A Corpse in Shining Armour

by Caro Peacock

  ‘What do you think you’re doing? Leave that alone.’

  The two men stopped work briefly.

  ‘Ladyship’s orders.’

  ‘You can’t go taking down the wall.’

  ‘We’re going to build it up again, just on the other side of this.’

  The workman indicated the grave mound. The elderly man gave them another scandalised look and hurried back into the church. He came out again with a young and nervous man in clerical bands.

  ‘Stop it at once. What do you think you’re doing?’

  The vicar’s voice came out as a high bray, but respect for the cloth made the two men stop work again. The one who did the talking touched his cap.

  ‘Excuse me, Reverend, but we had instructions from her ladyship it was to be done at once. She said she’d be sending to you to explain.’

  ‘Explain what? Why in the world does she want the wall taken down?’

  ‘Because she wants him outside of it,’ the workman said, nodding towards the mound of earth.

  Comprehension and embarrassment flared on the vicar’s face.

  ‘You can’t, you know. You really can’t…’ he began.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Headingley, but it’s necessary.’

  A new voice, a woman’s voice from behind us. We all spun round. She was dressed in floating green silk, with the inside of her bonnet green-trimmed to match. She was probably in her late forties, with a square forehead, high cheekbones and a determined chin, her hair showing streaks of grey. Even in youth, she would have lacked the softness of conventional beauty but age had given her face authority and distinction. Her voice too. There was a tone of command in it that struck the men to silence. She took a few steps towards the clergyman, speaking more softly.

  ‘But I do beg your pardon. I’d intended to come and speak to you before they started work, but something delayed me.’

  ‘But why…?’ he said.

  ‘It’s all been an awful mistake.’ She gestured towards the burial mound, a full-armed gesture, theatrical. ‘He should never have been buried in the churchyard. He should never have been brought back here at all. I’m afraid my son totally misunderstood my wishes. I sent word to you as soon as I knew what had happened, but evidently it came too late.’

  Beads of sweat ran down the clergyman’s forehead.

  ‘I…I didn’t receive your message until after the ceremony.’

  ‘So early. Why did it have to be so early?’

  He swallowed, trying to cling on to his courage. Almost certainly, the living of the church was in the gift of the estate. Lady Brinkburn’s husband had appointed him and, even if she couldn’t dismiss him, her patronage was important.

  ‘In any case, I had no reason to bury him outside the churchyard,’ he said.

  ‘No reason? Why should a man like him lie alongside these good people?’ Another gesture took in the gravestones as witnesses. ‘He has no business in sacred ground, and you know that as well as I do.’

  ‘But since it’s done now…’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’d let me have him dug up, so this is the next best thing.’

  The workmen stood stolidly by the wall, hammers and chisels ready to start work again. The clergyman looked from her to them and back again.

  ‘It is parish property,’ he said apologetically.

  ‘Of course it is, and I’m willing to make a more than fair exchange. I’ll give the parish that acre next to the school. I know they’ve had their eye on it for years.’

  Land-greed on behalf of his parishioners shone in the vicar’s eyes.

  ‘Where would you want the wall to go?’ he said.

  She looked at him, then slowly paced a line a few feet from the inside of the grave, running diagonally to connect with the existing wall in the corner. A perfectly reasonable line that would leave Handy’s remains in the next-door pasture with the cows. The land lost to the parish had nothing else on it but a heap of broken flowerpots, and it was only a small fraction of the acre she’d offered in exchange. She turned at the corner and walked back to us, face calm. Under the floating hem of her silk dress she was wearing plain cotton stockings and sensible brown leather shoes for walking.

  ‘I’ll have to consult the parish council,’ the clergyman said, admitting defeat.

  She smiled for the first time.

  ‘Of course you will. But when they see where the new wall runs, I’m sure they’ll realise it’s no loss. I’ll have the deeds for the school acre drawn up at once.’

  She nodded to the workmen. Two hammers clinked on to two chisels simultaneously, like figures on a German clock.

  Satisfied that her orders were being carried out, she turned and noticed me for the first time. Her eyes looked a question. She knew everybody in the village. I introduced myself and explained that I was staying at her cottage. Her expression changed in an instant, the planes of her face softening from determination to polite sociability.

  ‘Whiteley did mention it. You are comfortable there?’

  ‘Very. It’s a beautiful cottage.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so.’

  Her eyes were an unusual shade of pale blue that gave an other-worldly quality to her look. She began to walk towards the gate, disregarding the vicar who was still hovering, perhaps hoping to make a last appeal. I went with her.

  ‘Whiteley tells me you paint,’ she said.

  ‘Sketch a little. I have no great talent.’

  ‘Great talents are granted to few of us. Still, me must do the best we can, mustn’t we?’

  Her mind wasn’t on what she was saying. I sensed in her some of the drained feeling that comes after an argument. She’d won, but wasn’t enjoying her victory. We went through the lych gate on to the road. The builder’s horse was dozing in his shafts. Two women in the porch of one of the cottages were pretending not to look at us. The story of her ladyship and the wall was probably running round the village already.

  ‘You must come to tea,’ she said. ‘Monday at four o’clock. We shan’t talk about this miserable business.’

  It was more of a command than an invitation. I said I should be glad to. I thought there might be a carriage or at least a horse waiting for her, but she simply wished me good afternoon and turned along the road in the direction of the hall, walking purposefully in her sensible shoes, silk skirt fluttering.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Next day was Sunday. I decided against going to church in the village, although the bells were ringing out their invitation over woods and fields. I left Tabby washing up after our breakfast and went for a solitary walk along the river bank with my sketching things. A narrow footpath ran upriver from the cottage. I followed it between swathes of meadowsweet and purple loosestrife, past clumps of yellow irises, thinking hard about what had happened in the churchyard. I’d got what I wanted, my invitation to Lady Brinkburn’s home, but it was hardly necessary any more. If I reported what had happened to Mr Lomax, he’d probably say that my task was accomplished already. A woman of wealth and title has a churchyard wall knocked down and moved, which probably amounts to sacrilege, argues with her vicar in public and parts with an acre of land, all to make sure that an unsatisfactory servant rots under the hooves of her cows, rather than decorously among the gravestones. When that story was told, any court in the land would be likely to judge Lady Brinkburn as mad as a March hare. If I’d only heard the story without meeting her, I’d probably have agreed.

  And yet, and yet, and yet. Looked at in another way, this was a woman of more than common strong-mindedness. Faced with something she believed to be wrong, she’d weighed her alternatives and come to a solution. If Handy once buried couldn’t be taken from the churchyard, then the churchyard could be taken from Handy. Within hours, she’d organised her workmen and set about it. When faced with opposition from the vicar, she’d used both bullying and bribery effectively. The offer of the school acre had apparently been made on the spur of the moment and showed an impressive capacity to im
provise. If this was madness, then it was of a disturbingly rational kind. What weighed with me as much was her air in those few minutes when we were walking across the churchyard together. There’d been a sadness about her that seemed at odds with the rest of her behaviour. I wasn’t sure whether I’d like her or not on closer acquaintance, but I didn’t have the impression of a hard-natured woman.

  After half a mile or so the river bank became a more orderly affair, faced with stone, and the path wider. A wooden jetty with a rowing boat moored to it stuck out into the river. To my right, an expanse of smooth lawn sloped steeply upwards to a gem of a Queen Anne house: Brinkburn Hall. It wasn’t large, by the standards of the aristocracy. An indoor staff of ten or so could probably maintain it quite easily. It stood among the lawns and shrubberies as if it had an age-old right to be there, overlooking the river from behind its balustraded terrace, its mellow red brick and white stone facings glowing in the sun. Nobody was visible except a single gardener, trimming the lawn edge. A path ran up to the house from the jetty. A smaller gravel path led across the lawn at a diagonal towards a copse. I followed it. I was trespassing on the Brinkburn estate, but that might be permitted to a tenant of their cottage.

  Every step confirmed the first impressions that this was a well-tended estate. The gravel was freshly raked, the bushes on either side cut back just enough to let one person in full skirts pass easily, while still giving the path a natural woodland look. Now and then the trees would part and at every one of these places a wooden bench was placed precisely to give the best view down to the river. Beyond a doubt, the lady of the house walked this way. At every turn, I thought I might see her sitting on a bench with her sketchpad, but apart from scurrying squirrels, I had the path to myself. After a while it curved towards the house. I turned and went back down through the trees to the river-bank path, sat on the trunk of a fallen willow tree and realised that I’d come to a decision. Before rushing back to report to Mr Lomax, I’d keep my appointment with Lady Brinkburn. She’d been polite to me and was owed that at least. With that decided, I thought I might as well try out one of my new sticks of charcoal and began a sketch of an alder tree slanting down to the water. The angle wasn’t quite satisfactory, and when I shifted along the willow trunk I saw the fisherman. He was on his own, standing so still that he might have been a tree branch himself. Since I like sketching people more than scenery, I included him in my composition.

  By the time I’d finished my sketch–as far as it would ever be finished–he still hadn’t moved. I’d have to walk past him to get to the cottage. If he turned out to be from the village, or one of the servants of the estate, it might be useful to talk to him. I packed away my sketching things and walked softly along the bank so as not to scare his fish. I was only yards away when he caught something, a large roach, the red of its fins flashing as it was hauled into the sunshine. Expertly, he disengaged the fish from the hook and slid it back into the water, where it stayed floating for a stunned second then whisked away. He turned, aware of somebody on the path. I stared, knowing I’d seen him somewhere before but not able to place him. Then the picture came to mind of a policeman’s tall hat, set respectfully down on the coroner’s table as its owner described being summoned to number 47 Bond Street. Just in time, I remembered his name.

  ‘Well, good morning, Constable Bevan.’

  ‘Good morning, Miss Lane,’ he said, not missing a beat.

  He showed no surprise that I remembered his name from the inquest and came out with mine as if we were old acquaintances. His smile was perfectly friendly, but I didn’t quite like his air of being pleased with himself.

  ‘You’re obviously a skilful fisherman,’ I said.

  ‘I’m sure I could say the same about you as an artist, Miss Lane.’

  Again, that slightly mocking use of my name, and he wanted me to know that he’d been aware of my watching him.

  ‘So what brings you here, Constable Bevan?’

  ‘I had some days’ leave owing to me. As you see, it’s a delightful spot for fishing.’

  As at the inquest, his voice and manner struck me as more cultivated than you’d expect in a constable. I knew very well that the Metropolitan Police were not generous in giving leave from duty.

  ‘Nothing to do, then, with the coroner asking for further inquiries into Mr Handy’s death?’

  ‘These things are decided above my level. Are you staying with Lady Brinkburn?’

  ‘No. I’ve rented the cottage back there.’

  He must have passed it on his way to his fishing place. I was under no obligation to answer his questions, except I needed answers to some of my own.

  ‘At the suggestion of the younger Mr Brinkburn, I take it.’

  The remark came very near to being offensive.

  ‘Mr Brinkburn had nothing to do with it,’ I said. ‘I’m simply renting it from the estate.’

  He didn’t believe me, and let me see that from his face. Then he turned aside and baited his hook.

  ‘At any event, you’ve missed the funeral,’ he said.

  ‘Handy’s funeral? Were you there?’

  ‘There were four of us: Mr Whiteley, a woman from the village, the sacristan and myself.’

  ‘You representing the Metropolitan Police Force?’

  He flicked the hook into the water.

  ‘Representing myself. Did it surprise you, Miss Lane, that Mr Whiteley was so anxious to blacken Handy’s reputation at the inquest? Drunk, disrespectful, likely to absent himself for days on end…’

  ‘And I suppose you’ve found out that he was none of those things?’

  ‘As far as I’ve been able to find out in the village, he was all of them and worse.’

  He looked at his float on the water. The question ‘Well then?’ hovered in the air unasked.

  ‘I gather that there have been some alterations to the churchyard wall since then,’ he said.

  He’d obviously heard the story. Did he know I’d been present at the time? He seemed to expect some comment from me, but I was determined to disappoint him.

  ‘I mustn’t interrupt your fishing,’ I said, making a move to walk past him.

  ‘I assure you, you’re not interrupting it in the least, Miss Lane.’

  I thought that was probably all too true. I kept walking, forcing him to step back. He wished me good morning and raised his hat to me, looking altogether too cheerful for my peace of mind.

  Back at the cottage, I said nothing about Constable Bevan. The rest of our Sunday passed quietly enough. I helped Tabby wash her hair again in a solution of Mrs Martley’s herbs and showed her how to spread it to dry on a towel across her back. It struck me that the roles of mistress and lady’s maid were being reversed, but she knew no better so was entirely unselfconscious about it. Later, we ate our supper of soup, bread and cheese, then strolled to the bottom of the garden and sat on the river bank. I rolled my stockings off and dabbled my feet in the water, feeling minnows tickling between my toes, watching swallows darting low over the surface to catch midges. It helped to cool my annoyance about Constable Bevan. But even the thought of him brought back all too vividly that day in Bond Street and the smell of Handy in the crate, blotting out the freshness of the river. What had the man done to deserve so much dislike, first from Whiteley at the inquest, then from Lady Brinkburn? If he were that bad a servant, why not simply dismiss him? And which of Lady Brinkburn’s sons had decided to bring him back to the village for burial, so much against her wishes?

  After a while the biting of the midges drove us back inside the cottage. It was after ten by the chimes of the church clock, but only a few days away from midsummer so the last glow of the sun was still on the sky.

  I told Tabby she should go up to bed, but she lingered.

  ‘It’s quiet here, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, isn’t it wonderful after the noise at home.’

  ‘This quiet’s noisy. It gets inside my head.’

  I asked her if s
he meant the sound of the river, but she said no. I lit a candle in a holder for her, warning her to blow it out before she went to sleep, then watched as she made her way up the steep stairs, her shadow wavering against the wall. Leaving the door open to let in fresh air, I went and sat in the room’s most comfortable chair. It was not very comfortable, but even so I must have dozed, because when I was next aware of anything it was dark.

  There’d been no noise, I was sure of that, but I knew at once there was something outside. It was no more than an animal instinct, made sharper by the darkness. A faint light of a kind was coming from the direction of the river, starlight on water perhaps, just enough to make out shapes in the part of the garden I could see through the open door. Hollyhocks, nothing else, and no movement. A sheep or cow perhaps? No, the fields were well fenced, and why should a lone cow or sheep stray into woodland? A dog? It had sounded bigger than that. I was on my way out to look when a scream sounded from upstairs.

  ‘Tabby, what is it?’

  I rushed upstairs, thinking she was having a nightmare or perhaps had woken and seen whatever it was in the garden. The white shape of Tabby in her nightgown came flying downstairs and knocked me backwards.

  ‘There’s a ghost out there.’

  I staggered down the stairs and caught her as she tripped over the nightgown. Her heart was thumping. The urchin who’d seemed scared of nothing in London was terrified now.

  ‘Tabby, of course it’s not a ghost. It’s some animal come into the garden. I was just going out to look.’

  She clung to me.

  ‘It’s not an animal. It spoke to me.’

  ‘Spoke?’

  ‘About somebody coming back to haunt somebody. I didn’t understand it.’

  I’d have taken it for part of a nightmare, were it not for the way she said it with such flat certainty.

  ‘In that case, it will be some wretched boy from the village playing tricks,’ I said. ‘I’m going out there to give him a piece of my mind.’