Джорджетт Хейер - The Reluctant Widow

Nicky, who had just raised a glass of madeira to his lips, was taken with a fit of choking which, while it for once brought down upon his head no rebuke from his stern brother, earned him a pained glance from Francis. A heavy sigh was the only answer Francis vouchsafed to John. He raised his handkerchief to his eyes and kept it there.

John’s lips tightened for a moment before he said, “Come, Cheviot, this is the outside of enough!”

Francis shook his head, saying into the folds of his handkerchief, “Alas, you are mistaken! I have received the most distressing tidings. These unmanly tears are not, I blush to confess, for our unfortunate young relative, but for one nearer to me by the ties of affection. Pardon me! It has cost me a severe effort to bear my part at this feast with any degree of fortitude. No, feast is not the right word: I should have said wake, but it is odd how often the funeral baked meats are partaken of in a spirit almost of jollification. My dear John, I have sustained a terrible shock which has quite overborne me!”

Both John and Nicky stood staring at him, the wildest improbabilities darting through their brains. “Why—what—?” stammered Nicky, setting down his wineglass.

Francis raised his face from his handkerchief to reply in broken accents, “You can scarcely fail to have remarked Louis’ absence today!”

“Young De Castres?” John said impatiently. “Well, and what of that?”

Francis made a despairing gesture with one white hand. “Dead!” he uttered, and sank into his handkerchief again.

“What?”Nicky gasped. “But—”

John’s grip on his elbow silenced him. John said, “Indeed! I am sorry for it. I fancy I saw him only the other day in town. I conclude his taking off was of a sudden nature?”

Francis shuddered eloquently. “Stabbed to death!” he moaned. “His body left under a bush in Lincoln’s Inn Fields! One of my oldest friends! I am wholly unmanned.”

“Good God!” John said blankly.

Carlyon’s quiet voice spoke from the doorway. He had come back into the room from seeing Sir Matthew off just in time to hear this revelation, and paused on the threshold, intently watching Francis. “Where had you this news?”

“It is in the Morning Post, which Godfrey Balcombe was so thoughtful as to bring down to me,” said Francis. “Poor fellow, he meant it to be a kindness but he little knew what a blow he was handing me! He was not acquainted with Louis, you know—scarcely glanced at the fatal paragraph! You must forgive me. My poor Louis! So intimate a friend!”

Carlyon shut the door and advanced into the room. “You must feel it indeed,” he said. “I am aware that you have for long been upon terms of the closest friendship with De Castres. There can be no doubt, I collect?”

“Ah, you would seek to encourage me to hope! But it will not do: ‘M. L—De C—,’ you know—the scion of a distinguished family of French emigrants!’ Alas, I cannot doubt it is my poor Louis! That unfortunate turn he had for walking instead of calling for a chair or a hackney! And never so much as a link-boy to go with him! How often have I warned him of the dangers of this practice, but he would never attend, and now we see the unhappy end of it. And I sending round a billet to his lodging the very day I left London, begging him to lend me his support at Eustace’s funeral! Poor fellow, I fear he was even then no more!”

“It is very shocking, indeed. You said he was killed in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, I think? Pray, at what hour was he set upon?”

Francis shook his head. “It is not stated in my newspaper. It was at night, of course, but I dare say it will never be discovered precisely when or by whose hand. What could have taken poor dear Louis to such a locality at such a time? Stripped of his purse and all his jewelry! Left to welter in his blood! Horrible!”

He shuddered again, and with so much revulsion that it was plain he was a good deal affected. Carlyon signed to Nicky to pour him a glass of brandy, and said, “Is it thought to have been the work of footpads?”

Francis nodded and took the brandy from Nicky, thanking him in a broken voice. “Such a sordid motive! Murdered for a few paltry trinkets and, I dare swear, no more than five or ten guineas, for he was not a rich man, you know. It must be a warning to us all! And to reflect that—But I must try to compose myself or I fear I shall be quite unwell! There is something so particularly disgusting to one of my delicate sensibilities in the very thought of bloodshed and, indeed, all forms of violence! Even at school I could not bring myself to engage even in sparring exercise, for the sight of a bloody nose invariably made me swoon. Yes, I feel sure I must seem a poor creature to you, but so it is, and one cannot help one’s nature, after all! I will take a little more of your excellent brandy, Carlyon, and then, if you will pardon me, I think I should take my leave of you. Repose, and—yes, perhaps a glass of hartshorn and water. Crawley shall mix one for me. Mrs. Cheviot, I am persuaded, will respect my desire for solitude until I have learned to master my emotion. Dear Nicholas, if you mean to accompany me, I wonder if you will be so very obliging as not to talk to me?”

“Thank you, I mean to ride over a little later.”

“Your thoughtfulness does you credit, my dear boy. I am so grateful!”

He drank off his second glass and rose to his feet. He said earnestly, “Thank God I brought a black waistcoat with me! This gray one does very well for Eustace, but it is now quite out of tune with my mood. My poor Louis!”

Neither John nor Nicky could find anything to say in answer to all this, but Carlyon replied with his usual calm good sense and, as soon as word was brought that Mr. Cheviot’s chaise was waiting at the door, conducted nun out to it. When he returned it was to find that John had picked up from Francis’ chair his copy of the Morning Post, folded open at the requisite sheet, and was just starting to read aloud, in a slow, stupefied voice: “A melancholy event happened two evenings since in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where the body of a Young Man, done to death under circumstances of horrid Barbarity, was discovered yesterday morning by Mr. B—, a Clerk employed in the Chambers of a certain well-known Attorney. We understand the unfortunate Young Man to have been M. L—De C—., the Scion of one of the Distinguished families of French Emigrants with which the Metropolis still abounds. There would appear to be little room for doubt that the motive for this Brutal Murder was robbery, since we learn that M. L—. De C—’s pockets had been ransacked, and watch, fobs, seals, pins, rings—in fact, every adjunct to a Gentleman’s apparel, stripped from his person. We think it not ineligible to advert yet once again in these columns to the shocking prevalence of pickpockets in the Metropolis, and to demand for our fellow Citizens some better protection from the violence of these freebooters than the Vigilance of the Decrepit Dotards who at present patrol our streets, and—Oh, et cetera, et cetera!” John concluded impatiently. “My God, Ned, what devilish stratagems have we stumbled on? Pickpockets! I wish it might be so indeed!”

“Is that all it says in the Post?”asked Carlyon.

“That’s all, save for the usual plaint about the ineptitude of the Watch, and of the constables. It’s enough, my God!”

“Nicky, go and inquire of Chorley whether the London papers are yet arrived, will you? There may be something more in the Times, or the Advertizer.”

Nicky went out of the room at once. John flung down the Morning Post, and said gravely, “Ned, this is a shocking business! I do not wonder that Cheviot should be so overcome. There can be no question but that he is in this affair hand in glove with De Castres and those who must stand behind De Castres. If he fails to discover what is so desperately needed he must shake in his shoes to think what may be his own fate!”

“You think De Castres was murdered by French agents?”

“I do not know, but that presents itself to me as the likeliest answer to a riddle which I’ll take my oath will never be solved! If De Castres had promised his masters that memorandum or his copy of it—! He may even have received moneys already, or the suspicion may have entered their minds that he was fobbing them off with a plausible tale and meant himself to reap all the advantage. I have never believed him to have been a principal in this business: I still do not. Something must have been known against him had that been so, and I cannot discover that he is any more suspect than any other young Frenchman at large in this country.”

“Yes,” said Nicky, who had come back into the room. “Or he might have been killed by one of our people, might he not? One of our spies, I mean?”

“I suppose it is possible,” John replied reluctantly. “It would be grossly improper however, and I prefer to think—not but what the fellows one is forced to employ in that work have necessarily few scruples. Well, what has the Times to say, Ned?”

“Nothing more than you have read in the Post,”Carlyon answered, handing the paper over to him.

“I can’t find any mention in the Advertizer,”said Nicky, rapidly scanning the columns. “What stuff they do print, to be sure! Here’s something about Grafted Gooseberry Plants! I should like to know who cares a button for that! On Friday a butcher exposed his wife for sale in Smithfield Market ... Lord! Curious Incident at Rotherhithe: A young whale came up the river ... I wish I might live in Rotherhithe, by Jupiter I do! A very elegant dinner given by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House .... Oh, here we have it at last, but the meanest little snippet only! The body of the unfortunate young man which was discovered in Lincoln’s Inn Fields yesterday morning is now established to be that of a distinguished French Emigrant, well-known in Fashionable Circles. Well! the shabbiest thing! Oh, Ned, I would not have missed this for anything you could offer me! I shall go back to Highnoons at once, for depend upon it Cheviot will only be awaiting his chance to steal that document from us!”

“Yes,” Carlyon said slowly. “Yes.”

John looked at him narrowly. “What’s in your head?”

Carlyon returned no answer, but after a moment said abruptly, “I am going up to London. Nicky, will you tell them to bring round the light post-chaise as soon as they may?”

“Going to London?” repeated John. “What the devil for?”

“To try what I can discover there. I shall come back as speedily as I am able. Do you remain here, John, and keep Nicky from doing anything foolhardy! Nicky, understand me, you may stay at Highnoons and you may watch Francis Cheviot as much as you please as long as you can do so without his finding you a hindrance he might be tempted to remove out of his path. But on no account are you to run your head into danger!”

“Lord, Ned, I’m not afraid of a fellow like Francis Cheviot!”

“Francis Cheviot is a very dangerous man,” Carlyon said curtly, and left the room.

Nicky blinked at John. “What the deuce makes him think so?” he asked. “For of all the lily-livered—”

“I don’t know, but he was saying something of the sort to me the other night. Of course, if Francis has engaged himself to hand over a certain document to the French, and knows his partner in this pretty piece of treason to be dead, I dare say he will be as dangerous as a cornered rat. Now, mind you do as Ned tells you, Nick! I shall come over to Highnoons myself presently, but it’s not to be expected Francis will make any attempt to search the house during the day, for he would scarcely dare to run the risk of being discovered at that work. I have a good mind to spend the night at Highnoons, quite secretly, of course.”

“Why, he is afraid for his life Bouncer will bite him!” Nicky laughed. “And he knows Bouncer is loose in the house all night!”

“Take care you do not find that dog of yours has been poisoned!” John said grimly.

Elinor and Miss Beccles had spent a quiet, housewifely morning, during the course of which Miss Beccles had announced with simple satisfaction that she believed Highnoons would soon be as pretty a residence as one might find anywhere. She so plainly envisaged a prolonged sojourn in it that Elinor was constrained to remind her that as soon as she was at liberty to do so she was to sell the house. Miss Beccles said that she was by no means persuaded of this being her best course. “We might be so comfortable here!” she said, with a tiny sigh.