The Truth-Seeker's Wife Read online

  Chapter Two

  Some plan holidays and others plan murder. It is the attention to detail that matters. Then seize the moment! The opportunity is coming. They are making their arrangements; and I shall make mine.

  Elizabeth Martin Ross

  I had made one last desperate attempt to persuade Mrs Parry to abandon the idea, or to choose another destination. The train service to Southampton was frequent and reliable. But, as I knew from my earlier visit to the area, to reach the New Forest it was necessary to cross Southampton Water. The choice was either by means of the regular ferryboat service or a long detour by road. I hazarded a last throw of the dice.

  ‘I understand, Aunt Parry, that the proposed landing stage for the ferry on the Hythe side has still not been built. To land from the ferry involves a hazardous descent on to the stony spit called the Hard. It runs out from the shore to the spot where the water is deep enough, even at low tide, for the ferryboat. Climbing down the little gangplank from the boat to the Hard is bad enough. The movement of the sea makes it bounce about distressingly. Making one’s way on foot to the shore, along the Hard, is nothing short of perilous. You cannot think of risking it.’

  ‘I shall not,’ retorted Mrs Parry serenely. ‘I have made inquiries and we shall go round by road. There is a bridge across the river at a higher, very much narrower, point. That is the route all the road traffic takes. Mr Hammet, the owner of the house to which we go, has been in communication with Sir Henry Meager. Sir Henry has kindly offered to send his coachman to meet us at Southampton railway station. He will drive us to The Old Excise House.’

  She beamed at me. ‘So, you see, Elizabeth, there is absolutely nothing for you to worry about. It has all been arranged.’

  It was always a mistake to underestimate Aunt Parry. I was foiled. In my mind’s eye, the dice I had thrown rolled across the table and dropped on to the floor.

  She had left me little time to make ready. I made sure the larder of my home was well provisioned and a menu of simple meals drawn up for Bessie to prepare for Ben. Both of them assured me they would manage very well without me.

  ‘Although,’ my husband added earnestly, ‘I will miss you very much.’

  So off we set. First of all, we had to board the train at Waterloo Station in London. I dressed as suitably as I could for the journey, in walking dress. But Aunt Parry considered herself a woman of fashion. Fortunately, the crinoline was no longer de rigueur; but skirts were still very full and gathered in a bunch at the back, just below the waist. The most rigorous lacing of a corset could not reduce Aunt Parry’s generous figure to slender lines. She had sailed down the platform at Waterloo like a galleon, followed by a veritable baggage train of our personal belongings and other necessities. A compartment had been reserved for our use and we more than filled it.

  ‘Why do they not construct the entry to the carriages more conveniently?’ Mrs Parry wailed as Nugent and I struggled to push her through the door. ‘I shall write to the railway company and complain!’

  The journey itself passed without any mishap. But if getting Mrs Parry into the train had not been easy, decanting her and our bags and boxes from the train at Southampton called for considerable manoeuvring, and the help of a porter and a boy. Eventually she burst from the compartment on to the platform like a jack-in-the-box.

  Following that, our boxes must be unloaded. Several seagulls had arrived and patrolled around us, rightly realising that we had brought food. They were taking a particular interest in a Fortnum & Mason’s hamper, deemed essential by Mrs Parry. One gull was so bold as to peck at it with its wickedly sharp beak.

  ‘I don’t like this, Mrs Ross, not one bit,’ observed Nugent gloomily. She took a tight grip on her umbrella and pointed it defiantly at the gull.

  I did not care for the gulls, either. ‘We should seek out our onward transport, Aunt Parry,’ I urged. ‘And not keep Sir Henry’s coachman waiting.’

  Fortunately at that moment an elderly man appeared. He wore a voluminous caped coat such as might have been seen on a coachman thirty years earlier, and held his hat in his hand. He hailed us, bowing deeply.

  ‘You’ll be the party for The Old Excise House, then?’ he asked, as he straightened with a grunt of pain. ‘’Tis the joints,’ he added in explanation for the expression of discomfort. ‘I’m all right going down and not so good standing up straight again.’

  ‘Yes!’ I told him in some relief. ‘You must be Sir Henry Meager’s coachman.’

  ‘That’s it, ma’am. Tizard is the name. It’s a good thing we brought the dogcart along, as well as the carriage,’ he added, gazing past me at our pile of luggage. ‘The master said we would need it. “Tizard!” he said to me. “When ladies go travelling, mark my words, they take a baggage train of boxes and trunks with them. You’ll need the dogcart. Go and find Davy Evans. He can drive it and help with moving the boxes.” So I did.’

  ‘We are very grateful to Sir Henry,’ I told him.

  ‘If you will follow me, ladies, the coach is outside, as is Davy with the dogcart. Just leave the luggage. Davy will come down for it here and manage it all.’

  I gave a suitable gratuity to our porter and the boy who between them had managed to decant our luggage and ourselves. The porter thanked me, adding: ‘’Twas worth it! The lady there is a fine sight.’ He nodded towards Mrs Parry who, fortunately, didn’t overhear. ‘The lad and I will stand guard over your baggage,’ he went on.

  I saw that the lad in question had taken a seat on the Fortnum & Mason’s hamper. He gave us a cheery grin. I returned a severe look to him. The wicker hamper was buckled with leather straps but not locked and I suspected the imp’s intentions were the same as those of the gulls.

  Tizard had already set off. We trooped after him out of the station to the main road. There, sure enough, was a venerable berlin carriage drawn by a pair of horses that looked very much as if they had been brought from the farm for the purpose. But I supposed there was little call for an expensive matched carriage pair in the rural surrounds to which we travelled. There also was the dogcart, drawn by a sturdy dark bay pony. A man stood at the pony’s head and was stroking its neck.

  ‘Davy!’ called Tizard. ‘Here’s the ladies. Boxes is back there on the platform.’

  The man moved away from the pony. He looked us over quite openly and a grin spread across his face. He was a strongly built, dark-haired fellow, good-looking in a weather-tanned, slightly piratical way. He might have sprung from one of the penny dreadful novels Constable Biddle gave Bessie to read. I supposed him a year or so short of thirty. To my mind he had not the demeanour of a servant; certainly not in the way his grin broadened as he studied Mrs Parry.

  I heard myself ask Tizard, in a low voice, ‘Is that Sir Henry’s groom?’

  The coachman chuckled. ‘Bless you, ma’am, no. Davy Evans don’t work for no man. But he’s available, as you might say. Available as needed. Here, Davy! I’ll go on ahead with the ladies.’

  We now reversed the procedure followed to get down from the train to manoeuvre Mrs Parry into the carriage. It wasn’t roomy and once we were all three women packed into it, we could hardly move at all. I thought with sinking heart of the quite long journey ahead of us.

  Tizard slammed the door on us and stood outside; with just his grizzled head showing at the window as if it floated free of his body.

  ‘Oh, mustn’t forget!’ He drew a deep breath and recited an obviously rehearsed speech. ‘Sir Henry presents his compliments and hopes you had a good journey. He’ll let you settle in tonight and hopes that tomorrow you will dine with him, at six thirty. He trusts you will forgive him for not calling on you beforehand, and inviting you in person, but his gout is troubling him.’ He clapped his hat on his head to signify the speech was over.

  I knew it! I thought unworthily. I knew he’d be gouty! I must tell Ben when I write.

  Tizard’s head disappeared with disconcerting suddenness and the berlin shuddered as he climbed on to his per
ch. He whistled at the horses and with a jerk we bounced forward and began a lumbering progress.

  ‘I have not dined at six thirty,’ observed Mrs Parry in a nostalgic tone, ‘for more years than I care to recall.’

  She was facing forward. Nugent and I were crammed in, side by side, with our backs to the horses. Over Mrs Parry’s shoulder, through a small rear window, I had a glimpse of Davy Evans standing in the road and watching us depart. As yet he had made no move to load our luggage into the dogcart. But I understood why Sir Henry had sent it. If all our boxes had been stacked on the roof of this old carriage, the springs would not have withstood the weight.

  We creaked and rattled along, and I did begin to worry that we might break down mid-journey, especially as the sun was setting, touching the scenery with an ochre glow. Soon after quitting the town, and rattling across the stone bridge over the estuary of the River Test, we turned southwards again in a hairpin movement and found ourselves following the shoreline on the Hythe side, with Southampton now across the water to our left.

  The journey brought back memories of my previous visit. The area known as the New Forest is a lonely place, and not all of it forested. There are wide areas of heathland roamed by ponies and other livestock turned out on it to graze by foresters who hold the rights to pasture their animals on such poor land. But the light was failing and we had little to view. We passed an occasional flint-built cottage and, once, an inn. Its mullioned windows glowed with the warm tones of lamplight, a beacon on the darkening highroad. Any sight of the sea was now lost to us, with trees between and everything veiled in a mauve dusk.

  Mrs Parry had noticed the darkening sky: and also the lamplit inn. ‘It is to be hoped that the house to which we travel has the benefit of gaslighting,’ she observed. ‘But I begin to think it will not. Lamps or candles, as well as dinner at six thirty, oh my, it quite takes me back to my youth.’ She didn’t sound displeased.

  Nugent, a Londoner through and through, was not so sanguine. ‘If there are no gas lamps,’ she grumbled, ‘I’m not setting foot out of doors after dark.’

  Where we travelled though patches of woodland it was as if we trespassed on the domain of some lurking monster that had stretched out its branched arms to seize unwary travellers and had swallowed us up.

  ‘There could be anything out there!’ muttered Nugent.

  She need not have worried. For most of our journey we appeared to be utterly alone. This might have encouraged us to talk to one another but the reverse was the case and we fell into an apprehensive silence.

  After a journey of great discomfort, we reached the coast again and drew up on a deserted stretch of road. The extensive heathland was lost in the shadows. I could see no lights from other dwellings.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ demanded Mrs Parry querulously.

  The berlin shuddered again. Tizard was climbing down from his perch. He now appeared at the door, holding up a lantern.

  ‘Here we are, ladies,’ he said. ‘The last few steps of the way you will have to do on foot.’ He turned away and pointed out into the shadows. ‘The Old Excise House is a little below us there. It’s not a long way, but to take the carriage down would be a good sight trickier than I would like. There is little space to turn and anyway it’s too dark. But if you would just step down, I’ll guide you to the door.’

  ‘What?’ exclaimed Mrs Parry in dismay.

  I heard Nugent grumble that this was a strange old place to choose to come, and that was for sure.

  But at that moment we were hailed from the direction of the house, and a light came bobbing towards us.

  ‘Ah!’ said Tizard. ‘Here’s Jacob come to lend a hand.’

  A figure emerged from the shadows, holding aloft the lantern, bowing and uttering words presumably in welcome. I couldn’t quite make out what exactly he’d said.

  ‘Give us some light, Jacob!’ urged Tizard. He turned back to the berlin and addressed Mrs Parry. ‘Just give me your hand, ma’am, and I’ll have you out of there in two shakes.’

  Mrs Parry did not receive this suggestion with anything like gratitude. She had no intention of giving her hand to the coachman, or of going anywhere ‘in two shakes’.

  ‘Elizabeth, my dear,’ she said to me. ‘Be so kind as to descend first. Nugent can follow. Then, between you, help me down.’

  I scrambled out inelegantly, feeling that I was stepping out into the unknown and quite happy to grab Tizard’s arm. I was followed by Nugent, still gripping the umbrella ready to fend off any danger lurking in the darkness. Aunt Parry was then prised through the door and we all three arrived on terra firma. Behind us, the carriage horses snorted and stamped. Theirs had been a long day and they sensed they were not far from their home stables. I could feel the heat rising from their steaming flanks.

  ‘Lead on, Jacob!’ urged Tizard.

  We set off, Nugent and I one to either side of Mrs Parry and supporting her by the elbows. Beneath our feet the soil, a mix of sand, peat and stones, muffled our footsteps. I thought I could smell pine trees. Jacob went ahead with his lantern and Tizard brought up the rear. The moon was out now and lent its pale sheen to help us, but I understood the coachman’s reluctance to bring the carriage down from the road. Mrs Parry complained non-stop that we should all break our ankles and that she should certainly have stayed overnight in Southampton if she’d had any idea of the remoteness of the locality.

  With relief I saw we were approaching a house, quite a substantial one. Perhaps the present owners, the Hammets, had caused the original building to be extended. The flint exterior had been whitewashed and seemed to glimmer in the moonlight. The lower windows glowed a brighter yellow and an oil lantern swung before the entrance door, though that appeared to be at the side of the building, not in the front. But the side of the building was what faced the path. This had not been built as a gentleman’s summer retreat, after all, but as a working office for the Excise. A warm glow enveloped us as the door opened. A female form appeared and dropped a deep curtsey. Behind her was a second female figure, also curtseying.

  ‘Welcome, ladies. I’m the housekeeper, Mrs Dennis. And this is my daughter, Jessie, who helps out. I hope you had a good journey.’

  ‘No!’ gasped Mrs Parry. ‘We’ve had a dreadful journey!’

  Perhaps this reply was no more than the housekeeper expected, because she said in comfortable tones, ‘But you’re here, safe and sound, and that’s what matters.’ She indicated our guide with the lantern. ‘That’s Jacob, my husband. He looks after the outside of the place, and I look after the inside, as you might say.’ Mrs Dennis turned to our coachman. ‘Well, Tom Tizard, what have you done with the ladies’ luggage?’

  ‘Davy is behind us, with the dogcart,’ explained Tizard. He turned back and addressed me. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, at half-past five, to take you and the other lady to dine with Sir Henry.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I told him. ‘But the dogcart has not yet arrived with our luggage. I hope there’s been no upset on the road.’

  ‘Oh, Davy will be along shortly,’ Tizard assured me. ‘He’s very likely stopped to take a mug of ale along the way. Davy does things in his own fashion. But he’ll be here, never fear.’

  ‘Extraordinary!’ observed Mrs Parry to me. ‘I wonder Sir Henry employs the services of such a fellow.’

  ‘Oh, he’s a very useful sort of chap, is Davy,’ said Tizard. ‘I’ll bid you all goodnight, then.’

  Mrs Dennis urged us indoors. Her husband had disappeared back into the surrounding bushes. I knew him to be the gardener, but he couldn’t surely lurk about the garden all night. Then I remembered that the couple was housed in a cottage nearby.

  It was difficult to settle in without our luggage. But the housekeeper assured us it would arrive safely before long. Perhaps we would like to dine? We must, she said, be hungry.

  This reminded Mrs Parry that she was, indeed, very hungry.

  As feared, there was no gas lighting. We were provided with a cand
le apiece and climbed a narrow stair to inspect our rooms and take off our outer garments. The stairs led up to a square landing from which two long corridors ran the length of the house, from side to side. I was reminded again that this had not originally been built as a family home, but as a base for government revenue activities. This made the living arrangements a little inconvenient, as both corridors were narrow. Mrs Parry had been allotted what was obviously the master bedroom. It lay off the corridor to the left of the landing, and had a dressing room attached. In this little annex a bed had been made up for Nugent. My room lay along the corridor to the right. Thus we were at opposite sides of the house, some distance apart. My room, though smaller, was well appointed, and although darkness now deprived me of a view I calculated that in the morning I should have a fine sea vista, possibly affording a glimpse of the Isle of Wight.

  I took off my hat and outer garments and placed them on the bed. A knock at the door heralded the arrival of Jessie carrying a jug of hot water, which she poured into the basin on the washstand. She was a sturdily built girl I judged to be about sixteen. Her mane of thick red hair was tied back at the nape of her neck with a ribbon.

  ‘Ma says you’d want to freshen up,’ she said brightly.

  I duly freshened up, although in the absence of our luggage I couldn’t change my gown. I went back downstairs to the dining room, where I found Mrs Parry, also perforce still in her travelling clothes, already seated at the table. It was prettily set, with crisp linen, and a large oil lamp with a cranberry glass shade casting a pink-tinged glow. We were served with a substantial and delicious meal, beginning with soup, followed by fresh fish, roast chicken and potatoes and finishing with syllabub. I hoped that Nugent, in the kitchen, was being served with as good fare. During the chicken course, a general racket outside signified our luggage had arrived. We heard it being carried indoors and up the stairs, with many a crash and thump.