He therefore silently berated himself for having been foolish enough to linger and tidy the churchyard, and tried to hurry Underwood on when he hesitated over the lonely little mound, with its poignant, one word epitaph, almost obliterated by long grasses and tussocky weeds.
Underwood’s eye had been drawn to it as he passed because it was so uncared for and overgrown. In such a small community, family graves were used over and over again, and there were very few residents who did not have at least one remembered relative whose remains had been gently laid to rest within the grey walls. It seemed to Mr. Underwood that almost every other grave was tended but this one.
Gil did not want to pause, but he could not ignore the gently spoken, “Surely this is very unusual, Gil?”
As he turned he saw, with a sinking heart, exactly where his brother stood. It was a grave he weeded occasionally himself, when he had the time, and one which engendered a certain sadness in himself, so Heaven knew what effect it would have upon his brother’s sensibilities. However, without seeming unutterably callous, he could not drag his brother away, so he was forced to reluctantly retrace his steps and take his place at Underwood’s side.
The stone bore the simplest yet the most complex epitaph ever carved in stone. The word was “Unknown”. No other information was included – none was available.
It was several seconds before Mr. Underwood spoke again, “How is it possible that there should be someone ‘unknown’ in this tiny, out of the way place? Surely everyone who lives or dies here must be known to all?”
“Well, even the smallest of places have the occasional vagrant passing through,” pointed out the vicar reasonably, rather inclined to take offence yet again at his brother’s dismissive attitude. ‘Tiny, out of the way place’ indeed! Did Underwood have to make it sound as though the parish of Bracken Tor was next door to nowhere, and that the vicar had been banished there to rot? “But as it happens, there appears to be a rather tragic element to this story. I’m afraid the poor girl was killed here. Just over a year ago. Before my time.”
“Killed? You mean in an accident of some sort?” His brother’s sudden interest caused the vicar to err on the side of wariness, “No, not an accident.” Though the vicar obviously did not wish to expound further, Underwood would not allow himself to be put off, “If not an accident, then what? I can think of only one alternative.”
“She was murdered.” Curt and to the point, thought Underwood, but why the reluctance to speak of the tragedy? There was evidently a great deal more to all this than the vicar was admitting.
“In the wood on Sir Henry’s land?” guessed Underwood, with sudden insight, recalling the conversation he had had with Miss Wynter.
Gil looked faintly surprised, “That is where she was found, yes. But how did you know?”
“Something that someone said,” answered Underwood tersely, “So, no one was able to identify her?”
The vicar became more and more reluctant to speak on the subject; “It is over and done with. Discussing the matter now will not bring the poor girl back.”
“No, but it might bring the swine who killed her to justice – and prevent him ever laying another young girl beneath the soil before her time!” There was a harshness in his voice and a subdued violence in his eyes which Gil had never witnessed before and it was perhaps this which caused the vicar to regard this remark as somewhat ominous. His expression reflected that disquiet as he asked, rather diffidently, “You are not intending to involve yourself in this, are you?”
“I have not been unsuccessful in the past, have I?”
Gil, recalling only too clearly what the consequences of that past had been, was even less reassured, “Chuffy…” he began pleadingly. The use of a childhood pet name may have been unconscious, but it was not lost on Mr. Underwood. Since he refused to use his two given names, which only his family knew, Gil generally managed without calling him anything at all, or resorted to the use of his initials, C. H. To his students he was Mr. Underwood – or Snuff behind his back, due to his habit of imbibing the same – to his colleagues he was simply Underwood. It had never occurred to him to worry what a woman would call him, should he ever allow one to become that closely involved.
To hear his brother call him Chuffy was a momentary return to their youth – an eloquent appeal for him to behave himself. Though it did give him cause to hesitate briefly, it was an appeal he fully intended to ignore, “Gil, if you won’t tell me what I need to know, I shall simply ask elsewhere, for, understand this, never shall anyone lie in the cold earth unavenged whilst I have breath in my body!”
The vicar spread his hands in a gesture of mute despair, “But your health … I beg you, don’t do this. You are not strong enough…”
Mr. Underwood knew full well that his brother was under no illusions about his legendary ill health. He had, it was true, suffered a great deal of physical and mental anguish some ten years before. Since then he had utilized his frailties entirely to his own ends. His varied minor afflictions were a pastime, and a very useful way of avoiding unwanted tasks.
He gave his sibling a look which is commonly known as ‘old-fashioned’
“Come now, Gil! There is a reason why you do not wish me to investigate this matter, but I know it is not concern for my health.”
For the first time since the conversation had begun, the vicar raised his eyes and looked directly into his brother’s. He was both distressed and worried, “Chuffy, the girl who lies in that grave is unknown for a very good reason. No one ever saw her face. Her head had been hacked from her body – and it was never found. I’m afraid you would be dealing with a madman.”
*
Sir Henry Wynter returned from his shooting expedition some hours after Charlotte had been carried up to the house by Mr. Underwood. He was tired, dirty, and had been unsuccessful in bagging so much as a rabbit, something for which he was inclined to blame the unfortunate Underwood. Upon being told that Charlotte had sustained a nasty injury from one of his traps, his fury exploded in a way which always terrified his daughters.
“God dammit, Lottie! What the devil possessed you to wander off the path? You should know better.”
Usually Charlotte was the most spirited of the girls, and could charm her papa out of his very worst moods, but this evening she was feeling shocked, pained and weepy. At the first sign of trouble she burst into loud sobs, and Sir Henry was forced to leave her alone. It was not, however, the end of the matter. He railed all through dinner, until the copious amount of claret he drank sent him to sleep, but not before his family had grown heartily sick of the name Underwood. They hoped fervently that the vicar’s brother would keep well away from their father for the rest of his stay.
Unfortunately in this matter they overlooked the determination and single-mindedness of their spoiled sister Charlotte.
*
CHAPTER SIX
(“Veni, Vidi, Vici” - I came, I saw, I conquered)
“I assume you are going to see Miss Wynter today?” Gil ventured rather tentatively, well knowing that his brother was quite likely to do the exact opposite to any suggestion made to him, should the mood so take him.
Underwood was not an aggressive man – on the contrary, he abhorred violence. He did not appear to be stubborn, overbearing or even particularly decisive, but he never did anything he did not wish to do. He made no fuss, he did not argue, he never pointed out that he was his own man. He simply did not do anything at all, and should the neglect of his duties cause him to fall foul of anyone, he merely apologised sweetly for his dreadful memory. In fact he apologised so adroitly that it was rarely noticed that the expressions of regret did not, at any time, ever include the promise to atone. If Mr. Underwood decided not to do something, then it would certainly never be done by him.
The vicar would not, for the world, have admitted it, but his interest in Miss Wynter’s welfare was not entirely altruistic, for during a long and, for the most part, sleepless night, it had occurred
to him that Charlotte would be an admirable choice of wife for his rather fusty brother. A woman of spirit was just what C. H. needed to liven him and sweep away any of those grim cobwebs which might still be lurking in the dark reaches of his mind. He would have been vastly amused had he known Underwood had been having similar thoughts, but regarding Miss Wynter and the vicar.
Underwood’s cogitations at that moment, however, were far from any hint of romance, for himself or his brother. His intention had been to spend his day beginning his investigations and he had, rather callously, almost forgotten the events of the previous afternoon, except in the light of what Charlotte had told him of the scene of the crime.
“Most certainly not,” he answered promptly, “Miss Wynter would appear to know very little of the incident, but for the fact that the body was found on her father’s land. The gory details, very properly, have been kept from her. There are several others I should like to interview before I turn my attention to her.”
The vicar stayed very calm – admirably so under the circumstances, for he was not entirely sure that his brother was not being deliberately obtuse in order to annoy him, “I was referring to a social call, to enquire after her health. She was, after all, in your company when she came by her injury – trying to do you a service, if my recollection of the event is not at fault. I should have thought a polite enquiry was the very least she could expect from you.”
“I don’t see what it has to do with me. I never asked her to leave the path, she went tripping off after bluebells, of all things, and I certainly had no idea her father had man-traps littered about the place!”
“That’s hardly the issue. She did not desert you when you asked for help, did she? Left to your own devices, it might well have been you who fell into a trap.”
“Ah!” Mr. Underwood was unable to deny that this was indeed a valid point, but he made one last effort to escape the meshes of duty which the vicar had cast about him,
“Perhaps she would prefer a visit from you, Gil. She seemed prodigiously fond of you – she was at pains to tell me how very popular you are.”
Gil straightened himself and managed to muster a great deal of dignity with the simple movement, “Naturally I fully intend to accompany you. I, at least, need no reminders of my duty!”
Underwood had no choice but to consider himself duly chastised and set about finishing his disturbed meal with no further quibbling, but an air of injured reluctance.
He very nearly balked again when he was handed a bunch of flowers from the garden, and told severely that they were to be given to the invalid, “Good God, Gil! I haven’t presented a posy to a woman for nigh on twenty years. I was a green boy the last time I had any such inclination!”
“Then the time is long overdue for you to do it again.”
The vicar barely restrained himself from laughing out loud at the sight of Underwood carry a bunch of flowers from which he was trying strenuously to disassociate himself. The gift was dangling from his fingers, heads down, almost dragging in the dust and Mr. Underwood was attempting to look nonchalant, but was making a poor job of it. He was hideously embarrassed, and could only be grateful that none of his irreverent students were about to witness his discomfiture.
He was normally a man very much in control of his life, amiable and orderly, but if anything could be relied upon to discompose him it was the presence of women. He saw very little of the fairer sex in his cloistered University life and he was honest enough to admit that he preferred it that way. Life seemed infinitely less complicated without the necessity of including another person in every decision taken. Years had slipped by and now, through lack of practise, he had simply forgotten how to treat women. It was unfamiliarity which had engendered the entire race with a cloak of fearsome mystery, and Mr. Underwood thought of women as a strange breed of exotic animal, altogether fascinating and dangerous – and to be avoided at all costs.
His brother had a different attitude. He too found women fascinating and dangerous, but for entirely opposing reasons. In his capacity as a clergyman he had seen many aspects of life which Underwood would have found unutterably distasteful. This was his first country parish and his town sojourns had brought him into contact with poor women and rich, clean women and dirty. He had met prostitutes who had sold their bodies to eat, and wealthy women, who granted their favours to any who asked. For Underwood it was ignorance of women and their ways which prompted him to view them with aversion, for Gil it was the knowledge of the darker side of both men and women which kept him content to be alone and rely on no one but himself. He was more than willing to give freely of himself in the pursuit of his vocation, but he drew a firm line when it came to personal attachments.
Both men were lost in their own thoughts as they wended their way to the abode of the Wynter family. Little conversation was exchanged except for occasional remarks from the vicar, pointing out a thing of interest to his brother. Mr. Underwood answered politely whenever he was thus addressed, but it was obvious his mind was on another matter, and soon Gil ceased to even try and engage his interest.
He was, of course, thinking of the poor, murdered girl, and wondering who on earth she could be. He found it very hard to believe that a properly organized investigation would not turn up some clue to her name and origins. It was rare indeed that anyone should be so utterly alone in the world that someone, be it parent, spouse, lover or friend, should not try to seek the missing person. Having discovered her identity, it surely followed that the culprit and reason for her death might also become clear. Some instinct told him that his brother was wrong; this was not the work of a madman who simply killed from an uncontrollable bloodlust. Had that been the case, there would have been other victims – and as far as he was aware, there had been no others in the recent past. Mr. Underwood might choose to live a life of refined tranquillity within the confines of a University, but that did not mean he had entirely renounced the world. He was an avid reader of newspapers, and for someone who insisted that he could scarcely recall his own name, he had a remarkably retentive memory – at least for those things he wished to remember. There had been no outbreaks of killings which followed the pattern of this one – and a year was a long time to deny oneself, if one had discovered the desire and the need to kill. That did not prove his theory, of course, and he was aware that anything was possible, but he was much inclined to follow his feelings on this, as with most other matters.
Almost before he knew what he was about, Underwood found himself standing on the front step of Wynter Court, being told that yes, Miss Charlotte was at home, and quite well enough to receive visitors.
She was in the drawing room, lying on the same sofa upon which he had set her the day before, looking very pale and tired, her bandaged foot resting upon a silken cushion, and covered by a large, fringed shawl.
For the first time that day the brothers shared a thought, and that was one of extreme relief that she was dressed and up – they had both secretly feared that the interview might have taken place in her bedroom, with her lying abed, and attired in her night-clothes.
Mr. Underwood, gently nudged by the vicar, produced the flowers, now dusty and limp, from behind his back, “My brother gathered some flowers for you, Miss Wynter.” The bright smile, directed towards the vicar, that this remark produced, convinced Underwood that he had been correct in his assumption that Miss Wynter was drawn to his brother. It was without the merest hint of conscience, therefore, that he put the flowers into her hands and added, “I really must find Miss…er … your governess, and thank her for her hospitality of yesterday.”
“Miss Chapell?” That Charlotte was stunned by this was fairly obvious, what was not so evident was that she was also upset by his sudden defection. Charlotte had an immensely protected lifestyle, she was not ‘out’ in society, since most of her older sisters were unmarried, but she had a vivid imagination, and a penchant for French novels. She had a following of local swains, who all adored her from afar, and despite
the ferocious guard her father stood over her, they had all been only too willing to risk all for the tremendous honour of walking with her, riding with her, or, on the very infrequent occasions she and her sisters were allowed to accept invitations, to dance with her. She was by far the most popular and pretty of the local gentry, and certainly was not used to gentlemen of Underwood’s apparent sophistication. She was decidedly piqued to discover that there was at least one man alive who did not hold it a high honour to have been of service to her. Added to this she was also unaccustomed to being deserted in favour of a dowdy servant.
She had spent a very pleasant evening in a laudanum-induced drowsiness, with the memory of Mr. Underwood bearing her manfully through the woods causing her a very warm glow. To find now that their little adventure had meant so much to her, and apparently so little to him, was a rebuff the like of which she had never before received.
To avenge herself upon him, she attempted to teach him a lesson he would never forget. She turned an especially dazzling smile upon the vicar, and said airily, “I expect she is in the garden somewhere. She expressed a desire for some air about twenty minutes ago. I’m sure you will find her easily enough if you look.”
She was disturbed to see that far from being devastated by this rather rude dismissal, Mr. Underwood appeared to think she was being helpful and smiled slightly as he bade her farewell. As he disappeared through the tall windows which led onto the terrace, Charlotte turned tragic eyes upon the vicar, “He did not even ask how I did!” Her youth betrayed her as her lower lip trembled slightly. Gil was torn between exasperation at his brother and pity for her, though he knew her to be somewhat spoiled, and was sure that being thwarted for once could have nothing but a beneficial effect upon her.
A Noble Pair of Brothers (The Underwood Mysteries Book 1) Page 5
