A Knife in Darkness

by Lexie Conyngham

  The clergyman led the service briskly, and although they did indeed sing two hymns, a psalm and a canticle, they were all short ones. The clergyman beat the time on the edge of the communion table, not allowing Basilia to lag behind. He preached for six minutes precisely (Hippolyta had developed a bad habit in her childhood of timing sermons), without bothering to exchange his surplice for a Geneva gown, and seemed to feel that the strength of his piety could be judged by the depth of his Oxford accent, for it grew thicker as the service grew more solemn.

  All present except the children partook of Communion, and knelt again for the prayers following. At last they stood for the final hymn, and the clergyman shot out, surplice and stole flying, and the congregation compliantly followed to shake his hand in the hall. Patrick and Hippolyta, along with Basilia who had played to the end, were the last out, and the clergyman had barely touched their hands when he was off into a side room, already pulling his surplice over his head as he went.

  ‘He has already taken a service in Aboyne this morning,’ Basilia explained, ‘and he has to ride back now to Kincardine o’Neil to take one there. He’s very busy in the summer.’

  ‘Heavens,’ Hippolyta remarked. ‘He must have a strong horse.’

  ‘Well, if he is not on the road you are most likely to find him at a horse fair,’ said Basilia with a smile. The clergyman dashed out of the side room with his black case, one thumb holding it slightly open, and darted back into the parlour. They could see him gathering up the communion vessels and accoutrements and packing them with practised speed and a muttered prayer into the case. Then he turned, bowed to Colonel Verney, and strode back past them with a nod and vanished through the front door. Forman, stern looking as ever, shut the door gently behind him, then crossed the hall towards them.

  ‘Excuse me for addressing you, ma’am, but may I ask how the kitten is settling in?’ he said to Hippolyta.

  ‘Of course! He is a delight. We have named him Snowball, you know. Please come and see him any time you wish, for I am sure he would be glad to see you. He is such an affectionate little thing!’

  Forman’s grim face lightened.

  ‘You are very kind, ma’am. I might just find the time to slip down and see how he is. Not that I have any doubts of your care for him, ma’am.’

  ‘Of course. You need to see for yourself, I understand!’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He bowed, and passed them to go back into the parlour. In a moment he returned, pushing Colonel Verney in his chair. The Colonel beamed at them all.

  ‘Off for my constitutional!’ he exclaimed. ‘Will you join me as you return to the village? I shan’t be long: Forman is very quick to haul me on to my cart!’

  ‘I’ll come too, shall I, Uncle? I’ll just fetch my bonnet and shawl.’ Basilia skipped off up the stairs and Forman pushed Colonel Verney over to the front door. Patrick hurried to hold it open as Forman manoeuvred the chair outside, where a neat little dog cart was waiting, with a toy-sized grey pony between the shafts. Hippolyta could not resist going to greet it.

  ‘Watch him, he nips!’ cried the Colonel, as Forman swung him across from the chair to the cart. The pony, however, was not going to be a slave to his own reputation, and nosed Hippolyta affectionately. Forman turned in surprise.

  ‘Do be careful, ma’am – though truly he seems quite happy,’ he admitted. ‘Comfortable, sir? Then I’ll take his head,’ he added, coming forward to the pony. The pony dutifully nipped his sleeve, and Forman batted him away gently.

  Basilia came out, bonnet and shawl in place, and the party set off, with the Napiers and Basilia walking level with the Colonel under his rugs.

  ‘Always do this on a Sunday after the service,’ he explained. ‘Works up an appetite for my dinner, and I can see if anything is going on in the village without my knowing about it. Doesn’t often happen, mind you! Old Verney keeps an eye on things, even when I’m stuck at home most of the time! Reconnaisance always pays, whatever battle you might be fighting. Wellington knows that, you know.’

  ‘And what kinds of things do you find that you haven’t known, sir?’ Hippolyta asked. ‘What things do the villagers hide from you?’

  ‘Oh, anything and everything, my dear! A tree cut down, a new house built, a field left fallow: all these things which are none of my business whatsoever and yet so interest me when I am accustomed to being at home all day. My spies here,’ he gestured to Basilia and Forman, ‘bring me much of the news, but they cannot remember everything.’

  Chapter Four

  By the time they reached the village green, the adherents of the established church of the three parishes were beginning to emerge from their own morning service, the hunched minister standing by the door to bid them good day with uncertain nods and shrugs. The sun shone blessedly on them, and the church looked quite splendid: the congregation were bright in summer clothes, and in no hurry to return to their homes in the warm sunlight.

  ‘What are the other two parishes?’ Hippolyta asked. ‘Ballater and?’

  ‘Not Ballater at all,’ said Patrick with a laugh. ‘Glenmuick, Tullich and Glengairn. It’s quite extensive, but not, as you can imagine, very densely populated. There’s Dr. Durward.’ He waved.

  ‘And there’s Mrs. Strachan - and Mrs. Kynoch,’ said Hippolyta, seeing them in the distance. It was hard to miss Mrs. Strachan: her willowy form was tall amongst her fellow parishioners, and her fashionable elegance stood out: she had a crisply starched pelerine that emphasised the broad slope of her sleeves over her shoulders, and the flower print over her green dress was echoed in her purple kid gloves: she would not have looked out of place at an Edinburgh New Town assembly. Mrs. Kynoch, by her side, was dressed in mismatched colours like an over-used paint palette. Hippolyta wondered if she realised how much worse she looked by contrast, or if she even cared. She could hear her grating voice already, and sighed.

  Dr. Durward, handsome and heavy, was approaching to meet them, and they were nearing the bulk of the crowd anyway.

  ‘Good day to you, Colonel Verney!’ said Dr. Durward. ‘Good to see you out and about. How do you do?’

  ‘Very well, I thank you,’ said the Colonel. ‘Your young colleague keeps me ticking along like an ancient clock, so that I can be a constant source of irritation to my relatives and my neighbours.’

  ‘Splendid!’ said the doctor. ‘Being a source of irritation is an encouragement to survival amongst many of my patients, too.’ They chatted in a friendly fashion as Mrs. Kynoch spotted Hippolyta and hurried over.

  ‘Good day to you, Mrs. Napier! You’ll have been to the English service, no doubt?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Hippolyta with a curtsey and a stiff smile. ‘Colonel Verney is most hospitable to let it be held in his home.’ She noticed Mrs. Strachan hovering a little distance away, waiting for her friend, but not approaching. Could she have offended her in some way?

  ‘Rather different from your experience in Edinburgh, I daresay,’ said Mrs. Kynoch sympathetically. ‘I remember there are at least two English congregations there, are there not? It must be strange to worship in someone’s drawing room, when you are not used to it.’

  ‘I found it very pleasant: quite refreshing,’ said Hippolyta. She did not want to be thought of as some arrogant tounser, looking down on how things were done in the country. Mrs. Kynoch smiled and looked about anxiously for Mrs. Strachan, saw that she was not approaching and turned back to nod goodbye to Hippolyta before she went to rejoin her friend.

  Other worshippers from the parish church were around them now, and conversations ebbed and flowed. She saw Dr. Durward out of the corner of her eye, approaching her.

  ‘Mrs. Napier, I hope you are settling in well?’ he asked. She admitted she probably was. ‘You’ll have plenty of acquaintances already, I’m sure, if Mrs. Strachan has called on you.’

  ‘That’s right: on Wednesday nearly everyone in the village called!’

  ‘Not all together, though, I’m quite sure! Do you like a c
hallenge, Mrs. Napier?’

  ‘A challenge?’ She turned to meet his eye, but was pleased to see him smiling. He spoke quietly.

  ‘Yes: Mrs. Strachan is a leader in our little society. To my knowledge, she has never attended a doctor in the village, but I understand – such are the rumours in a little place – that she has recently taken to ordering a quantity of patent medicines from Aberdeen to be brought in with her husband’s stocks. Do you think you could build up your acquaintance so that she naturally turns to Dr. Napier when the time comes that she acknowledges she needs proper medical attention?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose I could …’ She was dubious: Mrs. Strachan did not seem that willing to be a friend to her. ‘But why not to you, Dr. Durward?’

  The doctor smiled again, a little self-consciously.

  ‘Your husband is building up his practice, while I am allowing mine to decline gently. And Dr. Napier is much more au fait with all the current fashions in medicine than I am: partly, no doubt, thanks to his travels to see you in Edinburgh! But it has been to his professional advantage, too. It would be much more desirable for all that she should approach him if she wants a doctor.’

  ‘And you consider this to be a challenge, Dr. Durward?’ She smiled back, not wanting to look as unsure of herself as she felt.

  ‘Well, she is not what anyone could call approachable, is she?’ Durward asked, dropping his voice even further. ‘But if she is his patient, and happy to be so, anyone else who is anyone else in the three parishes will follow.’ He nodded, sure that she had accepted, and moved off to talk to someone else. Hippolyta looked about her: there was the minister with his wife, and there were the two elderly sisters who had visited her – what was their name? Strong, that was it: and that must be their brother, the lawyer, who looked over seventy himself. Contrary to their surname, all three must be quite frail. She noticed that none of the parties was talking with any of the others, just as her visitors had arrived separately. What was it Mrs. Riach had said? ‘Feels wi’in feels’? She tinkered with the odd vowels sounds in her head. Fools within fools? Oh, of course: wheels within wheels. She was not used to the odd way the people up here turned their wh sounds into fs. But what wheels did the housekeeper mean?

  ‘Nevertheless, you are a stranger to this town and all that is to do with it, and I shall strongly oppose any appointment that might be made concerning you!’

  The words, spoken softly but with an edge that sent shivers down her spine, made her turn quickly. Who had said that?

  Colonel Verney was sitting calmly in his donkey cart as the home-going crowd ebbed around him. Leaning over him, tall and wiry, and as fierce as a man could look, was Mr. Strachan.

  ‘Well, Mr. Strachan,’ said the Colonel quite as though he were not being towered over, ‘it is the decision of all the trustees together, as I understand it, so you will no doubt have the chance to have your say. I am not pushing myself forward, you understand: I was requested to make myself available.’

  ‘By whom? By that fool of a minister we have?’

  Again, Mr. Strachan, formal in his fashionable blue coat, managed to sharpen his words like knives. She glanced around for Patrick, anxious in case Strachan should attack the Colonel: it seemed improbable, but something in Mr. Strachan’s manner made her feel afraid. Instead, she saw Basilia, who had been speaking to some acquaintance, and came back to join her.

  ‘Dear Mrs. Napier,’ she said at once, ‘I have been meaning to ask you something, and I quite forgot.’

  ‘A moment, though,’ said Hippolyta, ‘for I think Colonel Verney may need help.’ They turned to look over at Basilia’s uncle, but to Hippolyta’s surprise he was gossiping amicably with the minister, and Mr. Strachan was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘What’s the matter? Was he looking ill again?’ asked Basilia anxiously. ‘Sometimes he takes a little turn, but he has not had one for so long I began to believe the waters here had truly cured him.’

  ‘No, no, he was quite healthy … There was a man speaking with him, Mr. Strachan.’

  ‘Oh, yes: a tall, thin man, with very black hair?’

  ‘That is the one! He seemed to be quarrelling with Colonel Verney.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure he could not have been,’ said Basilia, cheerful now she was sure her uncle was in no danger. ‘Mr. Strachan is quite genteel. But anything you might ever want to buy you will find in Strachan’s warehouse. He even runs a small servants’ agency, for the benefit of those who have decided, like my uncle, to take up residence here for a while, for the waters.’

  ‘Is that how you found Forman?’

  ‘No! No, Forman has been with my uncle since they fought together in the Peninsula – but for pity’s sake do not ask my uncle about that, or we shall have the whole war over again in narrative form!’

  ‘I see! I shall try to remember,’ Hippolyta laughed. ‘Well, what were you going to ask me, then?’

  ‘To ask you? Oh! I am so forgetful!’ Basilia Verney struck herself on the wrist with her fan in irritation. ‘I am planning a little painting expedition tomorrow morning, early, if the weather holds, which I believe it will. I had thought to walk across to the Pannanich road and paint the village from the river: the view is quite pretty and the river is delightful. Would you care to join me?’

  ‘I should love to,’ Hippolyta answered delightedly. ‘I have been itching to bring out my paints since I arrived, and was only able to start yesterday. I noticed that view when my husband and I walked to the Wells yesterday: it is charming. What time do you plan to start?’

  ‘Would eight be too early? The light on the water is delightful then.’

  ‘If it is for the sake of good light, I don’t think it is too early.’ It would allow her time for her daily meeting with Mrs. Riach, anyway, which she was determined every day to improve. She tried to remember where she had put her painting stool after yesterday’s expedition: Patrick had joked that she had asked him along only to carry her furniture, like a Highland pony.

  ‘If you have anything heavy,’ Basilia was saying, ‘Forman can bring it for you, and then return to my uncle. We shall be quite safe and comfortable, you can be assured.’

  ‘Then I shall be very happy to join you.’

  ‘Dr. Durward has challenged me!’ she told Patrick late that evening.

  ‘Challenged you, my dearest? In what way?’ Patrick blinked, one hand still fingering the notes of the little box piano. They had been singing hymns together.

  ‘To secure you Mrs. Strachan as a patient. He fears she is not well, but wants to make sure that it is to you she turns.’

  ‘Good gracious! I had no idea Dr. Durward observed his fellow villagers so keenly. But I should certainly welcome her as a patient, should she have need of me.’

  ‘I shouldn’t like her to be ill,’ agreed Hippolyta. ‘But he says she is ordering patent medicines from Aberdeen.’

  ‘I wonder what for?’ Patrick mused, playing a soft arpeggio. ‘But certainly, if she were to consult me it would help my practice enormously.’

  ‘She is so beautiful that it is possible others would contract illnesses simply to follow her to your door!’

  Patrick grinned.

  ‘Well, perhaps: but even the fees I could charge her would assist us. I should like some day to provide you with a rather more suitable home, my dear, at the very least: but at present, as you know, we shall have to make do with this one.’

  ‘I love it: and I especially love the garden. And now we have a kitten, it feels like a family home!’

  The peaceful moment was shaken almost at once by a clatter at the door, and the skipping footsteps of Ishbel going to answer it. Patrick let the piano alone to listen, and in a moment Ishbel was at the parlour door with a note. He took it.

  ‘I’m sorry, my dear, I have to go to someone taken ill – at the inn, Ishbel? Is that where the message came from?’

  ‘Aye, sir, it’s the lad from the inn that’s brought it.’

  ‘Fetch my hat and
gloves, then, please. Hippolyta, my love, I must desert you!’

  In a minute he had gone, leaving her now picking out odd notes on the keyboard. He was the player, not she, and she sighed, failing once again to do justice to both hands of an air of Thomas Moore’s. The kitten, roused from a tiny swirl of slumber by Patrick’s departure, stretched and yawned, and began to wash as if it were quite a grown-up cat. Laughing, Hippolyta reached for her sketch book, and began to draw him.

  The kitten, Snowball, seemed not in the least disconcerted by his move to more humble surroundings, and had taken charge of the household at once. He regarded his human companions as something between staircases and bedwarmers, nestled in the most unlikely places, and had a purr as loud as a steam engine, all of which combined, despite the scratchmarks on the furniture, to charm Hippolyta’s heart and even to encourage Patrick to tickle him behind the ears. The following morning at breakfast Snowball presented Hippolyta with a bird, which on inspection seemed to have been dead for some time. He sat back, immensely proud of himself.

  ‘Oh, silly cat!’ cried Hippolyta, tapping him on his pink nose with a severe finger. The poor bird was shedding feathers in a pattern of red and gold across the floorboards. ‘Don’t kill pretty birds! Or bring in other cats’ leavings, either! I hope Mrs. Riach is feeding you enough. Do you see what he has brought in, Patrick?’

  ‘I’m still in a quandary about last night,’ said Patrick, with an absent frown at the kitten. ‘I hope I have not abandoned a patient.’

  ‘Tell me again what happened?’ Hippolyta recovered a discarded paper from the firebasket and scooped up the dead bird, placing it on the bookcase temporarily out of Snowball’s reach. Snowball looked deeply disappointed. ‘I had been asleep by the time you came home.’

  ‘Yes: I was sorry to waken you. I went down to the inn with the inn boy, but no one there knew of anyone taken ill. I asked the boy who had sent for me, and he said it had been a Mr. Jenkins who has been there this last week. I found Mr. Jenkins and he said a lady in a nightgown and shawl had stopped him in the corridor, all urgency, and begged him to send for a doctor. He did not know the lady, and as he had acquired a jar of Glenlivet in order to sample local produce on his stay, and had indeed been sampling it, he was not sure he would be able to identify her again. The innkeeper could think of only two women staying in the inn who might match Mr. Jenkins’ very hazy description, and neither of them admits to running about the corridors in her nightgown – though one is elderly and very respectable, and might not admit to it even had it happened. I just hope there is no sick person there still wondering why a doctor has not come to their aid.’