The Keeper of Secrets

by Judith Cutler

  I gave evidence of having found poor Lizzie’s body, and explained my subsequent actions. Edmund described her injuries, beginning with the slit throat and concluding with the information that brought the temporary courtroom into uproar, that Lizzie had been further violated. One woman fainted. Two men looked as if they were ready to.

  Then, very solemnly, Edmund asked the coroner for permission to introduce Dr Toone. ‘I am a lowly country physician,’ he explained, with a self-deprecating smile. ‘My colleague here is an expert in what happens after death.’

  ‘I take it that you mean what happens to the body, not to the soul?’ Comfrey asked with a smirk.

  Edmund bowed. ‘May he have permission to speak?’

  Toone hardly waited for permission. In an instant, he was on his feet, clutching the Bible and swearing his oath as the jury and onlookers gave an audible gasp.

  Sir Willard viewed him without notable enthusiasm, obviously preferring his medical information to come from older and possibly wiser lips. ‘I cannot see any need for another opinion, Dr Hansard,’ he said, ‘but clearly my objections have been pre-empted.’

  Assuredly they had. Dr Hansard had once told me that everything about me declared me to have been born into the ton; looking at Toone through the eyes of the villagers, I could see exactly what he meant. His bearing, his demeanour were those of a gentleman, an impression hardly denied by the London elegance of his coat. His cravat was snow-white, tied as exquisitely as if he were bound for Boodle’s or White’s. As for his boots, you would almost believe the claim made by most valets that the only polish to use involved champagne in the recipe. Could anyone believe the word of such a fine buck?

  ‘Tell me, Dr Toone, do your conclusions differ in some way from Dr Hansard’s?’

  ‘They do not differ, rather they augment his findings. Dr Hansard has testified that Miss Woodman’s throat was cut and that damage was inflicted on her lower abdomen. What he did not tell you was that her womb was removed.’ Overriding the murmurs of horror, he continued, ‘We found it buried a little apart from the body. Although it had endured the same ravages of decomposition as the rest of the cadaver, it was possible to determine with close examination what I believe to be a salient fact. At the time of her death, Miss Woodman was with child.’

  I know not what I said or did. At last, the hubbub erupting around us, I came to my senses sufficiently to catch Edmund’s eye. Surely this could not be true! A slight but solemn inclination of the head confirmed the awful words.

  Toone barely waited for a lull before continuing, ‘I fear I cannot give an opinion about the time the poor young lady died. The decomposition is such that in normal circumstances I should have suggested that it was about two or three weeks ago. But there is something about the tissue – something – no, I cannot give my oath as to when she might have met her end. But I would speculate—’

  ‘We will deal in facts, not speculation,’ Sir Willard said. ‘You may stand down. Mrs Woodman, please take the stand.’

  Peering over his spectacles at the poor woman, so blue about the lips I feared for her health, he asked severely, ‘Was your daughter married?’

  The mother might not have liked her daughter but the shock of hearing such a question in such a public place was too much for her. She tottered, and would have fallen had it not been for Dr Toone’s swift response. Sweeping her up, he carried her bodily from the church.

  ‘I think I can record that as a negative,’ the coroner said.

  ‘Indeed you may not,’ I objected, rising to my feet. ‘Miss Woodman did not find it easy to write; her mother is almost certainly completely unlettered. Miss Woodman might not have been able to obtain a frank; she would not have wished a poor widow to bear the cost of receiving a letter that would have been useless. Lady Elham,’ I continued, rather more calmly, ‘has informed me that Miss Woodman left her service for Lady Templemead, but soon left that place too. The clear implication was that a young man was involved. For a young lady of Lizzie’s good character that would mean only one thing, marriage.’

  ‘I fear that that is pure conjecture, Parson. Your idealism does you credit, young man, but let me assure you that in the lower orders, a test of the woman’s fertility before marriage is almost the norm. Common-law marriage—’

  ‘—which is no marriage at all, not in the eyes of the Church!’

  ‘—is the nearest many couples get to the legal state. It is enough for them and for their neighbours.’

  My head swam. Could I really believe that Lizzie…?

  Assured of his audience, Comfrey steepled his hands with a self-satisfaction I would have liked to smash. ‘Miss Woodman would not be the first young woman to give way to the urgings of a man she loved and who promised her love in return.’

  I could not argue. It had been true of my predecessor’s serving maid. As soon as Mr Hetherington had discovered the young lady in the case to be with child, he had married her forthwith and they were now – quite respectably – man and wife. Why, even in more exalted circles like my own family’s, once the heir had been provided, with possibly a second son as insurance, married couples could go much their own ways, provided that discretion – and thus the decencies – were preserved.

  I nonetheless stood my ground. ‘I believe Miss Woodman to have been a modest and decent young woman, and that somewhere in Cheltenham or London there may be even now a bereft young husband wondering why his wife has not returned.’ My voice sounded as confident as it ought. It was supported by my better-hearted parishioners, one of whom, Farmer Gates, rose to his feet.

  ‘Begging your pardon, your honour, shouldn’t someone be searching for this poor lad?’

  ‘I will undertake to set the matter in train,’ Dr Hansard said, perhaps to spare me further speech, or even to take such an impossible task from my hands.

  ‘In that case we can return at last to the business of this inquest. Now, in such cases there is usually a jealous ex-lover,’ Sir Willard declared so complacently that I swear that it was only the House in which we sat that prevented me from wreaking violence upon him. ‘With whom was Miss Woodman – in the absence of any proof to the contrary I shall continue to refer to her thus – walking out at the time of her death?’

  Matthew rose to his feet, manly in his declaration. ‘That was I, your honour. I am proud to say so, begging the pardon of my present sweetheart.’

  ‘And were you responsible for Miss Woodman’s – er – condition?’

  He winced, but said, ‘I wanted to wed the maid, not just bed her. And maid she was, as far as I was concerned.’ He made no attempt to meet his current inamorata’s eyes. ‘I have not seen her since before Christmas. She quit the village without even leaving me word, sir, and my affections have since turned elsewhere.’

  The coroner stared at him, as if trying to cow him into a confession, but Matthew held his gaze, head proudly raised.

  Mrs Beckles gave evidence as to the day of her departure. She looked as if she might have said more, and rarely had I seen her face so troubled.

  ‘I repeat, you may stand down. You have given all the information I need.’

  She opened her mouth once more, but closed it with a snap, and retired to her pew.

  ‘Very well, jury members, it is time to bring in your verdict. And I beg leave to inform you that death by misadventure is not appropriate.’

  It took the jury less than a minute to record a verdict of murder by person or persons unknown.

  As soon as the yeomen farmers and other neighbours departed, one kindly taking up poor Mrs Woodman in his cart, Toone approached me, urging me away from any stragglers. ‘Yesterday you said that the dead girl’s sister—’

  ‘Susan—’

  ‘—that Susan was afraid her sister might have frozen to death. Did she say why?’

  I shook my head. ‘We have had one of the coldest winters the villagers can recall – almost as cold as those I was used to in Derbyshire,’ I added with a smile.

&nb
sp; Still he did not place me. ‘Did the frost lie long?’

  ‘As far as I recall from two or three weeks before Christmas till about two weeks ago.’

  ‘Indeed!’ Looking over his shoulder for Edmund, deep in conversation with a still anxious-looking Mrs Beckles, he summoned him with a jerk of his head. ‘Parson Campion has the same recollection of the hard weather’s duration as yourself. So our theory might be correct.’

  Lest Edmund take offence at having to have his word corroborated, I intervened quickly. ‘It would be more fitting to have any further conversation in the privacy of my study. Mrs Beckles, would you do us the honour of accompanying us?’ As I introduced her to Toone, I offered her my arm, receiving an ambiguous smile from Hansard for my pains. What Toone might make of a society where grooms and housekeepers were accorded such courtesy I no longer cared.

  Possibly Mrs Beckles’ sense of rightness coincided with his and Jem’s. Once in the rectory, she withdrew immediately to Mrs Trent’s room, there, no doubt, to regale her with the day’s doings. As for Jem, I had seen him withdraw to the stables, where he would almost certainly be giving Titus the brushing of his life.

  Rightly assuming that Mrs Trent would have laid out a cold collation of abundance and excellence in the dining room, I led the doctors there.

  Once more, Dr Toone seized on the wine I poured with more haste than manners. He looked about him, at the plainly furnished but well-proportioned room, frowning and occasionally shooting glances at me as if he were searching the recesses of his memory.

  I waited until their plates were laden and their glasses once again full before broaching the matter that had so intrigued me and which Mrs Woodman’s collapse had prevented our hearing.

  ‘Yesterday and again today you referred to matters which caused you to be unsure of the time of Lizzie’s death. Would you now care to enlighten me?’

  Hansard said, ‘To be blunt, Tobias, it is not impossible that Lizzie was killed just at the start the cold weather. The frost came so swiftly, you will recall, and was so intense, that her corpse might have been frozen in a near-perfect state. It was only when the warmer weather arrived that decomposition began.’

  ‘So while she might well have died only two weeks or so ago,’ Toone concluded, emptying his glass yet again, ‘she might equally have died before Christmas.’

  ‘That is surely impossible,’ I said. ‘She left with her ladyship, took employment with Lady Templemead and took up with a suitor. Lady Elham documents all that in her letters.’

  Toone nodded, with surprising humility. ‘It was a mere supposition. I once saw a man who had fallen in the Alps at the beginning of winter. When his body was retrieved it was in almost exactly the same state of decomposition as Lizzie’s. A sad business, whenever it happened.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Hansard said slowly. He stared into his glass of Burgundy as if it would provide him with the information he clearly sought. ‘Have you yet apprised her ladyship of these sad events, Tobias?’

  ‘No, but I will write immediately. And if there is a poor relict, then he must be sought out too.’

  ‘I wonder,’ he said slowly, ‘if such news might not better be delivered face to face, than by means of a cold letter, both to her ladyship and Lizzie’s supposed husband or paramour.’

  ‘Is this because you think it would be kinder, or because you may glean something from their reactions?’ I asked.

  The answer was a gleam in Hansard’s eye and a throaty chuckle.

  It was not until our repast was completed that we all took a stroll in the wilderness at the south end of my garden. Hansard dawdled behind as something caught his eye.

  Toone took my arm and drew me to a halt. He inspected my face. ‘By God, I do know you, don’t I?’

  ‘Indeed, I thought you were far too exalted a personage at Eton to notice, let alone recall, someone as junior as myself.’ I was reasonably sure that neither of us would forget the beatings he had administered, but I would not be so rag-mannered as to remind him of those.

  Perhaps I did not need to. I would have sworn that he blushed slightly. Perhaps he had taken up the healing arts not to pay his racing debts, but to assuage the guilt that his cruel violence had caused. After all, I had not been the only lad who had had to sleep on his belly for days after the punishment – and I had had the protection of my older brothers.

  ‘But I’d have thought with your family you would not need a career to support you, youngest son though you might be. Why the Church, for God’s sake?’

  I smiled. ‘It was precisely for that reason. I had the honour of taking Holy Orders not to embark upon a career, but for the sake of God, or,’ I added, ‘more accurately for the love of God.’

  As if it was bad manners to speak of one’s religion, Toone flushed, and changed the subject. ‘And when do you and Dr Hansard propose to carry forward your inquiries?’

  ‘I must conduct the funeral before I leave my flock,’ I said. ‘And I must find a curate to take divine service while I am away.’

  Toone snorted with laughter. ‘What a queer cove you’ve turned out to be, Campion! Everyone knows that country clergy are the greatest idlers known to man, sitting in their sinecures and making as much money from God as most make from Mammon!’

  ‘I fear I cannot contradict you,’ I said. ‘But I have had two good examples in good works. The first is Dr Hansard.’ Overhearing, he came over and bowed in acknowledgement. ‘The second is my groom, Jem Turbeville, whose instinct for what a man ought to do is the strongest I have ever known. Neither would let me sit twiddling my thumbs when I could be doing God’s work.’

  ‘Are you also turned Methodist, Edmund?’ Toone asked my friend.

  ‘Not I! I work to lay down treasure in this life, not the hereafter, as Tobias will tell you.’

  ‘Tobias will tell you,’ I corrected my friend with an affectionate smile, ‘that often the good doctor works for precisely the same rewards as the pastor. But I hear the voices of some of my flock, gentlemen. Edmund, may I call on you this evening to discuss our way forward?’

  With that they could scarce do other than take their leave, and so it was arranged.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Do I hear you aright?’ I thundered, gripping the top of my desk as if to overturn it and throw it at my visitors. ‘Not bury Lizzie in hallowed ground? How dare you make such a suggestion!’

  Miller glanced briefly at Bulmer. ‘After all, her mother’s a Methody. Don’t hold with the proper church.’

  ‘That is completely irrelevant.’ Perhaps some of my fury was as a result of Toone’s earlier needling, but I was truly enraged by their lack of charity. ‘Lizzie Woodman was baptised as an infant and later confirmed into the Church of England. She attended every service her mistress permitted her to and took Holy Communion whenever she could. And yet you are telling me that I must deny her a Christian burial.’ I took a turn around my study. ‘An innocent girl, victim of the most horrible crime,’ I said, pointing an accusing finger at both in turn.

  Bulmer coughed, not deferentially. ‘It’s on account of that crime, Parson, that we knows she’s not innocent. Out of the bonds of wedlock that child was conceived, and that no one can deny.’ He had gathered confidence as he spoke, and now stood straight, his chin jutting.

  As calmly as I could, I said, ‘As you heard at the inquest, it may well be that Lizzie was married. Her employer in London—’

  ‘None of the doctors mentioned her wearing a wedding ring,’ Miller put in slyly.

  Nor had I seen one. Hoping to disguise my dismay, I said sharply, ‘Her fingers were much decayed. I doubt if one would have stayed in place.’ I had the satisfaction of seeing both men change colour.

  ‘I don’t see why the parish should have to pay for her burial, not if she were married to a Londoner,’ Bulmer said, recovering.

  Miller’s hand was still to his mouth.

  ‘Are you proposing to journey there – or perhaps to Bath – to seek out this poor bere
ft man and dun him for a few shillings? Pah! Gentlemen, I will pay for her burial myself. And now, may I have the honour of bidding you good day?’ I rang the bell.

  As her grim smile showed, Mrs Trent would be pleased to show them out.

  It was of course only men gathered around the graveside to hear the mighty words of the funeral service. As the acknowledged sweetheart, it fell to Matthew to scatter the first earth on the coffin. At least Annie Barton was not there to see him do it.

  Jem and I exchanged a sad half-smile. We knew better than to enter the sort of competition that Laertes and Hamlet engaged in over Ophelia’s corpse. How many years was it since we had enacted the play with the rest of my brothers and sisters one wet day in the hayloft? Jem had taken a part with manly confidence – the first gravedigger, by some twist of irony. But though the memory was vivid, our present pain bleached all the pleasure from it.

  The final prayer said, we went our separate ways. I saw Jem drawing Matthew in the direction of the Silent Woman, while I sought consolation with Edmund in the privacy of my study. Toone had departed the previous evening, the better to prepare for his sojourn here. Hansard could no more leave the villagers without a medical man than I could leave them without a curate. I doubted if either of us was satisfied that our deputy could fulfil the role to our satisfaction.

  ‘When do we start?’ I asked the moment I had poured Madeira for us both. ‘And for where? Have you ascertained where Lady Elham might be?’

  ‘Mrs Beckles understands that she is in Bath,’ Edmund replied formally. He added, ‘Tobias, something is troubling…my friend…and I know not what it might be.’

  ‘Mrs Beckles looked anxious at the inquest,’ I agreed. ‘Would you prefer me to ask her? I have promised to collect young Susan later today – I could take her to see the Priory fowl and raise the matter then.’