The Keeper of Secrets

by Judith Cutler

  Again I stepped in as his proxy. ‘Are you aware of corn prices this year, Mr Miller? I am assured that in your occupation, you must know exactly how much a loaf of bread costs. If we have another harsh winter, and there is every indication that we will, then I cannot see how some families will be able to scrape together one sixpenny bit between them, let alone one for each man, woman and child.’

  His face fell into meanly stubborn lines. ‘’Tis only right that everyone bears their share. ’Tis what his lordship would expect.’

  Some deep thought process was preventing Bulmer from speaking.

  ‘Which lordship? The dead one or the living one?’ I prompted. ‘If it is the former, I assure you that if he is now with the Almighty, such earthly considerations as a stone monument are no longer any concern of his.’

  Bulmer produced a long, slow smile. ‘And if he’s in the other place,’ he said, ‘then he don’t deserve no monument.’

  Desperate not to laugh, I responded with a bow, but Miller did not. If anything, he looked even shiftier than Bulmer had done when he feared being overheard.

  I continued, ‘If on the other hand you fear the wrath of the young Lord Elham for your failure to honour his father, surely he can see for himself the struggle the poor have simply to survive.’

  ‘There’s the workhouse for those as can’t,’ Miller interjected.

  I thought of the poor Jenkins family, sinking deeper into despair, despite my puny efforts to improve their lot. At least when the spring sowing came, I should be able to employ all the lads as birdscarers, but that would preclude them from ever doing more than following their poor father’s occupation as the lowest of the unskilled labourers. Meanwhile, Mrs Jenkins was forced daily, whatever the weather, to clear stones from local farmers’ fields.

  ‘The workhouse is a drain on the parish,’ Bulmer reflected gloomily. ‘Better they were in proper work.’

  ‘Amen to that,’ I said. ‘And I am persuaded that Lord Elham will agree that keeping the families together is worth the sacrifice of a monument to his father.’

  Miller shook his head doubtfully. ‘You may be persuaded, Parson. But I fear his new lordship won’t be.’

  The question of the wording temporarily forgotten, the two men soon took their leave.

  ‘My lord, I tell you roundly, they cannot,’ I said, across my desk. This time Mrs Trent had been all too welcoming to my guest, and had shown him in with no warning, although he had declined to surrender to her care his hat, gloves and horsewhip. ‘They do not have money for bread, for shoes for their feet and their children’s feet. Such a demand would send many to the workhouse.’ For the moment, I would let him assume that the decision had been mine, not the churchwardens’.

  ‘It is the custom,’ he said with the stubbornness of the foolish mind.

  ‘It has always been the custom, nay, the duty, of those in the great houses to offer charity to their dependents – not simply those to whom they are related by blood or marriage, but all those on their estates. Your own mother keeps a poor basket so that your labourers’ children shall not run naked; she bids Mrs Beckles send nourishing broth to those who are sick. Surely, my lord, you cannot run against the wonderful example of your mother and ask me to extort money from those who simply have none.’

  ‘The rector says nothing but the truth,’ Dr Hansard declared, walking in unannounced. ‘Have you any idea how high the corn prices have risen today?’

  Elham gave the sort of extravagant shrug that I associated with Frenchmen, though carried off with so little aplomb it suggested ignorance as much as insolence.

  ‘Have you seen the state of the cottages your workers are forced to inhabit?’ I pursued. ‘Even those of the most respectable have bare mud floors and are prey to damp and cold to a degree that barely separates them from your ice house in discomfort.’

  ‘They should have been born rich, then,’ he said. ‘How dare you defy me in this matter? I tell you, Parson, you have crossed me once too often. And you, Hansard – your insistence on an inquest was outside of enough. You both forget yourselves.’

  ‘Enough of these Cheltenham tragedies,’ I said, with too much emphasis.

  He brought his whip up, smacking it against the palm of his gloved hand. For a moment, I thought he would strike me, and braced myself for the blow. Instead, with a single sweep he removed everything from the top of my desk, at last turning on his heel and walking out. As he reached the door, he stopped. ‘You will suffer for this,’ he declared. ‘You mark my words.’

  ‘Well, we have made an enemy there,’ Hansard said, bending to assist me in the task of recovering my possessions. The ink well had shattered, and I feared that even Mrs Trent’s best efforts would be unable to rescue the carpet.

  ‘I, Edmund – not you. You merely appeared at the tail end of our dispute, and cannot be held to blame.’

  ‘Not by any rational creature, indeed. But our new lord is of limited mental capacity and an infinite capacity for spite. Good God, he actually attended the inquest. Did he not see how mild, how positively obsequious, I was? Her ladyship might have been sitting taking tea, the questions were so gentle.’

  ‘The church and medicine must make stands for what they know to be true,’ I agreed. ‘In any case, how can he harm us? A man who never comes to church and is, in any case, hardly ever in residence at the Priory? He has no friends amongst the families round here. He has tried to kiss too many daughters, led too many sons over dangerous fences. And he has not,’ I added as a clincher, ‘settled his gaming debts.’

  Hansard snorted. ‘You know that there is another rumour in the village? That it was he who killed his father and his mother is protecting him?’

  ‘No! Edmund, you jest.’

  ‘I confess, I would like to have the power to reopen the inquest and have him questioned under oath. And by some other justice than Sir Willard. I shall keep my ear to the ground, Tobias – and so must you.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  It was an interminably grey November, when it was never dry and never wet, never light but never dark, never mild but never cold. As if anticipating our desire to question him, the new Lord Elham disappeared from the scene without a word of farewell to anyone, though this offended his tenants less than the fact that he had not made the necessary round of visits to receive their congratulations. No one would have expected a formal assembly at the Priory, not with his bereaved mother still present, but there were nonetheless courtesies to observe.

  Lizzie reported that her ladyship was very unsettled, talking one minute of a journey to London, another of a recuperative sojourn in Cheltenham or Bath. I suspected that Lizzie could have said a great deal more, but her loyalty to her mistress was as praiseworthy as it was absolute. In any case, our moments alone were rare, caught as they were before or after her fellow pupils had come to their lessons in reading and writing. Addie’s advice and assistance had proved invaluable, and though progress was slow, for the most part it was steady.

  My visits to the workhouse were less successful, as I had told Dr Hansard. Each week I took thick slabs of Mrs Trent’s fruit cake to lessons. In theory it was to reward the best pupils; in reality, I could not bear to exclude any of those halfstarving waifs from the best nourishment they would enjoy that week. Alas, no matter how much all might have wanted the chance if not to educate themselves, but at least be fed, the workhouse master conspired to make my activities more honour’d in the breach than the observance, as the Bard said. My little protégés, the Jenkins family, were no more and no less regular than any of the others, but William seemed to be cautious and watchful, whereas I remembered him to be open and sunny; perhaps he saw my befriending of all alike as some sort of betrayal of his and his siblings’ hitherto special status.

  The next day, I was summoned to the Priory. Her ladyship’s mourning emphasised her extreme pallor, and I suspected from the redness about her eyes that she had shed tears not long since. Mrs Beckles had whispered that the new Lord Elh
am had unexpectedly returned and rapidly departed, after some fierce quarrel. However, Lady Elham made no reference to the cause of her current distress, and I could scarcely raise the subject, especially as Lizzie flitted in and out of the room.

  Lady Elham was occupied in plain sewing for her poor basket. According to Mrs Beckles, these days this was her preferred indoor occupation. Sometimes she varied her routine by reading aloud from the Bible or Prayer Book or a book of sermons to a party of servants, who sewed or knitted as she read. Occasionally Lizzie was called on to read, so much had she improved in the lessons I had continued, despite all the upheavals, to give her fellow servants.

  Her ladyship regarded me over the spectacles she affected these days for close work. ‘I wish to discuss with you a project increasingly dear to my heart,’ she said, without preamble. ‘As you know, I acceded to your suggestion that my late husband be interred in the family mausoleum. But I still have it in mind to restore the family chapel.’

  ‘That is excellent news, my lady. Its religious import aside, such an endeavour will bring great benefit to my parishioners,’ I added with a foolish beam.

  She looked at me coldly. ‘How so? You are not proposing that villagers worship here?’ She might have slapped my face.

  ‘I was thinking of the skilled workers you would need to make the alterations, my lady.’

  ‘I shall be employing the very best artists and artisans,’ she said, with the clear implication that none in the village could meet her exacting standards. ‘Let us proceed to the north gallery. There we will find some of the devotional paintings that the present lord’s grandfather…that my late husband’s father,’ she corrected herself with emphasis, ‘brought back from his grand tour.’ She gathered her Norwich silk shawl about her, and led the way, Lizzie following in her wake.

  Lady Elham paused before a number that she indicated might serve her purpose well. To my mind, those by Murillo especially, were overdramatic, but like her ladyship I enjoyed the human element of his work. I found one Virgin and Child especially moving – somehow the artist had conveyed in the young woman’s eyes a terrible foreknowledge of her Son’s fate.

  ‘You feel as if you could reach out and touch that baby,’ Lady Elham declared, ‘and His mother so obviously adores Him.’ She drifted to another picture.

  ‘A right little imp He looks, begging your pardon, Parson,’ said Lizzie, sotto voce.

  ‘You don’t think that looking at Him would be conducive to reverent musings?’ I asked, trying not to laugh.

  Lizzie shook her head. How pale she was. Like Lady Elham, she had dark shadows under her eyes, and her black gown washed all the colour from her complexion. Was she ill? I wanted to interrupt her ladyship’s stream of chatter about dead overblown old masters and ask about the living. But the opportunity did not present itself. After a tantalising few minutes during which it seemed her ladyship might be about to leave us alone together, Lizzie was sent off on some errand, and I did not see her again that day.

  Apart from such moments and my pedagogic interludes, I lived a life as quiet and grey as the weather. There were pleasant evenings with Dr Hansard, at his home or mine, but these were rarer than I would have liked, with an epidemic of putrid throat sweeping through the hamlet, on account, Dr Hansard said, of the weather.

  But at last things changed in early December. A sharp north-easter blew away the fog and brought in sharp frosts. The bright crispness of the days inspired me to walk simply for the pleasure of God’s creation, not with an eye to going anywhere. I found myself one day into the Priory woodlands. I had not, however, penetrated far when I came upon Matthew in a sunlit clearing. Even there the frost still lay.

  The last time Matthew and I had met alone face to face, we had not parted on good terms, of course, and he absented himself from Sunday worship all too frequently. Should I rebuke him? Was my reluctance to do so cowardice, or a response to the displeasure so evident on his face? But it seemed his anger was not directed at me.

  He kicked at something and spat. ‘Did I not tell you of his lordship’s vicious ways?’ he demanded without preamble.

  I moved closer. Living in the country, one could not be squeamish. If the Almighty provided for our sustenance the birds of the air and the animals that creep on the earth, then everyone knew that they must be killed before they could be eaten. A pig-sticking was a village event, bringing plenty in the midst of lack. Moles that destroyed crops would contribute to a warm winter waistcoat. No villager would simply kill an animal or bird – one of God’s creatures – and leave it a bloody mess attracting vermin.

  There at Matthew’s feet was a dead mess of rabbit. Matthew’s dog, an ugly, ill-favoured brute, barked once sharply and ventured a growl, but as I squatted to address him he soon greeted me as an old friend, humbling himself as I tickled the exact spot on his back that had needed attention. Perhaps I too should have a dog; it would give me company.

  ‘That there rabbit would have filled someone’s pot,’ Matthew observed. ‘Letting good food go to waste!’

  I forbore to tell him of the food left lying untasted at the end of one the Priory dinner parties.

  ‘But what does he have to do but peg it out to rot! It’s only the frost that’s kept it whole. Look here, Parson.’

  The animal had been pinned by each of its paws in a horrid parody of the crucifixion, belly uppermost. From the deep tears in the flesh of the paws, it might be deduced that the animal was not dead when it was laid out and had struggled frantically to free itself.

  ‘Killing vermin, yes. I kill crows and such and hang them on fences, but only to warn off others and protect the game. But not like this…’ He swallowed. ‘A good clean death. That’s what they need. Even pigeons, pests though they be too.’ With his gun, he gestured at a couple of wood pigeons on a nearby elm. But he made no attempt to take aim.

  ‘I used to take a gun to wood pigeon myself,’ I recalled, almost despite myself.

  ‘And did you kill them? Not an easy target, your wood pigeon.’

  I could not help boasting, ‘I thought myself a failure if we did not have pigeon pie at least once a week.’

  ‘But you don’t shoot in your own woods?’

  I would risk perfect frankness. ‘There’s far too much to be done in the way of clearing them.’

  ‘Ah, I heard you’d taken on some men.’ For the first time I fancied respect in his demeanour.

  I nodded. I had employed as many men as I could afford, and more, in the hope that such employment would keep families together. In addition to the small wage, the timber would provide firewood for the workers. ‘The woods are still much overgrown, and give a walker no pleasure.’

  ‘And sport?’

  ‘With so many men around?’

  With a bark of laughter, he passed me his gun. ‘Go on, Parson. Show me what you can do. It throws to the left just a mite, mind.’

  So it did. But to our shared delight and my considerable relief, after a few minutes I was able to present him with a couple of brace for his aunt.

  I stood in silence as he tore the rabbit free and tried to scuff a hole in the frozen earth in which to bury it. It seemed to me that he was less interested in the interment than in something else. Twice he swallowed hard. At last, coughing, he said, ‘Have you seen my Lizzie recently?’

  News of our occasional conversations would not bring him happiness. I compromised. ‘Sometimes she sits with Lady Elham while I read her a sermon or try to distract her with a little conversation.’

  ‘And how do you think she looks?’

  ‘I can hardly say.’

  ‘Nay,’ he insisted. I feared for a moment he would shake me by the lapels. ‘Is she in good looks, do you think?’

  I reflected. ‘I must admit that she looked pale last time I saw her. But I attributed that to lack of exercise and the inclement weather. Do not you?’ I shot him a searching look.

  ‘I wish I knew, Parson, and no mistake. Now her ladyship’s got this id
ea in her head about church, and all the servants walking two by two like so many animals going into the ark, I hardly see her. It’s not natural, all this religion, begging your pardon, Parson.’

  Finding a convenient log, I sat down, motioning him to sit beside me. ‘You refer, I collect, to the extremely deep mourning that her ladyship observes?’

  ‘She’s turning the place into a convent, so I do hear. All this Bible-reading and prayer. Can’t be right, can it, Parson?’

  ‘I confess it lacks moderation. But who would deny the good lady the solace of religion?’

  ‘I would, and no mistake, when it denies other people their own lives!’

  I nodded reflectively. Dr Hansard had said much the same, with even more emphasis. Perhaps I had been remiss in not remonstrating with her ladyship. Such devotion was indeed almost papish in its intensity, something I certainly must not encourage in my parish.

  After a few minutes’ almost companionable silence, he pointed out a couple of squirrels, the sun turning their coats to burnished copper.

  ‘I understood that they hibernated,’ I objected.

  He touched his lips to silence me; his own voice was no more than a murmur. ‘So they do when the weather’s bad. But on a day like this, why not come out? Find the nuts you’ve put away for just such a day? They’ll go back to their dray as soon as the sun cools. And – look – there’s a green woodpecker.’

  The bird was working its way down the side of a tree trunk some twenty paces from us. It appeared to catch sight of us at much the same time as Matthew pointed it out. I expected it to fly off, but it merely retreated to the further side of the tree, peeping round from time to time, like a child playing hide and seek, as if to check that we could not see it. Grown men both, we threw back our heads and laughed. Bird and squirrels retreated speedily.

  In something like harmony, we rose and fell into step, squinting against the low sun now casting the deepest shadows. Suddenly Matthew stopped, gripping my arm above the elbow. Narrowing his eyes, he was pointing towards a distant ride.