Black Drop by Leonora Nattrass

Author:Leonora Nattrass [Nattrass, Leonora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile Books
Published: 2021-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

21

WITH MY NEW POVERTY THERE were few comforting treats at Dora’s table, and Philpott’s shop was oddly quiet without its ebullient master. Even Mr and Mrs Benson were finally going home, for I had arranged to take them to Hyde Park to display Will’s invented grave. With its cattle and quiet landscape, the park was a peaceful resting place, I had decided, for a young man from the provinces.

We left the hired hackney carriage and walked across the rough pasture towards the sunken ditch that separates the park from the grounds of Kensington Palace. On the far bank, the gardens were in full bloom, and I could see the gravelled paths where I’d walked with Anne. On our side the grass was longer, the scenery more wild. A group of twisted sallows leaned over a dried-up spring that would fill the ditch in winter and find its way to the Serpentine. It was the same spot I had fired my pistol and almost killed Peter Williams. Since then, cattle had been sheltering under the trees, and the ground was disturbed and muddy, which made my story more plausible than I’d even hoped.

‘Here,’ I said. ‘This is where he lies.’

Mrs Benson had been quiet since we left their lodging. Now she staggered, and her husband took her arm. They moved away together, under the dappled shade of the grey-green leaves, the twisted branches groping out over their heads towards me.

‘In sight of a palace!’ Mrs Benson smiled up at her husband and watched as he placed a nosegay of flowers on a low-hanging branch. ‘Will would have liked that.’

Mr Benson shook his head at such whimsy, then turned and gazed out across the rolling parkland. ‘My dear, I would take him home, if I could. But of all possible spots, this is by no means the worst.’ His measured voice broke, and he passed a hand over his eyes.

‘What will you do now?’ I asked.

Mr Benson shook his head. ‘Return to Kent. My practice needs me, and Mrs Benson misses our other children. But you have been a good friend to us, and a good friend to Will. We’ll not forget you, Mr Jago.’ He took one last look at his son’s supposed resting place and walked back with me towards the carriage. Mrs Benson lingered behind, her lips moving. She was talking to thin air, gazing down only on cowpats and mud, but wherever Will’s soul really was, I supposed her voice would reach him well enough. And wherever he was, he was beyond caring about Canning now.

I had no such luxury. From the look in his eye when I met him in the park with Anne, Canning would do me further harm if he could. And the pain he might bring Anne was beyond enduring.

I strode back up the Strand towards home with new activity, trying to remember Canning’s movements these past weeks. I had thought Aglantine had been following me that day in the art gallery, but now I wondered.

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