family or friends.’
‘And lose the children? Children are a father’s property, remember. If she walks out of here, she’ll never see them again. So what choice has she got?’
‘Can’t anybody do anything? What about the son? He seems fond of his mother.’
Betty gave me a look. I had the impression that what had happened downstairs had made a bond between her and me.
‘Mr Stephen’s part of the trouble. If it weren’t for him, she might stand up for herself more than she does.’
‘Why?’
Betty took her time deciding whether to answer, finishing her cup of tea and swirling the dregs round to look at the pattern the tea leaves made.
‘After university, he took up with some bad company and got himself into debt.’
‘Gambling debts?’
‘Mostly. Other things as well. He doesn’t have any money of his own, of course, not a shilling. So …’ She hesitated, looking into her cup. ‘He got put into debtors’ prison.’
She whispered it, her eyes scared. I was perhaps not quite as shocked as she expected me to be. The fact was, some of my father’s friends had been put into debtors’ prison from time to time and seemed to regard it as no worse an inconvenience than an attack of fever or rheumatics.
‘Not even the gentlemen’s part of the prison,’ Betty insisted. ‘In there with the common criminals without even a blanket to cover himself and rats running over him. And Sir Herbert let him stay there for three whole weeks.’
I thought of Stephen’s elegant manners and quizzical eyebrows failing to impress the rats and did feel rather sorry for him.
‘Lady Mandeville was on her knees to Sir Herbert, literally down on her knees, begging him to have her son out,’ Betty said. ‘He could have settled the debts ten times over and hardly missed it, and everybody knew that. But he wouldn’t do it, not until Stephen had learned his lesson, he said. Ever since then, she’s been terrified. That was what started … you know.’
She tipped a hand towards her mouth, as if holding a glass. She might have said more, but Henrietta was crying out and we had to go to her. What with that and James wetting his bed, we had a hard night with them, and it was past one in the morning before they were all three sleeping. Betty said she’d listen out for them, so I could go upstairs.
I didn’t sleep because I was too scared about the journey I must make in the morning. At first light, before even the earliest maid could have begun her cleaning duties, I crept down the back stairs to the drawing room and retrieved from the fireplace the crumpled letter that Sir Herbert had flung there. It was the kind of thing that spies did, after all. I took it back to my room to read. It had the address of a gentleman’s club at the top and was in small, cramped writing.
Dear Mandeville,
Yours of the 23rd ult. has only just come to my hand. I am writing in haste to urge you to desist from this most dangerous folly. You are aware of the extent to which I share all the concerns of yourself and others about the deplorable weakness of the present administration and the threat to our dignity, profits and rights of property which must inevitably result if they continue cravenly to appease the masses. But there are remedies which are more perilous than the disease and, if I understand your hints aright (which I am very much afraid I do, greatly though I should wish otherwise), your proposed cure is one such.
If in the past my too-great warmth on such subjects has led you to the erroneous conclusion that I might in any way support what you propose, I can only apologise for unwittingly misleading you. Bluntly, I want no part in this. If indeed a wrong was done, then it was done twenty years ago. To attempt to right it in these changed times would be no service to our country or to him you wish to serve. Let him not cross the Channel. If a pension must be discussed, then – provided that stretch of water remains for ever between him and England – I might be prepared to say a word in certain ears. Otherwise I must ask you not to correspond with me on the subject again.
Believe me, your most alarmed well-wisher,
Tobias
I added a postscript to the note I’d written to Blackstone and sealed up the letter along with it. Then I put the note and Celia’s letter into my reticule and went stocking-footed down the back stairs so as not to wake the maids.
Even so early in the morning it was unthinkable to walk down the main drive, with all those windows watching me. The back road was reassuring by comparison. After passing a big, lightning-scarred tree it dipped between high banks crowded with cow parsley, wild geraniums and red campion, the air so sweet after a long time inside that it began to raise my spirits.
Once clear of being seen from the house, my mind was free to think about other things, like the letter I’d taken from the fireplace. Let him not cross the Channel. The man who had written that was scared, and the reason for his fear – as the reason surely for my father’s death – came from France. So did the unknown, unfortunate woman that the fat man was hunting. And yet my last letter from my father, hinting at a secret, had not mentioned danger, rather the reverse: … one most capital story which I promise will set you roaring with laughter and even perhaps a little indignation … Blackstone could probably make sense of it all, but he wouldn’t tell me. Well, I was being his good spy. After only a few days under the Mandeville roof, I was bringing him a fat packet of news.
The banks on either side flattened out and the back road joined the main road that I’d travelled on from Windsor. Half a mile in that direction were the great gates of Mandeville Hall. They were closed, but a trail of smoke rose from the chimney of the gate lodge into the blue sky. I turned in the opposite direction, making for what I hoped was the heath. For half a mile or so I had the road to myself, then four figures appeared, coming towards me. I fought against the impulse to jump into a ditch and went on walking. They were three haymakers, walking with their scythes over their shoulders, and a boy scuffling his boots in the dust behind them, trailing their long shadows as the sun came up. They nodded to me and the boy gave me a sideways look. If I’d had more confidence I might even have asked them the way, because I wasn’t sure I was on the right track for the livery stables.
After a while a lane went off to the right, deeply marked with hoofprints, and a signboard with a horseshoe pointed to the stables. The heath opened out, with skylarks singing overhead and from far away a vibration of drumming hooves that seemed to come up through my bootsoles and straight into my heart. I envied what must surely be the uncomplicated happiness of the people riding those horses. Then the line of them came into view, pulling up from a gallop to a canter. I stood back from the path. They came towards me, but the lads riding them didn’t give me a glance. They had their hands full, bringing the excited horses back to a walk before they came to the harder ground of the path. The air was full of the smell of horse sweat and leather. There were five horses, three of them bunched together, then a calmer, cobby type with a big man aboard. Then a gap and a bright bay mare a little smaller and more finely made than the others. The lad riding her was having trouble slowing her to a walk, but that was because he was so heavy-handed. He’d pulled the reins in tight and was trying to hold her by sheer force so that she was dancing on the spot, fighting the bit. His face was white and terrified. He looked no more than twelve or so and I
