Jane and the Stillroom Maid jam-5 Page 2

  I set about the business of unpacking Mr. Hemming’s commodious hamper, which contained a generous store of bread and cheese, a packet of sliced ham, and some peaches — all of it warm and fragrant with the heat of the day. He had considered of cutlery and napkins, and a cloth to lay upon the ground; an admirable host in every respect. It was as I laid out the fruit knives that my cousin Mr. Cooper commenced to sing.

  “Hear us, oh hear us Lord; to thee

  A sinner is more music, when he prays

  Than spheres, or angels’ praises be

  In panegyric alleluiaaaas.”

  Mr. Hemming was at a little remove, between my cousin and the bend in the river, where the mill was situated; he glanced over his shoulder as my cousin achieved a fulsome baritone, looked a trifle uneasy, and then glanced at me. I waggled a gloved hand in salutation.

  Mr. Hemming returned his gaze to his rod; but I observed that the set of his back was rather more rigid than before. “Do you always sing, Edward, when angling?” he enquired.

  “There are few pursuits, I suppose, that are not improved by a hymn,” replied my cousin gaily. “I may assure you, George, that a burst of song is highly beneficial to the lungs. My esteemed patron, Sir George Mumps, has condescended to follow my example — and Sir George survived the whole of last winter without so much as a cold. You must attempt it.”

  “I am unfamiliar with your tune,” Mr. Hemming managed.

  My cousin’s countenance was suffused with delight. “But the words themselves you certainly recognise. They are Donne’s, from the Divine Poems. My ambition is to set all of his work to music, in the course of time.”

  Mr. Hemming did not vouchsafe a reply. His brow was furrowed and his attention claimed by the tying of a fly.

  “As no doubt you comprehend,” Mr. Cooper continued, in happy oblivion of his effect, “Donne is sometimes problematical. What is one to do with ‘And through that bitter agony / Which is still the agony of pious wits / Disputing what distorted thee / And interrupted evenness, with fits’?”

  Mr. Hemming’s rod twitched; so, too, did his jaw; and then the line broke free of the river and was swiftly reeled in. He was keeping a check on his temper, I perceived; but the excess of his feeling was visible in his handling of the rod. There would be few fish to catch, at this present rate.

  “Not to mention ‘as wise as serpents, diversely / Most slipperiness, yet most entanglings hath,’” I murmured.

  “Exactly.” My cousin wheeled about, jerking his line from the river with a spattering of drops. “I have been forced to abandon those for a time, Jane, until the Lord provides for their arrangement. But I have infinite faith in His devising.”

  Mr. Hemming raised his rod in preparation for a cast, his gaze trained upon the coursing river. “If I might make a suggestion, Edward — the counsel of an old friend—”

  “But I should be delighted, George!”

  “I believe your singing — excellent though it may be in its way — is driving off the trout.”

  A look of the most extreme mortification clouded Mr. Cooper’s countenance. “I had not the slightest notion the creatures possessed ears.”

  “I am not convinced that ears are entirely necessary. The … vigour of your performance—”

  “Perhaps the fish do not approve of Donne,” I suggested.

  Mr. Hemming threw a glance my way. “It must be said that there are many who do not,” he observed.

  My cousin looked from my serene countenance to the blacker one of his friend. “If I have offended you in anyway, George, I humbly beg leave to apologise—”

  “Pray do not mention it,” Mr. Hemming retorted abruptly. He cast, and the line tangled upon a tree branch. Mr. Hemming stifled an oath.

  The waters of the Wye lapped at our feet; a curlew called in the crags somewhere above; and off in the distance I caught the clatter of crows. It was a distinctly mournful sound, rife with dispute and acrimony; and for an instant, a shade was thrown over the brightness of the summer day. I lifted my head, and studied the heights. Nothing but a soaring of rock and green things among them, a footpath winding above. I was not yet seized with hunger, and now that my cousin was cowed to silence, the gentlemen were absorbed in their sport. It was time to attempt the heights of Miller’s Dale.

  THE WAY WAS GENTLE ENOUGH IN ITS EARLY STAGES, but steepened inexorably even as it narrowed, until with the passage of three-quarters of an hour, I felt myself to be a sort of sheep or mountain goat, clinging with my half-boots to the edge of the earth. All about me swung the green hills and stone walls of Derbyshire, with the river a bright ribbon below. I looked my fill upon this corner of the sceptre’d isle; saw, as with the eye of Heaven, the flocks of sheep like clouds against the pasturage, the rapid gallop of a distant horse, the tumbled stones of ancient habitation. Smoke curled from the miller’s chimney. I felt as Henry, my brother, must once have done, marshalling toy soldiers. I commanded all that was at my feet.

  And then the crows rose up in a great black cloud and tore the peace of morning into fragments. I focused my gaze upon a massive crag of rock, some distance further up the path. The birds were gathered there, a darkling company.

  Small heaps of cloth — the remnants of a pleasure party, perhaps — were tossed about the crag’s base. There would be crusts of bread amidst the refuse, enough sustenance for a crow to squabble over. I schooled my gaze to pierce the shadows thrown by the great rock, but the glitter of sunlight on limestone pained my eyes. The crows were settled on the limbs of a tree at the crag’s foot. But surely a tree branch would have no use for a gentleman’s shoe? And yet it was a gentleman’s shoe I espied—

  Without hesitation I hurried forward, the beauties of the day forgotten in a sudden access of anxiety. My breath came in tearing gasps, as though born of great exertion, and yet here the pitch of the slope was in my favour, and I might have flown the distance on winged feet. To reach him required but a few moments.

  He lay in the shelter of the great rock as though seeking relief from the sun, one hand serving as pillow under his head — a young man, with a delicate countenance and golden curls, dressed entirely in black. He might almost have been asleep. But to my sorrow, I knew better. The stench of blood was heavy in my nostrils, and the raven tearing at the man’s entrails did not suffer itself to move, even when I screamed.

  For the Staunching of a Wound, Where There Be Great Blood

  If the wound be deep or a great vein cut, take a piece of lean salt beef and lay it in hot ashes until heated through. Then press the hot stuff entirely into the wound and bind with clean linen. A good piece of roasted beef, heated on the coals, will serve as well.

  — From the Stillroom Book

  of Tess Arnold,

  Penfolds Hall, Derbyshire, 1802–1806

  Chapter 2

  The Devil of Water Street

  26 August 1806, cont.

  THE STENCH OF BLOOD AT THE FOOT OF THE CRAG was nearly overwhelming — a hot, sweet, animal smell that engulfed the senses and obliterated thought. I pressed one gloved hand to my nostrils and closed my eyes. A feeling of faintness was inevitable, but I would not give way. It was imperative that help should be sought from my cousin and Mr. Hemming — but they were fixed at the riverbank, perhaps a half-hour back along the path already traversed. My scream of terror had not alerted them. I opened my eyes and allowed my gaze to travel over the form sprawled in the dust. A round hole in the center of the forehead, black with crusted blood, suggested first how the man had died; there would be a lead ball lodged in the skull. But other wounds he had sustained, more grotesque and inexplicable: blood seeped from his parted lips, spilling gore over the folds of his cravat and his white shirt-front. The shirt itself was rucked-up over the fastening of his black pantaloons, and his bowels spilled out upon the rock — a sight that must urge a desperate retching. I turned away, and caused myself to bend nearly double in an effort to contain the wave of sickness. At length the black haze subsided; the blood poun
ding in my temples returned to its wonted course. I stood up, my back to the savaged corpse, and stared dully at a raven triumphant on a rock. The bird had alighted perhaps five feet from my position, sunlight glinting blue on its sooty feathers; one cruel yellow eye surveyed me with indifference. In the raven’s beak was an oblong of flesh — sandy pink, amorphous, and yet not dissimilar from the breakfast fare on every farmyard table. It was tongue. A human tongue. From the cleanness of the wound at the severed end, I should judge that a knife had cut it out.

  I began to move down the path away from the body, unable to look at it again. I stumbled once, saved myself from a bruising fall, and then broke into a run.

  “MISS AUSTEN! ARE YOU ILL?”

  George Hemming cast aside his rod and hastened towards my breathless figure. Mr. Cooper, it appeared, was in the midst of landing a determined trout; his countenance was o’erspread with a fierce scowl, and he did not spare me so much as a glance.

  “I am perfectly well,” I assured Mr. Hemming in a feverish accent, “but there is a man lying among the rocks above who is not. I have found a corpse, Mr. Hemming — so viciously worked upon, I dare not trust myself to relate the particulars. We must fetch a surgeon at once! And the Law, if such exists in these wretched hills—”

  Mr. Hemming could not be insensible to my wild appearance; in an instant, he was all solicitude, and led me to a broad, flat rock some yards from the river. There I sat down in gratitude and relief. Mr. Hemming pressed a handkerchief into my hands. I found that I was trembling uncontrollably, and that a feeling of nausea would not be denied. “Do not regard my indisposition,” I cried, “but send at once for aid.”

  “Pray calm yourself, Miss Austen,” Mr. Hemming urged. “I will go myself in a moment — or seek help from the miller’s hut — but first, I must insist that you partake of my French brandy. It cannot but prove restorative to one in your condition.”

  At this, the admirable Mr. Hemming produced a silver flask from among his fishing tackle and administered a modest draught. I spluttered, choked, and raised a hand to my mouth.

  “That’s better,” he said approvingly. “The colour has returned to your cheeks.”

  I very much doubted that it had ever been absent — a complexion such as mine does not show to advantage under the twin forces of exertion and summer weather — but I forbore to dispute his gallantry.

  “The corpse of a man, you say.” His eyes were fixed upon my countenance with an expression of trouble and anxiety. “A shepherd, perhaps? Or a jagger who lost his way?”

  “Jagger?” I was momentarily diverted by the strangeness of the word.

  “The packhorse pedlars who roam the Peaks,” Hemming replied. “They bring all manner of goods to more remote villages of Derbyshire, and a fair measure of gossip as well. The jaggers are to be found everywhere among these hills in the summer months.”

  “This man was not a pedlar,” I told him, “but a gentleman by his appearance. I should judge his clothes and shoes to be of the first quality, and fairly new.”

  Mr. Hemming’s expression changed. From one of interest in myself, it turned to disquiet for another. I saw that he should have preferred to dismiss this death as a misadventure among the lower orders — and with it, all burden to himself. But such was not to be. The claims of a gentleman must be felt.

  “How old a gentleman should you judge him to be, Miss Austen?”

  The face had been clean-shaven, the skin delicate. “He cannot be much above twenty.”

  A whoop from the riverbank then attracted our notice. Mr. Cooper raised high his severed line, an enormous trout depending from its length.

  “Edward! We have need of you!” Mr. Hemming cried.

  My cousin frowned, then set his fish carefully upon the grass at his feet and ambled towards us.

  “Was there any sign of a horse?” Mr. Hemming returned to me with urgency. “Hoofprints, perhaps? — Could he have found his death from a fall?”

  I shook my head. “He has been brutally and most savagely murdered, sir. There is nothing else to be said.”

  “My dear Jane,” my cousin observed as he achieved our position, “you look remarkably unwell.”

  “Miss Austen has sustained a shock,” Mr. Hemming informed him. “She has discovered a gentleman in the rocks above, quite dead.”

  “A corpse?” Mr. Cooper exclaimed, with a look of consternation. “Not again, Jane! However shall we explain this to my aunt?”

  BUT I WAS SAVED THE NECESSITY OF UNPLEASANT explanation some hours more. Mr. Hemming conveyed me to the relative comfort of the miller’s cottage, where I was seated in a hard wooden chair by an ancient woman of obscure dialect. There I sipped some water from a chipped earthenware mug, and gazed out of the unglazed window, and felt my terror ease with the water slipping noisily over the mill-wheel’s vanes. It should have been the perfect pastoral scene, of a kind beloved of my favoured poets, but for the preparations undergone a few moments before: the miller’s waggon readied, and his sole draught horse lured from the fields; a pallet laid out between two poles, and secured with a length of rope; the miller’s wife dispensing a spare sheet, worn quite through in places by time and the marriage bed. A few moments only saw the work completed, and then my cousin, the miller, and Mr. Hemming toiled up the craggy path in search of the ravaged body. They should not miss it for the crows.

  Perhaps an hour passed before they reappeared, bearing a draped mass on the pallet between them. The countenances of all three, labourer and gentlemen alike, were stamped with grave disquiet. They set the pallet in the bed of the miller’s waggon with grunts of exertion and relief. The miller’s wife stood in her doorway, twisting her hands in her apron and considering, no doubt, of her sheet.

  Mr. Cooper drew a tremulous breath. “May God have mercy on his soul,” he murmured, and wiped his streaming brow with a handkerchief.

  “Did you recognise the face?” I enquired of Mr. Hemming.

  “I did not,” he brusquely replied. “The poor wretch might hail from anywhere — he need not be a gentleman of this county. There are many who pass through Derbyshire in the summer months.”

  He failed to meet my gaze with steadiness, and seemed most anxious to encourage the thought of the murdered man’s alienation from his final resting place. A dim note of warning sounded in the recesses of my brain — but suspicion of such a man as George Hemming must be absurd. His desire to regard the murdered fellow as foreign to Derbyshire should not be extraordinary. It is one thing to witness the mutilation of a stranger — death might have occurred as the result of a thousand grievances and enmities unknown. But the brutal end of an acquaintance is quite another matter. Such an end cannot be readily forgot.

  “Are you well enough to attempt a journey, Jane?” Mr. Cooper enquired.

  “I am. What is to be done with the corpse?”

  Mr. Hemming stared at me in surprise; not one in an hundred ladies, perhaps, should have considered it her place to pursue such a matter. But then he recollected that I had discovered the poor soul myself, and must naturally feel an interest.

  “I think it best to convey the body into Buxton,” he said. “It is no greater distance than Bakewell, although in the opposite direction; and chances are good that Deceased will be known there. Many strangers to the district put up in Buxton, intending to take the waters.”

  “And does the Coroner for this district also reside in that town?”

  “He does not,” Mr. Hemming replied, “but that is no very great matter. Tivey may ride over from Bakewell if he chuses; he does so often enough.”

  “The choice appears to have been made already for him, sir,” I returned with some surprise. “He cannot help but ride over; he cannot neglect of so painful a duty! Is the local Justice, perhaps, a resident of Buxton rather than Bakewell?”

  “Sir James may be said to reside in neither,” Mr. Hemming replied shortly, “his estate being at Monyash.”

  “Monyash! But that is a good deal south of
here, and only a few miles from Bakewell, is it not?”

  Mr. Hemming turned towards the waggon with a suggestion of angry impatience in his countenance, and retorted that he preferred to carry the body into Buxton, and there was an end to the matter. He hoped to divert some greater misfortune, I guessed, in directing the corpse into a neighbourhood not his own. But why? Gone were the happy manners of the morning; he had become taciturn, preoccupied, closed in his confidence. I read some great trouble in Mr. Hemming’s looks — a greater unease than even the ravaged corpse had produced. Was it possible that the solicitor detected something in the gentleman’s aspect — or in the gruesome manner of his death — that gave rise to the gravest anxiety?

  Did he suspect, perhaps, the hand that had done these acts?

  Or was Mr. Hemming merely desirous of being rid of interfering females?

  “Would you wish us to accompany you, Hemming?” enquired my cousin Mr. Cooper. He made the offer most unwillingly; we should lose the better part of the morning in traversing the hills, first west to Buxton, and then east again to Bakewell.

  “Pray escort Miss Austen back to your inn, Edward, and leave this unhappy affair to me.” Mr. Hemming did not deign to look at my cousin as he said this, but kept his eyes resolutely turned towards the harness of his pony. “You shall take my trap, and leave it in The Rutland Arms’ stableyard. I shall send for it later.”