Serpent in the Garden by Janet Gleeson Page A

Herbert. “Justice? The fellow’s dead. No one can help him now. I have given orders to have him interred as swiftly as possible. Furthermore, Pope, I can’t see the purpose in picking over the matter at dinner. It’s damaging to my appetite.” He took a forkful of boiled fowl and examined it closely before putting it in his mouth.
    “Forgive me, sir,” said Joshua. “I didn’t mean to give offence.” But after a short pause, while Herbert was busy ordering the manservant to bring more wine, he turned to Francis and Caroline. “What d’you think on it? D’you recall seeing the fellow at all?”
    To judge from the blankness of Caroline’s expression, she was not in the least interested in the mysterious death. Francis blinked rapidly several times and scratched an earlobe, yet he too affected ignorance. He had neither seen nor spoken to the dead man, he declared.
    Herbert was by now showing signs of disquiet. His children’s glumness, his own efforts to coax them out of it, coupled with Joshua’s stubbornness in the matter of the corpse, had ripened his face from its usual placid rosiness to a less comfortable shade of plum. His chair creaked as he rocked back and forth and racked his brains for some more suitable subject to divert them. He ate his food halfheartedly, pushing a wedge of liver pudding round his plate with scarcely a taste.
    As a last, desperate resort, Herbert turned to a topic that any normal young person would have found impossible to resist. There was to be a ball held at Astley, within a fortnight, on the sixth of June. The entertainment had been arranged in order that the local gentry might make the acquaintance of Sabine, the future mistress of Astley, and her daughter, Violet. One hundred guests were expected to attend.
    Discussion of this forthcoming event did not, however, succeed in its aim. Francis and Caroline remained unwavering in their incivility. They volunteered nothing, responding to questions only with a mumbled “Yes” or “No,” or “Fancy that,” or “Whatever you choose, Father.”
    Joshua found it remarkable that not once in all this did Herbert resort to anger. On the contrary, he looked curiously sad, like a chastened schoolboy who knows he has committed some misdemeanor that he cannot redress. He made no attempt to remonstrate with either of his children. It was as if he knew the reason, comprehended there was nothing to be done to alter it, and believed himself to be in some way culpable.
    “Will Lizzie Manning attend the ball with her brother, or will her father chaperone her?” asked Herbert patiently of his stony-faced son.
    “I do not recall Lizzie’s arrangements, Father.”
    “Is her brother returned from overseas?” persisted Herbert.
    “As far as I know he remains in Florence.”
    “Well, then, if he remains in Italy, he cannot very well escort Lizzie, can he?”
    “As you say, Father.”
    “Perhaps, in that case, you might ask Lizzie if she wishes to stay here for the night?”
    “Will Sabine permit it?”
    As if he had been struck in the belly, Herbert flinched. “What possible objection could Sabine have to Lizzie staying here?”
    “I merely thought that, as mistress of the house, she should be consulted.”
    “Am I not master here?” replied his father.
    Francis shrugged his shoulders and pushed a spoonful of jelly into his mouth.
    Herbert forced a smile and in desperation turned to his daughter. “Have you settled upon your costume for the ball, Caroline?”
    She shook her head. “No, Father, I have not.”
    “Then is it not time you did so? The entertainment is only a fortnight away, dear girl. Do you not wish to look your best for it?”
    “I have not given the matter much thought.”
    Costume was a source of endless concern to Joshua Pope. “What color will you choose for your gown, Miss Bentnick?” he enquired with genuine interest. He pictured her in a dark jewel hue—deep red or blue, or green perhaps—that would bring