Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave - Stephanie Barron [108]
“My own appearance must have similarly astonished you,” I rejoined. “/ am come at the behest of Jenny Barlow, but that she sent you on a similar errand, I must believe unlikely.”
“You would be correct,” the curate said, nodding. “I am here because of the letter I received of Mrs. Hammond Christmas Eve.”
“The day of the maid's murder—the day you made in haste for London.”
“I was called hither by Mrs. Hammond, who had only lately heard of the Earl's death,” he explained. “She felt certain that Rosie's circumstances should change as a result, and desired me to attend her with any news it might be in my power to convey.”
“But why should the lady enquire this of you? Had she not better have asked it of the present Earl?”
“As her grandmother, she is necessarily anxious on Rosie's behalf, and I am the man whose interest must decide the girl's fate.”
“Mrs. Hammond, Rosie's grandmother? She did not mention it.”
“Rosie's mother was a Hammond, and much beloved by her mother, though left behind at Scargrave when Fitzroy established Mrs. Hammond here.”
“Then the Earl is Mrs. Hammond's patron?” I remembered Harold Trowbridge's look of exultation, as he stood by the library fire talking of Fitzroy Payne's mistress. The grandmotherly woman even now preparing my tea was not at all what I should have expected. “It seems incredible!”
“That such a man should remember the affection of a nursemaid? I suppose it must seem so to you, who can have known him so little; but I assure you, Fitzroy is not without his goodness.”
“Nursemaid?” I cried, too late to stifle my astonishment; and at George Hearst's penetrating look, felt the colour enter my unfortunate cheeks.
“You thought her perhaps as having provided a nearer service?” he asked, in a rare moment of amusement; but at my confused dismay, he became sober once more. “No, Miss Austen, Mrs. Hammond is guilty of nothing more than having suckled the eighth Earl at her breast, and that, when he was hardly of an age to place an unpleasant construction upon it.”
Certain aspects of the situation readily became clear to me. It was not the late Earl, but the present one—Fitzroy Payne—who was responsible for Rosie's condition; she must be the mistress of whom Lord Harold spoke. Payne had sent her to the trustiest woman he knew for safekeeping, his former nursemaid, her grandmother. That the girl should be having a child was an added blow to Isobel's trust! Though one that Lord Harold, thankfully, had seen fit to keep from her—if, indeed, the rogue knew aught of it.
But what of George Hearst's heated argument over Rosie, the night of the late Earl's death? Perhaps the upright Mr. Hearst had discovered the matter, and betrayed Fitzroy Payne's confidence to his uncle—who had washed his hands of the girl, to the curate's dismay.
But this was hardly a motive for violent murder on George Hearst's part; and so my efforts to learn something to his disadvantage were all for nought.
“But could Fitzroy Payne be so depraved as to have seduced the granddaughter of his nursemaid,” I said aloud, all wonderment, “for whom he clearly felt continued affection, as evidenced by the comfort of such an establishment?”
“The Earl seduce Rosie Ketch?” George Hearst said. “Indeed he did not, Miss Austen. For that, I fear, you have to look no farther than myself.”
Whatever I had expected, it was hardly this; and I had so little mastery of myself at his disclosure, nor of the revulsion I could not help but feel, at the memory of the poor child's innocence—so ill-bestowed and so completely trodden under—that it was some moments before I could look on him with composure, or deign to offer any words. George Hearst is the very last man in whom I should expect to find his passion stronger than his virtue; and amazement warred with disapprobation for the first place in my thoughts.
That he felt all the weight of my contempt, I am certain by his aspect;