The Butchered Man

by Harriet Smart

  “I’m sorry to have to question you about this, Miss Cley.”

  “It is an unpleasant necessity, I think,” she said, “from what my mother and brother have said.”

  “Did you have any suspicion that Mr Rhodes had been looking elsewhere?”

  “No, none at all.”

  “How did you feel when you heard he had contracted another engagement?”

  “I did not believe it. I still do not. It was a nasty rumour and nothing else.”

  “But your mother and brother, they believe it?”

  “Yes, because they are concerned for me, for my feelings, but they do not understand how it was between Mr Rhodes and I. They did not really know him.”

  “And you did?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me about him, if you don’t mind. How did he seem to you when you first met?”

  “I found him refreshing. You see, sir, I know what men can be like. I’m not susceptible to flattery – I’ve had many admirers. That sounds immodest, of course, but my brother’s friends...”

  “It certainly is not surprising, Miss Cley,” Giles said, “speaking as a man.”

  She inclined her head coolly at the compliment.

  “But Mr Rhodes did not try to flirt with me. He talked to me sensibly.

  We found we shared many of the same opinions. And as time passed, and we became more than acquaintances, I felt that God was asking me to do His work through being Mr Rhodes’ wife. That was the character of our relationship, Major Vernon.”

  “I see. Did you correspond at all?”

  “No, that would have been improper.”

  “Forgive me,” Giles said, “I was bound to ask.”

  “Yes, yes of course,” she said.

  “And the last time you saw him was?”

  “A fortnight ago, yesterday.”

  “You are certain of that?”

  “Quite. I put it in my journal. It’s a spiritual diary. Mr Rhodes encouraged me to keep it. I find it a good discipline.”

  “And a great comfort?”

  “Perhaps too much of one,” she said, after a moment’s consideration.

  “You should not reproach yourself over that,” Giles said. “And it is very useful to have such a precise record. Perhaps, if it is not too much of an intrusion, you might tell me what you talked about that last day?”

  “We spoke of Randall’s sermons. I had just finished reading them.”

  “A present from Mr Rhodes, perhaps?”

  “Yes,” she said, quietly, as if she was ashamed.

  “And what did you say about them?”

  “I hoped with God’s grace he would preach such fine sermons at St Gabriel’s.”

  “You were excited about that, the prospect of it?”

  “Yes, very. There is a lot of work to be done there.” She paused and said carefully, “I did think it was a very great sign of God’s favour that Mr Rhodes was offered it, especially when everyone was so certain it was Mr Lepaige who would get it. I had been praying that Sir Oswald would have a change of heart, and he did. It was very wonderful.”

  “You don’t happen to know if Mr Rhodes presented his case to Sir Oswald in person?”

  “Yes, he did. He never expected to change the old gentleman’s mind, but as I said, the Lord was working for us. He had felt inspired to try for it and that it seemed to be God’s will that he should go and seek the opportunity – because of course it might have seemed very presumptuous. But we prayed about it and God told him to try.” She twisted up her mouth as if she was swallowing something very bitter. “But it seems now to be God’s will that...” She walked away, to the other end of the room, hiding her face and her emotions from him. “I am to be tried.”

  “That last time you saw him – he told you that he was planning to go away?” Giles said.

  There was a long silence and then she said faintly, “No, no, he did not.”

  “That must have been quite a shock, then, to learn he had left Northminster without telling you.”

  Another long pause followed and then she spoke again, slowly and deliberately.

  “Yes, but I am sure there was a good reason for it. A man does not have to tell his wife everything. Perhaps it was a lesson in humility for me, perhaps that I must learnt to accept his will as I should accept God’s will.”

  Giles heard the tension in this speech, the careful contrivance of it.

  Gently he said: “Had he suggested such a thing to you before? That you were in want of humility?” He needed to find any cracks in this apparently flawless vessel. “Did you say something to provoke him, perhaps?”

  He waited for her answer. She stood there motionless, her back still to him. Then she dipped her head a little and said: “I told him I wished to announce our engagement. But he told me I must be patient. But I quarrelled with him over it. I told him there was no reason for us to be ashamed of it. Was there?” she turned to him suddenly, her eyes glistening, her cheeks touched with red. “There was surely no reason for secrecy. I was not comfortable with it, not at all. And then, he did not call for three days. I felt certain he was correcting me for my presumption, for my quarrelling, but the next thing was that ugly, ugly rumour –”

  “Which you do not believe?” he said.

  “It is not true,” she said. Giles could not prevent a frown and she saw it. “Surely it is not? What is it, sir? What is that you know?”

  “That the rumour is true. This man has ill used you.” She turned back to the window, hiding from him again. “I will fetch your mother, Miss Cley –” but she shook her head.

  “I’d rather you did not.”

  “May I ask you some more questions?”

  “You must do what you must do,” she said, turning back to him.

  “How did your brother take the news?”

  “He was raging at it. He has very little self-control. He never has had. I was worried what he might do to him. I begged him not to confront him. I told him I was sure it was merely a nasty rumour and Mr Rhodes would not think well of him if he went barging into his lodgings – that it was not the behaviour of a gentleman – I thought,” she added with a sudden inquiring look at Giles, as if seeking a higher authority in this matter. All the uncertainty that lay beneath her carefully acquired surface was for a moment visible, and at the same moment Giles was thinking that any fellow would have been perfectly justified in horsewhipping Rhodes for such an insult to his sister.

  That had probably been Cley’s intention that night – nothing more complicated than giving the man a well-deserved thrashing. Cley did not seem like an artful man. He had been straightforward in his language and attitude. He was not the calm, clever one of the family.

  Miss Cley, the tears still glistening on her lashes, was a girl who had studied her lesson books so carefully. She had performed faultlessly in this interview, had checked her emotions successfully in his presence and shown something of a steel will. He allowed himself to think the unthinkable.

  She had been adamant, that she had not believed the rumour, but was she telling the truth? The line between self-control and downright dishonesty was a narrow one.

  She had been deeply hurt. Her affections, her hopes, her entire career had been destroyed by Rhodes’ deceptions. Might it be possible that she had taken matters into her own hands, perhaps assisted by her brother?

  “Did you manage to calm your brother?” he inquired.

  “I told him he should only go and ask if the rumour was true. That he should not let his emotions run away with him. It was most likely that the whole thing would be cleared up in a moment, because it was such a piece of nonsense. I was sure that Ste– Mr Rhodes would soon explain it all to our satisfaction.”

  “But he had left town?”

  “Yes.”

  “Miss Cley, I know you were certain that there was nothing in the rumour, but with hindsight is there nothing that unsettled you about Mr Rhodes, that gave you cause to doubt him? Other than his refusal
to announce the engagement? Any trivial, little thing?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “And I cannot see the use of such information to you, Major. And as for his refusal to announce our engagement, I saw nothing sinister in it. It was just my vanity that demanded it be announced.”

  “You excuse him too much,” Giles said, very interested now by her sharpness. She had been so quick to deflect him there! “In my opinion, it was hardly the behaviour of a gentleman to ask you to submit to concealment. An offer, honourably made, is no reason for secrecy.”

  “Perhaps not,” she said, with an almost imperceptible shrug. “But surely he was not wrong to be angry with me for failing to submit to his will?” She was not going to be caught so easily in resentment, it seemed.

  Giles reached into the pocket of his coat and brought the little enamel snuff box where he had put a sample of the seeds found in Rhodes’ stomach.

  “You seem to have had a thorough education, Miss Cley,” he said. “Did you study botany at all?”

  “A little, yes,” she said.

  “With Mrs Lepaige?”

  She nodded.

  “Perhaps you can help me. I am trying to identify these.” He flicked open the box lid and held it out to her. “Do these seem familiar to you at all?”

  She took the box from him and studied the contents for a few seconds. He in turn studied her, but she seemed to show no signs of surprise, let alone fear, only ordinary puzzlement.

  “No, I am sorry, they don’t,” she said, snapping the lid shut and handing it back to him. Their eyes met for a moment and Giles saw the cool appraisal in her gaze. It was a look he had seen once in the eyes of a devilishly well-versed chess player who had trounced him with calm ruthlessness. To see it in the eyes of an angelic young woman was disturbing, to say the least.

  ***

  Sophie Pritchard had also put on black, but it did not become her, nor did her reddened eyes and nose. She lay bundled up in a faded quilt on a sofa by the fireside in the family sitting room. On her lap lay a black and white spaniel, while her sister, mother and father sat in attendance.

  She looked washed out and her expression was rueful but not bitter. Perhaps she had not let her heart go to the same degree as Lucy Cley. She had probably not been allowed so much intimacy with Rhodes. The Dean and Mrs Pritchard were old-fashioned and careful.

  They began with the ritual of small talk, so necessary to the social life in the Minster Precincts.

  As the weather and other harmless matters were discussed, Giles found himself thinking of the contrast between the shabby room, where he felt perfectly at home, and the bright formality of Mrs Cley’s drawing room. He thought of Rhodes in this room and then at the Cleys.

  It struck him that Rhodes, a stranger to Northminster, might have felt uncertain of his place in the Minster Precincts, not yet secure in friendship with his peers; and, seeking amusement, he had taken refuge in a different society, that of the town. Mrs Cley and her son would have been hospitable in the usual way of the town, and for Mrs Cley, a clergyman would have been an acquaintance about whom she could boast. Rhodes would have found it amusing for a while and probably would have dropped them had there not been the siren presence of Miss Cley to keep him returning, despite his increasing intimacy with the Pritchards. Miss Cley would still have been an attractive prospect. Although she would not have bolstered his social position, she did have more money (and the man had expensive tastes), great beauty and a certain allure. She was compelling to a man in a way Sophie Pritchard was not. Sophie was still a child in many respects, protected by her parents. Charming though she was, it would have been hard to give up Miss Cley for her, no matter how sensible in worldly terms that might have been. Rhodes had clearly let the situation get out of control. It was certainly very careless of him, and Giles wondered if he had been careless elsewhere. It suggested certainly a weakness for the opposite sex, a lack of self-control and a taste for self-indulgence which could get a man into all sorts of trouble.

  “I thought you might like my sketchbook again,” Sophie said. “I want to help find out who did this horrible thing.”

  “Miss Sophie,” Giles said, “I don’t know if it is a comfort or a cruelty to tell you this. I do not believe Mr Rhodes was entirely the man you thought he was. We have uncovered some disturbing news about him.”

  Sophie glanced at her mother, who reached out and took her hand. Giles noticed how the Dean, who stood behind the sofa, pushed his fingertips into the cushions and leant forward a little more protectively.

  “Yes, Major Vernon?”

  “There seems to have been another young woman with whom he contracted an engagement.”

  “Here? In Northminster?” said Mrs Pritchard. “Surely no-one we know?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Giles.

  The Dean registered predictable disgust: “That in this day and age, that a man in holy orders could so forget himself...” But Giles was scarcely listening. He was watching Sophie who was staring into the middle distance, apparently struck dumb.

  Then suddenly she threw back her quilt and jumped up with a flurry of skirts and petticoat lace, setting the spaniel yelping in astonishment at its peremptory eviction from her lap.

  “I was right!” she exclaimed, coming straight up to Giles. He rose to meet her. “I knew something was amiss. I knew it, didn’t I say so, Kate?” she said turning to her sister who was soothing the dog. “When I found that hair on his coat. He was turning pages for you, Kate, and I came up behind and I saw it. A long fair hair, golden almost, with a crinkle to it. Am I right, Major Vernon?” But Giles did not have a chance to answer. “I picked it off and he never noticed, and I thought then, I had this odd little fear that it was not as it should be. And then when he did not write, when he had promised.” She spun round to her parents. “To tell you the truth I had thought of ending it when he came back. I was so uncomfortable. I had begun to be so uncomfortable. So Papa darling, do not vex yourself over this. You must not. We must just forgive him his sins against us and hope he rests in peace. Surely?”

  “My child, he has hurt you...” the Dean began.

  “Yes, but it is not as bad as it might be. When one thinks about how that other girl must be feeling. Poor creature!”

  Her stock of bravery was suddenly exhausted. She began to shake with sobs. The Dean walked over to her, wrapped his arms about her and buried his face in her soft brown hair. It looked as if he were in tears himself.

  Giles took his leave.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Shush,” Felix said, raising a finger to his lips as she saw him. “I’m not supposed to be here.” Her eyes widened. “Miss Hilliard told me not to come.”

  He closed the door carefully behind him and came into the room.

  “But you did?” she said drowsily. He nodded as she struggled onto her elbows. “Then why?”

  “Because you’re not well – and it’s better that I manage your case. Did she fetch another man to see you?” She shook her head. “But she has been looking after you?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’ve been sleeping...”

  “That’s good. And you feel a little better?” he said, pressing his hand to her forehead. “Your fever has broken. That’s excellent. And your pulse is normal. That’s excellent too. And the bleeding – may I?”

  “Yes...” she said, “if you have to.”

  “I’ll be very gentle.”

  She nodded and pushed the blanket back a little to signify her permission. He turned back the covers. She was lying on her side, a napkin tucked between her legs, which was not heavy with new blood. The bleeding seemed to have abated. He changed the napkin for her, and felt satisfied with her progress. If the fever held off, she stood a good chance of recovery.

  He plumped up the meagre pillows and made her as comfortable as he could.

  “What happened to your arm?” she said, noticing the bandage on his arm. As usual he had thrown off his coat and rolled up his s
leeves, something that was entirely against the acceptable etiquette of medical men, but he could never think straight with his coat on. The sleeves were badly set and too tight for him. He had developed muscles on his fore-arms since it had been made for him, and he could not afford a new one. Or rather, he would not spend money on it when there were books to buy. In this he took after the Reverend James Carswell, who wore his coats until they were rags. And, as in the matter of his refusal to wear a silk hat, it was of course another small but pleasant act of resistance to Lord Rothborough.

  “I burnt it,” he said.

  She reached out and touched it.

  “You should look after yourself,” she said.

  He shrugged.

  “You’ll be glad to get out of here,” he said. “I expect.”

  “Not much chance of that.”

  “When you get better. Miss Hilliard gets you places, doesn’t she?”

  “Only the good girls,” she said.

  “You’re not a good girl?”

  “What do you think?” she said with a slight smile. He felt his heart scudding with relief that she felt strong enough to make jokes.

  “I’m not in a position to judge anyone,” he said.

  “No, I don’t think so,” she said. “She’ll kill you if she catches you in here, you know.”

  “I shan’t get caught.”

  “You’re very sure of yourself. You should be careful.”

  “I will be. I intend to see this through to the end.”

  “Until I’m in a box, then.”

  “No, of course not. Until you are over the hills and far away. I am going to write to my mother and she will find a good place for you,” Felix said. “Somewhere where you shan’t be taken advantage of. With people we know, who we can trust will be kind to you.”

  “Scrubbing floors for someone?” she said. “That’s the long and the short of it, for someone like me.” Felix said nothing, realising he had not, after all, considered the realities of her existence. “That’s why I’m here. I didn’t like scrubbing floors,” she went on, staring up at the ceiling. “That’s been my trouble. Miss Hilliard says I have to learn to accept my lot and be thankful to Our Lord for it. But I’m not, not even after all this. Maybe it would be better I was dead. But then I’d probably finding myself scrubbing floors for Old Nick. There’s probably a lot of dirty floors in hell.”