The Keeper of Secrets

by Judith Cutler

  Mrs Beckles stepped forward, as did I.

  ‘Surely, Dr Hansard, the mother—’ I began.

  ‘May they not spend just one night together, she and her children?’ Mrs Beckles urged. ‘Even Mr Campion’s stable would be a more comfortable place than the workhouse. And we can find female clothes from somewhere – I doubt the poor creature’s garments will be any more decent than the children’s rags.’

  ‘Indeed, with all my heart! But must it be the workhouse?’ My impulse, like Lizzie’s, was to embrace the children. I sank to my knees beside them.

  ‘Let them for tonight be reunited with their mother,’ Hansard decreed. ‘For modesty’s sake, Campion, we must leave Mrs Jenkins to the ministrations of these kind ladies. Jem, will you bring the poor creature here? Nay, I’d best come with you.’

  Mrs Beckles nodded approvingly, watching him, a warm smile on her face, until he was out of sight. I stole a glance at Lizzie, but she was coaxing the hair of the eldest girl into a semblance of order, and did not appear to be interested in anything else.

  * * *

  The little family at last touchingly reunited, Mrs Beckles shooed away Jem, Hansard and myself, like so many chickens, so that Mrs Jenkins could be persuaded under the pump.

  The doctor declined to enter my house. ‘Not in all my dirt, man. Naturally you and Jem will both be eating at Langley House,’ he added, as he turned to leave. ‘But I’d advise a session under that pump for both of you before you come. And a bonfire for all of your clothes.’

  Neither of us argued.

  ‘There is absolutely no alternative?’ I demanded, as Dr Hansard and I sipped a restorative sherry in the comfort and warmth of his study before supper, the aromatic precursors of which were emanating enticingly from behind the green baize door.

  ‘The workhouse it must be. And, grim and inhumane as such a refuge is, it cannot be worse than the circumstances in which the family now finds itself. It was a tied cottage—’

  ‘Cottage!’ I repeated derisively.

  ‘—And as such it must be vacated once the labourer is an employee no longer. That is the law, and as a justice of the peace I must enforce it. But at least under the parish Maggie Jenkins and her little brood will get some food, and better shelter than they have been used to.’

  ‘Is there nothing else I can do?’ I thought of my new home, with all its empty rooms.

  As if he read my thoughts, he gave a kind but dismissive shake of the head. ‘Maggie is completely unlettered, her children little more than savages,’ he explained. ‘With luck not all of them will die, and with yet more luck they will be taken into apprenticeships by decent masters. Do not think you can adopt all paupers who come your way, young man, for you cannot.’

  ‘But I have so much…and there are other families at Marsh Bottom—’

  ‘Who are still the farmer’s responsibility. And however much you have, my friend, you do not have enough to change the world. The best you can do – the best any of us can do – is improve your own little corner. Jem, for instance: can he afford to replace the shirt, breeches and waistcoat I hope he has burnt?’

  I blushed. How easy it was for me to reach for fresh garments. And how easy to forget that while Jem might be well paid for his services compared with others in his position, he could ill manage an extra expense, a sum of money that my father would not hesitate to spend on a single supper for one of his high-fliers.

  ‘Do not worry, Tobias. You will learn in time.’

  Perhaps he was right. ‘But there is something else I need to learn, Dr Hansard. You have not told me yet how Jenkins came to have such a terrible injury. Or why his… the lady now his widow…looked at me with such hatred.’ As he hesitated, I added, ‘I am not a child to be protected, you know.’

  His laugh was indulgent, but his voice hardened as he told the tale. ‘Very well. I hoped to spare you until at least we had supped. Jenkins was poaching. His leg was caught in a mantrap. He hacked it free himself and dragged himself home, fearing that if one of his children came a-looking, he might suffer the same fate. And then he took three days to die.’

  For minutes I could not speak, and paced about the room in an effort to regain control over my emotions. Such heroism, such suffering, were beyond my comprehension. I came to a halt by the window, overlooking Hansard’s peaceful garden and parkland, hoping the verdant scene would ease away the recollection of the man’s sufferings. At last Hansard joined me, laying a consoling hand upon my shoulder.

  ‘And why did his wife blame me?’ I ventured.

  ‘Because the trap, my friend, was on your glebe land.’

  I was afflicted with such shame that none of Hansard’s words over supper, nor the excellent repast with which he regaled me, could lift my spirits.

  At last, perhaps attributing my want of conversation to fatigue, he bade me a hearty goodnight, handing me over to Jem’s care, as he put it.

  Through the pitch-black night – clouds had by now obscured the moon – we rode in silence towards the village. We knew each other well enough never to interrupt each other’s thoughts with idle chatter.

  ‘Hark! What on earth is that?’ I demanded.

  ‘A carriage moving very fast,’ Jem had time to reply.

  Before I knew it, he had grabbed my reins and yanked Titus into a gateway just deep enough for the two trembling horses. Barely had he done so than an unlit chaise shot by.

  ‘Why did we not hear them before?’ I asked foolishly.

  ‘The horses’ hooves were muffled in felt,’ Jem responded thoughtfully. ‘Now why should anyone go to the trouble of doing that?’

  I shrugged. After the tribulations of the day I had no answer and neither, it seemed, did he.

  CHAPTER THREE

  If my first sermon at St Jude’s, delivered to a congregation I could count on my fingers, had been as bland as buttermilk (though at least, I protest, the product of my own labour, not taken from another’s book), my second would certainly cause offence. My subject was our duties to the poor. I had prayed long and hard, but the answer always came that I should and must deliver it, offend whom it might.

  Nonetheless, I felt unwonted tremors of apprehension as I climbed into the pulpit to face – why I knew not – a much larger congregation. Looking up at me were the narrowed eyes of my churchwardens, the watery ones of Simon Clark and the astonishingly dark brown ones of an otherwise faded lady I presumed to be his wife, whose efforts to keep the church clean had noticeably waned. Also there were Mrs Beckles and a flock of servants from the Priory, including Lizzie, whose turquoise eyes almost dazzled in the darkness, as she sat with lips slightly apart, as if to drink in my words. Gazing at her, not me, with unabashed longing, was a sturdy young man I did not recognise, who clearly led an outdoor life. If I had wondered what a well set-up young man was doing here at home, not earning the King’s shilling, in Lizzie, I suspected, lay the answer.

  Squire Oldbury and Farmer Gates were stolid in their churchwardens’ pew. The rest of the congregation were labourers, tricked out in what little they could call their best, and a pew devoted to the preternaturally smart Jenkins family. Mrs Jenkins, eyes still red from her bereavement, raised her face to me with the sort of adoration seen on the features of Mary Magdalene, as depicted by the Old Masters. The family’s sartorial good fortune brought forth one or two nudges and winks, as if the neighbours envied them their still miserably straitened existence.

  One who did not raise his head, or attempt to meet my gaze, was Mr Ford, the steward who had overseen the glebe for my predecessor. Our encounter, the day after Dr Hansard’s disclosure, had not been pleasant, not just because the fire in my study would not draw and smoke was seeping into the room.

  ‘If the traps were good enough for Parson Hetherington, I don’t see why they aren’t good enough for you,’ he had muttered. He was a small man, and his long features irresistibly reminded me of a ferret’s.

  ‘I’m sure the traps are perfectly good,’ I had assured
him. ‘But I do not want traps of any kind upon my land.’

  ‘Not gins, even, to catch rabbits?’

  Perhaps his understanding was weak. But until I could replace him with a better, I realised with horror, I could not afford to dismiss him from my service.

  ‘Nothing that can harm a human, adult or child,’ I had said firmly.

  His mean eyes regarded me curiously, and I sensed that he held me in at least as much contempt as I held him, but he had said nothing.

  At last I tried for a magnanimous ending to our uncomfortable conversation. ‘Now, Mr Ford, how are your wife and children?’

  ‘They all have their health, the Lord be thanked.’

  ‘Good. Now, could you put a man on to deal with my chimneys? And Mr Ford,’ I said, in a tone reminiscent of my old headmaster’s, ‘I hope that I will never again have cause to be displeased with you.’

  He had scuttled out with what I fear was a resentful look.

  No, today I did not expect a reassuring nod from my steward.

  I received one from Jem, in his Sunday best, a clean kerchief at his neck, who sat stolid in the rectory pew, powerful hands folded meekly in his lap. He resembled nothing so much as a gentle guard dog, as he shot a careful glance over his shoulder at each newcomer. Was it my imagination that his eyes had lingered longest on Lizzie, and then on the smitten suitor?

  I prayed in silence for a moment, and commenced my sermon.

  Our Lord, I said, had always fed and healed the poor, and though he advised people to render unto Caesar the things that were Caesar’s, nowhere in the New Testament was there any suggestion that he would approve of mantraps. I confessed my own part in the death of poor Luke Jenkins, vowing publicly that never again would I permit such a vile instrument to appear on my glebe land.

  In conclusion, I urged all the landowners and tenant farmers present, and those who would only hear what I had said at second hand, to rid their acres entirely of the foul machinery.

  If the murmur greeting my words was largely of approval, I fear it reflected the status of the congregation; it was clear I would have to carry my message in person into all the great houses of the district. I trust that my anxiety did not show as we sang our hymns and I said the remaining prayers.

  At the conclusion of the service, I reminded my flock that the following week I would be celebrating Holy Communion following the baptism of all the Jenkins children and poor Widow Jenkins herself. Then I posted myself at the door, to shake the hand of each and every person in my congregation.

  Mrs Beckles had tarried in the church, but now she too came to bid me good day. ‘I was glad to see the Jenkins brood here today,’ she began, ‘and glad to hear your sermon. I tell you straight, that Mr Hetherington would never – could never – have said such things.’

  ‘You think I have – to use a cant phrase – led with my chin?’

  ‘You will not have pleased everyone, that is certain. But I do not think you wanted to.’

  ‘I would not be doing my duty if I did. But Mrs Beckles,’ I continued, noticing for the first time that she was not in her best looks, ‘you look…’

  ‘Fagged to death,’ she said, obligingly finishing my question for me. ‘Indeed, the Jenkins adventure apart, I have had a busy week. Have you not heard of the goings-on at the Priory?’

  ‘Alas, I am not yet deemed to be sufficiently part of the village to be admitted into everyday gossip.’

  ‘I am sure you will not remain a stranger for long,’ she reassured me. ‘And perhaps a change of butler is not of such moment, after all – except to his fellow servants.’

  ‘The butler! Corby?’ Well trained and discreet, the butler was the keystone of every great house. ‘That kind old man who was in place when I stayed at the Priory?’

  ‘The very same. Mr Corby. For no reason he ups and offs, leaving no more than a letter to Mr Davies, the steward, to say that he has come into a small legacy and proposes to set up a boarding house at a seaside resort in Devon. Did you ever hear the like?’

  ‘Indeed I have not.’

  ‘And him, the most meticulous of men, to leave his room like a pigsty. How mistaken one can be in one’s fellow men.’

  I nodded in commiseration. ‘But such a household as the Priory must have a butler.’

  ‘Indeed. And at last Mr Davies is satisfied that he has found a replacement – Mr Woodvine – who will match her ladyship’s exacting standards.’ As if reflecting on those standards, she nodded in the direction of the moonstruck youth still gazing upon Lizzie. When she spoke, however, she made no direct reference to him. ‘I believe that Lizzie, with her industry and ability, could do very well in life.’ It was implicit that were her life to be linked to the young chawbacon’s, Lizzie would not do very well at all. ‘I have spoken to her ladyship about her, and we both agree that she deserves a chance to better herself – perhaps she might become her ladyship’s own maid. At one time your predecessor spoke of teaching some of the lower servants to read and write, though for some reason his plans came to naught. Would you, Parson Campion, share some of your learning?’

  ‘Nothing would give me more pleasure, Mrs Beckles,’ I said truthfully. ‘Will you arrange a time when the young men and women can best be spared from their duties? And find me a suitable room?’

  ‘Of course.’ She nodded briskly and looked about her for her charges, all enjoying rare moments of freedom in the still-warm sun.

  I resolved to indulge them a few minutes more. ‘Mrs Beckles, I have it in mind to start a school for the children of the parish. In fact, I have already told the master of the workhouse that I intend to instruct all his young inmates.’

  ‘“Told?”’ she repeated, amusement lighting her eyes.

  ‘I suggested they could more easily become apprenticed, if they knew their letters and their numbers. As for the parish itself, it would be a shame if only those incarcerated in the workhouse could benefit. Hence my hopes for the labourers’ children.’

  She looked at me shrewdly. ‘And will there be a charge for this schooling?’

  ‘Heavens, no! How could I ask such poor families—’

  Shaking her head, she said slowly, ‘If you give them something for nothing, they may not value it. Why not ask for a farthing for each child?’

  ‘But I would not want to stop anyone coming for lack of money!’

  ‘Allow them to pay in arrears. If some debts are never paid, no one need know, and honour will be satisfied – yours, Mr Campion, and the parents’. Where would you hold the classes?’

  ‘There are rooms aplenty in the rectory.’

  She nodded, but wrinkled her nose, as if she were twenty years younger. She must have been very attractive then.

  ‘You disagree?’

  ‘Even a parson,’ she said slowly, ‘might need a woman to give him countenance.’

  I thought of my predecessor’s pell-mell marriage. Perhaps she did too. ‘Mrs Beckles, the best person to chaperone the children would be my wife, did I have one, and failing that, my housekeeper. I suspect it will be easier to obtain the latter than the former.’

  She threw back her head and laughed. ‘My dear Mr Campion, were you to drop your handkerchief, I can think of forty young ladies all too ready to pick it up for you! But as to a housekeeper, you are right. You asked me to find you one, and at last – with my apologies for the delay – I have two ladies to propose. Would you care to speak to them yourself? If so, I will bid one to present herself tomorrow morning, at eleven, and the other at noon.’

  I suspected she was setting me a test. ‘Are the ladies in every way equal?’

  ‘They are. Both Mrs Trent and Mrs Wallace can cook and sew and could easily run a household rather larger than yours. But since the one you select will have to live under your roof, Mr Campion, it is important that you like her – and,’ she added with a decided twinkle, ‘it is important that she likes you.’

  ‘Or can at the very least tolerate your foibles, ecclesiastic and othe
rwise,’ Dr Hansard added, coming on me unawares. ‘I’m sorry I missed the service, Parson. My horse cast a shoe, and I was obliged to walk home. But at least there is a lusty boy to show for my night’s endeavours. Mr and Mrs Hall – their third, Mrs Beckles.’

  ‘In as many years,’ she exclaimed, though more in sorrow than in anger.

  ‘Your pardon, Parson,’ Mr Miller interrupted. He had left with the others but now came back to the porch. I turned to speak to him, leaving my two friends to each other’s company, something that did not appear to displease either.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Miller.’

  ‘That sermon, Parson. We don’t want no politics from our pulpit.’

  ‘What do you want?’ I parried.

  He flushed a patchy pink. ‘Things what’s proper,’ he said. ‘Minding your betters, knowing your place and suchlike.’

  I permitted myself a cold smile. ‘Keeping the Ten Commandments, perhaps?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Observing the Sabbath, and so on?’

  He shuffled.

  ‘Good. Now, recall, if you can, the sixth commandment. You are unable to do so? Pray, Mr Miller, step back into church for a moment, and I will point it out to you from the Bible itself.’

  As I expected, he declined my offer. ‘One day you’ll go too far, Parson, that’s all I can say. And then we know who’ll be sorry.’

  Before I could ask him to expand his threat, Jem presented himself at my shoulder, and Miller melted away like dew under the sun.

  ‘Churchwarden he may be,’ Jem murmured as we walked back together, ‘but I don’t like him. And I wouldn’t trust him further than I can throw him.’

  * * *

  Once again, my appearance at dinner later that week at Moreton Priory provoked a very strong response amongst the younger females. I could only attribute their interest to the dearth of eligible males in the area and a heavy preponderance of daughters in the local gentry’s families. For the sake of my self-esteem, however, it was fortunate that I had such fair companions. Although the previous Sunday’s service had been but ill-attended, what I had said in my sermon had obviously been widely reported. As a consequence, many of the men were offering, if not the cut direct, a politeness so cool it was barely politeness at all.