Silent On The Moor Part 23

I told her quickly what conclusions Brisbane and I had drawn from the discovery of the mummy babies, and that I thought to expand the investigation by an examination of the churchyard. Her eyes were enormous by the time I had finished explaining that we no longer believed them to be ancient specimens, but rather the sinister remains of a recent crime.

She punched me lightly on the arm. "Julia Constance Desdemona Grey," she began.

I rubbed at my arm. "That was unnecessary. I am sure you have left a mark."

She folded her arms over her chest and put out her underlip, her expression mulish. "It isn't fair, you know. Aunt Hermia has her prost.i.tutes to reform, Father has his Shakespearean society, Valerius has his medical studies. And now you seem to trip over mysteries wherever you go. I want a hobby."

"Perhaps you could take up painting kittens?" I suggested. "Hooking rugs? Needlepointing?"

She sat down on a gravestone marked Cecily Potts, Beloved wife of Thomas. "I mean it, Julia. I intend to take up something useful."

"I don't know that what I do is particularly useful," I said slowly. "I've nearly got myself killed more than once, and Father has had to step in both times to make quite certain the scandals did not become fodder for the public. I imagine he would rather I gave up sleuthing altogether and sit quietly in the corner improving my French."

"French is pa.s.se," she commented without a trace of irony. "Italian is much more of the moment. Or perhaps I ought to take up something more active, like stalking pheasant."

"Darling, one doesn't stalk pheasant. One shoots pheasant and one stalks deer," I corrected, putting out my hand to her. She pulled a face. Country pursuits had never been of the slightest interest to her even when she lived in the country. "But right now I would quite like to know where those babies came from. And I imagine Mrs. Potts would be greatly relieved if you got off of her."

Portia took my hand and we made our way to the gate, chatting idly. It was not until we had nearly reached the gate that we looked up and realised we were not alone.

"Lady Bettis...o...b..! Lady Julia!" It was Deborah from the inn, waving over the gate, smiling. "I saw you pa.s.s from the window. I told my mam it was the ladies from Grimsgrave come to the village, and we hoped you would stop in for a cup of tea. She would so like to make your acquaintance."

I thought of how deliciously full of local gossip old women were likely to be and smiled.

"We should like nothing better," I told her. Portia nodded graciously to her and Deborah hurried off, calling over her shoulder that she would lay the tea things and we must take our time.

"Are you quite serious?" Portia hissed when Deborah was scarcely out of earshot. "Do you really want to spend teatime with an old woman we do not know?"

"Do you know of anyone likelier to know who might have borne twins within the past two years than an elderly woman?" I returned. Comprehension dawned on Portia's lovely face and she gave me an approving look.

"You have a gift for deviousness," she told me. I was not entirely sure it was a compliment.

We were received at the inn with the warmest of hospitality. Deborah fluttered around, ap.r.o.n flapping as she guided us to the snug, warm parlour where we had taken tea upon our arrival in the village.

"Here the ladies are, Mam," she called out. She gave us an apologetic look. "Mam is a little hard of hearing. Lady Bettis...o...b.., Lady Julia, my mam, Mrs. Earnshaw. Mam, here are the ladies to have tea with us," she said, raising her voice.

The elderly woman seated by the fire looked us up and down, nodding. "Handsome girls and they know it," she said to herself.

Portia smothered a laugh as Deborah threw an apologetic look over her shoulder. "Do forgive her," she whispered. "She doesn't realise what she says half the time."

We were given chairs by the fire, ours drawn into a cosy semicircle with Mrs. Earnshaw's. The old lady was dressed in the fas.h.i.+on I had noticed in the village, the full skirts and plain caps of the mid-century still popular with the local ladies. Her dress was of plain, serviceable brown stuff, but she had pinned a pretty brooch of carnelian to the neck of it to secure her lace collar. They were the only touches of frivolity in an otherwise plain and sober costume. Her hands were a bit swollen with arthritis and her eyes were faded and rheumy, but still sharp and I fancied there was little she missed.

"I am so pleased to make your acquaintance," I told her, smoothing my skirts over my knees. "Earnshaw is quite a famous name, thanks to Miss Bronta. I did not realise there were Earnshaws in this country."

Mrs. Earnshaw gave a sharp nod. "Aye. And Heathcliffs and Eyres, as well. Proper little thieves, those Bronta girls."

"Did you know them?" Portia asked. Deborah, who had been hovering in the background, apparently judged us on safe footing, for she left us to fetch the tea things.

"They'm from Haworth way," Mrs. Earnshaw said, as if the distance of some six miles was all the Earth to her.

"You have never been to Haworth?" I asked.

"And why would I?" she demanded. "There'm naught to see in Haworth thee could not find here," she told me firmly.

"Quite right," Portia seconded. "Lesser Howlett is a very fine village. My sister and I have just been walking the churchyard, admiring the gravestones."

Mrs. Earnshaw blinked. "Tha's a curious habit, tha' is. Londoners," she snorted.

"We are actually country-bred," I corrected with a smile. "We were reared in Suss.e.x."

"Suss.e.x is near enough to London," Mrs. Earnshaw advised me. "'Tis all the devil's pleasure ground, is it not?"

Portia coughed, disguising a laugh. Mrs. Earnshaw gave her a sharp look, but I hurried to reply.

"That it is," I agreed. "Society seems more wholesome here in the north."

She nodded, mollified. "Aye. There is soberness here, and a respect for righteous ways."

"Indeed," Portia murmured.

"Of course," Mrs. Earnshaw went on, "even here there has been wickedness, and the devil will work his craft wherever he finds the tools."

Just then the door opened and Deborah returned, bearing a tray that must have weighed an hundredweight, loaded with bread and b.u.t.ter and small cakes and sandwiches and pots of tea and little dishes of jam. It looked hearty and comforting, like a nursery tea, and I would have been thoroughly pleased had Deborah not interrupted her mother just when she had seen fit to drop such an interesting t.i.tbit into conversation.

The next quarter of an hour was taken up with pouring out and the dainty selecting of cakes and sandwiches, although there was no polite dithering for Mrs. Earnshaw. She heaped her plate as high as any youth might have done, taking a goodly portion of everything on offer.

"You were talking of wickedness," I reminded her with little subtlety when she had finished her first plate and replenished it.

She nodded, finis.h.i.+ng a delectable little ham pie that I wondered if Mrs. b.u.t.ters could replicate. "Aye. Wickedness. Not among the G.o.d-fearing folk of this village. Nay, we are sober, respectable folk who know one way, and that is to work hard and to obey G.o.d. But there are others who think themselves above such things."

Portia and I exchanged quick glances, but not quick enough. Mrs. Earnshaw noticed and waved a hand.

"Not you, my ladies. You've got goodness in you, I can see tha'. Tell me, d'ye give to those tha' have need of it in your village in Suss.e.x?"

"Of course," Portia said roundly. "There are always baskets at Christmas, and whatever the farm folk need is always attended to."

Mrs. Earnshaw nodded in satisfaction. "Thee has been brought up properly to know thy duty. But there's those that were born here have not."

"The Allenbys?" I asked. Mrs. Earnshaw gave me a slow, meaningful wink.

"Aye. Born to the manor and they keep to the manor. No thought to help the villagers, save when it suits them."

"Well, perhaps their circ.u.mstances are strained," I put in. It was not my place to salvage the Allenby reputation, but Ailith and Hilda did still have to make their home amongst the villagers, however removed they might like to think themselves.

Mrs. Earnshaw gave a sharp cackle. "Strained? Oh, my girl, there was a time when the Allenbys were rich as any lord between here and the border. And what did they do with it? Not a bit of good. The poor of this village went without shoes or coal or meat, while they prospered on the backs of the miners. 'Twere a black day for folk here when the mine collapsed, but there were those who wondered if we might not be better working for anyone besides the old devil, Sir Alfred."

"He was not a popular figure then?" Portia put in. She reached out and helped herself to a third slice of parkin.

"Nay. A Roman he was, and yet every Sunday he came to sit in state at St. Agnes, not to wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, but to see us and be seen in turn. He wanted us to know he was watching, always watching, just like G.o.d."

"He sounds like a religious zealot," I commented. Mrs. Earnshaw laughed, sounding like a rusty squeezebox.

"Bless you, lady. There were no religion in him. There were pomp and popish ways, but no Christian virtues. He played the man of G.o.d, but there was no G.o.dliness in him. He was a vengeful, brutish, l.u.s.tful man, and this village was not sorry when the devil took his own."

"l.u.s.tful?" The word struck a chord. I had heard of Sir Alfred's harshness, but this was the first I had heard of something darker. "Do you mean he took his droit du seigneur with the local girls?"

"I don't know about tha'," Mrs. Earnshaw said, her mouth twisting bitterly, "but I know he forced himself upon whatever girl he fancied, maiden or wife, and when there were b.a.s.t.a.r.ds to be had, he gave them nothing for it. The day they carried him to be buried at Allenby chapel, there were naught but dry eyes in this village, I can tell you."

A hundred questions trembled on my lips, but none of them were appropriate.

Just then the door opened again and Deborah entered, followed by another person who stood behind her in the narrow doorway.

"I do hope your ladys.h.i.+ps will not mind. My sister has just come, and she so wanted to make your acquaintance. She's a governess down Manchester way," she added with an unmistakable note of pride.

"Not at all. Do bring her in," Portia instructed.

"Lady Bettis...o...b.., Lady Julia, my sister, Jerusha Earnshaw." Deborah stepped aside and there stood a girl so like her, I blinked. Jerusha dropped a curtsey as Deborah laughed at my expression.

"Aye, lady. Jerusha and I are twins."

Twins with golden hair and bright blue eyes, I noted. I smiled at the newcomer. "Miss Earnshaw, how delightful to make your acquaintance."

I glanced at Mrs. Earnshaw. There was no mistaking the pride on her face at having two such pretty daughters, but there was something else flickering behind her eyes as she looked into mine. Mrs. Earnshaw was wary.

But before I could determine why, Miss Earnshaw had claimed my attention. Unlike her mother and sister, she did not affect the clothing of the mid-century. Her skirts were fas.h.i.+onably slim and she even wore a tiny bustle, although one perfectly in keeping with her position. Her clothes were serviceable and neat, and her expression wore a clever watchfulness I had not seen in her sister.

"Miss Earnshaw, do join us for tea, won't you? I should so like to hear about your position. A governess, your sister says?"

If Miss Earnshaw thought my curiosity odd, she gave no sign of it. She sat and accepted a cup, her gestures neat and economical. She would not be noticed, but she would notice everything, I wagered.

"Thank you, Lady Julia. Yes, I have a post in Manchester. My employer owns several factories there. He is in textiles."

"He's a townhouse in London, and an estate outside Manchester," Mrs. Earnshaw put in with a satisfied nod. "Jerusha has the keeping of his two daughters, good girls too, and the lady of the house is generous to her. Give her Sundays off, and a half-day Wednesdays, as well as one weekend every other month to come home. And she pays the railway fare as well."

A ghost of a smile touched Miss Earnshaw's lips. "My employers are very generous," she agreed.

Mrs. Earnshaw leaned close, darting her eyes around as if to make certain we were alone in the room. "The lady is ill, she is. She'll never make old bones, and then who will be mistress, I ask you?"

Portia murmured, "Oh, my," at this juicy bit of scandal in the making, but Miss Earnshaw merely sipped at her tea. "That is quite silly, Mam," she told her mother. "Mrs. Bellingham is perfectly healthy, and I have no designs on a dead woman's shoes."

She was unruffled as a mill pond, and I found myself warming to a woman who could maintain her serenity in the face of such a mother.

"Is it your first post, Miss Earnshaw?" Portia inquired.

"No, my lady. I have kept myself since I was seventeen. I took a post teaching in a school, but found I preferred working with a smaller number of pupils. The work is often more demanding in such cases, but it is far easier to gauge one's success."

"Oh, well, you wouldn't have had any success with us, would she, Julia? We went through a dozen governesses and still cannot speak more than two languages each, nor can we do our sums. Our educations were frightfully neglected," Portia confided to her.

I did not bother to contradict my sister. Efforts to educate us had been spotty, but rather effective. We were terrible at sums, that much was true, but I still retained a fair smattering of Latin while Portia could discourse freely on the sciences.

"The Allenby ladies seem quite accomplished," I put in, rather clumsily. "I wonder what sort of education they employed in schooling their children? Did they have governesses and tutors?" I gave Miss Earnshaw a wide-eyed look, but out of the tail of my eye I saw her mother dart a glance between us, her fingers plucking at her skirts.

"I believe Sir Alfred saw to the education of his children himself. Lady Allenby schooled the girls, while Sir Alfred taught his son."

"Surely not Egyptology," I said, thinking aloud. "I do not remember hearing that Sir Alfred was interested in such a subject."

"He wasn't interested in anything tha' could not make him money," Mrs. Earnshaw put in bitterly.

"I believe," said Miss Earnshaw, drawing attention away from her agitated parent, "that Sir Alfred's interest in Egyptology was a pa.s.sing one, the sort of thing he toyed with for a season or so. He had many such interests-Roman ruins, the history of the Popes, that sort of thing. Sir Redwall's interest went much further and he continued his studies independently."

"How interesting," I said, noticing that Mrs. Earnshaw had taken another biscuit onto her plate. She had not eaten it, but was crumbling it slowly to bits.

"Julia," Portia said, nodding toward the shepherdess clock standing upon the mantel, "it is quite late. We shall be very tardy getting back to Grimsgrave."

"How silly of me. We have far overstayed ourselves, but the company and the refreshments were so delightful," I said, smiling at Mrs. Earnshaw. She returned my smile, but I fancied she was not sorry to see us go. We gathered our things and bade her farewell, and she was careful not to invite us to return. I wanted to speak privately to Jerusha, but we had lingered as long as we dared, and I wondered if there would be some pretence I could manufacture to bring her with us to Grimsgrave.

Deborah ushered us out of the cosy sitting room and down the stairs, chattering all the while. We thanked her for her hospitality, and when we had reached the bottom of the stairs, I realised Jerusha Earnshaw had followed us.

"May I walk with you as far as the path to Grimsgrave?" she asked, reaching for her hat.

"Of course," I told her, immensely relieved that I had not had need to fabricate a reason to invite her along. We waved to Deborah and started down the village street. Dusk had fallen and the windows of the shops were shuttered and dark, while the windows of the houses were bathed in warm yellow light.

"It is late," I told Portia. "At least the moon is rising."

Just ahead of us, the moon hung low on the horizon, round and white as a pearl. The gravestones of St. Agnes' churchyard were silhouetted against it like a picture from a child's book of spooky tales.

"I do hope you won't think too harshly of Mam," Miss Earnshaw began, coming straight to the point.

"Why on earth should we think badly of her?" Portia asked.

"Because she lies so," Miss Earnshaw said with no trace of embarra.s.sment. "She likes to pretend that Deborah and I are legitimate, but of course we are not. We are Sir Alfred Allenby's b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, and everyone in the village knows it."

I stumbled over a cobblestone, catching myself quickly.

Miss Earnshaw was looking at me with cool, smiling detachment. "Are you quite all right, Lady Julia?"

"Quite, thank you," I returned crisply. "But I confess I am rather impressed with your briskness. Most people would not find it so easy to come to terms with their illegitimacy."

Miss Earnshaw shrugged. "It is of no consequence to me. The crime is not mine. It is Mam's and Sir Alfred's. Why should Deborah and I be any less worthwhile simply because our parents chose to conceive us out of wedlock?"

"You are a very modern thinker," Portia put in, admiringly.

"It is simple common sense," Miss Earnshaw rejoined. "A person ought not to be held accountable for any errors made by others. My parents may have committed double adultery, but their transgressions have nothing to do with me."

"Mrs. Earnshaw did allude to Sir Alfred being less than gallant in his conduct with women," I offered. "Perhaps your mother's crime was only in catching the eye of an untrustworthy man."

Miss Earnshaw's expression warmed to amus.e.m.e.nt. "I think not, Lady Julia. Did you not notice the carnelian brooch at her throat? It was a love trinket from Sir Alfred when Deborah and I were born. She never takes it off. If he had forced her, do you think she would still remember him so warmly? Nay, he was a rogue, but he was a handsome one, golden-haired and strong. The man who raised us, Richard Earnshaw-Amos' father-was a miner, small and dark. His mother's people had come from Wales, and he had the look of them. Deborah and I are cuckoos in the nest to be sure."

We walked along in silence for a moment, and I was struck by this woman's self-possession. She had been born into circ.u.mstances more unlike my own than any I could imagine, and yet she was poised as a d.u.c.h.ess.