Anna Jacobs (18 page)

Elkin was still undecided whether to kill her or marry her himself after he disposed of her husband.

Chapter 9

In Marymoor village news of what had happened the previous night had spread rapidly and John knew what he thought about it all, oh, yes. But if Chadding had sneaked out of the inn to take part in the rumpus at Marymoor House, he hadn’t noticed, and that annoyed him even more.

It was Anthony Elkin’s fault, he was sure. No one liked the man. He’d been bad enough before but now had such scornful, foppish ways it made an honest man want to puke. Such behaviour might do for London—southerners were soft folk, everyone knew that—but northerners wouldn’t put up with such a patronising attitude. The villagers were glad to see the big house go to anyone but Elkin. John’s niece, Merry, said Mrs Pascoe was as nice a lady as you could hope to serve and they all knew what a hard worker Matthew Pascoe was and what a difference he was making to the run-down manor.

A young man who looked like a groom rode up to the Woolpack Inn and asked if a Mr Chadding was staying there. John offered him only a nod, still suspicious of his guest, as he would have been of anyone who was spending time in earnest conversation with Elkin.

“Then could I see him, landlord? I have an important message for him from his employer.”

“I’ll fetch him down. You stay here.” What John didn’t understand was why a man who had an employer was sitting around in his inn all day. It didn’t make sense.

When he knocked on the door of Chadding’s room, a voice called, “Just a moment.”

He waited, wondering why the fellow couldn’t just open the door, then, as the seconds stretched into minutes, wondering what was he hiding?

The door opened a crack. “Yes?”

“There’s a man come to see you, says he’s got a message from your employer. He’s waiting in the common room.”

“Right. I’ll be down in a minute.”

The door was shut in his face. What was the man doing, John wondered. Something was going on, something that involved his inn, and John didn’t like it. He hurried back to the kitchen where he instructed his wife to listen to what the two men were saying if she could. He intended to have a quick look round Chadding’s room while he was talking to the stranger.

He beckoned his son over. “Once Mr Chadding’s come downstairs, you keep watch at the foot of the stairs, Sam lad. If he looks like coming up before I come down again, bump into him then say you’re sorry—loudly—to give me time to get out of his room.”

Sam nodded, excited to be involved in all this.

But their unwelcome guest took the stranger out walking, so Mrs Thompson couldn’t listen to what they were saying. She was, however, able to see how carefully Chadding looked up and down the street before he left the inn and how quickly he and the stranger left the main street to disappear up the back lane. She had thought her husband was making a fuss about nothing, but now she also began to wonder what was happening.

Upstairs John found the pistol and its box of powder and shot almost immediately, because it was in the top of the stranger’s saddlebag. He stared at them in disapproval. A man had a right to defend himself on lonely roads, but Chadding didn’t need such protection in his inn. He raised the weapon to his nose and could smell a faint trace of gunpowder. He prided himself on having a fine nose, else how could a man select decent wines and brew his ale properly? The pistol had been fired recently and had not been fully cleaned. Was that what he had interrupted when he knocked?

He went out of the chamber and beckoned his son up the stairs. “What’s Chadding doing now?”

“Gone out with that man who came looking for him.”

“Right, then. Go and stand near the front door and keep a sharp watch for him coming back down the street. Give me a yell if you see him.”

John searched through the saddlebags, shocked to find that the clothing of the respectably clad stranger included a mask. He scowled at it. What did an honest man need with a mask? Was this a highwayman staying in his inn? There had been a few daring robberies over Rochdale way a year or so ago, then they’d stopped. No, more likely Chadding was one of the gang who had attacked Mr Pascoe last night.

Scowling, he put everything away again and went downstairs to tell his wife what he’d found, then laboriously penned a few lines to Mr Pascoe asking him to come to the inn on a matter of urgency “connekted with yore resent trubles”. He gave the note to Sam and instructed him to deliver this in person either to Mr Pascoe or to Jem, but to no one else.

“You can rely on me.” Sam puffed out his chest.

“Mmm.” John watched him go, then had another idea, so nipped out to the stables to look at the newcomer’s horse.

“Good piece of stock, this one is, Mr Thompson,” his ostler said. “Looks more like it belongs to a gentleman. Been ridden hard, though. I wouldn’t do that to any animal.”

“Did the fellow say anything about where he was from?”

“Not a word. Surly devil, if you ask me.”

Chadding had been similarly evasive about why he was in Marymoor. Well, John intended to keep a careful eye on the fellow from now on. No one was using his inn to harm Matthew Pascoe.

* * * *

Deborah was unable to get the memory of the intruder out of her mind. What was there about him that seemed familiar? If only there had been more light.

“Shall you hire watchmen tonight?” she asked Matthew over breakfast, for which their guest had not joined them, thank goodness.

“Aye. And for every night Elkin spends here. I’ve no mind to be shot at again.”

She shivered. “You will take care from now on, won’t you?”

“As much as I can. And you too. Remember: don’t go out alone or with him.”

“No, I won’t. I’ll go and see how Mrs Elkin is as soon as her maid comes downstairs. Surely the poor woman will be better this morning? Dr Lethbury sent another bottle of his special draught and if that doesn’t do the trick, I’ll ask him to come back again. I want to go into the village to the market later, though, because we’re low on fresh food. I’ll take Merry with me.” She didn’t tell her husband, but she also intended to see if she could catch a glimpse of the stranger staying at the inn, in case he was one of her Uncle Walter’s men. Merry said he was called Chadding, but that name meant nothing to Deborah.

Unfortunately Mrs Elkin wasn’t better. Deborah left the sour smell of vomit behind, glad of a walk in the fresh air. She’d call in at the doctor’s house while she was on her way to the village and ask him to call. The weather looked like being fine again, thank goodness.

As they walked along she asked Merry about her relatives and when she found out that the girl’s uncle was the innkeeper, decided to confide her mission.

“I’ll take you to see Uncle John,” Merry said at once. “He’ll help us.”

Deborah hesitated. “Is there some rear entrance to the inn? I don’t want the stranger to see me going in.”

Merry frowned in thought then her face brightened. “I know. We’ll buy our provisions, then I’ll take you to meet my old auntie. We can go out of the back door of her cottage and get to the inn through the gardens without anyone seeing us.”

“That would be very helpful.”

There were only half a dozen sellers at the market, but the two women filled their baskets with so much fresh produce that one man offered to take everything back to Marymoor for them on his cart.

“Thank you. I promised I’d take Mrs Pascoe to call on my Auntie Jane.”

As Merry led her mistress across the green, the bystanders stopped talking to watch them.

“The new Mrs Pascoe’s not too toffee-nosed to speak to ordinary folk, then,” one woman said approvingly.

“Got a pretty face on her too,” an old man added.

“And Matthew Pascoe’s all right, too,” the man taking the baskets to Marymoor said.

“Old Ralph Jannvier did the right thing by us, I reckon,” the old man said and several folk nodded agreement.

* * * *

The old woman who opened the cottage door to Merry’s knock seemed at first over-awed by her visitor, but Deborah’s easy manner soon relaxed her, and when Merry explained what they wanted, she nodded, thrilled to be part of the conspiracy.

“You go over and see our John, Merry. Tell him what your mistress wants.”

The girl came back a couple of minutes later. “The man’s still there. My uncle says if you come over now you can peep into the common room and catch a glimpse of him, because there’s a right old crowd in there and he’s sitting in a corner looking sour and talking to some fellow as turned up with a message for him.”

Deborah followed her through a neat little garden and was then whisked into the inn kitchens by John.

Mrs Thompson offered her an apron and mobcap. “If you’ll put these on, begging your pardon, Mrs Pascoe, no one will notice you when you peep into the common room. But if they see that hair of yours—real pretty it is—they’ll all turn and stare.”

So Deborah let them dress her quickly and went to stand by the kitchen door, staring into the busy common room where people who’d been to market were now taking their ease and enjoying a few mugs of ale after doing their business.

What she saw made her gasp aloud and press one hand to her throat in shock. At the other side of the room sat Frank, her uncle’s henchman, and with him one of her uncle’s grooms. She closed the door quickly before they saw her.

“Know him, do you, Mrs Pascoe?” John asked, studying her shrewdly.

She nodded. “I know them both. They’re employed by my uncle. The older one does the dirty work for my uncle, turns folk out of cottages, collects rents, even beats people if my uncle fancies himself slighted.”

There was silence in the kitchen as they struggled to take this in.

“Then what’s a fellow like that talking to Mr Elkin for?” John asked.

“I don’t know, but nothing good, I’m sure.” Deborah looked round the room, seeing only friendly faces and tried to smile at them, but could not. She hated the thought of her uncle trying to interfere with her new life. Pulling off the mobcap and apron, she tried to tidy her hair. “Thank you for your help. I’d better hurry back and tell my husband what I’ve seen.”

* * * *

On the other side of Rochdale, young George’s guide knocked up the farmer and his wife, who were at first reluctant to talk about Mrs Jannvier and Bessie. But after his companion had reassured them several times that George was to be trusted and the innkeeper would vouch for him, they said he’d better come inside. They could only tell him how they had sheltered the two old women and set them on their way early the next morning.

“Dear knows where they’ll have gone,” the farmer’s wife said. “I didn’t like to think of them tramping across the moors on their own, not at their age, but we didn’t dare be seen helping them. Mr Lawrence is a bad man to cross and although this isn’t one of his farms, he knows our landlord and we don’t want to be turned out. So we’d be grateful if you didn’t mention us to anyone, young man.”

“I promise I won’t,” George assured her.

“You’ll not get far in the dark, so you can spend the rest of the night in our barn like they did if you want. They left before dawn and Bessie took Mrs Jannvier through the wood, that I do know, so you should try in that direction first.” She pointed out the direction to him. “That path there. But who can tell where they went afterwards? I reckon they must have gone across the moors, because we know he’s sent men out looking but we haven’t heard of him catching them.”

George decided not to stay, wanting to get as far as he could before it grew fully dark. He turned to his guide. “Can you set me a bit further on my way? I’ll pay you for your trouble.”

The man nodded. “I’ll take you through the wood, but after that it’s up to you. I don’t want Mr Lawrence knowing I’ve been out at night, or he’ll be accusing me of poaching.”

So they set off again. After a while the guide looked up at the sky and announced, “Looks like it’ll rain soon.”

“Aye.” But George wasn’t going to let rain stop him.

As they walked on, darkness fell and they slowed down, but the guide seemed to know his way, even with no moon showing through the clouds. When they came to the edge of the woods, money exchanged hands, then he slipped away.

George tied up his horse and sat down on a big rock to wait for dawn, since he couldn’t see a hand in front of his face. He shivered in the damp, chill air and when it started to rain, moved back a little, to stand beside his horse beneath one of the larger trees then, as he grew tired, sit on one of its large exposed roots. Slowly the rain eased and it grew light enough in the false dawn for him to set off again, but the sky was still heavy with clouds.

Within the hour it was raining again, hard enough this time to soak him to the skin and depress his spirits. Was this a wild goose chase? he wondered. How did one find two old ladies who were avoiding the main roads and trying not to be seen?

Only—he just couldn’t go back and face Jem until he’d tried everything.

* * * *

The same rain was making going hard for Isabel and Bessie. They seemed to have run out of luck entirely and with no baggage, they were looked on suspiciously by some people when they asked the way to Marymoor.

Eventually they found a woman working stolidly at weeding a field of cabbages. She was clad in a big smock, with a sack round her shoulders to keep off the worst of the rain. At their hail she stopped work, wiping the moisture from her face, though that only streaked it with mud from her hands.

“Hard work, that,” Bessie said.

“Aye.”

“We’re looking to find our way to Marymoor, but we’re lost. Can you set us on the right road?”

“You’re on it already. Just follow it to the end. It only leads to Marymoor.”

“That’s good news. Thank you.”

She nodded but didn’t speak again, just bent over her weeding.

“Life’s hard,” Isabel said softly. “We should have given her a penny.”

“We can’t afford to, Mrs Isabel.”

“We seem to have been travelling for ever.” She sighed and swiped at the moisture that was running into her eyes. “And we look like a pair of beggarwomen, Bessie.”