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The thought of Lord Harold’s chest, broken and discarded with all its contents, flamed within me. I must have it back.
“Mrs. Philmore,” I said gently, “I dislike to see you in such trouble. I fear for the well-being of your little ones. If there is any way in which I may help you, be assured that I will attempt it.”
“That is kind in you. But a woman did ought to stand by her husband, ma’am. You’re not to know, being a spinster lady—”
“You ca
“It’s Bert as is hankering after the old man!” she cried.
“He’s that worried — thinks his uncle was taken ill on his road, or been killt — or something worse.”
— Something worse being, no doubt, Old Philmore’s delighted release from all his Hampshire cares, through the spoils of burglary of which Bertie Philmore now had no share. The nephew, I saw, was torn between a very real anxiety for the man who had long served him as parent, and the jealous regard for his own interest, which the uncle might long since have betrayed. Sitting alone in his cell, hour after hour, his thoughts could not be happy ones. He must suffer the delusions of the forgotten: seeing first in his mind’s eye the image of his uncle’s corpse, trampled and abandoned in some woodland hole; and then again, the picture of his uncle in a far distant land — the West Indies perhaps — and surrounded by every luxury.
“Mrs. Philmore, you know that your husband and Old Philmore stole a valuable chest from my cottage. I must assure you most earnestly that the papers within, which you have already described, ca
She emitted a shriek, and pressed her hand in horror to her lips. “Dead? —The gentleman from Stonings is dead?”
“Gentleman?” I returned, my thoughts swiftly revolving.
“Did your husband say that he was hired by a gentleman?”
Too late, she saw her error. She stepped backwards, as tho’
in retreat. “He might have said something. I don’t know what. Not really.”
“A gentleman from Stonings wished the papers stolen?” It was not impossible, after all. We now knew that Julian Thrace had a taste for low company, and was much given to drinking with Dyer’s builders; I had found in this a ready explanation for Shafto French’s murder. But why not for the theft of the chest, as well? Thrace would have learned of Lord Harold’s bequest in much the way Lady Imogen knew of it, and was quick enough to apprehend the danger its contents might pose. He had ample knowledge of our invitation to di
And yet — I had thought Lady Imogen so happy yesterday morning, as tho’ she possessed the key to her entire future. If Julian Thrace had been the one to seize the papers, how had she come by her certainty? He should have destroyed the evidence of his birth, and attempted to hide the truth from the Earl and all his household. The very last person Thrace should tell was surely Lady Imogen.
“If it is Mr. Thrace you would mean,” I said to Rosie Philmore, “I fear for Old Philmore’s life. Thrace has two murders already to his account, and is believed to have fled the country.”
The woman frowned. “I know of no Thrace, ma’am. ’Twas not of him my Bertie spoke. My man was hired by the master of Stonings — that Major Spence, what walks with a limp — to rob ye of your chest.”
Chapter 22
The Figure in the Night
9 July 1809, cont.
I related nothing of all I had learned among the cottage circle tonight, but allowed my sister to talk of the beauties of the surrounding country — in which she had walked a little with the dog Link, so that he might become acquainted with his neighbourhood. “It is full of dells and hills, Jane — a rolling, varied country quite unlike the flat monotony of Steventon in which we were raised—” I listened to a letter from Fa
“Good God,” I murmured. “And to think that poor Fa
She flushed pink, and returned some small nothing regarding the insignificance of her own contribution, and the worth of Fa
My mother a
We left her after di