Ann Granger (11 page)

She thinks we’re unlucky I mused wryly. But I’d no time to worry about trivial incidents like that. Shore House had come into sight and my precarious truce with Lucy was broken.

Dr Lefebre stood in front of the gate, looking up and down the road. The suspicion entered my mind he was looking for us. I fancy Lucy thought the same.

‘Horrid, horrid man!’ she shouted at him with every intention he hear her.

‘Hush…’ I gripped her arm in alarm. It wouldn’t help her if he were to write in his notes that she’d abused him on the open road with the energy of a London street urchin.

She turned on me in another burst of that sudden passion I’d witnessed in the churchyard. ‘Oh, you see, you’ll take his part. No one will take mine! Well,
I
won’t meet him.
I
won’t talk to him.
I
won’t see him!’

To my horror she then stooped, scooped up a stone from the highway and threw it at Lefebre, screaming again, ‘Go away, do you hear me?’

Fortunately her aim was poor. The pebble fell well short and bounced along the surface to rest a few feet from him. Lefebre gazed down at it with a detached interest and no show of surprise.

The thought raced through my brain: well, he will write
that
down in his notes.

‘Lucy!’ I hissed. ‘Don’t you see what harm you’re doing to your own cause?’

She burst into tears. ‘Leave me alone, all of you! Don’t follow me, Lizzie, do you hear?’

Grasping her skirts, away she ran again, straight past the doctor without looking at him, through the gates and down a path beside the house.

‘Dear me,’ I heard him murmur as he stared after her. He turned to me as I came up to him and raised his eyebrows.

‘We visited the child’s grave,’ I explained, ‘so please excuse her. Why are you standing here? Were you looking for us? Because if you were, I really wish you’d kept out of the way. You can see how the sight of you upsets her. Is it to be wondered at? She believes you’ve come to take her to your madhouse.’

‘Clinic,’ he protested mildly. ‘No, I wasn’t waiting for you and Mrs Craven. As it happens, I’m waiting while Greenaway saddles a horse for me. I intend to ride out over the heath.’

I realised then that he wore riding breeches and top boots, although he still had his neatly buttoned black coat and shiny hat. His gloves had been changed for those of pigskin.

Oh, Lizzie! I thought ruefully. Perhaps I ought to apologise for accusing him but before I could, he spoke again.

‘I agree Mrs Craven did seem a little put out. She recognised the grave as her child’s?’

But I’d no intention of telling him of Lucy’s behaviour and accusations in the churchyard.

‘I’ve told you,’ I reminded him, ‘I won’t be your spy. I won’t report to you or anyone else on any conversation I may have with Mrs Craven. She needs to feel she can trust someone, that there is someone she can confide in who won’t gossip and won’t be prejudiced in any way about her state of mind or anything else.’

‘Oh, I respect that,’ he replied hastily. ‘I agree, she does need a friend whom she can trust.’

There was an awkward moment. ‘Dr Lefebre,’ I began, highly embarrassed, ‘although I can’t confide in you, there is one matter I would like to ask you about, if you’ll allow me, of course. I do appreciate I propose an unfair trade. I’ll quite understand if you tell me to mind my own business.’

He raised his eyebrows but said nothing. I was forced to blunder on.

‘It concerns James Craven and his going to China. It seems so odd to have sent the young man away like that. Charles Roche is your friend. Doesn’t it seem strange to you?’

Dr Lefebre put his hand to his chin and rubbed his whiskers. ‘Mrs Craven’s told you, no doubt, that he’ll come back to her? No, no, don’t answer that. You won’t do so, anyway, will you?’ He smiled. ‘You’re right and it is an unfair trade.
I
should supply your curiosity.
You
are quite like a father confessor. You listen to others’ sins and troubles but your lips are sealed. Well, a doctor is like that, too.’

I felt myself blush furiously.

He held up his hand and went on, ‘However, James Craven isn’t my patient so nothing prevents me speaking of him.

‘So, let me tell you about Craven, since you ask and since that
is
the beginning of all the trouble. It’s right, better, you should know the facts. Craven is one of those good-looking, likeable young men without fortune but with a quick brain, a pleasing manner and no scruples.’

‘Have you met him?’ I asked. ‘Or has someone told you this of him?’

‘You and I, dear lady, met only yesterday,’ Lefebre said with gentle reproof, ‘but I fancy you should already know me better than that. Believe me, Miss Martin; I do not rely on the judgement of others. It is my own opinion based on the opportunity I’ve had to observe the misery the wretched youth has caused to all and sundry.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I muttered, both humbled and annoyed to feel so.

He nodded. ‘I also met the young fellow on several occasions.’ Lefebre’s face grew grim. ‘He arrived in London just over two years ago rather like Dick Whittington, to seek his fortune. His first step was to approach Charles Roche with whom he claimed some kinship. I think he hoped Roche would take him into the business – in a small way, of course. I dare say at first he had no more than a hope of a clerkship. He was frank that he was without funds but he didn’t mention that he was seriously encumbered with debts; some of them run up through gambling. In the course of my professional life, I’ve had to deal with several cases of people brought low by an addiction to gaming, driven right out of their minds by it. Most of them, at the outset of their careers, displayed the happy, sanguine disposition of young Craven.

‘My friend Roche is a kind-hearted and generous man and Craven has the knack of charming the birds out of the trees. Before we all knew it, he was living under my friend’s roof in Chelsea – and there he met Lucy Roche, as she then was, barely sixteen and only a few weeks earlier arrived from boarding school.

‘Craven saw his opportunity. There, I can say it no other way than bluntly. It would be the biggest gamble of his life so far; but he reckoned the odds to be reasonably stacked in his favour. The girl had no experience of the world. She had probably never met any young men socially or certainly none like Craven. She had no mama or older sisters to look out for her. She was doubtless anxious to escape the chaperonage of her aunts. The ladies regard young persons rather as they would regard those ponies roaming freely on the heath here: unpredictable, only half tame, and liable to be obstinate.

‘The young man declared his love for her and she believed him completely. But no family likes a fortune hunter and the Roche family is particularly zealous in defending its interests. So he made sure his offer wouldn’t be rejected out of hand,
could
not be rejected, if you follow me?’

He paused and raised his eyebrows.

‘I think I do,’ I said with sinking heart. Craven had seduced her. Perhaps it hadn’t been so very difficult. Lucy’s curiosity about sex had already been awakened by her eager study of her uncle’s ‘collection’.

‘Quite so. She was duly found to be with child. Now Craven showed his true colours. He approached Charles Roche with what I might almost call a shopping list of requests. He would marry Lucy but at a price, although he did not express it so baldly. Firstly, all his debts must be settled before any ceremony took place. As to the future, he argued that he and his wife would need a new house in a smart part of London. They would need to live in some style. Roche would be required to allow his niece a generous income and at the same time pay Craven a magnificent salary for some position in the business far above that of a mere clerk. There was no mention, mark you, of Craven earning the salary he felt he could command. He clearly expected the post to be a sinecure.’

‘Charles Roche has taken him into the business,’ I pointed out. ‘Does that mean he agreed to everything?’

‘What else could he do? Allow Craven to ruin the girl’s reputation and her whole future? To say nothing of breaking her heart? The child believed in the wretch and still does.’

‘But Craven’s reputation would also be ruined if he abandoned her,’ I protested.

Lefebre shook his head. ‘My dear Miss Martin, believe me, a rogue like that, whatever his past history, will always find a new victim eager to succumb to his charm and blandishments. Lucy would be tainted as a fallen woman and her child suffer ignominy as a bastard, but the world, my dear Miss Martin, treats a man very differently.’

I knew this to be true and nodded.

‘Charles Roche was obliged to save his niece’s good name and that of the house of Roche, to say nothing of calming his sisters whose reaction to the unwelcome news you can imagine. But he’s not a fool. Craven didn’t get all he asked for – or at least not in the way he asked. He was told he would be taken into the business, but not in London. He would be despatched to the company’s tea offices and warehouses in Canton. He would indeed receive a fine salary … but only for as long as he remained abroad. His wife would be placed in the care of the Roche ladies and all her financial requirements directly taken care of by her uncle, without the intervention of her husband. James Craven is, to put it in a nutshell, a remittance man. He won’t be without plenty of similar companionship where he is now. The ports of the Far East have quite a population of European families’ black sheep. All are awaiting the regular allowance from home; and all of them well aware they are expected never to return there.’

I took a few moments to digest all this. ‘Mr Charles Roche,’ I said slowly, ‘rather let me understand that Mr Craven would eventually run the tea business.’

‘That is the fiction put about for public consumption, Miss Martin. But no, James Craven will never run anything. He will be allowed to dissipate his time in Canton where there’s already a competent agent. He will never be allowed to make a decision of any importance and certainly not permitted to get his fingers near the till.’

I must have looked surprised at the crudeness of this last image. Lefebre grimaced. ‘I’ve succeeded in shocking you.’

‘No, no,’ I said, ‘but it’s all very distressing. Lucy believes—’ I broke off because I had been about to do what I had told him I would not do: reveal some of my conversation with Lucy.

He didn’t need me to tell him. He was shaking his head. ‘She believes he loves her and will return to England to be with her. But no, he will not. She’ll never see him again and I doubt even hear from him. If he cared a jot for her he would never have agreed to be sent away from her, certainly not to such an unhealthy spot for Europeans. The death toll is high. That’s why single men are usually sent out there. Craven could have refused on those grounds but then he would have no money to spend as he saw fit. If he remained here with his wife, Roche would require their household bills to be sent directly to him for settlement and that would be it. Every item would need to be accounted for.

‘Lucy’s own money, you understand, comes from her inherited share in the business and is in trust. As such, all outgoings must have the approval of her Uncle Charles and his fellow-shareholders, chiefly his sisters, who act as trustees. It was arranged like that before her parents left on their unlucky voyage. They had in mind the risk she might be left an orphan. The arrangement cannot be reviewed until she is twenty-one, whether she is married by then or not. The reasoning behind it was to protect the commercial interests of the house of Roche and, as things turned out, it protected her fortune against Craven’s ambitions, at least for the moment. He wasn’t best pleased to learn there would be no guineas for him to jingle in his pocket and toss on to the baize of the gaming tables. I fancy he was surprised to find himself outmanoeuvred. But he accepted without too much argument when he saw that was all he was going to get and off he went.’

Lefebre turned and looked again after Lucy. ‘It is not unknown, when the truth is unbearable, to take refuge in fantasy. I’ve seen all too many cases of that.’

Before I could reply to this he added briskly, ‘But Greenaway will be wondering where I’ve got to. I’ll see you later, Miss Martin.’

With that he touched the brim of his hat and walked smartly away.

Chapter Seven

Elizabeth Martin

I WASN’T sure what to do next. Lucy might have run into the house. If so, she’d probably locked herself in her room. She wouldn’t open the door for me until she’d calmed down.

But she knew the rat-catcher was expected that morning. She wouldn’t risk encountering either him or, in her present state, her aunts. Where else then, might she run?

To the beach! I thought. She’d told me of the gate in the laurel hedge at the bottom of the garden. Dr Lefebre had spoken at breakfast of strolling through the garden to the beach the previous evening after dinner. If he’d found the exit, and by moonlight, it couldn’t be so hard to discover.

Yet if I hadn’t known it was there I might have passed it by. I was surprised the doctor had discovered it at night. It was only a small wooden wicket gate and the large strong leaves of the laurels disguised it. It couldn’t be much used, yet some of the laurel twigs had snapped. I paused to examine them. The fresh breaks could have been caused by Lefebre … or by the mystery man with the white dog? Had he entered the property this way? The older healed breaks might be Lucy’s doing. I pushed at the gate. The encroaching hedge resisted, but the hinges were oiled (another surprise) and a really good shove on my part forced it open. I stepped through on to the shore.

The sun shone brightly in my face. I paused to enjoy its warmth and take in the wonderful sight of the glittering spots of light dancing across the water, some way away because the tide was out again. The coastline of the Isle of Wight with its hills and the buildings appeared to beckon. But the nearness of the island was an illusion.

I’m sorry to confess that for ten minutes or so I quite forgot I was looking for Lucy. Perhaps I wanted to put the whole wretched business out of mind for a while. I liked Lucy and wanted to help her but I didn’t know what to believe or whom, here, I could trust to tell me the truth. Lucy was frankly spoken to the point of naivety; but her sudden changes of mood made it difficult if not downright impossible to discuss anything with her. ‘I’m good at eavesdropping’, she’d announced without any embarrassment. So perhaps subterfuge was not entirely beyond her.