Although her mother-in-law’s eyes were rimmed with red and her cheeks were pink and puffy, her mouth was nonetheless set in her familiar expression of grim determination such that the only person who dared to answer her was Annie, her sickeningly coloured bruises clearly visible despite her carefully draped shawl.
‘Don’t werret yourselves,’ she said, her tone defiant, ‘I shan’t give the game away and sully the family name.’
‘I won’t be able to lie.’
When she turned towards Ellen’s voice, it was to see that she was shaking.
‘You won’t need to. They’ll most likely not want to ask you anything; Annie, Mary and maybe George or Pa is who they’ll want to speak to. And anyway, no one’s being asked to lie; we just don’t need all of the truth coming out. That’s different.’ Listening to her mother-in-law’s assertion, she couldn’t see how lying was any different from not telling the truth. Her mother would have called it a sin of omission and she still felt distinctly uncomfortable at what she was being asked to do. ‘Right, well then, let’s go and get this over with,’ she heard Hannah nevertheless adding, and saw her moving towards the door.
In solemn procession, the family followed her across the yard to the barn where, earlier in the day, Will and George had set out chairs and stools on the nearside and a table and two chairs on the far side but as they reached the entrance, her feet refused to carry her any further.
‘I can’t do this,’ she whispered to George. ‘I can’t go in there.’
‘We been through this, Mary. You got to. You ain’t got no say in the matter. Believe me, if there was any other way for this to be done, I would make it so. Like I said earlier, just keep your eyes down until you’re spoken to and then look straight at the person asking the question. That way, you won’t have to look at… well, you know…’
‘I feel sick.’
‘I know. So do I. But once it gets under way, it’ll be quick. You mind what we talked about?’ She nodded. How could she possibly forget? ‘Come on then, I’ll lead you right up the far end. Keep looking down and just follow me.’ Evidently thinking that she was about to refuse, she felt him grasp her hand and walk quickly through the doors so that she had no option but to follow. And when they reached the end of the row of stools, he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her onto the last one. ‘Bide there,’ he instructed, looking around. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’
Now where was he going? But as she opened her mouth to beg him not to leave her alone there, he was already halfway back to the door, where she could see Annie hovering uncertainly. She watched as he said something to her and saw how, in response, his sister-in-law trembled. Then, with her leaning on his arm, they crossed the barn back towards Mary, where he eased Annie down onto a stool. Among the people now starting to file in, she noticed Martha Troke with her husband Samuel and for a moment, she panicked that Francis would be with them. Holding herself rigidly and hardly daring to look back up, she eventually risked a quick glance in their direction, a wave of relief rushing through her when it appeared that they were alone.
Forced into waiting for something to happen, the gathering of family and villagers started shuffling, while, on the other side of the trestle, the shorter of two men arranged some papers and whispered something to the other. Carefully, she shifted her weight on the stool and did her best to avoid looking at the table in front of her. To her left, she could feel George repeatedly squeezing her hand, which, although no doubt meant as comfort, was, in reality, having the effect of increasing the anxiety already stiffening her limbs. In the last few hours, he had been over with her time and time again what she was to say when she was, as they all expected her to be, asked to relate her version of events but now, sitting here in this dreadfully cold barn, with the stench of decay choking her nostrils and sickening her stomach, her mind felt utterly blank. It was the shock, he had told her earlier; shock that she mustn’t allow to play tricks with her recollection of events.
Slowly, the older of the two officials got to his feet; the new and absolute stillness around her serving only to intensify her anxiety further. Fixing her eyes on the man’s face, she could think only that he looked weary, but as he started to address the gathering, her stomach knotted hard.
‘…inquest on Thomas Strong Junior…’ his voice, she noticed, was surprisingly high for a man but not altogether lacking in compassion, ‘…for permitting the use of their barn for this purpose…’ But she was so racked with nerves that she couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying until she suddenly became aware of him asking, ‘Might I know who it was that found the deceased?’
Feeling George pull her hand sharply upwards, she shot to her feet.
‘I did,’ she said, staring directly at the coroner and ignoring the body of her brother-in-law lying on the trestle before her. Aware that her trembling hands seemed to have taken on a life of their own, she clasped them together, feeling how scores of eyes had turned to look at her.
‘And you are?’
‘Mistress Mary Strong of Keeper’s Cottage. The d-d-deceased is… was… my brother-in-law.’
‘Then Mistress Strong, would you tell us, if you’d be so kind, how you happened upon your brother-in-law’s body?’
Noticing the younger man at his side writing something on a sheet of paper, she swallowed hard and started to speak slowly, dreading reliving those moments.
‘It was Monday afternoon, around the hour of two, I think. Jacob, my son, was restless so I decided to take him out for a w-walk. Normally I’d go down through the water-meadows but it had been raining in the night an’ I thought it’d be all muddy underfoot, so I went up Church Hill instead.’ She swallowed again and kept her eyes directly on the coroner’s bald head, but then, without warning, her mind went blank.
‘Please, do continue.’
‘Oh, aye, well. Yes. Near the top of the lane there’s a gap in the hedge where you can go through into the field. So I did. And I walked down towards the river. I don’t know why, really, since the reeds are thick there and you can’t get to the water. That’s why no one much goes down there. But anyway, I did.’ She looked at him again and saw him give a single nod. ‘I walked along for a bit and then up ahead I seen summat in the reeds.’ As her voice spoke of it, her mind conjured the stiff rustle of the summer-bleached reed stems and the gentle flutter of their purple-grey seed feathers and pressing her eyes shut, she exhaled a long breath before continuing. ‘See, I thought maybe some children had been along there trying to reach the water… or maybe someone had been fishing… so out of curiosity I went to look…’
‘And what did you see?’ the official coaxed.
‘I seen something white in the water. I didn’t pay it much heed at first but as I drew closer it looked quite large an’ I thought it odd for someone to leave summat so big behind. It looked like a piece of cloth. But when I got near, it seemed to be floating in the shape of a shirt and I thought it even more strange for someone to leave their shirt behind.’ Forcing herself to swallow, she glanced back at George, but his gaze was fixed firmly ahead. ‘The water was moving it about and then on the edge of it, near the bank, I seen summat red and I thought it looked like a neckerchief… or a scarf.’ She paused again; picturing what she had at first thought to be rags caught in the reeds and being worried at by the current, and then recalled the strange blue-grey hue of his flesh seen under the water. The silence around her was now absolute and her body so tense that she could hardly breathe. ‘Th-then I seen h-hair. At first I thought it was riverweed but then I seen that it was hair; dark hair with grey bits. And then I screamed and ran back up the field to the lane. I ran to Martha Troke’s house since it was closest by and because I knew that her husband would most likely be in his workshop and he was, so I told them what I seen.’
‘Thank you, Mistress Strong, for that account. You may be seated again. Is er… Mr Troke present here today?’ the coroner asked the room.
She felt George’s hand pulli
ng her back down to her stool, where she slumped, her breathing rapid and her hands dancing in and out of focus in her lap. Somehow, she had managed to avoid looking at Tom’s bloated and sinister form, and as tears of relief began to run down her cheeks, she started to shake. With George squeezing her hand tightly, she tried to concentrate on Samuel Troke’s voice relating how he had run down to the river with Abe Sharpe and dragged Tom from the reeds but found him to be long-since dead. With each silent sob, she felt her whole body heave, but when Annie was called upon to speak, she held herself rigid to listen.
‘He was same as he always was,’ she heard her say and then in response to a further questioning, ‘Well, like most men, he was real fond of the ale. And it was harvest home and he had been in the field all day drinking cider. I mean, he looked sound enough when I left but that was quite early on since I wasn’t feelin’ too good; I hadn’t been all day.’ Then, as she was asked about her face, Mary sensed a collective holding of breath. Yes, this was what most of the villagers were there to hear. ‘I ain’t no saint, ask anyone hereabouts. It was harvest home. I like cider. I was too worn out to bother with a candle and them stairs is awful tricky in the dark.’
‘You contend, then, Mistress Strong, that you fell and struck your face?’
‘My face struck somethin’ wooden and struck it real hard, that’s for sure.’
How could Annie do that: be so clever with her words? It was tantamount to—
‘George, this ain’t right,’ she hissed, feeling her face burning.
His grip on her fingers tightened.
‘Be still.’
‘Now, I understand that when the deceased was found to be missing, a search was conducted,’ the coroner was stating. ‘Is there anyone present who can provide an account of the conducting of that search?’
‘Aye, sir.’ Letting go of her hand, George shot to his feet. ‘George Strong. I’m… the deceased’s brother.’
With her head bowed, she listened to her husband recounting how several times, he and Will had gone out searching but failed to find any sign of their brother. He made no mention that they had instead come across Robert or of what his brother had seen but then, as he was to later point out; no one had asked him about that. He had answered, truthfully, what he had been asked; no more and no less.
Finally, the coroner called on Thomas Strong, by which time most of the ‘facts’ were already evident.
‘And what would you say about the manner of your son whilst engaged in the harvest?’ he asked.
‘He worked hard. We all did. He was glad when it was done. We all were. He was lookin’ forward to a fair old randy. He was a good son; my firstborn and heir.’ Two seats along, she felt sure that she heard Annie snort, and saw how George’s hand moved quickly towards her. ‘He had much to be thankful for.’
For the first time, though, she was struck by something: Tom may have been evil but he was still Thomas and Hannah’s son. She tried to imagine herself in thirty years’ time, in the same position with Jacob, but it was too awful a thought to pursue. If Jacob was lying there like that, all bloated and distorted by the river on account of something awful that he had done, how would she feel? There was, she realised, simply no way of knowing, but she did feel certain that her grief and disappointment at his death would be far greater than any bitterness or anger for whatever deed it was believed he may have done. Lost in her thoughts, she became aware of a new concentration in the barn and looked up to hear the coroner saying, ‘…accidentally drowned…’ at which point proceedings appeared to come quickly to a close, with the people around her starting to stir. Wiping ineffectually at her tears for Hannah and Thomas, she felt George reaching for her hand.
‘What does it mean?’ she whispered to him, holding back her more pressing questions about the concealment of certain facts.
‘Just that it’s all over,’ he whispered back and turned towards Annie, who she saw nod towards her in-laws.
‘They got what they wanted, then.’
‘There was never any doubt of it,’ she heard her husband reply, as he helped his sister-in-law up and led them both out of the barn and into the unexpectedly bright, sunlit afternoon.
*
On the afternoon following the inquest, Tom Strong was buried in Verneybrook churchyard, with the entire family and most of the villagers present to see him laid to rest. With the service complete, the mourners from the village repaired to The Stag to discuss the sad death of one of their number – a surfeit of ale widely assumed as the cause of the accident – and mull over the sparse details that had emerged from the inquest. But as the family, too, started to drift away from the churchyard, Mary noticed Annie remaining rooted to the spot and nudging George, she nodded back to the graveside.
Turning to see Annie standing alone in the spot that she had occupied throughout the burial, George watched as she removed her shawl, which until now she had worn close about her face and let it fall onto her shoulders. A thin shaft of sunlight broke through the steely clouds, catching her ebony hair and a brisk but warm wind rushed across the exposed hillside, ruffling the grass and sending the first of the fallen leaves scurrying around her feet as she stared out across the valley. Her black skirt was billowing about her legs but she made no move to restrain it and as he stood with his wife and looked at the isolated figure standing motionless at the grave, he felt torn in two.
‘I better go back to her,’ he said with a glance to Mary, the discomfort of deceit twisting at his insides. ‘You go on down with the others and I’ll bring her home when she’s ready.’
‘Aye. Course.’
Arriving alongside her before she even looked up, he waited until he was sure that the family had moved out of sight down the hill before putting his arm around her waist and pulling her to him, her head coming to rest on his shoulder.
‘Oh George, what have I done?’
Inside his chest, his heart seemed to lurch.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ He frowned. Clearly she was still in shock. But he hadn’t mistaken her question, though, he was sure of it. ‘Perhaps I ought more properly be asking what do I do now?’
‘You do nothing. You just take your time… and mourn.’ Even as he said it, though, it sounded trite and inadequate and like something Martha or his mother would advise. Why on earth would she mourn the man? Stuck for anything more helpful, though, he kissed her forehead.
‘I don’t need to mourn. Tedn’t grief,’ she said, sniffing and lifting her head to look at him. ‘I shan’t mourn him. No, ’tis guilt.’
To better look at her, he loosened his clasp and held her further away.
‘You aren’t to blame for this, Annie. This was Tom’s doing, fair an’ square. All of it.’
What he wasn’t expecting by way of response was that she would shake her head.
‘No.’
And it occurred to him then that perhaps she was about to tell him something that he really didn’t want to know.
‘No?’
‘No, this was my fault; if I’d been more of a willing wife he wouldn’t have gone after Lottie.’ He exhaled, feeling how the tautness in his chest softened and grateful to have evidently misunderstood her. ‘It ain’t him dying that burdens my conscience so much as what he did to her. There was no need for her to suffer his vile ways and that’s summat I shan’t ever forgive him. I hated what he did to me but at least I was his wife. Poor Lottie did nothing at all to deserve any of it.’ He watched while apparently preoccupied, she straightened her skirt and tugged at her shawl. ‘I can’t see how I’ll ever live with the thought that if I hadn’t refused him, he wouldn’t have gone after her.’
The sight of tears running over her misshapen cheeks hardened his throat to a lump.
‘You can’t know that, Annie,’ he reasoned, once again pulling her closer; the warm feel of her body against him surprisingly comforting. ‘You refusing him don’t excuse what he did. And anyway—’
&nb
sp; ‘What?’ she asked, turning sharply towards him.
‘Well I didn’t mention this to anyone but I saw him eyeing Lottie improperly at the harvest home and that was afore he… the matter with you.’ Into his mind, accompanied by a flood of something that felt like guilt, flashed a picture of Tom staring across the barn. ‘I should have thought summat of it but well, I assumed it was just the ale getting to his senses.’ Recalling then the look on his brother’s face, he hastened on, ‘I never imagined he’d go after her. I mean, you got to agree it was unthinkable. So if you’re to blame, then so am I for ignoring what I saw.’
‘But you couldn’t have known.’
Shifting the weight of her body against him, he sighed.
‘Well, it wasn’t so much that he was looking, rather what he was saying; strange ramblings, they were.’
‘Like what?’
‘Nonsensical stuff, mostly. I don’t recall it now but I’ll own to being puzzled by it even at the time and so maybe instead of accusing him of being drunk, I should’ve listened to him.’
‘I doubt it would have made much difference. No one was ever able to reason with him.’
‘That’s true enough.’
‘Tell me,’ she said, pulling a little away from him. ‘Young Robert…’
‘Aye? What of him?’
‘Was he truly just passing by Lottie’s room when he happened to hear summat?’
‘Not exactly, no.’
‘I thought not. I was more of a mind that he was, well, shall we say, watching her?’
‘Me and Will promised him we wouldn’t say anything.’
‘Poor soul: coming across his own brother doing that to her. I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to hunt him down and do for him.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think—’
‘But you don’t think it was an accident, either, though, do you?’
It was, he knew, the matter bothering all of them, not that any one of them would dare to give voice to such thoughts.
A Country Marriage Page 26
