The Duke's Agent Read Online Free Page B

to.’
    They entered the building and he caught a whiff of the charnel house.
    â€˜Recent burial,’ explained Captain Adams, sensing his companion’s reaction. He indicated disturbed earth at the back of the north transept. ‘But you’ll know about that. Going to be a plaque or some such. Subscription and all that.’
    Jarrett surveyed Mr Crotter’s final resting place. ‘Who buried him?’ he enquired. ‘I understood Mr Crotter had no family in Woolbridge.’
    â€˜I believe Sir Thomas saw to it,’ replied Captain Adams, after pondering the question a moment. ‘Wouldn’t do to have the fellow lying about in this heat!’ he added jovially. ‘My wife, sir.’
    Jarrett found himself bowing to Mrs Adams, a broadbeamed capable-looking woman, and her pale daughters. As the ladies were taking their time to arrange themselveshe stood to one side in the aisle looking about the building. Towards the front of the church various degrees of box pews were arranged, each assigned to a particular prosperous household. Benches filled the spaces where the servants and ordinary folk sat. Above, to the left of the chancel, Mr Bedlington and his motley collection of musicians were tuning up in the gallery. The singers sprawled about, waiting. The young man who had bandied words with Prudence was hanging over the rail conversing with Sal, who sat below on a bench looking demure and mischievous at the same time. Jarrett glimpsed Prudence Miller’s impotent fury and felt pity for her. She was no match for Sal. His fingers itched to capture the scene – ‘The Country Service: a rural vignette’.
    The little man in the over-large hat trotted up the gallery steps. ‘Music master,’ he commanded, ‘the parson would remind the singers that they are not to sing the responses!’ Then, looking to neither left nor right through an accompaniment of jeers from the singers, the clerk scurried back down the stairs.
    *
    Henrietta Lonsdale entered the church half a step in front of her aunt. It had been a trying morning. She had known it would be from the moment her aunt’s voice had wavered out to arrest her progress as she passed the bedroom door on her way downstairs to breakfast. The words were not material; it was their tone – that pathetic, cajoling, invalidish note her aunt assumed when she wanted to be petted. Henrietta was a dutiful niece to her widowed aunt. She prayed regularly and quite sincerely for God’s assistance in granting her patience and a better temper, but the carriage ride that morning had been frosty. Aunt Lonsdale’s mood had lightened a little on arrival at church. They had been greeted at the carriage door by Mrs Bedford who had hardly allowed them time to set foot to ground, so eager was she to share the excitement over the Duke of Penrith’s new agent.Henrietta lifted her eyebrows a little at all the fuss. She knew perfectly well that Aunt Lonsdale considered Amelia Bedford a vulgar sort of woman, but the Duke’s agent was too choice a morsel for her to be particular about the provenance of the gossip. Henrietta surveyed the man blocking the aisle. So this was the new agent. His clothes were remarkably well cut but they hung slightly loose as if he had lost weight in sickness he had yet to regain. She noted, nonetheless, that he had a good leg. She followed the line of his gaze. Gawping at Sally Grundy, was he? A pity his manners did not match his tailoring.
    Jarrett heard a musical voice speak behind him.
    â€˜If you will permit, sir.’
    He turned to let by two latecomers. A youngish lady near his height, well dressed, with an elegant face and direct grey eyes nodded to him. She was accompanied by what he took to be an aunt or some such female relation: a middle-aged woman with a thin, pampered face and mournful look that reminded him of the expression dogs assume when begging for food at table. The