A Dark and Stormy Night

by Jeanne M. Dams

  ‘Has she said anything about what she was doing out there?’

  The vicar looked uncomfortable. ‘I don’t quite know how much I am at liberty to repeat. She was rambling a bit, but she knows I am a clergyman. She may have felt I would keep her remarks confidential. In any case,’ he hastened to add, ‘much of what she said was unintelligible.’

  Pat Heseltine, gorgeous Pat, was listening closely to this. ‘I’m not at all sure the confidentiality privilege applies in this case,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You’re not her priest, nor were you attending her qua clergyman. If she was rambling, she might not even have known who she was talking to. In which case . . .’

  ‘My dear Pat,’ said the vicar with unusual firmness, ‘the question is not a legal, but a moral one. It is up to me to make the decision to reveal or not to reveal her . . . conversation is hardly the word . . . her comments.’

  ‘You could be required to, you know, in court. Or I think you could. It’s an interesting point. I must look it up when I get back to my books.’

  ‘The matter will scarcely arise. In any case, no one can force me to speak if my conscience forbids it. And the point is moot. I’m sure nothing she said has the slightest bearing on . . . on any of our worries.’

  Pat looked stubborn. As she opened her mouth to continue the argument, I hastily spoke again. ‘And Mr Upshawe? I gather his condition is much more serious.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the vicar. ‘Excuse me, please.’

  And he left the room.

  ‘Well!’ said Mike, who had been silently watching the action, his eyes avid. ‘The good father has more nerve than one would have expected from that placid exterior.’

  ‘The good father, as you put it, is a man of courage and integrity,’ said Pat fiercely, ‘and don’t you ever forget it.’

  ‘My dear!’ Mike looked startled. ‘I never doubted it, I do assure you.’

  ‘Then stop sneering at him! We’re in enough trouble here without your attitudes to contend with.’

  Jim and Joyce started to speak at the same time, thus cancelling each other’s good intentions. It was Tom who poured oil on the increasingly troubled waters. ‘I’m sure Mike was just saying what we were all thinking, that Mr Leatherbury is handling a difficult situation with grace and kindness. I know we’re all grateful he’s here, though the poor man must be worried about his duties.’

  I looked a question.

  ‘Sunday. Tomorrow’s Sunday. Who’s going to take the service at St Michael’s?’

  Speculations about that occupied them for a few minutes, while I consumed tea and various improvised biscuits, and wished Alan would come back.

  He wasn’t long after that. He and Ed came in looking cold and famished, and proceeded to remedy their condition before they did anything else. The others finished their food and drink and began to push back their chairs. Alan stopped them.

  ‘Ed took a picture I’d like you all to see. Tell me if you recognize the object.’

  Ed fussed a bit with the camera until he had the best image of the cross on the small screen. He handed it around. Heads were shaken until the camera came to Pat.

  ‘But that’s the cross from Paul’s prayer book! I’d recognize it anywhere – see the carving on it? At least, it’s scarcely carving, just tracery, but very nice, I’ve always thought. He’s had it for years. His daughter gave it to him, and he always uses it as a bookmark. However did it come to be caught in gorse?’

  ‘That,’ said Alan mildly, ‘is what I need to find out.’

  TWELVE

  Alan asked me to come with him, and bring the cross. ‘I’d like a witness to what he says, Dorothy, and you’re the only one I can trust completely.’

  ‘But you surely don’t think he had anything to do with Dave Harrison’s death!’

  ‘Caused it, no. Had something to do with it – that’s what I want to find out.’

  So he tapped on Upshawe’s door and went in. We found the vicar sitting at Laurence Upshawe’s bedside, his prayer book open on his knee.

  ‘Mr Leatherbury, I need to talk to you for a moment. Will we disturb Mr Upshawe if we do it here, do you think, or would another room be better?’

  The priest looked up, his face unreadable. ‘Some say the unconscious can hear, even when they can’t respond. Perhaps it would be better to move into the corridor. I need to be within earshot, you understand, in case he speaks, or . . .’ a helpless little shake of head ‘. . . or makes any sign of returning to consciousness.’

  ‘It isn’t good that he hasn’t come out of it yet, is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Not as I understand it. No.’

  We pulled chairs into the hallway and sat clustered around the door of the sick man’s room. The vicar sat quietly, asking no questions. He looked unutterably weary, and far older than I had earlier judged him to be.

  Alan held out his hand and I gave him the envelope containing the cross. Alan pulled a clean handkerchief out of his pocket, spread it on his hand, and tipped the cross out onto it.

  ‘Oh, you’ve found it! I treasure that little cross and wondered what had become of it.’ The vicar reached for it, but Alan moved his hand away.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t touch it just yet, sir, if you don’t mind. You recognize it, then?’

  ‘How could I not? My daughter gave it to me when I officiated at her wedding. I’ve always used it as a bookmark.’ He held up his prayer book. ‘The chain has worn very thin over the years, and I noticed only last week that one of the links was weak. I should have had it repaired then. It was in its proper place last evening, but when I opened the book this morning to read the office, I saw that it was missing and was greatly distressed. May I ask where you found it?’

  Alan nodded to me and I answered. ‘It was caught on a gorse bush, Mr Leatherbury, just by that bench at the bottom of the garden.’

  ‘Oh! But that was where—’ He broke off, glanced through the open doorway, and sighed. ‘I have been somewhat unclear in my mind, Mr Nesbitt, about what I should do. But I believe it is time for me to speak. I should not do so, please understand, if there were any question of clerical privilege.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Alan murmured. Folding the cross in the handkerchief and putting it safely in his pocket, he looked as bewildered as I felt. Was Mr Leatherbury about, after all, to tell us what Julie Harrison had said to him? But what could that have to do with a cross missing since, presumably, before the vicar left his room this morning? I was bursting with questions, but Alan gave me an unmistakable keep still look, so I waited for what the vicar had to say.

  ‘I went out just after tea yesterday to read the evening office. I was disturbed in my mind by the events of the day and needed a quiet place to pray. It was cold outside, certainly, but the wind had dropped and the sun was still shining a bit. I found the bench, the one by the gorse bush, Mrs Martin. It was far enough removed from the house that I thought I should have some privacy.

  ‘However, I had barely begun the first psalm when Mr Upshawe approached me. It was apparent from his demeanour that he was troubled, so I asked him if I could be of help. He told me a remarkable story.’

  Alan took his pen from a pocket, folded the envelope that had held the cross into a more-or-less rigid surface, and waited.

  ‘It seems that when Mr Upshawe assisted you to examine the . . . er . . . remains under the tree, he found something which he concealed from you. I have it here.’ From the pocket of his clerical gray shirt, he took a gold ring with a carved black stone. ‘This ring, or I should say copies of this ring, have been worn by the Upshawes for generations. Mr Upshawe’s father had one. So did his father’s cousin, one-time owner of this estate, and so did that cousin’s son, Harry.’

  ‘Ah.’ Alan pondered the implications of that for what seemed like a long time. ‘And why did Laurence Upshawe not tell us about the ring?’

  ‘For the same reason that people often lie, or conceal the truth. He was confused and afraid. The ring, you see, ha
s an inscription inside.’ The vicar turned the ring to the light and showed us. ‘HU. And the date is, according to Laurence, the date of Harry’s coming of age. So he realized, when he found it down there under the tree, that there could be little doubt the ring was Harry’s. But how could it be? Harry died in a plane crash over the Atlantic. So Laurence took it, resolving to think out the problem before he said anything to you or anyone else.

  ‘But when Pat brought up the story of Harry’s “disappearance”, and you pointed out that the fact of the crash did not necessarily prove Harry’s death, Laurence was forced to acknowledge that the skeleton could very well be Harry’s. And that, in turn, raised the question of who murdered him. For with the best will in the world, Laurence could not make himself believe that a man dead by natural causes would be interred secretly beneath an oak tree.’

  ‘And of the people who stood to gain by Harry’s death, one stood out,’ Alan pointed out with calm logic. ‘Laurence’s father, who coveted the house and the estate.’

  ‘That, obviously, was what caused Laurence such distress. He said his father loved the house with a quite unreasonable passion, and was infuriated when he learned that Harry was moving to America and leaving it behind.’

  ‘The plane trip wasn’t to be just a holiday, then?’

  ‘Not according to Laurence’s memory. He was young, but he remembers the tirade his father went into, talking about a worthless young man who didn’t even care about his priceless inheritance – and so on. One gathers he tackled Harry about it, and the young man laughed at him, saying he, Harry, was going to sell “the old relic” as soon as he inherited, and that he, Laurence’s father, could buy it then if it suited him. That would have meant breaking the entail, but even in those days it wasn’t impossible. What was impossible was the notion of Laurence’s father buying the place. That branch of the family never had much money. And Harry knew it.’

  ‘He sounds like a really nasty person,’ I put in with a shiver. ‘Not a great loss to the world, however he died.’

  The vicar looked at me sadly, but said nothing. I knew what he was thinking. “Any man’s death diminishes me . . .” et cetera. And John Donne was right, and so was Mr Leatherbury, and I was wrong. But . . . it all happened a long time ago. ‘Suppose, for the sake of the argument, that Laurence’s father – what was his name, anyway?’

  ‘Laurence, I believe. Confusing, I agree.’

  ‘Oh. Well, supposing he did kill Harry in a fit of temper. He’s dead now. Why is the present Upshawe so worried about it? I know, it isn’t pleasant to think your father might have murdered someone, but after all these years . . .’ I shrugged.

  ‘You haven’t thought about the question of inheritance, my dear,’ said Alan. ‘If Laurence senior killed Harry, the law would not allow him to profit from his crime. He could not have inherited Branston Manor, nor passed it on to Laurence junior. And if Laurence junior didn’t own it, he had no right to sell it to the Moynihans.’

  ‘Quite,’ said the vicar, and we sat in a melancholy little silence for a moment. ‘Laurence first asked me if my predecessor in the parish had told me anything that would clear up the matter. I suppose he thought that his father might have confessed his crime; that family was always rather High Church. I told him that if such a confession had taken place my predecessor would have been most wrong to tell me anything about it, and that in fact he had not so much as implied such a thing. So then Laurence asked if I had any advice about what he should do, and I told him he needed to make a clean breast of the whole thing to you, Mr Nesbitt. Only then can the matter be investigated properly, and the truth known. I firmly believe he intended to take my advice, and that is why I have confided his story to you.’

  ‘Oh, but—’ I stopped. It was no use pointing out that the Moynihans would be devastated if it turned out they had no legal claim to their wonderful house. Both men fully realized that. I tried to find a ray of hope somewhere. ‘Isn’t there some provision for a good-faith transaction?’

  Alan and the vicar both nodded. ‘Some,’ said Alan. ‘The law is complicated on the subject. Ms Heseltine could probably brief us, but I suspect what she would say is that the matter would have to go to court and could take a long time to settle.’

  ‘And meanwhile Jim and Joyce couldn’t spend money on repairs to the house or the garden, couldn’t do a thing, in fact, except sit and worry.’

  ‘Dorothy, do please remember that this is all speculation,’ said Alan gently. ‘It’s now pretty obvious that the skeleton is what remains of Harry Upshawe, but the rest of the story stems from Laurence’s fears, and is based on no evidence whatsoever. Furthermore, it does nothing to explain the rest of the things that have happened here.’

  ‘One thing, perhaps,’ said the vicar mildly. ‘When Upshawe left me, he left in such a state of perturbation that I nearly went after him. I got up to do so, in fact, but I tripped over the leg of the bench, and by the time I had recovered myself he was far away. I suspect that was when I lost my cross.’

  ‘Very likely,’ said Alan, handing it back to him. ‘Let me restore your property, sir. I doubt it has much more to tell us. I very much wish, however, that you had followed Upshawe. To think that we’re so close to knowing what happened down at the river!’

  ‘You can’t possibly wish it more than I. I had some feeling that he was upset enough to . . . to do something foolish, but I am not a young man, and he was walking too fast for me. I had planned to talk more with him as soon as he returned. That is why I went with you to search for him. I was most perturbed that he had not returned. I fear now that he went down to the river with some thought of jumping in, but Harrison tried to stop him and perished in the attempt. If Laurence doesn’t recover, I shall feel I have two deaths on my conscience.’

  And on that unhappy note we let him go back to praying over his patient.

  THIRTEEN

  Alan went back out with Ed to take some more pictures of anything they could think of that might be useful, and I wandered without direction, exploring the house more than I had taken time to do earlier.

  The inside of the house was relatively undamaged. Some ominous patches of damp were beginning to appear on some of the third-floor walls where, I assumed, roof slates were missing, and water was leaking down from the attics. Here and there Mr Bates had neatly boarded up a broken window or two, but by and large the rooms were intact. The Moynihans’ excellent taste showed everywhere. I assumed that some of the furnishings were original to the house, but the rest had been found or commissioned to suit the various styles of the house perfectly. Here Jacobean windows were draped in colourful brocades; there a Georgian bedroom reflected that period’s interest in Chinoiserie. Many of the rooms reminded me, in fact, of the exquisite miniature rooms assembled by Mrs James Ward Thorne of Chicago and on display at the Art Institute there. The same care and expertise had gone into these full-scale rooms.

  It broke my heart to think Jim and Joyce might have to leave this house. They had plenty of money. They could buy another fine home. But no amount of money could make up for the lavishly expended love.

  I couldn’t think about it. I made my way, getting lost a couple of times, down to the kitchen, where Rose was busy with preparations for tea.

  ‘Goodness, you must get tired of the endless succession of meals to cook and clean up after,’ I commented, watching her assemble jam tarts.

  She laughed. ‘I told you I enjoy a challenge, and cooking for a crowd without electricity is certainly a challenge. I don’t enjoy the washing-up part so much, I admit. That’s not usually part of my job here; the dailies do that. But needs must.’

  ‘Look here, can’t we all help? It’s ridiculous—’

  She stopped me, looking positively alarmed. ‘Oh, no, that would never do! You’re guests.’

  ‘But the circumstances are unusual, for Pete’s sake. You can’t be expected to slave away all by yourself. I know Jim and Joyce wouldn’t want you—’

  She inter
rupted me again. ‘No, really. I imagine you’re right about Mr and Mrs Moynihan, but John wouldn’t have it. He has very high standards about service in this house – and before you say what you’re thinking, yes, he does help a great deal. It isn’t easy keeping this stove stoked with wood, not to mention all the repairs he’s been trying to do as time permits. Don’t think he’s a slave driver, for he’s not. He just feels strongly about this house and its traditions.’

  Well, I had my own ideas about the slave-driving. It was absurd to expect Rose to do all the work that was usually done by a small army of daily workers, and under emergency conditions, at that. Bates seemed happy enough to let the men plan and probably help with repairs, after all. But it was plainly time to change the subject.

  ‘Is Mr Bates from these parts, then?’

  She smiled at that, and relaxed a little. ‘You Americans do have such interesting ways of expressing yourself. “From these parts.” I’ll have to remember that. Yes, John was born and bred in the village. His people have always lived here, many of them actually on the estate, in the old days.’

  ‘That would be . . . when?’

  ‘Seventeenth, eighteenth centuries. By the nineteenth the land was giving out, and agriculture didn’t pay as it used to, so the Bates family mostly got work in the village. But they never lost their feeling for the estate. John’s always felt it belongs to him and his kin, in a way.’

  ‘That’s why he works so hard, then. Keeping up tradition, keeping the place up to snuff.’

  She smiled again at my odd English, and I went away feeling hopelessly inadequate, involved with people to whom ‘the old days’ meant three or four hundred years ago. The English and the Americans are two peoples divided not only by a common language, as Churchill or somebody put it, but by a completely different understanding of the words ‘history’ and ‘tradition’.

  ‘His people have always lived here.’ I wondered sadly what would happen to the Bateses if the ownership of the house were called into question. What would happen to anyone connected with the estate?