“Aye.” She chuckled throatily. “Wanted to get about a bit without folks knowin’, she said, although she never let on what she were about. Some mischief, I make no doubt. But I’d be glad to have the beast back, all the same.”
“I am sure you would, madam, but I regret to inform you that I have no knowledge of any mule. Do come inside, and tell me all about it. Have you come far? You must be thirsty… and hungry, I dare say.”
“Oh… well, I wouldn’t say no to a bite to eat and a drop of somethin’.”
She did not say no to anything, as it turned out, eating her way stolidly through everything that Michael put in front of her, and scooping up what few scraps remained into a kerchief‘for the bairns’, as she put it. Mrs Markley was from a farm to the west of Pickering, where she raised donkeys, mules and pack ponies‘for the trade’.Michael took that to mean smuggling, for most legal goods went by wagon on the roads or by canal.
“She come out to see me quite a while back,” she said, through a mouthful of pork pie, “cos she liked the mules, like. Had one as a girl, seemin’ly. Kept comin’ back to see them. Then asked if she could borrow one. Not comfortable ridin’ a horse, but a mule she felt she could manage. We come to terms and off she went.”
“Who knew you had rented your mule to Miss Peach?”
“No one, I dare say. No one at t’farm would care, and she made me swear to secrecy. Couple of folk came askin’ after her — Mr Eustace Atherton, he came, and a fine lookin’ man, very polite despite bein’ Scotch. He came a couple of times.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“Nothin’ at all!” she said, in surprised tones. “If a person swears me to secrecy, not a word drops from my lips. Not a word.”
Michael sighed in frustration. “It is a pity we knew nothing of this, and especially about the mule. We have been confining our searches to places she could have walked to, without realising she could have got considerably further afield.”
It was only as Mrs Markley was about to depart that Michael thought of something else. “I do not suppose Miss Peach ever talked to you about… mule droppings, did she?”
She laughed throatily. “Aye, obsessed with them, she were. They’d give her away, or some such nonsense. Away with the fairies, she was, but her money was good so who am I to question it? But when she came to pay for her second month, she said she’d fixed it. The droppings, that’s to say. No idea what she meant by it, though.”
Which left Michael not much the wiser. But he had a surgeon arriving to examine the body, so he pushed the matter to the back of his mind for the moment. None of it would bring Miss Peach back from the dead, so there was no urgency.
***
Katherinewasatbreakfastwith the Cathcarts one morning when Davis came in bearing a silver salver.
“A groom from Corland Castle has just brought this letter for you, madam.”
“Oh! For me? Oh!” With a little trill of excitement, Aunt Cathcart took the letter. Any missive from Corland was note-worthy, but one so early in the day surely heralded something important. “I do not recognise the hand,” she went on, a little uncertainly. “It is not Lady Olivia’s. Perhaps Lady Alice has a new secretary.”
“Do open it, Mama!” Aveline cried. “Perhaps there is to be a ball.”
“They have only just held an evening party,” Aunt Cathcart said. “Well, I had better see what it says.”
Her face changed as she read, first to surprise, and then, oddly, with a glance at Katherine, to thoughtfulness. Silently, she passed it to Uncle Cathcart, who registered the same expressions, and he too looked at Katherine.
It was about her, that much was clear. Her toast turned to ashes in her mouth. Something had happened… she was to be sent away again… she was not sure she could bear it if— No, of course, she would endure whatever must be endured. That was her duty.
“Well?” Aveline said. “What is it? An invitation?”
“It does not concern you,” Aunt Cathcart said briskly, folding the letter and tucking it into her reticule. “Aveline, I wish you could learn to restrain this unbecoming curiosity. See how composed Katherine is! There are no questions onherlips, even though she must be just as interested as you are.”
“Oh, Katherine is perfect, of course!” Aveline spat.
“No one is perfect, dear, but Katherine is a well-mannered and demure young lady, who is a credit to her uncle and to me, and will undoubtedly make a good match in time because of it. Gentlemen prize such qualities when they look for a wife.”
“I shall make a good match, too!” Aveline cried. “There are other qualities men look for.”
“No one likes a pert hoyden,” her mother said sharply, “especially one who has so little respect for her own mother that she thinks to venture her own opinion in preference.”
Aveline flushed angrily, eyes flashing. Throwing down the morning roll that was in her hand she flounced from the room.
No one spoke. The boys exchanged glances, seeming amused, but Uncle Cathcart returned to his mutton chop, and Aunt Cathcart calmly drank her tea. As soon as Uncle Cathcart left the room, however, she whisked after him.
“That letter was about you, Cousin Kate, or I am a Chinaman,” James said, grinning at her. “Do not look so apprehensive. If it had been bad news, it would have been you getting a scolding instead of Aveline, you may be sure.”
