The Skeleton Tree

by Diane Janes

  ‘How about sausage rolls?’ Wendy suggested. Anyone could make a success of them, now that you could get those bags of frozen ones.

  John consulted a rather battered sheet of paper. ‘No … I’ve got sausage rolls covered. Moira Cox is doing some, and so are Thelma Scott and Pat Gilby. I still need 100 toffee apples …’ As Wendy blanched, he continued, ‘Oh, no … Barbara and Josie have promised the toffee apples …’

  He pulled out a pencil and made a swift annotation, while Bruce took the opportunity to give Wendy a look.

  ‘What about things on sticks?’ John asked.

  ‘I think even I can spear cheese and pineapple.’

  ‘Say two hundred cheese and pineapple and I’ll get someone else to do the sausages on sticks.’

  Wendy’s mouth dropped open, but John was making another mark on his list and failed to see her expression.

  ‘Now then,’ John said, refolding his sheet of paper as he spoke. ‘To what I really came about.’

  Bruce shot Wendy a questioning look which she pretended not to see.

  ‘I asked around at the local history society and, sure enough, someone came up with this.’ John produced a thin booklet from his jacket pocket with a flourish. ‘Fascinating stuff. Apparently the chap who produced it was a retired schoolteacher. Real old character from what I can gather. Seems to have spent his entire retirement at the record office. What he didn’t know about the history of Bishop Barnard wasn’t worth knowing. Self-published several of these little booklets about the local area. And to a jolly high standard for an amateur. He did a lot of good work on census indexing for the Family History Society as well.’

  Wendy noticed that Bruce was managing to look irritated, mystified and bored, all at the same time.

  ‘And The Ashes is mentioned in this book?’ Wendy prompted.

  ‘Yes, indeed! The whole business was obviously a cause célèbre at the time. I’m amazed I’d never heard about it before: something that happened just over a hundred years ago, in our own village. Here it is …’ He handed the booklet across to Wendy. ‘The place is marked.’

  The pale blue paper cover, no thicker than the inner pages, had the words ‘Local Law Breakers by J H W Warmsworth’ printed on the front. A bookmark commemorating a visit to Ripon Cathedral had been inserted at page nine, where the heading was ‘Alice Croft 1853–1872’.

  Wendy scanned the words swiftly, giving less than half an ear to John’s attempts to engage Bruce’s interest regarding the wisdom or otherwise of hiring a bouncy castle for the Royal Wedding bash.

  Alice Croft stood trial for the murder of Edward Graves in 1872. Murderess and victim were both servants in the employ of Mr James Coates Esq. of The Ashes, Bishop Barnard. Little is known about either party, though they were said at the trial to have been of sober habits. The law prevented Alice from entering the witness box at her own trial, but in the statement she made to the police, she claimed that she had acted in self-defence, alleging that Graves had frequently made advances to her, which she had always repelled. According to Alice, on the night of the tragedy, which happened to be St Valentine’s, Alice had begun to suffer from stomach pains and had descended to the kitchen to avail herself of some powders which the cook kept there. She claimed that having obtained a powder and a glass, she went along the passage to the scullery, to get some water and here she came upon Graves, who had let himself in through the scullery door. Graves, having made a lewd suggestion, forced the girl into the pantry, which was adjacent to the scullery and, as they struggled, Alice’s hand fastened on something in the darkness – she would later claim that she had not realized it was a knife – and in defending herself she had pushed the unseen object at Graves once or twice. He groaned and fell, and it was only when Alice had pushed past him and retrieved her candle from the scullery that she realized he was stabbed.

  The cook, Hannah Colbeck, gave evidence that she had heard and seen nothing until Alice shook her awake, when she saw by the light of the candle that Alice had blood all across the front of her nightgown. On following the girl downstairs, the cook found Edward Graves lying on the pantry floor, his shirt soaked in blood and the skillet knife, gory to the hilt, on the flags beside him.

  There were several problems with the tale told by Alice Croft. Mr Coates testified that nothing improper had ever been tolerated beneath his roof and that any suggestion of behaviour such as that described by Croft would have resulted in dismissal. The cook echoed her master regarding the strict proprieties observed within the household and was unable to support Alice’s story of having gone downstairs only moments before the attack took place. It seems that the layout of the servants’ quarters meant that Croft would have needed to pass through Colbeck’s room to get downstairs, but Colbeck had not heard her do so. Colbeck explained that she was a particularly heavy sleeper, but this did not really do much to support Croft’s story. The Crown also elicited from Colbeck that Edward Graves was known to have a sweetheart who lived on a nearby farm and questioned the likelihood of Edward Graves having let himself into the house at an hour approaching midnight, just at the very moment when Alice Croft happened to be fetching a glass of water from the scullery. More potentially damning evidence came from the cook, Colbeck, who, when asked about the knife, agreed that it was not normally kept in the pantry. Household knives, she said, were kept in the kitchen, and it was most unlikely that one would be left lying about. Worse still, the last person known to have handled the skillet knife happened to be Alice herself, who had received all the knives back from the travelling knife grinder on the previous afternoon and been charged by Colbeck with putting them away in their rightful places.

  The Crown’s case was that Alice had been in the habit of slipping down to meet Graves when the rest of the household was asleep, taking advantage of the cook’s propensity to deep sleep, and they suggested that the girl had become jealous when she learned of his other sweetheart and had decided to take her revenge for his faithlessness by arranging a final tryst, planting the newly sharpened knife in a spot where she knew how to find it, luring him into the darkened pantry and then stabbing him to death, but pretending it was an accident. The significance of the date was also stressed.

  Reports of the trial offer more questions than answers. Did Alice Croft accidentally kill her fellow servant while defending her honour, as she claimed? Or had she premeditated cold-blooded murder, planting the knife in advance and stabbing Graves twice in the heart? The jury concluded that the Crown’s explanation was the correct one. They found her guilty but made a recommendation for mercy. Alice received none. She was hanged at Durham jail on a May morning in 1872.

  The pantry … which was now the study … Wendy gave an involuntary shiver as she looked up and realized that both men were watching her. She wondered how long ago they had stopped talking.

  ‘Well,’ said John. ‘What do you think of that?’

  ‘I suppose it’s not too much to ask what’s so exciting about that booklet?’ Bruce enquired.

  ‘History, old man. Jolly violent history at that. This booklet proves that a murder was committed within a few feet of where you’re sitting.’ John’s ghoulish enthusiasm was unmistakable.

  ‘Here,’ Wendy said. ‘Would you like to read it for yourself?’

  Bruce’s expression was stony. He ignored the proffered pages. ‘No, thank you,’ he said coldly.

  ‘You’ve never seen over the house, have you, John?’ she said quickly. It suddenly seemed imperative to get him out of the sitting room before Bruce said or did something really rude. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a tour, show you where it all happened.’

  Bruce banged his coffee mug down so hard on its coaster that Wendy was sure she heard it crack. She ushered her visitor into the hall, grinning like a maniac, in a vain attempt to make up for her husband’s manner. Fortunately, John Newbould’s curiosity subsumed any concerns he might have had about the degree of his welcome.

  ‘I suppose the layout of the house has chan
ged a bit in a hundred years,’ he said, as he followed Wendy towards the back of the house.

  ‘No, no. Hardly at all. This is the kitchen.’ She flung open the door. ‘There was no water supply in this part of the house until we had the pipes run through.’

  ‘But this was the original kitchen?’

  ‘Yes. You can see the shape of the original fireplace and where the range used to be.’

  ‘So if Alice had fetched a powder from here …’

  ‘She would have had to go to the scullery for water, which was just along here, where our utility room is now.’

  ‘And those outbuildings …’ John glanced out of the window as they crossed the back passage. ‘They look original as well. There was nothing unusual about a manservant sleeping outside at that time – and of course people didn’t always bother to lock their doors.’

  ‘Servants slept in the outbuildings?’

  ‘Oh, yes. The men frequently bedded down in barns and outbuildings and thought nothing of it at all. People were grateful not to have to share a bed. The average agricultural labourer was lucky to have a two-room cottage for himself and his entire family: one up, one down. They had big families back then, so miladdo was probably extremely grateful to have a shed to himself. Would have seen it as a step up in the world.’

  ‘This is the scullery. Let me show you outside.’

  They went into the yard, speculating about which building might have been occupied by Edward Graves. ‘Probably not that one,’ John said, when Wendy explained about the wooden stalls which had still been fixtures before the space beneath Tara’s rooms had been turned into a garage. ‘More likely one of these, facing the kitchen.’

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Wendy exclaimed abruptly. ‘I bet the jury weren’t brought here. If they had been, they’d have seen it too.’

  John Newbould looked at her expectantly, so Wendy continued, ‘It says in Mr Warmsworth’s book that they couldn’t see how Edward Graves would have just happened to be inside or even known the right moment to enter the house and accost Alice, unless Alice had pre-arranged it, but standing here, you can see exactly how it’s possible. You see that end skylight there? Well, that’s the room where Alice Croft would have slept. From here in the yard, and also through the window of this end shed, you can see that skylight. You would be able to see the light of a lamp or a candle in that window, and you’d see the light moving as the person carrying it moved through into the next room – see that skylight there? Well, that was the cook’s room, and you still have to walk through there to access the rest of the house from the little room at the end. After that, the light would show in the window of the upstairs passage, and then in that tall, arched window as she walked down the stairs. Edward Graves would have known that was Alice’s light, because it started in her room, and he would be able to see exactly where she was without even moving from his window. He would have seen the light moving into the kitchen and then along the back passage, where he would have been able to slip inside and intercept her in the scullery. Poor thing. You know, I’m sure she was telling the truth. Come back inside and I’ll show you what used to be the pantry.’

  When they got inside the study, Wendy explained the alterations which had been made, showing her visitor where part of the wall had been taken out to link what had originally been the old pantry and the big walk-in cupboard off the main hall. ‘When we first bought the house there were floor to ceiling shelves all the way round, which made it much smaller and more cramped.’

  ‘So there was only one way in or out.’ John nodded. ‘Just the place to corner and rape the kitchen maid, in fact. The knife might have been left in the pantry accidentally, or Graves might have brought it in himself, in order to threaten her.’

  ‘Do you suppose he intended to murder her? Otherwise, if he’d raped her, wouldn’t she have given him away later?’

  ‘Probably not. There wasn’t much sympathy expended on servants back then, and the family might have chosen to disbelieve her. It’s much more likely that any suggestion of immoral goings on would have meant her being dismissed as well as him. Didn’t you notice the way that Mr Coates was more interested in denying that anything improper could possibly have been going on between his servants than he was in establishing who had murdered whom? And the cook’s evidence isn’t to be relied on either, because if she’d admitted that she’d known anything was up between Edward and Alice, she would probably have got her marching orders for not telling on them sooner.’

  ‘But if she’d told her master what was going on, both her fellow servants might have been dismissed, even though one of them hadn’t done anything wrong?’

  ‘Exactly. And without good references it would have been pretty much impossible to get another job.’

  ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘No one ever said that life in the 1870s was fair.’

  ‘It’s a funny thing, but this is the only room in the house that I’ve never much liked. When we first saw it, the window was boarded up, but even with the window as it is now, the room is still rather dark.’

  ‘Has anyone …’ he hesitated. ‘Has anyone actually seen anything?’

  ‘No. There used to be stories that the house was haunted, but that was a long time ago and the actual details are a bit vague.’ She didn’t want to discuss her own experiences in the room. They were the sort of things not easily explained to a mere acquaintance, and she could imagine how her story might translate on retelling: ‘Wendy Thornton says that she’s been groped by a ghost, you know … Oh, isn’t she the one who drinks? Lost her licence, didn’t she?’

  Wendy led the way out of the room. It had occurred to her that if she took John through the courtyard at the back, it would avoid any need for him to say goodbye to Bruce.

  ‘It’s quite a remarkable survival, you know,’ John said, as he followed her out of the back door. ‘A great many houses of this age have been altered beyond recognition. You’ve managed to retain a lot of the original features. Our chairman has been talking about the possibility of getting up a little tour, taking in some of the local buildings of interest and finishing with a few jars in a local hostelry. A lot of our members would love to see over The Ashes, I’m sure. You could show them around, tell the story and offer them your theory about the murder. Everyone loves a ghost story, after all.’

  As they reached the corner of the house, they all but collided with Bruce, coming in the opposite direction. He had clearly heard the last part of the conversation and his face was pale with anger. His expression stopped Wendy dead, so John automatically stopped too.

  ‘No one will be seeing over this house unless they’re a prospective buyer,’ Bruce growled. ‘This is a family home, not a bloody peep show.’

  ‘We couldn’t make any definite arrangements,’ Wendy blundered in, trying to smooth things over. ‘Not with us liable to move at any time.’

  ‘If you’re interested in the house you’d better make an appointment through the estate agents,’ Bruce said. ‘Other than that, you and your ghoulish weirdo friends can keep away.’ He stalked past them and entered the garage, all but brushing John Newbould aside.

  Wendy felt like weeping with embarrassment. The momentary silence that followed seemed like an eternity.

  ‘I’m sorry, Wendy, that I seem to have said the wrong thing.’ John’s voice betrayed both self-righteous annoyance and a degree of nervousness. ‘I regret that my little suggestion appears to have upset Bruce, but I don’t think he needed to be quite so offensive. No … please don’t apologize.’

  Wendy had said nothing at all. She was still floundering, trying to form her mouth into appropriate shapes from which suitable platitudes could issue.

  ‘I do think, though, that you might have forewarned me about Bruce’s views on this matter.’ His voice had developed an aggrieved whine. ‘When all is said and done, you asked me to find out about the house for you. I gave up my own precious research time to look into it, and in return I have received a stri
ng of insults and what might well be construed as threatening behaviour. I can only say that I consider our friendship is at an end.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Wendy found her voice as she accompanied him down the drive. ‘I really didn’t expect … you see, Bruce … well … I never thought …’

  At the gate John paused to bluster about how it was fortunate that Wendy had been standing between Bruce and himself, as he wouldn’t normally have taken that kind of thing from anyone. Wendy stood stupefied with embarrassment, not only at her husband’s behaviour, but now at John Newbould’s too. She wasn’t much troubled by the withdrawal of the friendship, since the Newboulds had never been much more than acquaintances, but the thought that a version of the scene would soon be circulating the PTA, the squash club and every other village organization in which John Newbould had a finger – which was pretty much all of them – was deeply humiliating.

  ‘I trust,’ he said, ‘that I can still rely on you for the cheese and pineapple?’

  ‘Oh, yes … yes, of course.’

  She found Bruce in the kitchen.

  ‘Why on earth were you so rude to him?’

  ‘He needed it. He’s the sort of prat that people ought to be rude to at regular intervals. And I don’t want him coming round here, spouting that sort of rubbish.’

  ‘It’s not rubbish,’ she said. ‘It all happened.’

  ‘Have you forgotten that we have children living in this house? Is that the type of thing you think you should be talking about? Murders? Ghosts? Is it any wonder the kids are having nightmares?’

  ‘That was weeks ago. Months ago … If you don’t want them to hear about it, then I suggest you keep your voice down. You’re shouting fit to wake the dead.’

  ‘The sooner Katie and Jamie are away from this house the better. I thought you’d gone far enough with this nonsense before, but guided tours? Christ, you’re getting worse.’

  ‘It wasn’t my idea. I hadn’t agreed to it.’