Shadow of the Past

by Judith Cutler

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘But it is dark,’ was my foolish response.

  Matthew blinked as his eyes met the candlelight. ‘So it is. I had not realised when I found—’

  ‘What have you found?’ My pulse beat hard.

  ‘I am sorry, Parson – this will wait till morning. After all, I can’t see it going anywhere.’ He started to back out. ‘I’ve left Gundy.’ Salmagundy was surely the most ill-favoured dog ever to enjoy his master’s devotion. ‘He’ll guard it.’

  The fact that he referred to this find as ‘it’, not ‘he’ or ‘she’ must be reassuring.

  ‘What is it that you have found, Matthew?’ I asked. ‘Pray, do step inside.’

  He shook his head, looking pointedly at his filthy boots. ‘Nay, and in truth I was wrong to bother you.’

  ‘What is a parson for, if not to be summoned at all hours?’ I asked with a laugh. ‘Or a physician, too, for I must tell you that Dr Hansard is with me.’

  At this point Mrs Trent emerged – nay, erupted – into the hall. ‘For shame, coming to the front door, Matthew, and disturbing good folk at their dinner.’

  ‘And an exceedingly fine repast it is too,’ I declared, wishing I had imbibed less.

  ‘But I am sure,’ Mrs Hansard declared, with a swift smile as she joined us, ‘that if the menfolk must needs go out, Mrs Trent, the two of us together can save some, if not all of it, against their return. And if I might ask you about that wonderful quince preserve…’ Taking her gently by the elbow, she drew her away just as the two doctors emerged from the dining parlour.

  Matthew looked nonplussed. ‘Indeed, I must be dicked in the nob to have made such a fuss. My apologies, gentlemen.’ He made to withdraw.

  ‘For God’s sake, Matthew,’ I demanded with some asperity, ‘I do believe becoming a father has softened your brains. What is it that you have found, where is it, and is it truly imperative to retrieve it tonight?’

  ‘I have found a trunk, sir, full of ladies’ garments. To be honest, I fell over it in the dark. I would have hefted it here, sir, but I know Dr Hansard doesn’t like things to be disturbed before he has seen them for himself – in…in…’

  ‘In situ. Well done, Matthew,’ Hansard said warmly, over my shoulder. ‘Could you find your way back to it? Dr Toone here is not prepared for a walk in the dark, but Mr Campion and I can equip ourselves.’

  I nodded. Edmund would never travel even to a social engagement without his boots stowed in his gig, but Toone could not have been expected to show such forethought. However, provided I left him with a full decanter, I presumed he would be happy enough to sacrifice a cold and dirty walk for a pleasant book by my fireside.

  Jem joined the mêlée in the hall at this point, but was expressly forbidden by Dr Hansard, even now shrugging on his greatcoat, to venture into the cold night air.

  ‘Not that you’ll see much, even by lamplight,’ Jem grumbled. ‘Why don’t you just put a rope round the place, and look more closely in the morning?’ He went off, muttering under his breath, the gist of his complaints being that Matthew had more hair than wit and should have thought of that himself before dragging Christian men from their supper.

  Had anyone taken any notice of his ill humour, I would have absolved him from blame on account of disappointment. But even as we trudged forth, stopping at the stables to collect the rope he had suggested, I began to admit – to myself, if not to the others – that he was in the right of it. I could only blame our lack of foresight on the effect of strong wine on empty stomachs, and each step away from my dining parlour and all Mrs Trent’s efforts made me more regretful.

  At last – it seemed many a mile into the woodland, but it was no doubt a mere few hundred yards – Matthew’s brisk step became a slower pace. Had he been a hound I would have said he had lost the trail. But at last he plunged purposefully down what his eyes detected as a path, even if mine perceived it as a mere rabbit run.

  ‘Short cut,’ he said tersely.

  And perhaps it was. Within a very few minutes we were standing still again, at the edge of a clearing. Matthew’s cap and scarf hung from a tree like gaudy mistletoe, but it was not that that brought him up short. ‘Gundy!’ he cried. ‘Gundy? I left him here on guard,’ he insisted. ‘He’d never have strayed from the spot. Not nohow.’ He called and whistled, in vain.

  I felt a fear so great I could scarcely bear to look about me. He’d raised Gundy from a pup and the two were inseparable. I might think him a brute, but Matthew always spoke to him as one might to another human.

  ‘Over there,’ Hansard snapped, pointing and raising his lantern aloft.

  ‘Gundy? Not dead?’ Matthew wailed, running straight across the clearing.

  Hansard followed, with equal anxiety. In fact he reached the animal first. I followed more circumspectly, aware that we had come here with the specific intention of not disturbing the surroundings. My lantern showed an area of crushed grass some two feet by three – the size, I would suppose, of a trunk – and several deep muddy footprints, confused as if someone had danced on the spot. There were also some paw prints. Had Gundy tried to hold someone at bay?

  Meanwhile Hansard had reached the prone dog, and was checking it for vital signs.

  ‘He lives,’ he declared briefly. ‘But only just. See – he’s been hit about the head, and has bled freely. We need to bind the wound before we attempt to move him. How could I have been so damned pea-brained as to leave my case at the parsonage?’

  Despite the drizzling rain now blowing in the keen wind, Matthew stripped off his coat and tore at his shirt.

  ‘Excellent. Now, hold him still, while I attend to him. Tobias, more light if you please. What are you doing, man?’ he asked tetchily.

  ‘Roping off what I think you will find most interesting.’ I suited the deed to the word before coming and kneeling beside the stricken animal. ‘Now, how may I help?’

  ‘Seems to me the best thing you can do, seeing as you’re on your knees, Parson, is what you’re best at. Have a word with the Almighty,’ Matthew snapped.

  I did not rebuke him. In the lamplight I could see tears trickling down his cheeks and dropping unnoticed on the dog’s fur as he felt up and down each limb. Not wishing to get in either man’s way I stationed myself at Gundy’s head, hoping that both would get the maximum of the feeble glow. But then I lowered it, finding something of interest in my own right. Hooked on one of his evil-looking yellow teeth was a fragment of cloth. Wrapping my handkerchief firmly round my hand lest he regain consciousness, I grabbed the cloth and slipped it quickly away, wrapping it for safekeeping in the same handkerchief and stowing it in my inner pocket.

  Any thoughts I might have had of fetching something to lay our patient on to carry him home were irrelevant. Matthew would carry him in his arms. I had rarely seen him with his new son, but I swear that he could not have borne him with any more tenderness than he did this ugly mongrel. When Hansard slipped his discarded coat about his shoulders, he shook it down so it covered Gundy too.

  Meanwhile, I was despatched back to the parsonage to collect Hansard’s bag, and to ride with it to Matthew’s cottage. It was an eerie experience, one I certainly did not relish, walking through the utterly dark woods with only my night-eyes and a guttering lamp for company. Nay, there was more than that. Mine were not the only feet treading through the undergrowth. It seemed that every rabbit and vole in Warwickshire was on the move. As for my notion of studying owls, it was all very well to consider that in the comfort of my study, but in the open, as they dived and swooped on silent wings – indeed, that was quite another matter.

  But I arrived home without incident, presenting myself at the back door so that I did not compound the felony of abandoning Mrs Trent’s great feast by muddying her pristine floors. She handed over Hansard’s bag with a grunt so disapproving I did not dare tell her that his patient had four legs, not two. Titus grumbled and fretted at being forced into the night air, but, thinking he was headed
for the carrots and fuss that always greeted him at Langley Park, set off briskly. Only when he realised that he was bound for somewhere else did he try a little napping. Telling myself he was in fact taking his mood from me, I raised my voice in my favourite hymns, and thus we arrived at Matthew’s home.

  His wife was by the fire, suckling their baby. Matthew and Edmund had been relegated to the scullery, where they squatted on the floor.

  ‘Will he survive?’ I asked breathlessly, caught up in their emotion.

  ‘Aye. He’s like his owner, thick about the skull. Hand me my bag, there’s a good fellow.’ He received it with a smile. ‘Now, I know that you’re squeamish, so why don’t you leave us here and return to the ladies?’

  ‘Indeed I will not. I have already warned Titus to expect a double burden.’

  ‘Well, tell the good fellow I should only be ten minutes.’

  It was nearly three hours after we had quitted the dining table when, smelling strongly of lavender water, we at last returned to it. Mrs Hansard had spent her time in the kitchen with Mrs Trent, leaving Dr Toone to the decanter and his vinous dreams. Somehow the ladies’ combined efforts had produced a reduced but still excellent array of dishes. By common consent no mention was made of the dog’s treatment. I suspect there would have been none except Edmund to argue with Mrs Trent’s evaluation of the patient. However, over our port and champagne, I did report on the scrap of cloth that I had found – and, more importantly, on the fact that there was no sign of the trunk or its contents.

  ‘Nothing!’ Edmund struck a fist into his open palm with exasperation.

  ‘But to my mind there is evidence that it had been there.’ I explained.

  This time Edmund’s gesture was a smack of applause. ‘Well done, Tobias. You and Maria will soon be setting up your brass plate in rivalry of mine.’

  ‘It is one thing to perceive a problem, another to deal with it. I shall leave that to you, my friend.’

  Toone was swift to call for a toast. ‘To observers all. The observed of all observers,’ he added with a bow in Mrs Hansard’s direction.

  I caught, as he did not, an anguished glance between husband and wife. It was clear she felt that if Toone continued making indentures, he would end up under the table. Accordingly I offered a foolish smile, as if I were Lady Bramhall, whose hesitant tones I ventured to mimic. ‘Shall we withdraw, ladies?’

  Edmund laughed out loud, though I fear that my feeble jest deserved much less enthusiasm. ‘Indeed you should, your Ladyship. And we gentlemen will come with you, instanter, will we not, Toone?’ Since three of us were on our feet, he could hardly decline. At least the tea Mrs Trent swiftly provided and the chill night air might sober him enough for him not to rely on Turner and Edmund putting him to bed.

  * * *

  The following morning, I had scarce dressed before Edmund rang the front door bell. His bright eyes gave the lie to the previous night’s activities. He had, he informed me cheerily, already visited his canine patient, to find him resentful of his bandages and eager for food. Since every time Matthew tried to leave him on his own, he set up a howling likely to be heard in Leamington, it had been agreed that Matthew must stay at home, Edmund making his excuses to his employer and – I suspected – surreptitiously making up his wages.

  ‘Toone lies snoring in his bed, Tobias, and so it is to you and me that the honour of inspecting that clearing falls. It would be good to have something to report to the coroner this evening.’

  ‘We already have something,’ I reminded him. ‘We have that scrap of cloth that I rescued from Gundy’s mouth.’ It was safely locked in my desk drawer.

  ‘Of course.’ He slapped his forehead. ‘How could I forget? Too much port,’ he answered himself dourly.

  ‘Find,’ I continued, flourishing it, ‘a coat lacking this and we have found the one who stole the trunk.’

  He shook his head with a pitying smile. ‘Oh, you Cambridge men and your logic. Find that coat and we shall have found the one who removed the trunk from the clearing.’

  I nodded, chastened. ‘But not necessarily the man who put it in the clearing in the first place,’ I agreed.

  ‘And your logic tells you it was a man? Might it not have been a woman? Miss Southey herself? Miss Southey was a highly accomplished pianist. Her arms were as strong as a man’s.’

  I stared at him with amazement. ‘But it was so heavy. You might as well accuse Lady Bramhall of moving it.’

  ‘I could indeed. Think how well-muscled her hands are.’

  I could not tell if he was joking. So I continued seriously, ‘Could it be possible that Miss Southey had a companion as she left the Court?’

  ‘Very possibly. It is very hard to disappear so completely without assistance.’

  We rode in a leisurely manner to the woods, apparently two gentlemen out for a constitutional. We had Toone as a topic of conversation, both of us worried by his hard drinking. He was, after all, no undergraduate to whom a state of inebriation was almost de rigueur. Amongst my father’s cronies a state of total sobriety was hardly required after nightfall, but it was decidedly bad ton to be seen by your hostess in an addled state.

  ‘The first time we met,’ I recalled, ‘Dr Toone struck me as an extremely able physician – is his skill impeded by his imbibing?’

  ‘I hope and pray that it is not. Tobias – you knew him at school. What was he like then?’

  ‘Always ready to fly into the boughs,’ I conceded. In fact, he had been a vicious bully, at whose hands I had had many an unwarranted beating, and I sometimes wondered if his dedication to medicine might be a form of reparation for a decidedly misspent youth.

  ‘Hmm.’ He said no more as we rode into the woods, at first in single file and then dismounting and leading our horses, which eventually we tethered a few yards short of the clearing.

  This was much as we had left it, the rope still around the place I had found the crushed grass. Hansard squatted and peered one way and another, but at last his conclusion was no different from mine – that Gundy had tried and failed to defend the trunk. Which might now, of course, be anywhere.

  ‘My logic tells me,’ Hansard began slowly, ‘that anyone – man or woman – carrying such a weight would walk more slowly and make deeper footprints. Can we see any such?’

  ‘Those there. Probably male? But they could equally well be Matthew’s, staggering under the weight of his dog.’

  ‘Let us see where they go.’ He picked his way alongside them, tangling with brambles that he swished away with his whip. ‘Ah, to the main ride. So they could be Matthew’s. But are there any others, leading in another direction?’

  Following his lead, I peered this way and that. ‘If the miscreant did not wish to be followed, he would surely have made for the main ride too, knowing that the ground was beaten hard and would not betray him.’

  ‘Would he be thinking so clearly? He would not have enjoyed the encounter with Gundy, and might in his panic…’ Slowly Edmund returned to the clearing. He stood regarding my rope, as if it might hold the answer. Perhaps it did. ‘Was there any blood on that fabric?’

  ‘Not that I recall. Were you hoping for a trail of blood to lead us?’

  ‘It would have been helpful. But perhaps it is not to be.’ He lifted his arm, as if to fend off an assailant. ‘How high do you think an enraged dog might jump?’

  ‘Gundy? For the throat, I should think. And his intended victim would protect himself thus—’ I crossed my arms in the air, a few inches from my face.

  He sighed. ‘If only we could inspect the forearms of all the men – and women – in the village. Well, Tobias, I cannot see anything to help us here. May I suggest we retrieve your rope and that we make our way back to our homes? We have daily duties to pursue, after all, and I have to sober up Toone for the inquest this afternoon.’

  I coughed with embarrassment. ‘The evidence about the mud in the dead man’s nostrils – will Mrs Hansard…?’

  ‘Take the
witness stand? Have you taken leave of your wits, man?’

  ‘I was going to say, be mentioned in Dr Toone’s evidence? You must know that the villagers do not approve of “cutting decent folk up”, Edmund, even when done by a man. And were word to get out of her part in finding such information, no matter how valuable, her reputation would be seriously damaged.’ I did not add that there was enough unworthy hostility towards her from some of the village women, jealous of her translation from being a servant, no matter how elevated, to being the mistress of Edmund’s not inconsiderable property.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘You are right, Tobias. I must point this out to him. Thank you.’ He spoke with perhaps more emotion than the occasion warranted. He made an effort to regain his composure. ‘It seems to me that there is something else that should be kept out of the public domain for Lady Chase’s peace of mind, indeed, her safety – the business of the ring and the newspaper advertisement.’

  I hung my head. ‘Much as I would like to agree,’ I said at last, ‘I do not see how we can avoid mentioning them – if asked. We swear, do we not, to tell not just the truth, but the whole truth?’

  ‘Of course. But I tell you now, I fear the consequences.’

  Breaking what threatened to become a long silence, I said tentatively, ‘Edmund, there are others in the village with eyes more skilled than yours or mine. Should we not ask them to look along the rides? And more important even than tracks, might they even locate the trunk itself, discarded once its contents were removed?’

  He clapped me on the arm. ‘And who knows what else they might find? Well done, Tobias. Let us set some men on to it immediately.’

  Although I had not neglected my duties as the world saw them, as a clergyman I had indeed fallen short: there is more to being a good parson than simply hatching, matching and despatching. So, once back in the village, I made my way to the church, there to kneel and lay my anxieties before the Almighty. Then I praised His Name with a psalm and the Collect for the day. I concluded in what I always found the most wondrous part of my prayers – simple, silent worship. Whatever this search might uncover, whatever the day held, my friends and I would not face it alone.