A Christmas Visitor

by Anne Perry

  “Ashton Gower is saying that Judah imprisoned him wrongly, in order to be able to buy the estate,” Henry said simply. “It is nonsense, of course, but we need to find a way to force him to retract it, and never repeat it again. It is causing much distress.”

  “Ashton Gower is in prison, where he belongs,” Benjamin replied a trifle coldly. “Exactly who is it that is spreading these lies? I’ll put a stop to it, by law, if necessary.” He spoke forcefully. He was a powerful man, as were all the Dreghorn brothers, but he had a remarkable intellect as well. He had succeeded brilliantly at university and it was something of a surprise to his family when he had chosen to study theology. But then when his income from the estate had freed him from the need to earn his way, and he had followed his scholastic dreams to the Holy Land, everyone had found it quite natural.

  “Gower has served his sentence,” Henry corrected him. “He is free, and unfortunately has chosen to come back to the Lakes.”

  “When?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “Then I’ll go and see him myself. I’m surprised he hasn’t been run out of the village. What kind of a man slanders the dead, and adds to the bereavement of a widow and her child? He’s less than filth!”

  “He is a deeply unpleasant man …” Henry began.

  “He is a convicted forger and a would-be thief!” Benjamin retorted. “If it hadn’t been for Colgrave he’d have got away with it.”

  “But he made his accusations when Judah was still alive,” Henry finished. “I don’t believe he has repeated them publicly since then, but no doubt he will do. He is determined to clear his own name.”

  Benjamin gave a bark of laughter and his face set hard and angry.

  There was no more time for conversation. They approached the gates of the estate and Henry climbed down to open them, then close them after the trap. He walked behind them up the gravel to the door just as Antonia came out.

  Benjamin leaped out of the trap and strode the couple of paces over to her and took her in his arms, holding her gently as if she were a hurt child.

  Then he looked up and saw Joshua standing in the front doorway, dwarfed by the massive lintels and looking embarrassed and unhappy.

  Benjamin let go of Antonia and walked up the step. For an instant he seemed uncertain how to treat Joshua. He hesitated, torn between taking him in his arms or grasping him by the hand.

  Joshua gulped, standing perfectly still. “Hello, Uncle Benjamin,” he said very quietly.

  Benjamin knelt down. “Hello, Joshua.” He held out his arms, and the child allowed himself to be embraced, then after a long moment, very slowly returned it, sliding his arms around Benjamin’s neck and laying his head on his shoulder.

  Henry found himself overcome with emotion also, and turned away to Antonia. He offered her his arm up the steps, and Wiggins followed with Benjamin’s cases.

  The following morning Henry got up early because he did not want to lie in bed thinking. When he reached the dining room he found Benjamin already there, with a plate of Cumberland sausage, eggs and bacon, and thick, brown toast on the side. Instead of marmalade there was a dark, rich jam in the dish. He remembered from the past that it was witherslacks, a tart kind of small plum, known as a damson in the rest of England, and Benjamin’s favorite.

  Benjamin gave him a tight, miserable smile. “Good morning, Henry. I’m going to see Colgrave this morning. It must have snowed most of the night. It’s pretty deep. We can ride. It’s only a couple of miles or so. He’s an oily swine, and if he had an ounce of decency he’d have stopped Gower already, but we might be able to put a little backbone into him.” He took another mouthful from his plate. “Or make him more frightened of us than of whatever he thinks Gower will do to him. Ephraim should be here any day, but you can’t tell how long it will take to sail from South Africa. What a terrible homecoming!”

  “Antonia is expecting Naomi, too,” Henry told him.

  “I doubt she can help.” Benjamin’s broad shoulders slumped. “I still miss Nathaniel. What’s happening to us, Henry? Judah was the oldest, and he was only forty-three, and two of us are dead already! Joshua’s the only heir to the Dreghorns.”

  “So far,” Henry agreed.

  Benjamin did not answer the remark. “Have some breakfast,” he said instead. “You can’t go out in this weather without a good meal inside you.”

  And in spite of the fact that it was only just over a mile and a half to Peter Colgrave’s house, it was not an easy journey. The snow had drifted in the night and in places it was more than two feet deep.

  They rode toward the lake and crossed the stream lower down where there was a rough bridge made of two long slabs of stone balanced at either end, and on a central stone. On foot, one balanced with care, but on horseback it was a matter of splashing through, more than hock-deep, and up the other side.

  Half a mile beyond they saw the square-towered stone church and the vicarage, then a hundred yards farther was Colgrave’s house, also of stone. It was handsome, deep-windowed, the roof immaculately slated. One could see where the money from the sale of the estate had been used to remain and extend it, and to build new stables. That was where they left their horses.

  “Come in,” Colgrave said, covering his surprise and considerable reluctance with an effort. “Good to see you, Dreghorn. My deepest condolences on your brother’s death. Terrible tragedy.”

  “Thank you,” Benjamin said briefly. “You remember Henry Rathbone, don’t you?”

  “Can’t say that I do,” Colgrave answered, looking Henry up and down, trying to place his lean figure and mild, aquiline face. “How do you do, Mr. Rathbone.”

  Henry replied, finding it difficult to smile. Colgrave was broad, tending to fat a little, although he was no more than forty at the most. He had dark brown hair and a clever, thoughtful face, somewhat guarded in expression.

  “Come in, gentlemen,” Colgrave invited, ushering them through a wood-paneled hall decorated with fine portraits of men and women who were presumably his ancestors. The fire was already burning well in his study and the room was warm. The shelves that lined the walls were stocked with leather-bound, gold-lettered books. “What may I do for you?” Colgrave asked. “Anything I can, to be of assistance. You will be returning to the east? Palestine, isn’t it? Must be fascinating.” This was directed to Benjamin. He considered Henry to be of no importance, merely a friend brought for company, and perhaps that was close enough to the truth.

  “Not until I have cleared my brother’s name,” Benjamin said bluntly.

  “Oh!” Colgrave let out his breath. “Yes. Fearful business.” His face tightened in distaste. “Gower is a complete outsider, quite appalling. The man is a fraud, a cheat, and now slanders the name of a good man. Pity we can’t set the dogs on him.” He gave a slight shrug of his heavy shoulders.

  “If it were as simple as that, I should not need your help,” Benjamin retorted. “You saw the original deeds that he is saying were genuine.”

  Colgrave raised his eyebrows.

  “Of course. They were so badly forged I don’t know how anyone believed them for a moment, except that I suppose many of us are not familiar with such papers, and we are not in the habit of suspecting our neighbors of such a stupid crime.”

  “But you would swear that they were forged?” Benjamin pressed.

  “My dear fellow, I did! In court. Not that it rested on my testimony alone, of course. There was an expert from Kendal, came and also swore they were complete forgeries from beginning to end. We all knew that.” He waved his hand. “This will blow over, you know. No one with any sense at all believes Gower. The only ones who ever listen to him are newcomers. There are half a dozen families, one or two with money, I admit, who weren’t here at the time, so they don’t understand.”

  “Who are they?” Benjamin asked.

  “Leave it alone for a while,” Colgrave said soothingly. “I’ll speak to them on your behalf, and tell them the truth of the thin
g. Go now, in hot blood, and you’ll only make enemies of them. No one likes to be shown up for a fool, you know?”

  “A fool?” Benjamin asked.

  “Certainly, a fool. Who but a fool would believe a convicted forger like Ashton Gower? They’ll learn the truth of him soon enough. Wait until he loses that foul temper of his with them! Or borrows a horse and brings it home lame, as he did with poor Bennion, or tries to borrow money we all know he’ll never return. Then they’ll wish they’d had more sense than to give him a moment’s credence. As angry as you are, quite rightly, of course, you’ll make enemies of them now.”

  Henry disliked having to agree with Colgrave, but honesty gave him no choice. They excused themselves and left, but as soon as they were outside Benjamin turned around.

  “Before we get the horses, I want to go to the churchyard.” He took a deep breath, his face bleak and half turned away. “I must see Judah’s grave.”

  “Of course,” Henry agreed. “So must I. Or would you rather be alone?”

  Benjamin hesitated.

  “I’ll wait,” Henry said quickly. “I can go later. I’ll fetch the horses, then we don’t have to go back.”

  Benjamin nodded, unwilling to commit himself to speech, but his gratitude was in his eyes.

  Henry stood still for a moment or two, watching him walk slowly, crunching through the snow, until he reached the stone wall of the churchyard, and then was lost behind the yew branches.

  He went back to the stable yard, and by the time he returned, Benjamin was waiting for him.

  “I want to see Leighton, if he’s still the doctor here,” he said, taking his horse from Henry and mounting. “If not him, then whoever is. I don’t know how Judah could have been stupid enough to slip on the stepping stones. He’s lived here all his life. Where was he going, anyway? What was he doing crossing the stream alone at that time of night? Why did he go out at all?”

  “I don’t know,” Henry admitted, keeping the horses in step, side by side as they rode toward the village. “Are you sure it matters now?”

  Benjamin looked at him sharply. “Of course it matters! It doesn’t make any sense. There’s something wrong, and I intend to get to the truth. Ashton Gower has to be silenced, and permanently. We can’t let Antonia live in fear that he’ll start up again.” He was angry with Henry for not understanding; it was clear in his face and the tone of his voice.

  Grief and confusion were wounding him and Henry understood that. Still the response stung, and it was an effort to control his own reaction. He had liked Benjamin all the years he had known him, as much as he had liked Judah, and the sense of loss incurred was no stranger to him. It was many years since his wife had died, but the memory was still there.

  It was still snowing very lightly but the wind had dropped. Fifteen minutes later they were at the doctor’s house and the horses by the gate. It was another quarter of an hour before he was free to see them.

  “Terribly sorry,” Leighton said to Benjamin. “Dreadful thing to happen. Good of you to come up, Rathbone. What can I do for you?” He was a thin man, full of nervous energy but with a grave voice, nearer Henry’s age than Benjamin’s.

  Benjamin’s face was slightly flushed, as much from helpless anger as the sharp edge of the cold outside. “There’s a lot about Judah’s death that makes no sense,” he replied. “I wanted to find the truth of what happened.” He stood in the middle of the room, lean, broad-shouldered, skin burned brown by the sun of the Holy Land, his face hard.

  Leighton had been a country doctor for twenty years. He understood grief and the anger that prompted men to fight it. He leaned against the bookcase and regarded Benjamin seriously. “The facts are simple. Judah went out for a walk at about half past ten in the evening. There was a half moon, but it was still extremely dark. He took a lantern, which was found washed up on the banks of the stream a few yards from where he was. When he did not return home, some little while after midnight, Antonia became sufficiently alarmed to send out the male servants to search for him. They found his body caught in the rocks of the fall a short distance below the stepping stones.”

  “I know all that!” Benjamin said impatiently. “Henry told me. What was he doing there? Why did he go out at all? Why did he try crossing icy stepping stones at night? Where was he going? How does a strong man drown in two feet of water? The stream isn’t running fast enough to sweep anyone off their feet, even at this time of the year. I’ve fallen off those stepping stones a dozen times, and got no worse than wet clothes!”

  “You can fall off a horse a hundred times and get no worse than bruises, or a broken collarbone,” Leighton said reasonably. “But the hundred and first fall can kill you. Benjamin, don’t look for reasons where there are none. He slipped in the dark and fell badly. He struck his head on the stones and it knocked him senseless. If it hadn’t, no doubt he’d have climbed out and walked home again. Tragically, it did.”

  “How do you know he struck his head when he fell?” Benjamin challenged. “How do you know no one struck him?”

  Leighton’s face darkened. “Don’t start thinking like that, Benjamin,” he warned. “There’s no evidence to suggest anything of the sort. Judah slipped. It was a tragic accident. He drowned. The stream carried him down to the fall, and …”

  “You examined him?” Benjamin interrupted.

  “Of course I did.”

  “What did you find, exactly?”

  Leighton sighed. “That the cause of death was drowning. There were several abrasions on his head and shoulders, one where a smooth stone had struck him, which would be when he fell, several others rougher, where the current carried him down onto the fall.”

  “Are you sure it was those stones?” Benjamin persisted.

  “Yes. The wounds had little bits of riverweed in them, and his hands were scraped by the gravel at the bottom.” His face was sad and patient. “Benjamin, there’s nothing more to it than I’ve told you. Don’t look for reasons or fairness in it. There aren’t any. It is an unjust tragedy, the death of a good man who should have lived a long and happy life. These things happen, probably more often than you know, because it doesn’t hit you like this unless it was someone you loved. People die on the mountains, there are boating accidents on the lakes, falls in the hunting field. I’m sorry.”

  “But why was he out crossing the stream in the middle of the night?” Benjamin could not let it go.

  Leighton frowned. “Nobody knows that. I don’t suppose we ever will. Look to what matters now. Help Antonia to come to terms with it. Be a support to her, and do what you can for young Joshua. They need your strength now, not a lot of questions to which we’ll find no answers. And even if we found them all, they would make no difference to what happened. Make the best of what is left.”

  Benjamin looked bewildered. “And Ashton Gower?” he demanded angrily. “Who is going to silence him? I swear by God, if he goes on blackening Judah’s name, I will! And if he had anything to do with Judah’s death, anything at all, I’ll prove it and I’ll see him hang!”

  Leighton’s face was grim. He straightened up, frowning. “You can be forgiven a certain amount for the shock of your loss, Benjamin, but if you suggest, outside this room, that Gower had anything to do with your brother’s death, you will be even more guilty of slander than he is. There is nothing whatever to indicate that he met Judah or had any intention of harming him, then or at any time. Please don’t bring any more grief on your family than it already has. It would be utterly irresponsible.”

  Benjamin stood without moving for a long moment, then turned and strode out, leaving the door swinging behind him.

  “I’m sorry,” Henry apologized for him. “Judah’s death has hit him very hard, and Ashton Gower’s charges are vicious and profoundly wrong. Judah was one of the most honest men I ever knew. To blacken his name now is an evil thing to do. I agree with Benjamin completely, and regardless of what he does, I will do all I can to protect Judah’s widow and son from such
calumny.”

  “Everyone in the village will,” Leighton said gravely. “Gower is a deeply unpopular man. We all remember what he did over the forged deeds. He’s arrogant and abrupt. But if Benjamin accuses him over Judah’s death, he will make it a great deal more difficult than it has to be, because some are then going to see injury on both sides, and it will become a feud, and split the village. That kind of thing can take years to heal, sometimes generations, because people get so entrenched, other grievances are added, and they can’t turn back.”

  “I’ll speak to him,” Henry promised. Then he excused himself and went outside into the snow to catch up with Benjamin.

  Benjamin was standing holding both the horses. He looked at Henry defiantly, his blue eyes burning. “I know,” he said before Henry could speak. “I just hate being told by that satisfied, self-righteous …” He stopped. “It’s thirsty work walking in this. Let’s go to the Fleece and take a pint of Cumberland ale. It’s a long time since I’ve tasted a jar of Snecklifter. It’s too early for lunch, or I’d have had a good crust of bread and a piece of Whillimoor Wang. There’s a plain, lean cheese for you to let you know you’re home. I’d like to hear a tale or two of good men and dogs, or even a fanciful yarn of demons and fairies, such as they like around here. They used to write that in as cause of death sometimes, you know? Taken by fairies!”

  Henry smiled. “That must have covered a multitude of things!”

  Benjamin laughed harshly. “Try explaining that to the constable.”

  An hour later, warmed and refreshed, entertained by taller and taller stories in broad Cumberland dialect, they emerged into the street again to find the weather brighter, and the sun breaking through wide rifts in the clouds, dazzling on the snow and reflecting on the lake in long blue and silver shards.

  They had ridden barely a hundred yards, past small shops, the smithy, the cooper’s yard, and were just level with the clog shop where the clog maker was hollowing out the wooden soles with his long, hinged stock knife when they almost ran into a broad-shouldered man with densely black hair.