Chapter 25

Playing Truant with Purpose

31 August 1806, cont.

WE DINED EARLY AND HEAVILY AFTER THE SERVICE, though I possessed little appetite. Mr. Davies, the landlord, sent a message by Sally, among the covered dishes and the rolls, to inform me that my urgent letter to Dr. Bascomb had been carried into Buxton. I could expect an answer during the course of the day, did the messenger discover the physician to be at home; or at the very latest, that evening. I hoped that Bascomb was the sort of gentleman to take an unknown lady’s anxiety to heart, rather than to disregard it as the product of an over-active mind; I should know, I reasoned, from the form of his reply.

The dishes had not been very long cleared away, and the Bakewell clocks were tolling the hour of one, when the noise of a carriage in the street below drew me to the window. I peered out — saw the Devonshire livery — exclaimed aloud at the thought of its being possible that Lady Harriot should drive into Bakewell — and was in time to observe a black silk hat emerge from the crane-necked coach. Lord Harold Trowbridge. This should be fuel for my sister’s speculation, did she require anything further.

“Visiting on Sunday?” enquired my cousin Mr. Cooper, in a voice of signal disdain. He had not yet learned to forgive Lord Harold’s biting remarks as to hymns, though he should never be so absurd as to demand satisfaction.

“It must be something particular that brings him here,” Cassandra said. “It cannot be a social call. Should you like us to walk out into the town, Jane, while he speaks to you?”

“I do not expect a declaration, Cassandra — I think I may meet him with equanimity, and in the company of my whole family.”

She took up her needlework and said nothing more; but my mother was not so easily satisfied.

“Lord, Jane — and you would put off your new gown after church,” she exclaimed in dismay. “How you expect to see that man in a turned muslin, three years behind the fashion and faded with washing, I cannot think. You should not have purchased those ten yards of pink stuff so cheaply; pink never became you as it does your sister, and if I had been consulted, I should have advised most strenuously against it. A lady with a reddened complexion cannot support the colour.”

“But being at present so grossly tanned,” I returned with some complaisance, “I cannot be anxious on that account. Provided I am decently clothed and tidy, it cannot matter to Lord Harold what I wear.”

A knock upon the parlour door forestalled her reply; the door swung open, and revealed the Gentleman Rogue himself, with an expression of haste and concern upon his countenance.

“How very kind of you to pay a call, Lord Harold!” my mother cried. “I am afraid, however, that we were all of us just walking out. Were we not, Mr. Cooper? To visit your friend, Mr. Hemming, at the gaol? I cannot consider it a pleasant duty, but one very well suited to a Sunday morning, provided one has first partaken of a hearty meal. Come along, Cassandra! Fetch your bonnet!”

“My bonnet?” Cassandra repeated, as one dazed by events.

“Naturally! Would you grow as tanned as your sister? I have no hope for Jane — her skin is become so coarse and brown — but I will not have your complexion ruined. Make haste, my love!”

Cassandra stared at me beseechingly; I raised an impervious brow; and so the offending headgear was retrieved from her chamber.

“Do not hurry yourself away, my lord, on our account. I am sure that Jane will be vastly happy to oblige you with a little conversation — or perhaps some of Mr. Davies’s beer.” And with the most deferential air, my mother nodded and smiled her way out of the room, one hand gripped fiercely on Mr. Cooper, and the other on my sister.

“A formidable will animates that woman,” his lordship observed, “however much she would affect a decline. Having learned to know her a little better, I perceive the wellspring of your own resolve, Jane.”

“How may I account for the honour of seeing you here, my lord?”

“I bear tidings, Jane, that I would not have you know of any other.”

My heart sank at his sombre aspect. “Lady Harriot is to marry Andrew Danforth, then?”

Lord Harold stared. “Good God, no! It has always been Charles she admired. Although I suspect there is more of pity, and less of love, in her affections than she understands. But to marry Andrew — how could you conceive of such an idea?”

“Last evening, it appeared that he petitioned for her hand — when he led Lady Harriot out onto the balcony, just before she retired.”

“I am sure that he did,” Lord Harold replied with thinly veiled contempt. “He is always dogging the girl’s footsteps — enquiring whether he may have cause to hope, whenever she affords him a spare moment! He has requested the honour of her hand in the Orangery, and in the stableyard, after a morning’s ride; he has popped the question around the potted plants, and while taking her into dinner. To my certain knowledge, Jane, this is the second application the gentleman has made this week — for on Monday evening, he tarried barely five minutes in the dining parlour after the ladies had retired, before excusing himself.”

“Did he, indeed?” I cried, much struck.

“No doubt Hary-O refused the scrub on that occasion, too, as she has certainly refused him now. His Grace was quite put out at Danforth’s desertion of the gentlemen; but his absence did not prevent the Duke from embarking upon a discussion of Fox’s program, and the Whig strategy once Parliament sits, that any young fool with a heart for politics should never have missed. But I did not come to speak of that young cub’s pretensions. I came to allay what fears I could.”

“Fears?”

“From your expression, I perceive that you are as yet in ignorance of events that have animated all Chatsworth for the past several hours.”

He spoke too gently, as though he would protect me from hurt. I thought of Lady Swithin and her unborn child — and in the fear of sudden death, sat down hard upon a vacant chair. “What has happened?”

“Lord Hartington has not yet returned home, and being absent now nearly a day, must be regarded with considerable suspense. His Grace’s servants have stood watch for the better part of the night, in both the stables and the main house; but Hart has not appeared, and nothing is known of his intended direction.”

“But I espied his lordship myself last evening,” I cried, “above the Baslow road, not much past Manners Wood.”

“So near the house as that.” Lord Harold declined the offer of a chair; he had no intention of stopping very long. “I must inform the Duke. Such a direction had not entered into His Grace’s calculations, it being expressly forbidden.”

“Because the Duke did not wish Lord Hartington to ride towards Tideswell?”

“Exactly.” He smiled at me faintly. “You overlistened my conversation with Lady Elizabeth last evening; I suspected as much.”

“While his lordship was yet under my gaze, he spurred his mount to the west, and vanished into a fold of the landscape,” I said quickly. “Moreover, I have learned from Tess Arnold’s stillroom book that he was much in the habit of meeting her — in the rocks above Miller’s Dale, where she was later murdered.”

“That is unfortunate,” Lord Harold muttered, “for Tideswell is some distance from the village of Hartington itself, whence His Grace directed the search party.”

“Search party! The Marquess will not thank you for it. I understand he is much given to playing the truant. And knowing the country so well as he does — surely he can have come to no harm!”

“I should have said the same — until this morning, just after eight o’clock, when the boy’s black horse limped into the yard. The beast bore bruised knees, and had obviously been down. Of Hart’s fate, we remain in doubt.”