An Abandoned Woman (Murray of Letho Book 4)

by Lexie Conyngham

‘Taking a stroll from your workshop, Mr. Jack? It is a fine morning,’ Murray said in a friendly fashion. Mr. Jack had made toys for the Murray household, too. Ninian Jack fingered the edge of his coat and looked over Murray’s shoulder for a long moment before replying, gruffly,

  ‘No, sad to say, Mr. Murray, it is more in the nature of a duty than a pleasure. Ah, I must be going, if you will forgive me, gentlemen.’ He shifted his hat again, and trudged on up the hill.

  ‘Curious,’ said Murray, half to himself. Blair shrugged with his face, and looked back.

  ‘Ah!’ he remarked, ‘he is entering the manse, I see. Perhaps as Session Clerk he is representing the elders at the funeral.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Murray.

  IV

  Ninian Jack, hat in hand, was escorted up to the dead room by the maid. He knew her well enough, for she was a village girl, but he said nothing to her, and she noticed that he seemed to swallow many times as she showed him upstairs, as though his mouth were impossibly dry. He entered the room behind her, and nodded stiffly to the minister and his wife, standing at an awkward angle as if deliberately not looking towards the bed.

  ‘Thank you for coming, Ninian,’ said Mr. Helliwell. ‘Will you have some tea and shortbread? It’s freshly made.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr. Helliwell, sir, but I would sooner get the business done, if you take my meaning and do not object,’ said Mr. Jack, fingers busy on his coat edge again, his face as near immobile as possible. The minister nodded, and led him to the bed, handing him the same candle that Murray had used.

  ‘Here,’ he said, without expression. ‘Take a good look, now, and be sure.’ He stepped back a little, glancing at his wife who watched anxiously, and then looked again at Ninian Jack.

  The silence came in gently like a mourner, and waited with them all, breathless by the bed. The moment lengthened, then Jack moved abruptly, and turned from the body.

  ‘I cannot say,’ he said.

  ‘It is not she?’ asked the minister.

  ‘I cannot say,’ repeated Ninian Jack, between stubbornness and despair. ‘It is ten years, Mr. Helliwell, she was but a lass when she went.’

  ‘But the hair – the build – surely there is some way you can tell?’ begged Mrs. Helliwell, willing the poor clockmaker to give himself some peace at last.

  ‘My girl was fair, yes, and slight, but there was nothing about her that would distinguish her from a dozen such, so long absent.’ He was nearing anger now, anger at them for insisting, and at himself, helpless, for hoping. She was quiet. ‘Her mother would have known,’ he said more gently, looking back at the bed. ‘But I think, in the end, she is not my lass. There is a – a delicate look to this girl that is not seen in my family. The children were all slight, right enough, when they were small, but by the time they were this girl’s age – what can she be? Twenty? Five and twenty? – they had all filled out and were sturdy.’ He sighed heartily, trying to hide it. ‘It is not her.’

  V

  ‘I have remembered something,’ said Murray, who had been quiet on the walk to the inn. ‘Ninian Jack had a daughter.’

  ‘I believed he had several,’ said Blair. They were sitting on a bench on the green opposite the inn, waiting for the Sheriff’s officer to return for his dinner.

  ‘He has,’ Murray agreed, ‘four of them altogether. But the youngest girl, she has not been heard of for – oh, it must be ten years, now.’

  ‘Not been heard of?’ repeated Blair. ‘How is that?’

  ‘And how is it that you, who know every secret here, do not know this story?’ Murray laughed. ‘Well, this is a long time ago, now. She was a couple of years younger than me, as I remember, so she would have been around twelve. Mr. George and his sister were not at Dures at that time, and they had let it to a mother and young son, a widow. The little girl went into service there as a kitchenmaid, or something like, and all was well. But then the widow remarried, this time to an Englishman – or was he Welsh? Anyway, they went to live on his estate, and took the girl with them. She was a good girl, devoted to her parents and sorry enough to be leaving them, but off she went and no reason to believe that anything would go amiss.’

  He paused for effect, but Blair was a participatory listener.

  ‘The son?’ he asked at once.

  ‘Nobody knows,’ said Murray simply. ‘She never wrote, though she could do so, and when Mr. Jack had written to her a fourth time with no reply, a letter came from the mistress – the remarried widow – saying that she returned his letter as the girl had left her service, quite voluntarily, to take another position. The lady said that she had written the girl a very good reference and hoped she was happy, and had indeed given her a generous sum as a farewell present, but she had no idea to what household the girl had then gone. And nothing has been heard of her since.’

  Blair blew out lengthily through loose lips, staring ahead of him blankly. Murray could see him storing the story away in his head, one fact at a time.

  ‘And the girl’s name?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Catherine,’ said Murray, ‘but she was always called Kate.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Blair, and stored that away, too.

  VI

  The Sheriff’s officer was tall and cadaverous, and walked with quite a bad limp which was why, he explained with apologies, it had taken him so long to return from Cullessie, where he had been making enquiries about the dead woman.

  ‘And are you any nearer to discovering her identity?’ asked Murray. They had refused to keep the man from his dinner, although the smell of the inn’s soup was making them both hungry. Blair had suggested and Murray had requested a private parlour.

  ‘Not at all,’ said the officer. ‘The minister has asked a number of people to come and view the body, and I have examined all the papers concerning missing women that have come to our attention at the Sheriff’s office, but there is no one matching her description. The Kirk Session have written, I believe, to the sessions of the neighbouring parishes, but it is early yet for a reply.’

  ‘But she is to be buried this afternoon,’ said Murray in concern. ‘How will it be if someone comes to identify her after the funeral, as seems mostly likely to happen?’

  ‘Ah,’ said the officer, laying down his spoon. ‘Now you may wonder why a cripple like me has this job, hirpling about the county searching for criminals and suchlike tasks. Well, I have one talent in my favour.’ He waved a finger at them, and removed a roll of paper from the breast of his coat. With a flourish, he unfurled it and showed them what was upon it. It was a lifelike drawing – literally lifelike, for he had drawn her as if she were alive and awake – of the dead woman. She gazed out from the page, and beside her in the margin were a series of notes, such as ‘Eyes – light blue; hair – bright fair; height – four feet and eight inches; hands and feet – small; distinguishing marks – none.’

  ‘You have a talent indeed,’ agreed Murray. ‘I had not before considered how useful such a thing must be to you in your work.’

  ‘It is my privilege to use it for justice,’ said the officer with considerable pride.

  ‘Have there been other cases of this kind in the county?’ asked Blair, ‘though I am sure – if, that is, the matter was public knowledge – we should have heard.’

  The Sheriff’s officer looked a little put out, and took back the drawing.

  ‘No, this is the only one of which we know. It is a shame that the wound was not noticed before the woman lost all consciousness. She might have been able to tell us much of her attacker.’

  ‘Why on earth was she attacked?’ asked Murray. ‘She can have had nothing worth stealing, surely, a poor woman like that?’

  ‘That I cannot say,’ said the officer, assuming an air of professional secrecy. ‘It may have been for –’ he looked about him, and finished more quietly, ‘for her virtue.’ There was a crash of dropped dishes from the passage outside, and they were reminded how thin the wooden door was. The latch jiggled in the draught.
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  ‘Was there evidence of such a thing?’ asked Blair, speaking as quietly as the other had. ‘The doctor, at least, would surely have noticed marks of violence of that nature done to her.’ Murray felt uncomfortable, but the question had to be asked.

  ‘None at all,’ admitted the officer. ‘She was no longer, ahem, virgo intacta, as we say in the legal profession, but there was no indication of a successful – or even, to tell the truth, an attempted – assault of that kind.’

  Murray was relieved. She had seemed somehow so pure, white and gold on the dark bed, that the thought of such violence would have been almost unbearable.

  ‘And she was not expecting a child, either, which was something that worried the good Mrs. Helliwell. The doctor was quite sure of that,’ added the officer, returning to his soup. ‘So the Kirk Session will find no reason not to bury her decently and pay up out of the poors’ fund.’

  VII

  She was buried decently, with Blair and Murray as witnesses that bright afternoon. A plot had been dug on the cold north side of the churchyard, amongst other paupers and those whom the Kirk judged to be further than others from the Lord at their deaths. A sharp wind tumbled the mortcloth as it was folded off the coffin, and Ninian Jack took it to return it to the store. The minister stayed at home as was proper: the elders watched the coffin into the grave, and departed in respectful silence, with nothing, in any case, to say.

  VIII

  Mrs. Helliwell, her maid, and her daughters, spent a frantic Monday evening and Tuesday morning not only washing down the dead room and putting away the mourning cloths, but also catching up on a good deal of the work that they had planned for Monday when instead there had always to be someone sitting with the corpse. On Saturday and Sunday night, too, Mrs. Helliwell had watched the body of the poor woman, and on Monday night, when she had hoped at last for some sleep, she had had to comfort Anna and her little sisters in what had been the dead room, who had worked themselves up into a fine fit over ghosts and gory knives. It was noon on Tuesday before Mrs. Helliwell began to feel she was finally achieving some degree of equilibrium, even if her thoughts were fogged with fatigue. It was just as well, for they were expecting company to dinner, and as the church clock struck midday she found herself returning from the dismal kitchen to the front of the house. Her cook was a constant source of anxiety for her, being a woman who felt that just because she could make reasonable pastry she was a culinary genius, and as such was distinctly undervalued at the manse. Mrs. Helliwell, for more important occasions, took pains to persuade the cook to bring a friend in from the village ‘to help with the ordinary dishes, dear, and allow you to devote all your time to your wonderful pastries!’ The friends that helped were horribly bullied by the cook, but were compensated generously by a distraught Mrs. Helliwell the next day. Today, however, the cook was on her own, and the wrinkle between Mrs. Helliwell’s eyebrows was taking on an air of permanence.

  Today only a few friends were to dine with them. These were Mr. Murray of Letho and his house guests, Mr. Blair and Mr. Kennedy, and Mr. and Mrs. Fairlie along with their daughters Louisa and Mary. Mrs. Helliwell’s eldest child, Gilbert, seemed to be contemplating the marriageable potential of Mary Fairlie, and Mrs. Helliwell had no particular wish to discourage him though at twenty he was perhaps still a little young to settle down. Mrs. Helliwell sometimes feared that Gilbert would always be too young to settle down.

  There was room for twelve in the dining room, as long as the hall door was left open and the end of the table allowed to project a little. She would have liked to have asked the Georges from Dures House as well, but dared not.

  She reached the hall just as her husband emerged from the study by the front door. He held his reading glasses in one hand and a notebook in the other, and was muttering something when he saw her.

  ‘When are these people arriving, then?’ he asked crossly, as if she had just won some point against him.

  ‘In a little under an hour, my dear.’

  ‘And they’ll be here all afternoon, I suppose. No time for any work, you have always to be socialising.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs. Helliwell, patiently.

  ‘It’s ridiculous, anyway,’ he continued, balancing his spectacles on his nose and flicking through the notebook, ‘inviting people to eat and enjoy themselves in a place like this. How could it be healthy? How could it be in the least pleasant?’

  ‘Well, dear,’ said his wife, removing threads which had caught on the rough wood of their temporary hall support, ‘to look at it from the purely practical point of view, if we do not invite people here to dine, we ourselves do not receive invitations to dine in their warm, dry houses.’

  Her husband gave a disgusted snort.

  ‘Did you see,’ he asked, working himself up, ‘did you see what that jumped-up little so-called architect they employed said about the kitchen? That it was quite adequate for the purpose but would benefit from another window. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Ridiculous, dear,’ said Mrs. Helliwell.

  ‘And you said he was not in there over five minutes, and that was after dark.’

  ‘Quite right, dear,’ said Mrs. Helliwell.

  ‘What earthly use would another window be to him after dark?’ Mr. Helliwell turned back to his study, then emerged like an angry jack-in-the-box to demand, ‘Have you asked that man George to dinner?’

  ‘Of course not, dear!’ said Mrs. Helliwell, in tones of shock. ‘You specifically said I was not to ask Mr. George – or his sister – ever again.’

  ‘Good, good, fine,’ said the minister, and vanished back into his study. Mrs. Helliwell breathed out sharply and went to see how the dining room looked.

  IX

  ‘Oh, are we not to go in the carriage?’ asked Kennedy, all big-eyed bewilderment at the front door. The drive outside was empty, the sun warm on the grass in the centre of the gravel sweep. Murray followed him outside.

  ‘I thought we could walk on such a lovely day,’ said Murray. ‘I beg your pardon – we could have it here in a moment if you wish,’ he offered, glancing towards the stable block and trying not to make a performance of returning inside to ring the bell. Blair hovered on the step, his feet visibly itching to be off. The pasture outside the park was inviting, the tower of the church beyond, a stump projecting over the hillside, marked their destination. Kennedy glanced down at his fine black breeches and thin formal shoes, caught Blair’s eye and said,

  ‘No, no, not at all. I simply misunderstood, that is all. If I may trouble you to wait just a moment while I step into the house ...’ He leaped up past Murray and vanished. Murray managed not to look at Blair, who was smiling innocently anyway, eyebrows loose curves high on his brow. Kennedy reappeared, carrying an elegant cane more suitable for a town street, and set off at a brisk pace as if leading them into battle. Murray recognised the cane as being his father’s best one – Kennedy had an eye for quality.

  Before they reached the haha, however, he had slowed down again, using the stick to prevent himself from slipping on the grassy slope.

  ‘And who else shall we see at dinner?’ he asked generally.

  ‘Well, the minister and his wife and their eldest son, Gilbert, and I believe the Fairlies, with their two daughters.’

  ‘Unmarried?’ asked Kennedy with a grin.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Murray, without further comment. If Mrs. Fairlie asked him for a reference, she would never have Kennedy as a son-in-law.

  ‘And the delectable Miss George?’ asked Kennedy. ‘I long to make her further acquaintance.’

  ‘No, Miss George and her brother will not be there,’ said Murray definitely, ‘unless there be a blue moon tonight. Mr. George and the minister are not on speaking terms at present.’

  ‘Oho!’ Kennedy stopped in his tracks, Murray suspected because he needed to recover his breath. ‘Why should they not be speaking?’

  They had reached the little bridge over the river and Blair leaned over the parap
et, looking for fish, while Murray explained.

  ‘The manse is in a dreadful state, and the minister and the Kirk Session asked the Heritors if it could be rebuilt. Initially the Heritors said yes –’

  ‘Forgive me,’ interrupted Kennedy, ‘but who or what might be the Heritors?’

  ‘Oh, of course, you do not have them in England,’ Murray remembered. ‘They are a committee of the parish landowners, and they are responsible for the fabric of the church buildings, the manse, the schoolhouse and so on. And they appoint the schoolmaster.’

  ‘So you are a Heritor, then?’ said Kennedy, working it out.

  ‘That’s right, but Thalland, my factor, represents me most of the time. Anyway, the Heritors said yes, and Mr. Helliwell called in an architect to look into rebuilding the manse. He drew up some fine plans, and so did an architect employed by the Heritors, but the Heritors’ plans only cost six hundred pounds and the minister’s cost twice that. They might have been able to reach some kind of compromise, but for some reason the meeting became heated and Mr. George, who is senior heritor at present – we take it in five year turns – said the minister was being extravagant because he wanted a cellar, and Mr. Helliwell said Mr. George was being miserly because the Heritors’ architect’s plan was really just a renovation of a building that, in Mr. Helliwell’s view, was not fit to be renovated – actually I think ‘fit to house pigs in’ was his exact phrase. So Mr. George dug out some act of the General Assembly in 1623 –’

  ‘Oh, 1663, I think, Charles?’ put in Blair, bent over, still looking for fish.

  ‘Thank you, yes, 1663, which said that the expense of a manse should not exceed one thousand pounds sterling. Although actually, Mr. George said that it was one thousand pounds Scots, which was, ah, eighty-three pounds and something.’

  ‘Six shillings and eightpence,’ came Blair’s voice hollowly.

  ‘Anyway, the whole business is to come up some time before the Court of Session in Edinburgh, and meanwhile the minister and Mr. George are not speaking, which to some extent could be seen as a benefit to Mr. George, since almost the sole topic of Mr. Helliwell’s conversation is how terrible the manse is. The rest of the Heritors, including Mr. Fairlie, are trying not to take sides, and the Kirk Session are so to speak behind the minister, though as one of them is the schoolmaster, it is difficult. And while all this goes on, the manse continues to crumble away.’