr Sneaton until the coroner came. Poor Jack. Who would do such a wicked thing?’ She gave me a shrewd look. ‘I think you have a notion, don’t you sir?’

I hesitated. If Forster knew he was suspected, he might flee the county before we could arrest him. But what if he should come to the house? Better if at least one of the servants were alert to the danger, and Mrs Mason was a trustworthy, sensible woman. I told her some of what I’d learned – enough at least for her to understand that Forster was dangerous.

‘Heaven help us,’ she whispered. ‘Mr
Forster
? He’s as thin as a barley stalk.’

‘And tough as old mutton. Not your mutton, Mrs Mason,’ I added hastily. ‘Might Sally sit with Sam? How does she fare?’

Her lips puckered, tightening the deep lines around her mouth. ‘She’s still locked in the cellar. It’s not like his honour. He’s not been himself since the grey widow came to Studley.’

‘Well it can’t be good for her to be locked away, with those burns. Shall we say that I insisted you freed her?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps I told you that Mr Aislabie ordered it . . .’

Mrs Mason smiled. ‘Perhaps you did, sir.’

Sally was so relieved to be released from her storeroom prison that she wept upon Mrs Mason’s shoulder, holding her bandaged hands up to protect them. I smuggled her through the east wing, carrying a small tray of food for her, and a pot of hot chocolate. It was almost one o’clock, and she had eaten nothing all day, poor girl. Her face was red and blotchy from crying, and she looked even younger than her fifteen years.

She settled herself on a chair by Sam’s bed. We had forgotten to tidy away his charcoal drawings, and, as she sifted through them, she found the portraits of herself, four upon the page. ‘He saw me,’ she smiled, eyes brightening.

Kitty squeezed her shoulder. ‘Send word if he wakes.’

We walked down to the library together, taking a route through one of the horse rooms. There were no servants about, and our footsteps echoed on the boards. I could see a line of dents where Mr Sneaton had taken the same short cut to conserve his strength.

As we reached the back of the house we heard a commotion, and then the library door burst open. Mrs Fairwood ran from the room and out into the corridor. She stumbled in alarm upon seeing us, then jostled her way past us.

We ran after her. As we burst out into the horse room, Kitty leaped upon Mrs Fairwood’s back, crashing them both to the ground. Mrs Fairwood took the force of the fall, crying out in pain as she landed upon her wrists. They wrestled for a moment, a little grey figure struggling beneath a girl ten years younger, used to brawling.

‘How dare you!’ Mrs Fairwood yelled. ‘Help! Someone help me!’

Kitty drew the blade from beneath her stomacher and placed it against Mrs Fairwood’s throat. ‘We know you’re his sister.’

Mrs Fairwood went limp. Kitty sat up, pressing a knee into her back to hold her down.

At the same moment Bagby rushed into the room from the great hall, while the Aislabies emerged from the library. Kitty slid her blade quietly back into her dress and got to her feet, pulling Mrs Fairwood by her arm.

‘Mr Bagby!’ Mrs Fairwood cried, fighting against Kitty’s grip. She had lost her pinner in the fight, dark locks tumbling around her face. ‘Mr Bagby, you must help me. I am being held against my will. Please, sir!’

Kitty swung her about. Lady Judith seized the other arm, and together they bundled their tiny prisoner back towards the library, while she dragged her feet and shouted to be set free.

Aislabie watched them, as if transfixed. ‘I must protest . . .’ he began, unsteadily. The last remnants of his dream were dissolving in front of him. ‘She ran from us,’ he murmured, as if to himself. ‘The first moment she could.’ He glanced at Bagby, standing open-mouthed across the room. ‘Leave us.’

‘Your honour—’

‘I said
leave us
, damn you!’

Bagby flinched, then gave a deep bow. As he raised his head, he threw me a look of such unambiguous hatred, I drew back a pace.

Aislabie prowled the room in a troubled silence. He came to rest at a painting of a solid, piebald pony. ‘Best Galloway I ever owned,’ he said, touching the frame. ‘Called him Magpie, for his markings. I could name every one of his descendants. Half of them are dragging quarry stones to the new building today. I could name them all,’ he repeated. ‘I could look at any horse on my estate and tell you its line – back a hundred years or more.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Do you think I could not recognise my own child?’

I couldn’t answer him.

‘Is she my daughter? No, wait. Wait.’ He covered his face with his hands. ‘A moment.’ His shoulders began to shake.

A storm of grief was gathering about him. He was losing his daughter for the second time, here in front of me. A girl brought to life only so she might die again. He dropped his hands, desolate. ‘Who is she, if she is not my daughter?’ he asked, quietly. ‘Why did she come here?’

To break your heart, Mr Aislabie.

I put my hand upon his shoulder and led him back towards the library.

Chapter Twenty-two

Mrs Fairwood sat by the unlit hearth, seething in silence. She had injured her wrist in the fall, and was holding it with a reproachful air. Lady Judith stood with her back to the room, watching a group of men clustered in the yard. Kitty kept guard at the door. The space between the three women simmered with unspoken tension. Or, knowing Kitty, already spoken, at some length.

‘They’re taking Jack away,’ Lady Judith said, in a quiet voice.

Aislabie joined her at the window, and watched his men lift Sneaton’s body on to the coroner’s cart. ‘God rest his soul.’ He bowed his head. ‘He was a fine man.’

‘
He was a liar
.’

The Aislabies turned as one, horrified.

Mrs Fairwood directed her words to me, standing over her at the mantelpiece. ‘He swore that he had burned the ledger. He lied on oath.’

‘On my behalf,’ Aislabie said. ‘To protect me and my family.’

‘And himself,’ she replied primly, still refusing to look at the man she had called Father. ‘He must have known about the bribes.’

‘They were not bribes. They were legal transactions—’

‘Oh,
fie
. If the ledger was harmless, how did you blackmail the Queen of England?’

Aislabie fell silent. He had crossed to the middle of the room and was gazing earnestly upon Mrs Fairwood’s profile. Even now, a small part of him clung to the fantasy that she was his daughter. He would not ask her who she was, not directly. While he did not ask, there was still the faintest chance it could be true.

It was time to end this cruel game. I glanced at Lady Judith, who gave a discreet nod. I took Sam’s sketch of Forster and Mrs Fairwood from my pocket and handed it to Aislabie.

‘What is this?’ he frowned.

‘They are brother and sister,’ Kitty said, from the door.

Aislabie looked at the drawings for a long time without speaking. I heard the catch in his breath, when he saw the truth. I watched the hope drain from his face.

‘She is gone,’ he said softly. ‘My little girl. She is lost to me again.’ He took one last look at the picture, then handed it back to me without a word.

At the fireplace, Mrs Fairwood smiled in unashamed triumph.

I poured two glasses of brandy, and passed one to Mr Aislabie. His hand trembled as he brought the glass to his lips.

‘Well, madam,’ I said quietly. ‘You have your victory.’

‘Not victory, Mr Hawkins.
Justice
. If you knew what that man did to my family, you would understand.’

‘I will not listen to this,’ Aislabie muttered. ‘I have been injured enough.’

‘You
will
listen, sir!’ Mrs Fairwood cried, springing from her chair. ‘I shall not sit here in silence while you play the martyr. Lord knows I have held my tongue long enough – it is a wonder it is not bit through. Oh!’ She threw her hands above her head. ‘You dare say that
I
have injured
you
? When you
destroyed
my family?’

Aislabie drew back, silenced by her fury.

Lady Judith turned the handle on the terrace door and opened it with a gentle shove. A fresh breeze spilled into the library, billowing the gold damask curtains.

Her husband sank wearily into the chair by the desk, prodding at Metcalfe’s papers. ‘What a damned mess,’ he muttered, sinking his head in his hands. But it was so much worse than that. Sneaton was dead, and Sam might follow him before the day was through.

Lady Judith stretched against the door frame, casting a wistful glance towards the stables. She was not built for waiting, not in body or mind. Like her husband, she preferred to be
doing
. All of these troubles, all this grief, would be better dealt with on horseback. ‘When will Metcalfe return?’

I glanced at the clock upon the mantelpiece. ‘Past two, I should think.’

‘Well, Mrs Fairwood. We have time to spare. No doubt you wish to tell your story, and I should like to hear it. John?’

Aislabie looked as though he would like nothing less. But Mrs Fairwood’s revelations had stripped him of his usual self-assurance. He sighed, and nodded to his wife.

‘Very well,’ Mrs Fairwood replied, infuriatingly regal. She had been turning her anger upon the fireplace, flinging kindling and coal into the hearth in a haphazard pile. Now she sat down by the fire she’d made – a feeble thing that belched grey smoke into the room. I sat down opposite her, clutching my brandy.

‘Much of what I told you is true,’ she began. ‘My name is Elizabeth Fairwood, and I was brought up on the Lincolnshire coast . . .’

‘Would that you had stayed there,’ Aislabie muttered from the desk.

‘My father was a gentleman – you might have met him at some gathering, or at Court. Sir George Ellory. Do you remember?’ Her voice had a yearning note to it.

‘I have no memory of him,’ Aislabie replied, staring rigidly at the wall. ‘But if he was a gentleman, as you say, then you have sullied his name.’

‘I shall meet him in Heaven with a clear conscience.’

Kitty – still guarding the door – snorted back a laugh.

‘Francis was born two years after me. We shared a tutor until he was sent away to school. After that, my father continued my education himself. My mother blamed him later, when I confessed my desire never to marry. But I have always preferred books to people.’ She glanced about her, and allowed herself a brief twist of a smile. ‘My brother did not share my preference. When he was nineteen, he fell in love with a girl from a neighbouring family. Maria Castleton. It was an excellent match. Her father had promised a settlement of five hundred pounds a year. But Maria was not yet sixteen. The families agreed it would be prudent to wait a year.