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He set off for the Wye, and our patient equipage; I held my sunshade at a jaunty angle, and turned my steps northwards along the footpath towards Tideswell. It ran desultorily through the high grasses and waving flowers, plunged into a little wood, and presumably emerged on the nether side, in full view of Tideswell Dale and Penfolds Hall.
From the position of the sun in the sky, the abating of the breeze, and the sultry oppression of the day even so high in the hills, I should judge that it was very near noon, or somewhat thereafter. If I were to present a decent appearance at di
Perhaps a quarter of an hour was suffered to wear away, and my arms in the service of my sunshade began to tire. As I was even now approaching the little wood, I allowed the sunshade to falter, and employed it instead as a sort of walking stick, for the swatting of undergrowth to either side of the path. A light film of sweat had dampened my curls under the close brim of my sunbo
It was cooler here beneath the trees; curlews called from the green shadows, and a cloud of midges danced before my eyes. I observed an arc of sunlight just ahead — an opening out of the forest — and there, in the lee of a large shrub, crouched a young woman.
She wore a mulberry-coloured gown of India cotton, and her hair was loose about her shoulders. She had set a large willow basket on a convenient stump, and was busily gathering berries from the shrub. I stopped short some thirty paces from her position and studied her. Something in her aspect was familiar, even at this distance; and then she turned her head, and I saw the wine-dark stain upon her cheek.
Tess Arnold’s sister.
“Hello, there!” I called out, and stepped forward with my sunshade raised.
She stood up, and bobbed a curtsey, waiting in silence until I should have passed. If my decision to greet her — she, whose dress and entire figure proclaimed her my social inferior — caused her any astonishment, she did not betray as much in her countenance.
“Pray tell me,” I attempted, with a little gasp of exertion, “whether this is the way to Penfolds Hall?”
“So it be,” she returned, in a voice entirely without affect.
“And is it very far? I fear the heat is most cruel today.”
She stared at me, taking in my close bo
“Jus’ a ways on, miss.”
“Thank you. I am most obliged.”
She bent towards the tangle of branches once more, and I knew myself dismissed.
“That is an elder,” I observed of the shrub she was busily harvesting, “and not good for eating. What use do you find for the berries?”
Her hands arrested, she stared at me. “Doesn’t Tha’ know? Poultice for burns.”
“Indeed? That is a remedy that has not made its way to the south. We use an infusion of elder flowers for feverishness and a sore throat; or the bark, when mixed with a little butter, is useful for healing sores. The berries we leave to the birds.”
“Tha’s the lady from th’ Inquest.” She straightened, and rubbed her hands carefully on her skirt.
“And you are Tess Arnold’s sister.”
We studied one another an instant. Her countenance was less stony; her curiosity, I should judge, was piqued.
“What is your name?”
“Je
“Very well. I am Miss Austen. Are you also a stillroom maid?”
“I know the ways of simples.” She searched my face, clearly troubled in her mind. “Tha’s been lookin’ o’er the ground. Where she was killed. Wha’ fer?”
“A gentleman of my acquaintance has confessed to murder. I do not believe he killed your sister. Do you ever recall her mentioning a Mr. Hemming?”
“George Hemming? A course. We’ve known ’im twenty year or more.”
“And known him rather well, I should judge.”
Je
She read the answer in my eyes. Her own closed abruptly. “I’d made sure t’were Danforth.”
“Why?”
The eyes flashed open. They were dark blue, I noticed, the colour of flags by the riverbank. “He’s a Mason, in’t ’e? An’ Tess were carved up like a new lamb. They Masons be done fer all sorts of evil. Murdering babies. Burnin’ ’em on an altar at midnight. But never none of their own. It’s the common folk as suffer, when evil walks the land.”
“Wherever did you hear such a story?” I exclaimed. “Mr. Danforth burning babies, indeed! A man who has lost his own children!”
“It’s a judgement,” she declared, “them little’uns. They went to they graves in torment, on account o’ ‘is sins! Tess said so. She knowed it. That’s why she were killed. She’d been watchin’ they Masons right here, above the Dale.”
“Here,” I repeated, much struck. Was it possible that Tess Arnold had made a habit of creeping out to spy on her betters, wearing gentlemen’s clothes?
“The altar be somewhere in the rocks above the Dale,” Je
“You said nothing of this at the Inquest,” I observed.
“I want nothing wit’ thy justice.” Je
“And what did Andrew Danforth call her?”
Je
“And yet your sister lost her place because of him.”
“Tess? Dismissed on Mr. Andrew’s account? Go on!”
So she had not known the particulars of her sister’s disgrace.
“It’s just like Haskell to think the worst of our Tess,” Je
Tess Arnold, the playfellow of Andrew Danforth. Naturally it should be so. I had forgotten that they had been children together. But a vast deal of ground must separate the maid and her master, once the child was grown to a man.