The Straw Halter (15 page)

R
ichard decided to approach Betsy’s Aunt Agnes through her brother Jack. He thought it unlikely that he would be able to find Betsy through that source, but there was a chance that she knew the name of Betsy’s father. If her sister had confided in her, and if she now thought there was a possibility of money, she might talk to him about that. He did not much like the method he was going to use, but having exhausted all else, he wanted the matter settled in his mind.

Strange that now all the participants in that drama were dead, he found himself pursuing the bits that had not tied up. Of course he had been too young at the time and with too little comprehension of the events, although the snatches of
remembered
conversation among the staff in the kitchen had stayed indelibly in his mind, he had not consciously thought about them for years.

His parents had presumably never known about the rope. Which left only a handful of people with the knowledge. Jim Pike, the gamekeeper’s son, one or two of the maids who might have heard the rumour but were long since gone from Chasebury, the old cook, the butler and himself.

He had no idea where the kitchen-maids were now. The cook
was dead and the butler ga-ga. Richard visited him sometimes, at least twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, taking him a basket of seasonal goodies. He lived with his daughter who was married to a farmer in a village a few miles away. His mind had been going for years and he had not recognized Richard at all for the last two visits.

No, the best way was to find the sister and try to discover whether she knew anything. At least he might learn whether Betsy
was
his brother’s child, but he doubted she would tell him if her sister had murdered his brother because of it, even if she knew.

Yet there was the possibility that her sister might have confessed before she died. People often did. Old Pike had told his son what he had seen, after all, long after it was too late to do anything, but it was a link. If he could find other links it would help. Richard realized that the mystery had taken charge of him.

After his wedding plans, which were number one at the moment, but were more in the Aston-Jenkins’s hands than in his, finding out whether Betsy Forrester was family was the next important task.

Then came the gruesome subject of murder. Richard was convinced now that his brother had been killed. That the rope stretched between the trees had not been there for someone to practise jumps but had been deliberately set up to murder his brother. He felt sick at the thought. They had not been close and he had deplored many of Ben’s ways, but murder by any means had to be addressed.

It occurred to him that it might not have been Betsy’s mother alone, that brother Jack or indeed any of the family could have helped. But that would mean too many people in the know. And
tying a rope across, hiding amongst the trees so she could take it down as soon as the accident happened, then going off through the woods herself was something that needed no accomplice.

Richard surmised that she had told no one at the time. She had, after all, gone on to have the baby. Had she passed it off as her husband’s child, he wondered? He frowned: there had been no mention of her husband yet it seemed the most likely idea. The thought that she might have confessed, possibly on her deathbed, would not leave him. Her sister Agnes was the one whom Richard thought would be the person she told the full story to, if indeed she had told anyone. It was Agnes whom Daniel Forester was trying to see that day when he had met him in Marshdean, he recalled.

Several things began to take shape in his mind as he remembered the Beaumonts, his mother’s side of the family. Betsy had the Beaumont features, the Beaumont charm, the Beaumont colouring, all the things he had once longed for. How did she fit in with that dreadful Salden family? It could explain why she had gone into service when she was ten years old, though none of the others appeared to have done so. He was extremely thoughtful as he set out on his journey.

Jack Salden invited him in rather grudgingly. ‘What d’you want now?’ he said.

‘A chat with your sister Agnes.’

‘She’s not here.’

‘Where could I find her? It is very important,’ Richard said.

‘You can tell
me
what it is.’

‘I’m sorry, but I cannot. This information has to be given to Agnes and no one else. So you see she will never know what it is if I cannot speak to her.’ Richard’s voice kept an even note as
he said the words and he even smiled slightly because Jack looked so pleased. It was obvious that the man smelt money.

‘Well, in that case no harm for you to know. She lives in Ivy Cot, other end of village.’

Richard thanked him and set off to track down Agnes. She was not pleased to see him and only his foot in the door stopped it being slammed in his face.

‘If you will not talk to me,’ he said, his voice quiet but firm, ‘then I shall have to look elsewhere for my brother’s child. Which would be a great pity.’

She looked sharply at him, then said quickly, ‘Why? Why would it be a pity?’

‘I cannot discuss family business out here. May I come in for a moment?’ His words had the desired effect and she opened the door wider to let him enter the room.

‘Well, what family business, Sir Richard?’

She did not ask him to sit down and he stood towering over her. ‘Your sister’s baby,’ he said.

‘My sister had several children,’ she said.

‘I think you know that I am talking about Betsy.’ His voice was quiet.

‘What about her?’

‘I believe she had a different father from the others.’

She jerked her head up aggressively. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

Keeping his naturally low, deep voice gentle he looked at Agnes’s angry florid face and said, ‘I’m not sure at the moment, but I am trying to find out. If my family is involved I want to know because nothing can be put right if I do not have the knowledge of what happened twenty years ago.’

‘You
know
Betsy’s Ben’s child,’ she said. ‘Have you at long
last decided to admit it and give our family what your father should have done years ago?’

‘I know nothing except what you can tell me, Agnes. I do not even know the name of Betsy’s mother, but I—’

‘Name of her mother, name of her mother – Ben didn’t bother with names, all he wanted was a woman and every woman had what he was after. It didn’t matter to him whether it was her or me, or – or anyone. A washerwoman was as good as a princess for his purpose. Your brother was a scoundrel and he deserved all he got.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Well, he died before his time, didn’t he? Got his come-uppance. The Almighty struck him down and made him pay for his sins. It didn’t help my sister –
your
family left her to struggle on—’

‘If what you say is true,’ Richard rested his hand on the table near where he was standing, ‘maybe my family knew nothing of it. Have you thought about that?’

‘Of course your family knew about it. My sister went to see them and was insulted and worse. Your high and mighty mother sent her packing. Her son had his fun and my family had to suffer for it. If you’ve come to offer money now I’ll take it and give it to Betsy. It’s some sort of justice at last.’

Richard shook his head. ‘I have come to find Betsy,’ he said. ‘Any business I have must be done with her, not through a third person.’

Agnes moved quickly considering her bulk, and Richard found himself being pushed roughly towards the door. ‘Coming here under false pretences, making me think you were going to do the decent thing. You’re no better than him. Scum, that’s what he was. But mine until that night, and his daughter’s like him, arrogant hussy.’

She had opened the door with her other hand and as her meaning hit him he said, ‘Yours? Is Betsy your child or your sister’s? Answer me. It is important.’

His foot was wedged against the door again and now he used his strength to prevent his being ousted. ‘Well?’ His hands were on her shoulders. ‘You’ve had your say, now I want the truth.’

His usually quiet eyes were blazing and she quivered slightly under his gaze before shouting, ‘She’s hers, of course. She was always jealous because it was me he came for and she had her revenge that night when he was so drunk he didn’t know who he had.’

Her lips tightened into a thin, ugly line and her face contorted with rage. ‘She didn’t get rich and she hated the child, but he never lived to do it again, did he?’ Suddenly she lifted her head and spat in his face.

Richard returned to Chasebury Manor, his mind seething with the revelations. Betsy was undoubtedly family, she
was
his brother’s child and what Agnes said was consistent with what he already knew or surmised. What he had not known was that Ben had been involved with both sisters. He tried to remember the exact words which burst from Agnes’s angry lips.

‘Scum, that’s what he was but mine until that night.’ She had also said something about his drunken state and it was all of a piece with how his brother had been. Drink and women.

Obviously Betsy had no idea of any of this and for a few moments he contemplated leaving things as they were. Then he knew he could not. This was something he had to do. Apart from any other consideration he had already committed himself by talking to Agnes about it.

Betsy Forrester was his brother’s child and she was in
trouble. She had run away from her husband for whatever reason, and at present he could not conjecture why, but he had seen her in the market and she had run when she saw him. That reaction had become easier to understand once he knew that she had left Daniel Forrester. But still both he and Daniel had no idea where she was, and a woman roaming the countryside alone was in danger. Especially one as beautiful as Betsy.

Maybe he should talk to the farmer and tell him about the connection with the Choicely family – yet what use would that be? No, the answer was to find her and take it from there. The bitterness of the Salden family was understandable as far as wanting money for Ben’s child went, but nothing warranted killing Ben. Nothing.

When Betsy’s mother had been unsuccessful in her attempts to obtain money or recognition – and he could imagine his mother’s scathing remarks and denials on behalf of her elder son – then she should have stopped short of murder.

That night Richard dreamt he saw Ben racing through the woods as he used to do, much too fast, being thrown as the horse reared or even touched the rope, then backed away. He saw a woman in black, with her back to the figure on the ground, lurking behind a tree several yards away. Suddenly she turned and looked at that deathly still form; then, swirling her cloak more closely around her she made off in the opposite direction.

Richard gasped, then woke up, sweating profusely. The face he had clearly seen in those few seconds was a younger version of the woman he had been talking to this very afternoon: Agnes Salden.

Richard rose and walked over to the window. The full moon was bathing the garden below with a ghostly whitish-yellow light and he shivered. Agnes had killed his brother. Not Betsy’s
mother, but the woman his brother had apparently spurned. He thought his brother’s murderer was dead but she wasn’t, she was alive and even now trying to obtain money from his family.

He moved from the window and paced the room. Of course it was only a dream, but it was vivid. And it made sense. It was Betsy’s mother who had come to see his parents and gone back empty-handed and unacknowledged. It was Betsy’s aunt, the one Ben had been dallying with first, who had wreaked a terrible revenge after he scorned her for her sister. God, what a mess. And yet out of all this came Betsy, the woman he had not been able to get out of his mind since he first set eyes on her. The woman he too was secretly hankering after.

Agnes sank into a chair and rested her heaving shoulders on the table. She remembered how it used to be when Benjamin Choicely came for her at least twice a week. Oh she knew she wasn’t the only one, but she was young and vibrant and she knew how to please a man in bed or, as happened most times for her, under the trees in the woods. Sometimes, especially in winter when the winds blew and the rain pelted down, Ben would take her on the back of his horse to a hut hidden in the forest just beyond the Chasebury estate. There on a bed of straw they made passionate love to each other.

Benjamin Choicely had been the man of her dreams, and although she knew he would never marry her she was happy to let things go as they would. He was the sort who would always need someone else and she intended always to be that someone. Her stupid sister was prettier but she was dull, deadly dull, when it came to men. Look at the one she had eventually married and had umpteen children with? And look at the child she had the one time Ben took her?

She raised her head from the table now, and began to wonder. Was it only the once? She had always presumed so, but …

‘He was mine,’ she said to the empty room. ‘Oh, he had strumpets all over the county, but he always came to me twice a week. That stupid cow of a sister had to be the one to get with child, and never me. He wouldn’t have cast
me
off like that. I would have stood up to his mother and father and anyone else, they’d have had to have set me up properly and looked after me if they wanted to marry him off to someone more suitable.’

She banged her fist on the table until it hurt. ‘And this is Richard, the younger brother who is now the heir. And what of Betsy? The inheritance ought to be hers. She is Ben’s child, but she’s a girl. If only she had been a boy I would have helped in the fight all those years ago because Betsy would have
inherited,
and we’d all have benefited, but all she got was her father’s beauty and her father’s nature. I’ve always hated her. I still hate her.’

After a while she rose and poured herself some ale. She could feel her heart thumping and knew she needed to calm herself. That stupid girl had always got on her nerves. As a baby she had been far more appealing than her own children. As a child she had a certain haughtiness not apparent in any of her cousins, and every time she looked at her Agnes saw Ben. How she had kept it to herself all those years was hard to believe now.