The Serpent In The Garden_ A Novel Part 2

"You will do me a great service if you say none of this to the other members of this household. Mr. Bentnick has recently suffered the loss of his wife. I wish to spare him any unnecessary disturbance. It is no concern of anyone else's."

Chapter Six.

DINNER AT ASTLEY always took place at the fas.h.i.+onable hour of three in the afternoon, and despite Sabine's discovery of the body in the pinery, the day was no different from any other. There were only four at table, Herbert, his two children-Francis and Caroline-and Joshua.

Having retired to her room, Sabine remained there. Violet, her daughter, had gone to London early the previous day for an appointment with her dressmaker and was not expected to return until the following afternoon.

They ate in the morning room, an annex to the drawing room, decorated on a cla.s.sical theme with swags of acanthus and friezes in faux marble depicting wrestling G.o.ds enjoying the pleasures of the senses. Below the frieze the walls were painted a vibrant shade of yellow and pasted with engravings. Scenes of the Parthenon and Mount Olympus and the temples of Zeus and Diana were interspersed with figures of sundry cla.s.sical G.o.ds-Apollo, Poseidon, Athena, and Bacchus-who seemed to survey disapprovingly those a.s.sembled about the circular mahogany table to devour, in place of nectar and ambrosia, a collation of cold ham, boiled fowl, and brawn.

Up until that moment Joshua had believed that Herbert Bentnick was as happy as any man could be, given the recent loss of his wife. He had compared his own situation with Herbert's, and found himself envious. For several months after his dear wife, Rachel, and their son, Benjamin, had been drowned, Joshua could scarcely bring himself to contemplate intimacy with another woman. Then, two months ago, believing he would go mad with melancholy, he had found himself his mistress, Meg Dunn. Warm and willing though she was, Meg was never a subst.i.tute for Rachel. He still longed for a second wife, yet despite various attempts at finding one, none had been forthcoming. He had fruitlessly strolled about the gardens at Vauxhall, attended a.s.semblies at Ranelagh and Sunday matins in Saint Paul's Covent Garden-generally considered the best places to come across eligible young women. All to no avail.

Herbert, by contrast, had no sooner lost Jane than he had found and captured Sabine, and clearly he was besotted with her. Moreover, he had two children; his house contained numerous treasures; exquisite grounds surrounded it. Herbert was possessed of everything a gentleman could possibly desire. Fate had dealt him a generous hand. But after this dinner Joshua began to see the situation differently.

Caroline and Francis were already seated at the table when Joshua entered the room. He bade them good day and was greeted with a bold stare and the curtest of nods. He took his seat, pretending to look with rapt interest at an engraving of Europa propelled away on the back of a bull. Had he imagined the absence of civility? Had he offended them in some way? Was something amiss in his dress? He was wearing a coat of puce-colored silk, fine black breeches, and a s.h.i.+rt trimmed with Brussels lace; he looked down surrept.i.tiously. All was as it should be. Why did Herbert not remark their singular behavior? He was currently carving a fowl, apparently oblivious to the strain.

A lesser man might perhaps have felt mortified, or at the very least chastened, by their coolness. But Joshua's self-possession was in no sense diminished. He was a guest of this distinguished household; he had been commissioned to perform a service. But he did not view himself as subservient. Instead, like a spectator in a theater who observes a play, Joshua believed he belonged to a separate order entirely.

Confronted by this unnatural atmosphere, once he had overcome his initial shock, his artistic zest was inflamed. He sat at the table alert. As a surveyor of mankind, the unusual was what most intrigued him. Caroline and Francis's insolence was fascinating. How does a face contort when it is annoyed but cannot express it? How do eyes alter when they suppress some grievance? What inner resentment lurks behind a twitching lip? Here was fertile ground to observe. The only frustration was that he could not take out his pencil and draw as well as witness it.

Herbert's son, Francis, was heir to the Astley estate and fortune. Twenty-three years of age, he had a straight, high-bridged nose, brows that met in the middle, and a rather small mouth. He had the physique of a young Hercules; well-muscled shoulders bulged beneath his coat, and strong thighs shaped his breeches. He must have stood six foot three in his stockinged feet, towering half a head taller than Joshua's five foot nine inches.

Francis's sister, Caroline, was two years his senior. Her face was narrow and angular, her nose straight but rather long, her mouth wide and surprisingly voluptuous. They were features that might have held a certain allure had some spark of animation enlivened them; but at present, with dissatisfaction reflected in the downturn of her lip and in eyes that seemed as flat and cold as a pewter dish, there was nothing whatsoever to recommend them.

What struck Joshua most forcefully was the contrast between their father's habitual joviality and his children's incontrovertible gloom. How curious, thought he, that such an amiable fellow as Herbert Bentnick should sp.a.w.n such morose offspring, and he began to wonder what the reason for their downcast spirits might be. So curiosity swelled like a pimple that if scratched develops to a contagion. Having begun to question Caroline and Francis's behavior, he found himself dwelling on the subject.

Meanwhile, Herbert made valiant attempts to sustain a conversation. He discussed the progress of the portrait with Joshua, trying all the while to entice Caroline's interest in the exchange. "It seems to be going along splendidly, does it not, Pope? You must come and admire it, Caroline, and show Mr. Pope your own alb.u.m while you're about it."

Caroline's face looked blacker than a chimney sweep's coat; she said nothing.

"Does Miss Bentnick draw?" Joshua enquired, watching her intently.

Caroline regarded her plate in silence.

Herbert, with no trace of awkwardness, addressed Joshua. "I daresay, Pope, you believe, as most men do, that no woman can draw like a man, for they have inferior powers of concentration. I believed as much myself till I saw my daughter's work. I warrant when you see it you will change your view too and declare it as accomplished as any you have seen."

Joshua waved his napkin with an extravagant flourish to show he disagreed entirely with Herbert's presumption. "Indeed," he drawled, "I pride myself on my lack of prejudice. A woman may concentrate as avidly as a man if the subject is agreeable to her. I should be honored to view your work, Miss Bentnick."

This entreaty was to no avail. Caroline's eyes flashed at her father. She ignored Joshua's comment.

"You have only to regard the profiles by the chimneypiece, for they are works by my daughter," said Herbert hastily, pointing to three watercolors. "Two I'm sure you recognize-they are of my son and myself. The person in the center is a neighbor of ours, Lizzie Manning. She is Caroline's great friend and the daughter of the local justice."

Joshua murmured some halfhearted compliment about the quality of the drawing, and then an uncomfortable silence descended. He gamely turned the conversation to the dead man in the pinery. Had anything been discovered as to the man's ident.i.ty? Herbert's expression suggested he found the subject an unsavory one to bring up over dinner. He chewed his meat slowly before answering: he had learned that the corpse was that of a man who had recently arrived from Barbados.

"How do you know?" asked Joshua with interest. He had yet to comply with Sabine's request and question Granger; perhaps Herbert would save him the trouble.

"There were two letters in his pocket. Granger found them and pa.s.sed them to me. One mentioned the fact of his recent arrival from Bridgetown."

Joshua recalled the letters he had seen Herbert read in the drawing room. "Did the letters not reveal more? His name perhaps? Have you reached any conclusion about how the unfortunate fellow died?"

Herbert laughed and scratched his wig. He seemed far less interested in the incident than Joshua, and almost embarra.s.sed to be talking about it. He didn't recall the man's name, "though I suppose it must have been written on the doc.u.ments, which I have put somewhere or other. As to the cause of death-choking, I presume. The reason for his coming to Astley remains a mystery. None of the gardeners or servants appear to know anything about him."

"If he came from Barbados, perhaps he was an acquaintance of Mrs. Mercier's," Joshua suggested.

"I fancy not, for she would have mentioned as much when she found him. You heard her as well as I declare she didn't know him." Herbert's tone had sharpened. He wanted the subject dropped, but Joshua was afire with interest.

"Then perhaps word of Mrs. Mercier's project circulated the island of Barbados, and hearing of Astley's pinery, he came in search of employ," Joshua said, quietly. He added, "What do the physician and justice make of the death?"

"Physician?" said Herbert. "Justice? The fellow's dead. No one can help him now. I have given orders to have him interred as swiftly as possible. Furthermore, Pope, I can't see the purpose in picking over the matter at dinner. It's damaging to my appet.i.te." He took a forkful of boiled fowl and examined it closely before putting it in his mouth.

"Forgive me, sir," said Joshua. "I didn't mean to give offence." But after a short pause, while Herbert was busy ordering the manservant to bring more wine, he turned to Francis and Caroline. "What d'you think on it? D'you recall seeing the fellow at all?"

To judge from the blankness of Caroline's expression, she was not in the least interested in the mysterious death. Francis blinked rapidly several times and scratched an earlobe, yet he too affected ignorance. He had neither seen nor spoken to the dead man, he declared.

Herbert was by now showing signs of disquiet. His children's glumness, his own efforts to coax them out of it, coupled with Joshua's stubbornness in the matter of the corpse, had ripened his face from its usual placid rosiness to a less comfortable shade of plum. His chair creaked as he rocked back and forth and racked his brains for some more suitable subject to divert them. He ate his food halfheartedly, pus.h.i.+ng a wedge of liver pudding round his plate with scarcely a taste.

As a last, desperate resort, Herbert turned to a topic that any normal young person would have found impossible to resist. There was to be a ball held at Astley, within a fortnight, on the sixth of June. The entertainment had been arranged in order that the local gentry might make the acquaintance of Sabine, the future mistress of Astley, and her daughter, Violet. One hundred guests were expected to attend.

Discussion of this forthcoming event did not, however, succeed in its aim. Francis and Caroline remained unwavering in their incivility. They volunteered nothing, responding to questions only with a mumbled "Yes" or "No," or "Fancy that," or "Whatever you choose, Father."

Joshua found it remarkable that not once in all this did Herbert resort to anger. On the contrary, he looked curiously sad, like a chastened schoolboy who knows he has committed some misdemeanor that he cannot redress. He made no attempt to remonstrate with either of his children. It was as if he knew the reason, comprehended there was nothing to be done to alter it, and believed himself to be in some way culpable.

"Will Lizzie Manning attend the ball with her brother, or will her father chaperone her?" asked Herbert patiently of his stony-faced son.

"I do not recall Lizzie's arrangements, Father."

"Is her brother returned from overseas?" persisted Herbert.

"As far as I know he remains in Florence."

"Well, then, if he remains in Italy, he cannot very well escort Lizzie, can he?"

"As you say, Father."

"Perhaps, in that case, you might ask Lizzie if she wishes to stay here for the night?"

"Will Sabine permit it?"

As if he had been struck in the belly, Herbert flinched. "What possible objection could Sabine have to Lizzie staying here?"

"I merely thought that, as mistress of the house, she should be consulted."

"Am I not master here?" replied his father.

Francis shrugged his shoulders and pushed a spoonful of jelly into his mouth.

Herbert forced a smile and in desperation turned to his daughter. "Have you settled upon your costume for the ball, Caroline?"

She shook her head. "No, Father, I have not."

"Then is it not time you did so? The entertainment is only a fortnight away, dear girl. Do you not wish to look your best for it?"

"I have not given the matter much thought."

Costume was a source of endless concern to Joshua Pope. "What color will you choose for your gown, Miss Bentnick?" he enquired with genuine interest. He pictured her in a dark jewel hue-deep red or blue, or green perhaps-that would bring out the warmth of her complexion and the richness of her eyes.

She flushed at his intrusion, but ignored him, declaring only, "Indeed, I misled you, Father. The reason I have not ordered a gown is that I thought I might wear one of my mother's. The crimson brocade that she wore on the last occasion we dined together, before you took her to Barbados and her death, becomes me particularly well, I think. And perhaps it will serve as a reminder to us all, while we celebrate your new union, that she is scarcely cold in her grave."

A hush fell over the room. Herbert's eyes glistened. The muscles in his jaw contracted and twitched, but he didn't appear surprised in the least. It was as if he had known all along what was coming and now wrestled with a response.

"Caroline! Dearest child! I beg you, restrain yourself. Surely you do not blame me for your dear mother's death?" he managed to say at length. "She accompanied me to Barbados at her own request. I loved her as much as you did, and I mourn her as much as you do now. Her death from fever was a tragedy, but we cannot rewrite history any more than we may see into the future."

Caroline's fine cold eyes were now lit up with pa.s.sion. "For someone who loved and mourns her so sincerely, it did not take you long to replace her!"

Herbert quivered with helpless emotion. His face gleamed with sweat, and the edge of his wig grew damp. His fingers played with his cutlery, as if he knew he had to say something to his daughter's challenge, but that whatever he said would make matters worse.

"It was fate that brought Sabine and me together. She was kindness itself to your mother when she grew ill. Is it any wonder that afterward I visited her, warmed to her, and found her sympathetic?"

Caroline scowled. "How good of dear Sabine to be so solicitous to my poor sick mother, as she schemed all the while to steal her husband away from her!" she shouted. "Why, she is so clever it wouldn't surprise me to learn she'd poisoned my poor mother!" With this, she threw down her napkin in a ferment of fury, whipped up her skirts, and rushed from the room. Herbert was left gaping and speechless.

Joshua glanced up and caught Francis's eye. The earlier cool hostility had disappeared and the expression on Francis's face was now one of unmistakable sadness. A similar emotion was etched upon Herbert's face. The scene brought a sense of profound melancholy upon Joshua Pope. He had hoped that coming to Astley would rid him of his sense of gloomy, lonely despair. In Herbert's betrothal to Sabine he had seen hope, light, the belief that his own sad plight might also one day be similarly happily resolved. But despite his longing to escape it, the cloud of despondency he had intended to leave in London had followed him to Astley.

Chapter Seven.

AFTER Caroline Bentnick's outburst, dinner concluded swiftly and in awkward silence. Anxious for some respite from the taint of malevolence and wrath, Joshua decided to take advantage of the dwindling suns.h.i.+ne and spend an hour or two outdoors. Dinner had intrigued him more than a little, but it had also been profoundly fatiguing. Before Rachel died, Joshua had always been of sociable disposition. On occasion, after a bottle or two of claret, he might have appeared rather too full of bonhomie. Furthermore, Joshua's marriage, though brief, had been a contented one. Now, confronted by such an excess of discord, he felt unsettled and unsteady and ill equipped to cope. He felt a twinge in his temple and a slight rise in his pulse. Immediately he began to fret a headache might be poised to smite him. He would make some sketches first and then seek out the gardener as Mrs. Mercier had asked. After donning a broad-brimmed velvet hat garnished with an extravagant plume and a woollen frock coat lined in purple silk-fine dress sometimes helped lift his spirits-Joshua took up his sketchbook, placed a box of watercolors under his arm, and went out in search of a view and tranquillity.

Joshua patrolled the walled garden at Astley in search of a suitable position, somewhere that would afford the requisite view and a sanctuary from the breeze and human distraction. At length he came upon a row of sunken terraces filled with formal parterres; each resembled a small verdant room, with its own arched entrance, clipped privet walls, and stone furnis.h.i.+ngs. In the second terrace, a sundial supported on the back of a plump cupid was set amid urns of crimson auriculas and sh.e.l.l-colored pinks. The beds were filled with tangled roses and campanulas in hues of crimson and deep blue. The place would suit his purpose very well. Settling himself on a stone bench, beneath a pergola draped in purple clematis, he took out his charcoal and began to draw.

Some minutes later, he heard the crunch of footsteps on the gravel path behind the hedge. Joshua wondered whether he should call out and make himself known. Before he could decide, a second set of steps approached and a conversation began.

Joshua's heart plummeted. The voices were those of Francis and Caroline Bentnick. He sat there, taut and silent, sketching quietly as he waited for them to pa.s.s by. Then it dawned upon him that the brother and sister had arranged this meeting. Caroline had come to this spot expressly in order to converse with her brother un.o.bserved. Joshua remembered Francis's agitation at the mention of the dead man and Caroline's animosity toward Sabine, and curiosity-that brief niggling itch he had felt earlier-became a burning rash.

"That was a creditable display you provided," said Francis to his sister.

"I could not help myself. How can our father believe we could be as callous as he? Does he expect us to forget our mother and take Sabine to our hearts at the drop of a hat?"

"His gullibility is quite beyond me," agreed her brother. "We will do him a great service if we persuade him to view her more critically, or more prudently at least."

"How to achieve it, though, when he is so much in her thrall?"

From his listening post behind the hedge, Joshua could hear that Francis and Caroline had abandoned their earlier dismal tones. Their voices were tinged with bitterness and unmistakable fervor.

"Perhaps we have the means already," continued Francis. "The corpse that Sabine found in the pinery: it was no coincidence. The man was acquainted with the Merciers."

"How do you know? Did you see him? Did you speak to him?"

"I believe I did. When I was walking with Violet, we met a man recently arrived from Barbados."

There was a sharp intake of breath. Caroline's voice rose an octave. "You went walking with Violet Mercier! I might ask you what do you think you were about? What sort of conversation did you have? Did you discuss the benefits of satin over silk as an underskirt, or whether the latest musical entertainment at Ranelagh is as ravis.h.i.+ng as at Vauxhall?"

"You are very cynical. Violet's outward attractions don't make her a fool. I'm not convinced she's any happier with her mother's betrothal than we are. There's more to her than we know. But to return to the dead man. The conversation I refer to was not between Violet and myself but between Violet and him. What I meant was that I was present when she spoke to him. And the exchange was most intriguing."

"Violet smiled prettily at you and now she has you snared. Is that what you mean? Then you are no better than our father," said Caroline, still distracted at the news of her brother's promenade.

"Caroline, for pity's sake, listen to what I say. What happened was this. I had just returned from a ride when Violet approached me and insisted that I accompany her on a turn about the gardens. I tried to excuse myself, but she wouldn't give way. I fancy she has grown quite fond of me."

"As you seem to be of her."

"You know my agreement with Lizzie. We hope to marry."

"Indeed? I thought perhaps you had cooled since the alteration in her circ.u.mstances."

"Her fortune or lack of it makes no difference. Besides, it was no fault of hers."

"And does Violet know of your situation?"

"I believe she does, though I hazard it doesn't please her."

There was a lengthy, uncomfortable silence, during which Joshua, perched behind the hedge, imagined the two glowering at each other. Goose pimples of antic.i.p.ation rose on his arms and he scarcely dared breathe.

"At any rate, as I said, Violet insisted I go with her. Short of downright rudeness, she left me no choice but to comply. I consented to a short stroll, thinking I would make some excuse to escape as soon as the opportunity arose. We set off toward the pinery, and almost at once came upon a strange young fellow walking in the garden. He was personable, dressed fairly well-certainly not as a laborer. Violet seemed surprised to see him. She stopped and asked what he was doing. She didn't introduce me, but I had the strong impression she knew him. I thought he seemed shocked at my presence, yet not at all displeased to see her. He replied that he had recently arrived from the Indies and had come here seeking employment."

"And how did Violet respond?"

"She said that she could be of no a.s.sistance, that this was a private garden and he should leave at once."

"Did she ask anything else?"

"Nothing. The conversation was very brief and, I would say, moreover, very stilted."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that as soon as she saw this stranger, I felt that she was eager to be rid of me. I had the feeling that what was said was for my benefit, a sham. She wanted to say more, but would not do so in my presence. She ushered me back to the house as speedily as she was able, saying she had grown tired. Once indoors, I asked how she knew the fellow and what his name was, but she was reluctant to disclose anything at all. She said she wanted to lie down, but I suspect she intended to go back to the garden and find him, for she kept peering out the window, as if to catch a glimpse of him."

"She must have given some further word of explanation?"

"Only that she had thought when she saw him first he was a servant of her mother's, but that she was mistaken."