Page 13 of The Incident at Ingleton (Beau Monde Secrets #3)
H ester did not mean to eavesdrop on Mr. Haworth a second time. She no longer had a reason to spy on him. Though she remained deeply curious about the conversation she’d overheard between him and Lady Inglewhite, she no longer believed he was up to anything illegal or immoral. Nor did she fear him dragging Frank into any kind of trouble from which he might need rescuing.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that she didn’t want to believe ill of Mr. Haworth, not after he’d single-handedly rescued her from Neville Butler. Her first impressions of Mr. Haworth might have been as wrong as her first impressions of Mr. Butler. She’d learned that a solicitor could sometimes behave in a more gentlemanly way than a clergyman.
No, she would go farther than that. Walter Haworth was a gentleman, regardless of how he earned his living. Neville Butler clearly was not. Now she wondered how Mr. Butler had fooled people into ordaining him as a clergyman, or how he’d fooled Frank into thinking he would make an acceptable curate. Surely such villainy ought to be detectable? It didn’t seem right that so unprincipled a man could be mistaken for a devout son of the church.
Life, Hester was beginning to realize, was somewhat more complicated than she’d ever been told.
In any case, she’d come down to the parlor intending to look for a book Rose had mislaid. It took forever for her to find it, and when she did, she spied it at the very top of a bookcase. The third volume of Frankenstein leaned against a stack of what looked like bound sermons. It would have been easy to grab the book if she’d been a few inches taller, but as it was, it lay beyond her reach.
A month ago, Hester would have rung for a servant to retrieve the book for her. Back then, it wouldn’t have occurred to her to wonder how a maid shorter than herself could reach the book, or whether it would be necessary to bring a stepstool into the room. She would have simply assumed that it was a servant’s job to figure out how to retrieve the book.
By now, though, she knew that the vicarage servants were too busy with their own work to do things she could just as easily do herself. So, Hester dragged a lightweight armchair over to the bookcase, stood on the chair, and reached for the book. Success!
But in the next moment, her success turned into disaster. She got hold of the book she wanted, yes, but she must have jostled the stack of bound sermons next to it. The sermons toppled over with a spectacular crash, falling right off the bookshelf. To be precise, they fell behind the enormous wing chair in the corner of the room. Once again, they lay beyond her reach.
Hester put the volume of Frankenstein on the nearest tea table so she wouldn’t lose track of it. Then she scrambled behind the wing chair to pick up the sermons, praying that no one walked into the room and caught her behaving with so little dignity.
To her surprise, the fallen books weren’t the only things hiding behind the chair. She also found a round leather ball, a cricket ball, she thought. How on earth had that gotten here? She couldn’t imagine anyone trying to play cricket indoors, especially in a room this small.
Hester was still puzzling over the cricket ball when the door opened and two people walked into the room. She ought to have announced her presence immediately, but she was too embarrassed at the prospect of being caught crouching behind the chair to call attention to herself. She made herself as small as possible and prayed that she wouldn’t be stuck there for long.
“I seem to have disposed of most of the letters I exchanged with Neville when I arranged for him to work here. Probably turned them into spills for lighting candles.” Frank’s voice was immediately recognizable. “There was no reason to keep them. But I think I have a note in his handwriting here. Ah! Yes, I was using it as a bookmark. Will that do?”
“I hope so.” Mr. Haworth sounded doubtful. “It’s a good example of his signature, but the message itself isn’t exceedingly long. I think Mr. Hunt was hoping for a long letter. He particularly wanted something with numerals as well as letters, so he could compare the numbers in Butler’s writing to the numbers in the ledger.”
“I doubt I have anything with numbers,” Frank confessed, “but I’ll keep my eyes open. You say it’s a case of embezzlement?”
“Yes. But we don’t know for certain that Butler’s the guilty party. He’s only one of the suspects! And I must ask you not to repeat any of what I’ve said to you on the subject. Apart from telling Rose, I mean. I don’t suppose you need to keep it a secret from her.”
Frank chuckled softly. “I don’t suppose I can keep a secret from her! Somehow, she can always tell when there’s something I’m trying to conceal. Makes it hard to hide gifts or plan surprises, I can tell you!”
“Now that does not surprise me one bit.” A laugh lurked behind Mr. Haworth’s words. “When we were children, she was always particularly good at finding out people’s secrets. She was especially good at interpreting Ivy’s expressions, too.” He continued talking as the men exited the room, leaving Hester alone to grapple with what she’d just learned.
Goodness. Neville Butler must be even more evil than she’d imagined! He’d made it obvious that he was a man of few principles, but she hadn’t expected him to commit a crime like embezzlement. She rather thought that might be a hanging crime, depending on how much money was stolen. But she couldn’t be certain. It wasn’t as if she’d ever had to memorize the Bloody Code.
Mr. Haworth had said they did not know for certain that Mr. Butler was the embezzler. But Butler’s guilt would certainly fit with everything Hester had learned about him over the last month. He was on the hunt for an heiress or a woman whose family could materially advance his career, and he was willing to behave dishonorably in order to achieve his goal. That suggested that he either wanted or needed money rather badly. She could readily believe he might steal to get it.
And now those investigating the crime needed a piece of his handwriting? Something with numbers on it? The numbers would be the challenge, she suspected. A letter from Mr. Butler might have the date on it, but she had no idea whether that would be adequate.
By now, Rose must wonder what had happened to Hester. She picked up Frankenstein and hurried out to the garden. She found Rose resting in the shade of a beech tree, her feet propped up on a chair.
“Sorry to keep you waiting!” Hester called. “It took me forever to find it.” She made no mention of her accidental eavesdropping.
“I thought maybe you’d absconded with it,” Rose joked, “and intended to read it before I had a chance.”
Hester scrunched up her face. “ Frankenstein isn’t exactly my favorite.” She’d found the first volume so disgusting that she hadn’t bothered to read further. She handed the book over with a feigned shudder.
“Yes, volumes of poetry are more to your taste,” Rose agreed. “We all know that. What’s the name of that poet you like?”
“Maria Grammar.” Hester froze as she remembered something about Grammar’s poetry. When Butler gave her the new book of Grammar’s poems, he’d tucked a note into it, hadn’t he? A note covered with page numbers of his supposed favorite poems. Numbers !
“Is something wrong, Hetty?” Rose peered up at her, squinting her eyes against the sun.
“Nothing’s wrong! I just remembered something I needed to look up. I mean, look for. I mean, I need to go look at something I just remembered.” She clamped her mouth shut in a desperate attempt to end her senseless babbling. “Do you mind if I don’t read out here after all?”
Rose waved her away. “I am perfectly fine out here on my own. Go look for whatever-it-is before you forget it again.”
That seemed like such good advice that Hester practically ran up the stairs to her room. The book of poems sat on a shelf in the corner of the room. She opened it up, praying she hadn’t discarded the note. But her luck held: she had used it as a bookmark, and it was still there.
She pulled it out and scanned it. Yes, as she’d remembered, there was a list of poems Butler recommended, complete with page numbers. Better still, between those different page numbers she found all the numerals from 1 to 9. She had no idea whether this would be enough for Mr. Haworth’s purposes, but surely it would help a little! Now all she had to do was find the opportunity to give it to him... and to think of an explanation for how she knew that he needed it.
On Friday, Frank left town to visit an ailing friend from university, Mr. Montgomery. To say that he was nervous about being apart from Rose would be the understatement of the decade. He arranged for her medical attendant to examine her before he left, though Rose swore up and down that she was perfectly fine and had no reason to think she was about to go into labor.
As if that were not enough, he arranged for Lady Inglewhite to visit every day of his absence. “I would feel better if I knew someone was checking in regularly,” he explained.
“But I’m already here to look after Rose!” Hester protested. Wasn’t that the whole point of her staying at the vicarage? She was supposed to make herself useful during her sister-in-law’s confinement!
“Yes,” he said impatiently, “but you’ve never had a baby, and Ivy has. She might know if something was wrong.”
Since Hester couldn’t argue with that, she held her tongue. When she caught Rose’s gaze, Rose lifted her eyes and smiled wryly at her. Evidently, she thought Frank worried o’er much, too.
But, as it turned out, Frank’s anxiety worked in Hester’s favor. On Saturday morning, Lady Inglewhite called on Rose, and she brought Mr. Haworth with her. This was Hester’s chance to pass him the note. Since the callers were relatives rather than mere acquaintances, she knew they’d likely stay longer than the standard half hour formal call.
Hester eagerly waited for a chance to pass the note to Mr. Haworth. She had imagined that something might call Rose and Lady Inglewhite out of the room for a moment, leaving her free to deliver the note and a quick explanation. She’d forgotten that Rose was supposed to stay reclined on the sofa as much as possible, with her feet elevated.
If Mr. Haworth had chosen to sit in a distant corner of the parlor, Hester might’ve tried to slip the note to him anyway. But, not surprisingly, he’d taken a chair near the sofa so he could talk to Rose. There was simply no opportunity to talk to him alone.
In desperation, Hester sent Mr. Haworth a “significant look”. She caught his eye, stared at him, then shifted her gaze to the chair next to hers, trying to silently signal that she wanted him to move across the room and sit beside her. He responded only by furrowing his brow in confusion.
Rose noticed the look, but misinterpreted it. “Hester, is that seat too hard? I believe the armchair in the corner has more padding. You might find it more comfortable.”
“Oh no,” Hester replied. “I was just comparing the different shades of red. I believe this chair is prettier.” She felt clever for having invented so plausible an explanation on the spur of the moment, but she was no closer to passing the note to Mr. Haworth.
She had to give up when Lady Inglewhite rose to her feet, signaling an end to the visit. The chance for a tête-à-tête never materialized. Hester would have to find a different opportunity to give Mr. Haworth the note. And if she couldn’t find an opportunity, she would make one.