Page 16 of All of Us Murderers

Nine

It began raining properly after that. Zeb found a suitable small table in an empty bedroom and lugged it to his own room, intending to work there rather than encounter any more relatives.

As it turned out, he was too frustrated and unsettled to get anything done, and felt uncomfortably conscious of the small room, the enclosing walls.

Rain lashed the glass, the daylight dwindled, and as the shadows closed in around him, he was very aware of how far he was from human company.

It was hard to remember that, in the circumstances, this was a good thing.

And then he heard footsteps again.

These ones were lighter than before, brisker. Zeb almost ran to the door, yanked it open, and jumped out of his skin to find himself face-to-face with a maid. They both shrieked.

“Sorry!” Zeb yelped. “I’m dreadfully sorry. Did I startle you? Of course I did; I scared myself half to death. I do beg your pardon. Sorry. Do come in.” He stepped back, gesturing her in, and received a look of startling hostility.

That seemed unwarranted. He’d seen her around the house and noted her tense, unfriendly manner, which seemed common to all Wynn’s staff.

In her case, it might be linked to the fact that she was a very handsome woman but had her hair pulled back in an unflattering manner and wore a loose, shapeless dress.

Zeb wondered whose attention she was trying to avoid—

And that would be the problem.

“Er,” he said. “If you have duties in here, I can leave. I wouldn’t want to be in your way. Give me a moment—”

“I just came to collect your shoes for drying, Mr. Zebedee.”

“Oh! Oh, marvellous, thank you very much. I’m sorry to give you the trouble. Let me get them.”

“I’ll fetch them, sir,” she said, her tone sufficing for the missing ‘you idiot’.

Zeb retreated to the window to be well out of her way, shuddering at the cold it failed to keep out, and gazed at the dark rather than impose further on her notice. Perhaps everyone else in the house hated him, but at least he could avoid upsetting the staff.

He went down to dinner in a mood of unpleasant anticipation.

Drinks in the drawing room were negotiated without disaster thanks to Colonel Dash, who held forth at great length on the weather, with particular reference to the likelihood of a Dartmoor mist, then moved seamlessly into British foreign policy while everyone else nodded along.

Hawley seemed less poised than usual and was unexpectedly silent; Zeb wondered if he had been drinking. Elise and Bram looked rather smug.

It started to go wrong as they ate yet another bowl of soup. This time it was parsnip.

“Are you feeling better, Hawley?” Elise asked brightly.

“I have not been unwell.”

“Really? I understood you had an unfortunate episode. It isn’t the first time, is it? Perhaps your constitution is strained. Your way of life does start to take a toll.”

Hawley swung round rather than replying. “So, Jessamine. I have scarcely seen you today. I understand you were closeted with Elise this afternoon.”

Jessamine dimpled. “Elise allowed me to try on some of her dresses, and arranged my hair.” She did look different, Zeb belatedly noticed, with dangling ringlets. It made her look older, her neck longer. It suited her rather better than the more schoolgirlish styles.

“Really,” Hawley said. “You certainly look very sophisticated and very beautiful. I myself think—but I must not be ungracious.”

“No, do say,” Jessamine said naively. “I wondered if it quite suited me, though it is wonderful. I look so grown-up. I tried a little lip-stain—”

Wynn made a noise. Jessamine said quickly, “Only to try! I wiped it off at once.”

“I think all a young woman needs is the bloom of youth,” Hawley said.

“There is nothing so fresh, so perfect. Of course it doesn’t last, and then the tricks come out in an effort to recapture the freshness that has passed.

But it is, to me, a shame to see such falsities used on simplicity and innocence. ”

Elise’s nostrils flared. “Really, Hawley? A hairstyle affects her innocence? How remarkably puritanical, from you.”

“I don’t think a hairstyle will affect her innocence. Corrupt company might do that.”

“Yes,” Elise said. “It would certainly be for the best if she avoids degenerate men.”

“I would fear women more,” Hawley retorted.

“A man may have a past, but he can and will cast that behind him in favour of a new and better future. A woman’s past is her present and her future too.

And women are so very unkind to girls with youth and freshness they have themselves lost. Women Beware Women, isn’t that the play?

A virgin despoiled by her manipulative aunt? ”

“Are you going to let him speak like this, Bram?” Elise demanded furiously. “Wynn? Is there not a gentleman at this table?”

Hawley smirked. “One might also question the number of ladies.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Zeb said. “Stop it.”

Hawley’s eyes narrowed. “If I were you, I’d think before you speak.”

Zeb truly loathed him in that moment. “All I want is to eat dinner in peace for once. Can we not do that?”

“I will not be silenced,” Hawley said. “I think, since you force the issue, that Jessamine should not be expected to mix with a notorious woman at all, still less permitted to stay with one in London. I don’t care to think what corruption she might be exposed to.”

There was a moment of loud-voiced chaos. Elise and Bram demanded how Hawley dare. Hawley sneered. Dash made moustachioed noises of extreme disapproval. Jessamine looked between them, bewildered and distressed.

Zeb considered crawling under the table. “Stop it,” he tried. “Stop!”

Nobody listened. The angry voices rose and clashed until the door creaked open, and the footman slouched in.

That, at least, shut everyone up. They sat in fraught, icy silence as the soup was cleared away and the main course brought in. It was beef stew, served with potatoes overboiled to obvious dryness. The cook was not helping matters.

The family waited in mutually bristling silence until the food was served and more wine poured. The footman maundered out, taking his time. Several people inhaled at once as the door shut, and Wynn said, “Wait.”

He spoke with unusual sharpness. That might have got him listened to, or it might just have been the fact that he was the one with the money.

“That conversation was—I would normally say unedifying. In fact, it was most edifying. I had hoped for more from this gathering, this family.”

Zeb couldn’t imagine why. Wynn looked around them, face severe.

“It seems I must make myself clear. Jessamine, you will not be accompanying Mrs. Wyckham to London, or anywhere. I do not find her a fit companion for you. Moreover, Bram, I regret to say that I will not be allowing Lackaday House to pass into your hands under any circumstances, at least in the current state of affairs. I would prefer to be sure the next inheritor will be a Wyckham, and your marriage does not give me faith in that.”

Elise’s head jerked back as if she’d been struck. “How dare you?”

“It was not my observation. Zebedee made an excellent point to that effect.”

Bram’s jaw dropped. Zeb said, “I did not!”

“There is no need to apologise. You drew my attention to the issue and I am grateful. We will have no Lady Ravendark here, foisting a bastard onto the family.”

Hawley’s mouth curved in a nasty manner. “Well, I must say, Zebby—”

“You must not,” Wynn said coldly. “I have received information on your recent past that has shocked me to the core.” He glanced at Elise as he said that. “You spoke about how a rake might reform: I should like to see evidence of that before I entrust my ward or house to your care.”

“Yes, I have sowed my wild oats,” Hawley said. “I admit it frankly, and I admit too that I regret it. I would have preferred to come to a pure woman with a clean slate of my own. But I hope I may be given a chance to wipe the slate clean, under her influence.”

“You regret your wild oats?” Wynn said.

“I am deeply ashamed,” Hawley said. “I look on my past with revulsion.”

“I am a wild oat that someone sowed,” Jessamine said loudly. “Am I shameful and revolting?”

Hawley’s mouth shut like a rat-trap; Elise’s smile flashed like a razor. “Zebedee,” Wynn said, causing Zeb to jump. “You could put an end to this. You have expressed your scruples, and I respect them, but for Jessamine’s sake, I must ask you to reconsider. You have impressed both of us favourably—”

“I wouldn’t rush into this, Wynn,” Hawley said. “Should he, Zeb? If we’re talking about discreditable habits?”

“What does that mean?”

Zeb glared at Hawley. “I told you, I am not in this competition.”

“It is not a competition, Cousin Zeb.” Tears trembled in Jessamine’s voice. “I am not a prize.”

“Yes, you are,” Zeb said. “You have been made one and you oughtn’t be.

Wynn, you must see that this marriage plan is a terrible idea.

If you care for Jessamine’s well-being, settle a sum on her—give her the lot, even—but let her marry as she pleases.

And I have to say,” he felt obliged to add, “the way you just spoke is not right. Elise is still a guest in your house.”

“Hypocrite,” Elise said with concentrated venom.

“Quite,” Hawley put in. “The Little Lord Fauntleroy posture doesn’t suit you.”

“Shut up,” Zeb told him. “All of you can shut up, actually: I’m fed to the back teeth with the lot of you.

You can go to the devil, Hawley, and take Bram with you.

And Wynn, I will not be proposing to Jessamine because, with the greatest possible respect, I don’t want to marry her, any more than, if she met any other men at all, she would want to marry me.

That’s the end of the matter, and I will take my leave tomorrow. ”

Zeb was quite pleased with that speech, feeling he’d been frank, strong, and honest. He was therefore rather disappointed that the immediate effect of his words was to make Jessamine burst into tears.

“I told you,” she sobbed to Wynn, big brown eyes overflowing. “I told you he does not care for me. Oh, why did you ask?”

She half rose from the table as she spoke. Wynn glared at him, indicating with a hand that he should go to her side. Zeb stayed firmly where he was.

“This is a shocking display,” Dash announced, in tones so strong it got even Jessamine’s tearful attention.

“One man who cannot control his wife, one who does not deserve a wife, and one who, when offered the sweetest young lady as a wife, spurns her like a clod. I had not intended to speak—I am well aware my age is a disadvantage—but I cannot see Jessamine treated in this way. She should have a husband who will worship her as the treasure she is, not consider her a mere inconvenience in his path to a fortune.” He extended his hand.

“Jessamine, if you will let an old soldier express his heart, I would like a private moment’s speech with you. ”

Jessamine looked around wildly. “Yes—no—I don’t know—don’t ask me! Oh, don’t ask me!”

She was off on that, sprinting from the room at her usual breakneck pace.

Dash moved to go after her, but Wynn said, “Wait. No, Dash, old friend, stop. Give her time to reflect. I think all of us need that. You can finish your meals without me; I shall go to my room. Assist me, Grey.” He stood as he spoke.

“So shall I,” Elise said coldly. “Since I find myself insulted by all and sundry, and my husband is incapable of offering me protection. And you are a pair of vipers,” she told Zeb and Hawley. “The girl would be better dead than wed to either of you.”

She got up on that and swept out, past Wynn, who was leaning on Gideon’s arm.

“Well,” Hawley said.

Bram had been staring at his plate. Now he looked up at Zeb with real hatred. “You cur. You backstabbing swine.”

Zeb perhaps should have assured him that he had never intended the construction Wynn had put on a literary allusion. What he said was, “It takes one to know one, you stinking hypocrite.”

Bram pushed back his chair and walked out. Dash said, “I also find the company uncongenial tonight. Wynn, old friend, let me take your other arm.”

They departed, leaving Zeb with Hawley, who took a leisurely mouthful of wine. “Goodness, Zebby, you do have hidden depths. I dare say the Brams deserved that. But you would be ill-advised to try those tactics with me.”

“Oh my God, just tell Wynn,” Zeb said. “Get up, march into his room, give him the big speech that I’m sure you’ve composed in your head, and have done. I don’t care any more.”

He dolloped beef stew on his plate, grabbed it, and joined the exodus, leaving his cousin alone.