“Have you heard, Julia, that James Lindsay is coming with his mother to visit us tomorrow morning? I am sure that your mama would approve of your meeting a baronet again!”
Julia gave her aunt what she intended to be a withering stare.
Mr. Hatton was not deceived by Aunt Lucy’s remark, or by Julia’s reaction. “Mrs. Harrison, I have had sufficient acquaintance with you to know that you intend Miss Maitland to bridle at that!”
Aunt Lucy smiled and then excused herself to take a short rest.
“As long as neither of you is serious,” said Julia after her aunt had left the room. “Although he is quite the most pleasant baronet that I have met so far, in my limited acquaintance, I do not find myself with a personal partiality for your friend Sir James.”
This idea did not seem to have occurred to Mr. Hatton, and he looked rather taken aback until he caught her expression and realised that she was joking with him in her turn.
“He does seem to me a very agreeable man, and I’m sure that my aunt would approve, but I suspect that he may not like my sometimes rather practical turn of mind.”
“You judge him too severely, Miss Maitland. James does not have a narrow view of new farming practices, such as those used at Holkham Hall.”
“How long has he been in charge of the family estate?”
“For about five years. He really had no choice, following the early death of his father, as he is the only son. I daresay that Lady Lindsay, who is a very competent person, could have kept the estate going for a while if James had decided to become an officer in Wellington’s army. He used to talk of that when we were at school.”
“So he might have chosen to serve with you in Spain?”
“Yes, that is true. He did discuss the possibility with me after his father’s death but, bearing in mind the circumstances, he did not feel that he could lay that burden on his mother.”
“What were those circumstances, Mr. Hatton?”
“His father volunteered to serve in Portugal when Wellington was short of experienced officers at the very beginning of the Peninsular Campaign. Sadly, Gervase Lindsay was killed by a sniper soon after he reached the conflict. He was only forty-five years old; James was away at school with me at the time. His two sisters, Anna and Helena, are younger, and he has no brothers. So James inherited the baronetcy, the house, and the land with it. With the help of a good steward and the farm manager, Lady Lindsay kept the estate going until he had enough experience to take charge.”
War, thought Julia, exacts a heavy price wherever you look. How many families now had lost fathers, brothers, and sons, or seen them injured, all in the cause of the conflict against Napoléon?
Lady Lindsay arrived promptly at the manor house on the following morning with her son and was introduced to Aunt Lucy, with whom she soon began an animated conversation in the salon. Mr. Hatton invited Julia and Sir James to join him in the library, where they could have some private conversation.
“Miss Maitland, please sit down,” said Mr. Hatton. Julia did as she was bid, then he continued. “Well, James, what have you been able to discover for me?”
“First, that my cousin Patrick has been in Bridport visiting his half brother, Frank, at least twice in the past month. On one of those occasions, he was accompanied by a friend from London, but I could not find out who he was. Second, that Frank Jepson has recently moved house again. It seems that he fell afoul of Isaac Gulliver by trespassing on his territory near Burton Bradstock. However, Jepson has since bought a sizeable property on the west side of Bridport, so he is obviously not short of money.”
“Mr. Hatton, may I say something?”
He turned and looked at Julia with surprise, but it was Sir James who replied, “Of course, Miss Maitland, what is it?”
“Mrs. Harrison’s personal maid, Martha Fisher, comes from near Bath. On the journey down here, she told us that her brother, Jem, had given up mining coal there in Radstock, and had travelled some months ago with other men to work in well-paid jobs near the coast.”
Mr. Hatton was suddenly alert. “Jem, did you say?”
“Yes. You may remember that we heard that name mentioned when we were—we were walking in the wood.” Julia turned her face away, knowing that she was blushing.
“Why is that important?” asked Sir James.
“A young man of that name, said to be a farmhand, was brought into Mrs. Jones’s kitchen here at Morancourt the other day, having hurt his leg. By chance, I came across Mrs. Harrison’s maid; she was very upset. Martha told me that it was her brother Jem Fisher, who had been working as a coal miner near Bath until recently.”
“A miner should get much better pay than a farmhand, so why would he want to change jobs?”
“Martha told me that her brother had never worked as a farmhand, as far as she was aware.”
“I wonder?” said Mr. Hatton. “Do you know where he is living now?”
“No, but Mrs. Jones said that her husband had brought him in to have the wound dressed. And she said that most of the farmhands lived in the village or in estate cottages.”
“Something odd, Kit?” said Sir James. “Or just a coincidence, perhaps?”
“Let me think about it, and I will speak to Mr. Whitaker, for he will know the names of all the men that I employ on the estate. Miss Maitland, please do not do anything concerning this unless I say so. Frank Jepson has come to the attention of the authorities several times in the past, I understand, and I have been told that he has been known to use a weapon when crossed.” He looked for confirmation at Sir James, who nodded in agreement.
Julia suddenly remembered what the mysterious man on Eggardon Hill had said, and felt sick.
“Come now, Miss Maitland, let us rejoin your aunt. I am sure that my mother would like to speak with you before we leave,” and Sir James led the way back to the salon.
That afternoon, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky, and Mr. Hatton suggested that Julia should find her walking boots and a dark-coloured jacket, to walk with him past the Whitakers’ farmhouse on the well-worn track that they had seen towards the sea. It took them about thirty minutes to reach the place where Mr. Hatton had paused the curricle previously.
“Now, Miss Maitland, shall we do a little exploring together? We will try to avoid the ditches this time! And we had better be circumspect about speaking too loudly.”
Mr. Hatton led the way along the narrow path down towards the little valley, and round the slope of the ground until they could see the seashore some distance ahead of them. There were low cliffs on each side of the coast guarding what seemed to be a small bay. On the left of the track, the route they were following led to a gate in a low stone wall that encircled a group of stone barns with old thatched roofs.
“Do you think . . . ?” said Julia.
He anticipated her question. “Not being used for farming, I believe, as the worn track is too narrow for carts. Let us get a little closer, but remember to listen as we walk.”
Nothing was heard, however, as they reached the barns and went through the gate to peer through a crack in one of the shuttered openings. Beyond, in the gloom, they could just make out stacked piles of small barrels and metal boxes on one side, and on the other some bales of fabric resting on a low table.
“We’ve seen enough,” said Mr. Hatton. “I’ll wager that those are all contraband goods, brought direct from the shore and made ready for moving on further inland when they can. Come back with me now, Miss Maitland, before anyone sees us here.”
“Could we not go down to look at the coast before we return?”
He hesitated, then pointed to their right, where there was a band of trees beside the track. “Very well, but we will walk that way, not on the path, so that we are less visible.”