Ian grunted, trying to make sense of it. Why would she not even keep her maid with her?
“They both argued about it,” Josie said, with a grim smile. “Brandon could not imagine how Izzy would manage without her, and Samuel was not about to let a complete stranger run off with Izzy’s things, which included some valuable jewellery, I might add. So the man went off and came back a few minutes later with Izzy herself. Well, they could not disobey a direct order from their mistress, so they came back here with the carriage, but Samuel was not at all happy about it, so the next day, he walked into Durham and kept watch over the house where Izzy’s friend lived. He saw them all go off to church, and Izzy wasn’t with them.”
“Was Izzy’s friend with them? Or the manservant? ”
“Definitely not the manservant or whoever he was. As to the friend, he could not say, never having seen her. It is a large family, with several grown daughters. So then he went round to the kitchen door, where the cook still was, not having the legs to walk to church and back, as she said. Samuel asked if Izzy had settled in all right and if there might be anything she needed, and the cook said that Izzy was not there at all.”
“Did he ask about the friend? Or the manservant?”
“He did, but the cook was cross at having her nap disturbed, and chased him out. He asked at all the inns and hotels he could find, and there is no Lady Farramont staying at any of them. He has gone back into Durham today, with one of the Priory manservants, to make more enquiries, but it is very puzzling, Ian. Not simply that she would disappear, because Izzy has always been a law unto herself and a restless spirit, but why in this secretive way? Why leave her carriage behind, and her own servants?”
“And who is this man who was with her?” Mrs Edward said, her lips a thin line. “That is whatIshould like to know.”
Ian wondered, too, for a down-at-heel gentleman did not sound like the sort of person Izzy would normally take up with, but he made no comment. Perhaps the fellow was simply a manservant… an outrider or courier, perhaps. The ladies went over and over it, interspersed with many lamentations, but Ian barely listened. He was planning how he would tackle this latest start of Izzy’s. What a woman she was! Always something new from her, something surprising. A little worrying, in this case, but he was not seriously alarmed.
Samuel, Izzy’s manservant, returned from Durham while Ian was dressing for dinner.
“You wanted to see me straight away, my lord.”
“I did. Tell me at once, have you found any sign of Lady Farramont?”
“None, sir. It’s likely she’s not in Durham at all.”
“That does seem probable. She has either got a lift in her friend’s carriage, or she will have hired a post chaise. Tomorrow I shall go into Durham myself to continue the search.”
The man smiled in relief. “That’s good, my lord. There’s people won’t talk to the likes of me, but they’ll answer to you, right enough.”
***
Ian took Izzy’s carriage into Durham. It was more comfortable than his own travelling carriage, for one thing, and its distinctive colours might jog a memory or two.
The ostlers and inn workers remembered the carriage and its occupant very well. He also heard several versions of the row over the stranger who came for the box, and how‘the pretty lady’came herself to collect it in the end.
“Did you know this man?” Ian asked everyone who told him the tale, but nobody did.
They went next to the house of Izzy’s friend, and it was indeed a ramshackle place. The garden was much neglected, the interior shabby and any chance of peaceful conversation was rendered impossible by the army of small children who rampaged from room to room, unchecked. Izzy’s friend was called Sophie Hearle, he discovered from the pair of faded women of about forty who greeted him. Having married a son of the Hearle family, with his demise she had returned to his family home.
“It’s most inconvenient for her to be jauntering about the country like this with your wife,” one of them said crossly. “No one can manage the children like Sophie, but there, she wouldn’t think nothing of our convenience, I dare say, not when a viscountess comes to call.”
“So Mrs Hearle — Sophie — has definitely gone with my wife?” Ian said.
“Oh, yes, she’s gone all right. Packed a bag and off she went. Never told us, mind. Just left a note on the mantel there.” She gestured to the shelf above the hearth, so cluttered with letters and cards and bills and dusty ornaments that it was hard to see how a new addition might be noticed.
“What sort of bag?” Ian said.
“I’ve no idea. How would I know that?”
“Well, did she take all her clothes or only some? And what sort of clothes?”
That brought a shrug and a blank expression.
“Perhaps I might see her room, together with the maid who attends to her clothes?”
“Maid?” That brought a cackle of laughter.
Eventually, a daughter of the house was found who was thought to have a better idea of what clothes Sophie Hearle might own. She led Ian and the silent Samuel out of the back of the house and across the yard to a small store room. Thelower level was taken up with sacks and boxes of this and that, haphazardly arranged, and with mice droppings everywhere. Narrow wooden stairs led up to a tiny room, windowless apart from a small skylight, fitted with a plain bed, a cupboard and a chest of drawers. Unlike the rest of the house, however, it was immaculately clean and tidy, the bed made and nothing but a couple of books on top of the chest of drawers.
“Should be a box here in this corner,” the girl said. “With all her things. Taken the lot, hasn’t she?”
