Nothing more was said about tea between them. He saw no need to mention Mr Fothergill’s opinion that Rowena’s tea was tainted, or to pass on Rowena’s nasty little message. Georgie was in low spirits already, and he had no wish to add to her troubles.
He felt the need for advice, however, so one evening after dinner, he took a lantern and walked over the bridge and through the woods to his father’s cottage. He found his father making toast for his supper, but he was very happy with a proffered bottle of brandy and the offer of a game of chess.
“Shall we stick to cribbage?” his father said, fetching glasses from a cabinet. “Brandy and chess are not good bedfellows, Ifind — not if I want to win, that is. Besides, you have that look in your eye that tells me you want to talk something over, and that is easier done with cards than chess. Do you want some toast? There is cheese in the pantry, and some potted meat.”
The cards were brought out, but somehow, with the toast and cheese to be eaten and brandy to be drunk, they never did get round to playing. Instead, they sat at the battered old kitchen table sipping their brandy while Jamie told his father all about the tainted tea and the two babies lost on the same day.
“You think the tea caused them both to lose their babies?” his father said. “That would be very tragic, and I am very sorry about Georgie, for I should dearly love to be a grandfather, but there is not much to be done about it. Food does occasionally go off — even tea.”
“I wish I could be sure that that is all it is — a single bad batch.”
“How could it be anything else? Fothergill’s has been supplying Staineybank with tea and many other goods for… well, for as long as I have been here, certainly, and there has never been a single issue with any of their supplies before.”
“But Rowena thinks it is fine — she insists on drinking it,” Jamie said.
“And she is quite well, is she not? And everyone else who drank the tea yesterday is also quite well, is it not so? And Rowena is not with child, so there is no need to worry about her suffering the same fate as Georgie and Sophia Payne. So why is it a problem? She will gradually use the bad batch and in time it will be replaced with a new, untainted batch.”
“But what if it is not merely a taint… a mould or some peculiarity of that particular batch? What if it was deliberately contaminated, with some kind of poison?”
“I would remind you again that no one else was ill, merely two babies lost on the same day, which could be a coincidence.”
Jamie jumped up and paced across the room. “Coincidence! It would be a very striking one, if so. Surely we must consider the possibility that the tea was tampered with? Those caddies, unlocked, mark you, sit in the pantry, where anyone may enter to meddle with them. It would be easy enough to add something to Rowena’s tea, and the box even has her name on it.”
“And who would you accuse of this crime, Jamie? One of the family?”
“Of course not!”
“One of the servants, then?”
Jamie frowned. “The pantry is just off the servants’ hall. Easy enough to slip in and out.”
“I would remind you that all of our servants either grew up on the estate or very nearby, the only exception being Froggett, who came here more than forty years ago from Brinchester. Oh, and Ben Lovell, who has been here… thirty years, I think. Do you accuse them? And I should remind you again that this is the first time there has ever been a problem with the tea.”
“That we know about,” Jamie said darkly.
His father laughed. “Jamie, your ability to follow a lead is invaluable when disentangling the duke’s diaries, but most of real life is not a puzzle to be solved. Let it go, son. Let it go. Was the market busy when you were in Brinchester? I used to enjoy market day when I was younger, but the crowds are too tedious to be borne now.”
That reminded Jamie of the Miss Martins. “Father, did you know that someone in Brinchester is asking about a missing Wyatt — what was his name?”
“Julius,” his father said promptly. “I regret to say that is my fault. In one of my letters to Joe Ingleton, I mentioned that this place was broken into, and the intruder only seemed interested in the Wyatt family tree. Joe has been in touch with the family for help in compiling his chart, so naturally he apprised themof this interesting development, and one of them instantly set out for Brinshire. He called here a few days ago in search of a prodigal son, Julius, who has been missing for some ten years now, on the assumption that he must be the mystery man who was prowling round in the middle of the night. You do not ask what he looks like so I will tell you. He is thirty-two years of age, a man of slightly above average height, seemingly, with brown hair and eyes, and a decided chin.”
“Which probably describes many thousands of men in England,” Jamie said.
“True, but this one is a gentleman, and also an excellent fencer. Does that suggest anyone?”
“Pendleton!”
“That was my thought, too.”
“So you told Wyatt this?”
“No. Jamie, think about it. Suppose Pendleton is indeed this Julius Wyatt that is sought. He ran away to Italy ten years ago and even now masquerades under a false name. There must be a very good reason for that. Labourer’s sons may set out to make their fortune elsewhere, or to escape a violent father, but a gentleman would not leave his family without good reason. Clearly, whether he is Wyatt or some other runaway, he has a compelling need to stay hidden. This man who is seeking him may not be a relation at all, he may be a thief taker of some sort — a Bow Street Runner, perhaps.”
“If Pendleton has committed a high crime, then heshouldbe captured and tried for it and punished, if need be.”
“You might argue that point, and perhaps I do not disagree with you, but I do not want to be the man who unwittingly condemns him to his fate. If I couldknowwhat he is and what, if anything, he has done, then perhaps… but this so-called relative would not say. All he would reveal was that he left home abruptly and the family misses him and would like him to come home.”
“Which sounds innocuous enough,” Jamie said.
