The Lazarus Tree

by Robert Richardson

  ‘I catch the bus outside the Raven at nine o’clock. What are you going to do for the day?’

  He glanced out of the kitchen window. October had begun mild and sun-filled. ‘Wander round Medmelton. Play at tourists. I might drive over to Buckfast Abbey later.’

  ‘Try the George for lunch,’ Veronica suggested. ‘I must get ready.’

  Maltravers finished reading the paper after she left, then sat in the front room, thinking over what had happened. The objects left in the churchyard were open to all manner of interpretation and imagination could run riot. Sally Baker’s knowledge of Medmelton still made her the best — in fact, the only — person he could think of to discuss that with. He took out his diary and re-read what he had heard Michelle saying during the night. ‘... born is the man.’ A real man? Some traditional catechism to charm out the identity of a lover? Romantic country lore advised girls to peel an apple carefully then throw the whole skin over their shoulder when it would land in the shape of their true love’s initial; there were countless similar superstitions. But a phrase like ‘eternal judge’ sounded a gloomy way of summoning up Mr Right, and anyway such an attempt was totally out of character with Michelle. He recalled a phrase from Saki: ‘Children with Hyacinth’s temperament don’t know better as they grow older; they merely know more.’ He suspected that Michelle already knew more than she should, but with the conceit of adolescence had convinced herself that she could handle it.

  He was interrupted by the front doorbell and went to discover a tall, rather crumpled clergyman. The navy blue suit needed pressing and was worn over a chocolate brown pullover and grubby dog collar. The tidiest thing about him was his Brylcreemed black hair, cut severely short with no pretension to style, smears of grey just above the ears like patches of ash on partly burnt coal; his face was of a young man prematurely aged, combining innocence and benevolence with world-weariness. His regular features would have been handsome if they had not all been slightly too large. Heavy closed lips widened into what should have been a smile, but only managed to look like a patronising smirk.

  ‘Ah, you must be ...’ he paused momentarily. ‘Gus ... Maltravers, is it? Stephen mentioned your name to me.’

  ‘Yes. And you must be Bernard Quex, rector of this parish. Stephen mentioned your name to me. Good morning.’

  ‘Good morning ... have I missed Veronica?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. She left for work about a quarter of an hour ago.’

  ‘Oh, I forgot that she goes in on Mondays. Could you ask her to ring me when she gets back?’

  ‘Of course. I’ll leave a note in case I’m out.’

  ‘That’s very kind.’ Quex clearly felt that he could not just end the conversation there. ‘You’re staying for a few days, I believe.’

  ‘Yes. I finally found time to accept the invitation. I’m looking forward to discovering Medmelton.’

  ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed.’ Quex smiled disparagingly. ‘It’s very attractive, but not remarkable. The church is the only interesting building, but there are dozens exactly like it all over Devon.’

  ‘But they haven’t all had murder victims found in the churchyard.’

  The remark was made casually, but had an instant effect on Quex, as if Maltravers had uttered an obscenity during a Mother’s Union meeting.

  ‘That was a long time ago and it’s over now.’ He sounded both wary and offended. ‘It was very ... embarrassing and we don’t talk about it.’

  Maltravers noted the preferred adjective. Not tragic, not wicked, not mysterious, but embarrassing, as though Patrick Gabriel had committed a faux pas by inconsiderately being murdered in the village and giving Medmelton a bad name.

  ‘Hardly over,’ he commented blandly. ‘There’s still the question of finding the person who did it.’

  The ripple of offence at being contradicted that crossed Quex’s face was instantly replaced by a condescending and pious smile.

  ‘God knows, Mr Maltravers. There are no secrets from Him.’

  The capital letter was as audible as the tone of conviction and Maltravers instantly recognised there would be no point in arguing.

  ‘Interesting though,’ he added. ‘However, nice to meet you and I’ll make sure Veronica gets the message.’

  ‘That’s very kind.’ Quex’s amiability resurfaced, but Maltravers felt that he was now suspicious of another stranger from London. ‘Enjoy your stay. Good morning.’

  As the rector turned and walked away fractionally too quickly, Maltravers remembered what Stephen had said about his attitude towards the things he had discovered beneath the Lazarus Tree. That the police should not be involved because Medmelton had been disturbed enough without a murder inquiry being resurrected. Somewhere in the village — possibly somewhere among Quex’s congregation — there was a killer, but he was deliberately holding back evidence that might identify them. For the greater good of the parish or because he knew something? Perhaps because he was turning to the touchstone of unquestioning faith in God. Maltravers made a mental note to ask Stephen if Quex had been among those who had refused to co-operate with the police’s fingerprinting operation. If he had ... no conclusions yet, just bear it in mind.

  He scribbled a note for Veronica, then left the cottage and strolled past the church and across the green. The walk to Sally Baker’s would be good exercise, but he did not have to take it; she stepped out of the door as he was passing Medmelton Stores.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘This is almost serendipity.’

  ‘What is?’ she asked.

  ‘Meeting you. I was on my way to your place to see if you were in.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because apart from Stephen and Veronica, you’re the only person I know here and I need some help.’

  She regarded him quizzically as she shifted a wicker shopping basket from left hand to right. ‘You only arrived yesterday and already you need help about something? You struck me as being more ... capable.’

  ‘I am when I know what I’m dealing with.’

  ‘I see ... well at least I can save you a walk. My car’s just across the road.’

  ‘Here.’ He held out his hand for the basket. ‘Let me carry that.’

  ‘Is it something to do with Michelle?’ she asked unexpectedly as they started to walk towards the car.

  Maltravers glanced at her in surprise; Sally Baker was both astute and direct. ‘And how would you know that?’

  ‘Educated guess,’ she replied. ‘I was watching you and Stephen in the Raven last night. Instead of him introducing you to everyone at the bar, you were sitting on your own and obviously discussing something serious. Not the sort of behaviour I’d have expected when you’d only been here a couple of hours.’

  Maltravers nodded approvingly. ‘You don’t miss much. But why should it have anything to do with Michelle?’

  ‘Has it?’ she repeated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well then.’ She took the car keys out of the pocket of her Barbour jacket. ‘Tell me about it.’

  It took only a few minutes to reach her cottage and Maltravers completed his story while she unloaded the shopping in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m not altogether sure why I’m talking to you,’ he admitted when he finished. ‘If I had to rationalise it, I’d say that you know this village as well as anyone, but you’re not as insular as a lot of people here. But spelling it out makes it sound a bit thin, I’m afraid. Perhaps it’s because my cosmopolitan mind can’t cope with country matters.’

  ‘Maybe it can’t.’ The agreement sounded ambivalent. ‘But I’m very grateful that you’ve talked to me. Let’s go into the other room and I’ll tell you something.’

  Sally Baker’s front room was unexpectedly exotic with African tribal masks, Indian bronzes, carved ivory figures and embroidered pictures of Japanese wildlife. A Chinese tapestry screen stood in one corner and the sideboard was dominated by an ebony box, its lid inlaid with gold swirls of leaves and lacquered flowers
.

  ‘Stephen mentioned that your husband was in the diplomatic service,’ Maltravers remarked. ‘I see you picked up souvenirs.’

  ‘Some not by choice,’ she said drily. ‘It was out of the question to decline gifts from certain people, but I was awfully glad when we were able to get rid of a shrunken head from Nairobi. They said it was an immense privilege to be given one, but it always looked so incredibly reproachful. Anyway, let’s talk about superstitions nearer home.’

  She sat in a very English wingback chair and was silent for a moment. ‘I knew about the things under the Lazarus Tree, of course, but ... well, first of all, you need some local history. Donkey’s years ago, there was a man called Ralph the Talespinner, who ...’

  ‘I’ve heard of him,’ Maltravers interrupted. ‘The Medmelton Cat and God knows what else. Stephen’s got a copy of his stories somewhere.’

  ‘Which edition?’ The question was unexpectedly sharp.

  ‘I don’t know. Is there more than one?’

  ‘Yes. And I’ll bet his is the 1933 version. That’s the most common.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Very much.’ She twisted round in her chair, reached towards an open bookcase built into the wall beside her and pulled out a book bound in faded purple leather. ‘Ralph was a reasonably good storyteller, but he was illiterate and they could all have been lost or mangled by verbal tradition if the rector at the time hadn’t written them down. In 1890 one of his successors had them published by a printer in Exeter.’ She held up the book. ‘This is a copy, and I know of hardly any others.’

  ‘How does it differ from the 1933 edition?’

  ‘This one’s complete. It contains everything the first rector wrote down, including some half-finished tales and a collection of Ralph’s sayings, none of them memorable. When it was republished, it was edited. The sayings went and half a dozen stories were left out, including ...’ she flicked through several pages then stood up and handed him the book, ‘... this one. It’s quite short. I’ll make coffee while you read it.’

  She left the room and Maltravers heard her opening cupboard doors in the kitchen as he started to read.

  *

  Mary of Medmelton and Her Pact with the Lazarus Tree

  *

  There was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth a maiden of Medmelton called Mary Twelvetrees, fair and comely and beloved of all menfolk. But she was fickle and taunting with her favours, now allowing one to believe he had won her, now giving her attentions to another, now to a third and to a fourth. In this way, she found amusement and flattery, taking all manner of gifts and tokens, but never giving her heart or affections in return.

  But, unlike the endless Blessings of Heaven, all earthly happiness is but vanity when best achieved and of the Devil when gained through selfishness or pride and Mary found that the young men grew weary of her and turned their attentions to others less beautiful than she but of kinder nature. In vain did she then flaunt herself and make promises in which all knew she would prove false until at last she reached the age of twenty years and was still without a husband. At about this time, there arrived in Medmelton a Cornish man seeking work and he became the servant of a farmer. He was without a wife, which was a great wonder, he being well-proportioned and of handsome countenance. On becoming acquainted with this man (who was called Arthur of Redruth, that being the place from whence he came), Mary decided upon him for herself and vowed to act with swiftness in her purpose ere others in Medmelton should advise him of her past conduct. Accordingly she attended upon him, making him gifts of needlework and victuals, affecting a becoming modesty which had been no part of her character heretofore and doing all things pleasing to a man. In this manner, she succeeded in wooing and winning him and by the festival of Easter they were betrothed.

  But just as it sometimes pleases Almighty God to exact just penalty for sin within a man’s mortal span rather than allowing him to attend the torments of Hell that await all sinners, so it was that Mary was to be denied love as she had cruelly withheld her own from others. For it came to pass that Arthur was stricken of a malady swift and terrible and died within three days of its commencing. Weeping greatly, Mary sat by his corpse, witnessing in its lifelessness the very death of her own hopes. She remained in this lamentable state for several weeks and did then betake herself to a woman of Exmoor skilled in the black arts. The woman did advise her to make a pact with the Lazarus Tree that grows hard by St Leonard’s Church, saying that the blessings that fell upon the maiden who found her husband by its miracle could also be hers. Forasmuch (said the witch) as the tree returned to life in the same manner as the dead brother of Mary and Martha in Scripture, so too could Arthur be returned to her.

  *

  The next, immensely long paragraph abandoned the story as it listed with relish the alarming and painful consequences of denying God and dabbling in witchcraft. Maltravers realised he was reading Ralph the Talespinner with added sermons from the rector and skipped over the solemnities to pick up the story again.

  *

  Satisfied by the woman’s words (and not knowing their deceit), Mary returned to Medmelton to carry out the charms and practices she had advised. Secretly and at night, she knelt by the Lazarus Tree as others knelt before the Cross of Calvary, perverting worship of Our Blessed Saviour into sinful and wicked promises if the tree would return her love to her. Having thus placed her immortal soul in deadly peril, she began to carry out strange and unnatural acts, laying beneath the tree (as it were in the form of offerings) several items as she had been instructed. First she placed a figure made of clay in the form of the dead man; then a lock of his hair which she had cut from his head; then a phial of her own blood; then her betrothal ring; then a posy of white campion, mallow and speedwell; each time praying according to various devilish forms. When she had done all these things, she most wickedly cut from a book of Holy Writ those passages written by the Apostle Luke telling of the miraculous Raising of Lazarus by Our Lord Jesus Christ and left them beneath the tree also. Then she returned to her home and waited, for the witch had told her that Arthur would rise up and come to her when these things had been done. For three days and nights she took neither meat nor drink nor any sleep, until on the third night about the hour of midnight, there was a great knocking at the door of her cottage.

  Full of joy (for her desires had conquered all conscience of what she was about) she leapt up and opened the door, then shrank back in fear and trembling, for before her stood Arthur of Redruth wrapped in his burial shroud and bearing still the marks of his terrible last disease.

  ‘Mary! Mary!’ he cried aloud and in great anguish. ‘Why didst thou do this thing? For now I am taken from the bourne of Heaven itself and returned to Earth neither mortal man nor Angel which I was.’

  Then did he turn from her and fly like a spirit into the waters of the Ney where he was turned into the great stone in the likeness of a man which stands in the river by Tom Blackwall’s Meadow. And as she saw it happen, Mary threw herself after him, clinging to the rock as a bride clings to her husband, wailing greatly that the sound was heard as the howling of a wolf for twenty miles around. And the Ney being in flood, she was wrenched from the rock by the power of the water, even as she had torn Arthur from the bosom of God, and her body was washed down and down unto the sea where (it is said) her cries of misery are still heard each year when the wind blows on the night of her death.

  Therefore those who hear this tale beware, that they might turn their thoughts from all things that are evil and abhorred by God ...

  *

  Maltravers stopped reading as the rector added a final admonitory message. Sally Baker had returned with the coffee.

  ‘Hear any echoes?’ she asked.

  ‘Obviously, but ...’ His mouth twisted dismissively. ‘Come on. This is just a fable to frighten the children with a bit of free preaching thrown in. It might have had them trembling in their shoes in seventeen-whatever, but it’s only got novelty va
lue now.’

  ‘For most people,’ she agreed. ‘For grown-up people. But how straight did you think when you were fifteen?’

  ‘I was past fairy stories,’ he replied firmly.

  ‘And because you were past them, is everybody? There are adults who believe that what they see in television soap operas is real.’

  ‘But not to the extent of living their lives accordingly,’ he argued. ‘Anyway, Michelle is too level-headed.’

  ‘Michelle Dean is a child you should be very careful with,’ Sally Baker told him. “You hardly know her, but I do. She’s secretive — that comes from Veronica of course — she’s devious and I wouldn’t put anything past her.’

  Maltravers picked up the cup and sipped his coffee. Having decided to talk to Sally Baker because she was intelligent, he could not simply dismiss what she said as ridiculous.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed. ‘Somebody left those things under the Lazarus Tree and I haven’t got an immediate alternative explanation to what you’re suggesting. First of all, is it Michelle?’

  Sally Baker looked surprised at the question. ‘Isn’t it a reasonable assumption? Stephen says she’s been hanging around the churchyard and you found her there yourself. But who put her up to it? And why?’

  Maltravers indicated the book. ‘Who else had this edition?’

  ‘I only know of three other copies. Bernard Quex has one, there’s another in the reference section of Exeter Library and the third belongs to an old couple who live over on the far side of the village. They’re almost recluses. There may be others of course.’

  ‘Michelle could have read the library copy for herself,’ Maltravers remarked.

  ‘Possibly, but she isn’t the type to use the reference department, and even if she did why should she pick up that particular book?’

  ‘Someone may have told her about it ... but the end result’s the same of course. Whoever drew it to her attention was manipulating her. So who is it — and why is she listening to them? Putting aside the stupidity of what she could be playing at, who’s she trying to raise from the dead? Did she have some boyfriend who wiped himself out on a motorbike or anything like that?’