Coming up to the house, Marc suddenly said, “Who is Mad Annie?”
Hatch snorted. “You really don’t want to know that long, sad story.” He placed a fatherly hand on Marc’s shoulder and said with mock solemnity, “I’ll give you the gory details in the morning.”
Marc lay awake for a long while that night, mulling over what had been said or not said. What was really keeping him from sleep was the dread of interrogating Beth Smallman about two men whom she loved and who had been taken from her in the most horrific manner imaginable. At the same time, he was not prepared to discount any suspect, even an attractive and vulnerable one, in advance of the facts. But he was happy that the four gentlemen with whom he had just spent a most pleasant evening had themselves been together during the critical hours of New Year’s Eve. He was just about to drift off upon this comforting thought when he heard a door open and a familiar footstep in the hall outside his room.
He waited several seconds before easing himself out of bed, slipping the door ajar, and peering down the dark hallway. This time he caught a glimpse of white nightdress and a fleeting image of the female form undulating within it before the door to the back section of the house shut it out of sight. Then came the same giggle he had heard the previous night, the only difference being that the figure he’d just seen animating the nightdress was a head taller and a good deal more Junoesque than Mary Huggan’s. It was undoubtedly the handsome Miss Hatch.
SIX
Well, lad, what did you learn of value last night?” Hatch said to Marc, stabbing a sausage.
The question startled Marc, not because it was impertinent or sudden but because he had been absorbed in close observation of Thomas Goodall and his mistress, Winnifred Hatch. That they were lovers, and by all the evidence frequently and consensually so, could not have been inferred from the cool and formal intercourse between them over the Thursday morning breakfast table. Winnifred moved briskly about, neither smiling nor unsmiling, until the three men had been served, then sat down next to Marc across from her father and began her own meal. Mary Huggan soon joined her, and the two women exchanged pleasantries. Goodall, as was his custom, kept his eyes locked on his food, which he consumed rapidly but mechanically, as if eating were a duty. Like the miller’s, his hands were large, roughened by cold and searing sun, and shaped to the plough and axe-handle.
Was it possible that the proud Miss Hatch was ashamed to admit her attachment to such a plain and taciturn man? Or had it more to do with a sense of obligation to her father? Marc had begun to realize that he had much to learn about the ways of these country folk, and that such knowledge might be necessary to unravelling the mystery of Joshua Smallman’s death.
“Did we give you anything useful?” Hatch asked again, and he nodded towards the two women as if to say, “Keep it general.”
“Yes,” Marc managed to say. “Yes, you did. You gave me something definite to ask the gentlemen whose farms I plan to visit today.”
“That’s good, then.” Hatch reached across the table and, with Mary Huggan’s consent, tipped her uneaten egg and sausage onto his own plate.
“Thank you, Mary,” Hatch said, and the girl blushed to the roots of her pale hair. Winnifred gave her a sharp look, and she blushed anew.
“We’ll have to get that blush of yours repaired one of these days,” Hatch said impishly.
“Leave the lass alone,” Winnifred said, and before her father could recover from the rebuke, she turned to Marc and said, “You’re likely to find most of the surplus grain among the farms on the Pringle Sideroad north of the second concession.”
Marc suddenly found her face, with its strong bones and dark, perceptive eyes, no more than a foot from his own, and he could hear the whisper of her breathing beneath the taut bib of her apron. Across the table, Thomas uttered a satisfying belch and pushed his chair back.
“Oh, why is that?” Marc said.
“They’re good Tories, of course,” Winnifred said, and Hatch let out an approving chuckle. “The Reformers on the Farley Sideroad,” she continued, “are too busy organizing petitions to get a decent crop in, or keep it from the thistles when they do.”
“Winnifred keeps all the accounts here,” Hatch beamed. “She knows the worth of every farmer in the district to the nearest shilling.”
“Don’t exaggerate,” Winnifred said, nudging Mary Huggan, who jumped up gratefully and began clearing away some of the plates. Goodall had already stumped out to his chores, unremarked by anyone.
“I’ll take your advice to heart,” Marc said gallantly.
“It would be more useful in the head, I believe.”
Mary knocked over a cup; Hatch reached out, caught it, and handed it back to the girl.
“Go put some more water on,” Winnifred said firmly to Mary. “I’ll finish up here.” She rose and began stacking the dishes. There wasn’t an ounce of self-consciousness anywhere in her body. “I wish you good hunting, Ensign Edwards,” she said with cool solicitude as she went back into the kitchen.
“Don’t mind her none,” Hatch said. “She’s a bit set in her ways.”
And her straightforward, no-nonsense ways were certainly not those of the young ladies Marc had encountered at the mess parties and the soirees of Government House, ladies whose “aristocratic” breeding and overwrought manners seemed barely able to tolerate the indignities of mud-rutted streets, slatternly servants, uppity tradesmen, and stiff-fingered seamstresses.
“She’s quick with figures, mind-like her mother,” Hatch was happy to add. “And a handsome lass, eh?”
Summoning his own good manners, Marc said, “Most men would describe her so.”
Marc was looking forward to the challenge of eliciting essential and perhaps incriminating information from Israel Wicks, Azel Stebbins, and Orville Hislop-the trio of suspected extremists passed on to him by Sir John. But he was not anticipating with any pleasure the imminent interview with Beth Smallman. The death of a loved one-especially a parent-was devastating. And while he himself had been a mere five years old when both his parents had died of cholera, he could still recall the numbing sense of loss, the abrupt rupturing of the world he had believed permanent and incorruptible, and the long, bewildering absence that followed and would not be filled. More immediate perhaps was the love he felt for “Uncle” Jabez, who had adopted him and raised him up in ways that would have been inconceivable had his parents survived. Beth Smallman had seen her husband hang himself out of some deep despair, the roots of which Marc knew he must probe, and barely a twelvemonth later she had suffered the unexplained death of a father-in-law she had come to revere as much or more than she had her husband. How and why that affection had grown, and its consequences, were facts he had to learn, if his investigation was to be rigorous and objective.
Taking a deep breath, Marc turned onto the Smallman property.
“You again, is it?”
“My visiting your mistress is no concern of yours,” Marc said when he had recovered from the shock of Elijah’s sudden materialization-this time from behind the manure pile in the stable yard. He realized immediately the ineptness of such a reprimand here in the bush, but not before Elijah had guffawed with his own brand of upstart contempt.
“The missus and me’ll decide what concerns us,” Elijah said. “We ain’t impressed by no fancy uniform.”
Marc ignored the remark and switched tactics. “When did you leave your cabin and walk up to Philander Child’s place on the day your master died?” he demanded in his best drill-sergeant’s voice.
Elijah’s eyes narrowed, and his ungloved fingers squeezed more tightly around the handle of his pitchfork. “And who wants to know?”