Midnight at Marble Arch - By Anne Perry Page 0,107
Forsbrooks were feared but not liked. He was growing a bit desperate when he found in Bryanston Mews an elderly groom, busy brushing down horses.
The smells of leather polish, dung, hay, and horse sweat brought back a sudden and very sharp memory of childhood on the big estate where he had grown up. His father had been the gamekeeper and his mother had worked in the house, before tragedy struck them and his father was deported.
Reminder of that childhood bewilderment and pain made the present injustice burn the more intensely. He had tried everything he could then to help his father, and been helpless. He had been a country boy, educated alongside the son of the manor house, as companionship and competition for him, but still a nobody, dependent upon Sir Arthur Desmond’s patronage even to survive. Now he was a man in his late forties, and head of Britain’s Special Branch. He would not allow himself to be helpless this time.
He smiled at the groom. “Good animal you have there,” he remarked, looking at the horse.
“Aye, sir, she is that,” the man agreed. “Can I ’elp yer?”
“Unlikely,” Pitt said with a slight shrug. “I grew up in the country. I miss the friendship of horses, the strength … the patience.” Memory flashed back again. “I used to clean the harness for the groom sometimes. There’s a satisfaction in working the leather, in making the brass shine.”
“There is that, sir,” the man agreed. He was thin and strong, a little bow-legged. His hair stuck out in wisps from under the cap he was wearing. “But if I can say so, you don’t look like a country boy, sir.” He regarded Pitt’s well-cut city suit. For once there was very little stuffed in his pockets and his cravat was almost straight. The only detail familiar from the past was the fact that his hair was too long and curled in no particular shape.
“Ambition,” Pitt admitted. He found himself wanting to be completely honest with this man. He was tired of evasions that achieved nothing. “My father was a gamekeeper, accused of poaching, a serious crime back then. I always believed him innocent, still do, but it didn’t save him. Injustice cuts deep.”
The man stopped working for a moment and stared at Pitt with sudden interest deeper than mere politeness. “Ye’re right about that, sir,” he said with feeling. “Yer got summink as yer workin’ on right now, then?”
“Yes.” Pitt knew well enough to stop far short of the truth this time. “Looking for a bit of understanding of the past, to get the present right, if you know what I mean. See that blame doesn’t fall where it shouldn’t.”
The man nodded. “So wot d’yer want to know?” The horse swung its head round and nudged him. He patted it and began to brush again. “All right, girl,” he said with a smile. “I ain’t forgot yer.” He smiled at Pitt. “Like women, ’orses are. Don’t like yer to put yer mind to someone else when it’s their turn.”
“Ye’re right,” the man said happily. “Give yer their ’ole ’earts, they do. Don’t yer, girl?” He patted the horse’s smooth neck without altering the pace of the brush. “What d’yer want ter know, sir?”
Pitt gestured behind him, toward the back of the Forsbrook house. “Do you know Sir Pelham Forsbrook and his family?”
The man’s face tightened so very slightly that had Pitt not been watching closely he would have missed it. “Yeah, some,” he said. “Knew Lady Forsbrook—Miss Eleanor, as she used to be.” His face softened with memory. “Wild, she was, but so alive. Couldn’t ’elp but like ’er in the end. Wot they call ironic, in’t it?”
“Is it?” Pitt said curiously. “I heard she died in an accident. How was it ironic?” He sensed something further, something unsaid that the man half seemed to expect him to know.
The groom concentrated on brushing the horse’s gleaming flanks for several seconds before he replied. “Accident, right enough,” he said at last. “ ’Ad her cases with ’er, an’ all. Knew that from Appley, ’e were the groom there then. Runnin’ away, she were. Some said it were to go with the feller she was ’avin’ an affair with. Others said it were just that she couldn’t take the beatin’ no more. Dunno the truth of it, but beat black and blue that night she were. Face all swole up.”