Courting Shadows

by Jem Poster

  ‘What kind of instructions?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask him that. He wants me to tell you it’s important.’

  ‘Very well, Harris. I’ll attend to it.’

  ‘You’ll want your jacket, sir. It’s blowing a gale out there.’

  Later on I would examine and re-examine that moment: Harris stooping to pick up the jacket, his broad back turned to me; then swinging round so that I saw his meaty hand moving clumsily over the fabric.

  ‘Dust all over this, sir. You’ll need to take a brush to it.’

  He held the jacket out to me at arm’s length, his stance peculiarly stiff and awkward.

  ‘You’ll find him waiting in the porch. Said he wouldn’t come in.’

  I don’t know what I was expecting – certainly not the small tow-headed boy who stood huddled in the porch doorway, hands jammed in the pockets of his stained breeches, grinning as if at some private joke.

  ‘Was it you who wanted to see me?’

  His grin broadened and he peered up at me through his ragged fringe.

  ‘I’ve got something for you.’

  He drew a folded square of paper from his pocket and held it towards me. I reached out, but before my fingers could close on it he snatched it back, his eyes narrowing suddenly.

  ‘You are Mr Stannard, aren’t you? Only I’ve got instructions. This is to be given to Mr Stannard personally. I’m not to put it into anybody else’s hands.’

  ‘I’m Stannard. Give me the paper.’

  As he still hesitated, I leaned forward and twitched it from his grasp. His mouth gaped and his eyes filled with tears.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he whined. ‘I had instructions.’

  ‘Indeed you did, and you’ve carried them out admirably. You were asked to deliver this to me, and you’ve done so.’

  He seemed to consider for a moment before changing tack.

  ‘She gave me money,’ he said.

  ‘Who gave you money?’

  ‘Annie Rosewell. Are you going to give me money too?’

  What was it that lifted me then, sending, if I might put it that way, my spirit soaring, so that I found myself laughing out loud at the sheer effrontery of the horrible child? I felt in my pocket for my purse.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you money.’

  I seldom carry a great deal with me, but there is a peculiar unpleasantness about losing even a small amount. Standing there under the boy’s expectant gaze, hunting feverishly through my pockets, I felt absurdly compromised, as if I had been caught out in some petty deceit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said at last, ‘but I seem to have mislaid my purse. Come and see me tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You’ll pay me then?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘You’ll find out tomorrow. Now go away or you’ll get nothing.’

  He flicked his hair back from his eyes and stared into my face with a faintly disturbing insolence. Then he turned and made his way obliquely across the churchyard, vaulted the wall and was gone.

  I returned to find Jefford leaning against the aisle wall, eyes closed, his pale face tilted to the light from the clerestory windows.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  His eyes flickered open, dull and expressionless.

  ‘Nothing, sir. Just this weakness. It comes and goes. I’ll be right as rain if I can rest for a moment or two.’

  ‘Very well, Jefford. Lay off for a while. Have you seen my purse? Rough green leather with a black drawstring. It must have fallen from my pocket sometime this morning.’

  He passed the flat of his hand across his forehead, pushed himself clear of the wall and stood more or less upright, swaying slightly on his thin legs. His jaw worked spasmodically and I thought he was about to speak, but his body suddenly sagged and all his attention seemed to be directed to manoeuvring himself into the nearest of the undamaged pews. His breathing, I noticed as he sat down, was unhealthily rapid and shallow.

  ‘Where’s Harris?’

  He looked up at me with the disquieting helplessness of an injured animal and gestured feebly towards the chancel. I called out sharply and Harris emerged from the shadows and came towards us, a patched blanket over his arm.

  ‘This is all I could find,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit damp, but better than nothing.’

  He leaned over Jefford and draped it across his shoulders. Jefford’s hand came up and clutched the fabric at his throat, but he gave no other acknowledgement.

  ‘He’s cold,’ said Harris, turning to me.

  ‘Cold? The man’s sweating.’

  ‘True enough, sir, but he says he can’t get warm. I found the blanket on the vestry floor.’ He leaned towards me and lowered his voice. ‘I can’t think it’ll make much difference in itself, but it helps a man to know he’s being looked after.’

  I began to walk up the aisle towards the door, motioning Harris to follow.

  ‘How long do you suppose this is likely to go on?’

  ‘His illness? I wouldn’t know, sir. I’m not a medical man. But I can tell you he’s in a poor way at the moment.’

  ‘Do you think he’s too sick to work?’

  He avoided my eyes.

  ‘I didn’t say so.’

  ‘But do you think so?’

  He glanced back to where Jefford sat hunched in his pew.

  ‘I shall need to get on if I’m to finish by nightfall,’ he said. ‘Call me in if he needs me.’

  He was at the door, fumbling with the latch.

  ‘I hope that won’t be necessary,’ I said.

  He looked hard at me as though meditating a reply; but he let himself out without a word.

  I realize with the benefit of hindsight that it would have been more sensible to postpone my examination of the note until I was alone in my lodgings, but the tower appeared to offer a degree of privacy and Jefford seemed in any case too deeply absorbed in his own misery to be likely to pay much attention to my activities. I tucked myself into the corner behind the arch, unfolded the square of paper and began to read.

  What was the source of my disappointment? Not, I think, Ann’s childishly unformed handwriting or her unsophisticated phraseology but something rather less predictable. I was disappointed, quite simply, by the propriety of the note. It enquired after my health; it hoped that my recent fall had not affected my work; and it wished me well. Just that. I read it over several times and was still scanning it, searching, as I was subsequently obliged to recognize, for some deeper resonance in the lines, when Jefford poked his head through the archway and peered in. I started and stuffed the note hurriedly into my pocket.

  ‘I thought it was you, sir, but I wasn’t sure. All these noises in the building. And then I fell to wondering if you’d gone out and left me. Most of the dead here will be at peace, I know, but with so many around there’s bound to be a few still walking. I don’t mind telling you, sir, I shouldn’t like to be in the place on my own.’

  ‘Don’t be foolish. There’s nothing to be afraid of here.’

  ‘With respect, sir, it’s no folly to be mindful of the dead.’

  He was trembling with weakness or fear, almost tearful, and I realized that this was not the moment to give him the benefit of my rather uncompromising views on the supposedly supernatural; but there was, I admit, a certain asperity in my response.

  ‘If you’ve enough energy to debate such matters, Jefford, you’ve enough to get back to work. Might I ask you to do so?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I think I’ll be all right now.’

  He moved slowly back down the aisle, picked up the hammer and set to, grimacing with each blow. While he worked I searched the nave thoroughly, even lifting the scattered fragments of the pews to look beneath them. There was no sign of my purse.

  9

  Nor was the purse to be found in my lodgings, though I ransacked the cupboards and drawers and went through my belongings one by one. Mrs Haskell, entering with
my tray next morning, remarked on the state of the room.

  ‘All your clothes lying about anyhow, Mr Stannard; and I left everything so neat yesterday.’

  ‘You were in here yesterday?’

  ‘Just tidying up.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you came across my purse? Green leather, tied with a drawstring.’

  ‘Have you lost it?’

  ‘Of course I’ve lost it. That’s why I’m asking.’

  She bridled, her plump cheeks flushing slightly.

  ‘If I were to find a gentleman’s purse in my rooms, Mr Stannard, I’d leave it exactly where it was.’

  ‘I didn’t suggest that you’d moved it. I simply asked whether you’d seen it.’

  ‘Well, the answer’s no.’ She banged the tray down on the desk and began to fumble in her apron pocket.

  ‘This came for you.’ She pulled out a small folded paper, clumsily sealed with a shapeless lump of wax. ‘Slipped under the door this morning before most of us were stirring.’

  My name on the front; the childish script instantly recognizable. I took the paper from her, but she showed no inclination to leave.

  ‘That’ll be from someone in the neighbourhood,’ she said.

  ‘So it would appear. That will be all, thank you, Mrs Haskell. If you should come across my purse I’d be grateful if you’d bring it over to the church.’

  ‘It’ll turn up. Things don’t just disappear, do they? Lost, borrowed or stolen, everything comes to light in the end.’

  Like many of Mrs Haskell’s observations this seemed highly questionable, but I knew better than to engage in debate with her. As soon as she had gone I cracked open the seal and began to read.

  I wrote yesterday but it was not what I wanted to say and so I am writing to you again. I have been thinking about you. And because I see in your face that you are a good man I know you will not take it amiss that I say I want to know you better. And how is a woman like me to bring that about? I have been asking myself that question, lying in my bed, not able to sleep. And now I have decided. I shall be open with you. Honesty is the best policy my mother always says, and I am being honest. Am I breaking the rules? I know some people would say so but I do not care what they say. Perhaps the rules stop us from being honest.

  Sometimes I walk at dusk along the footpath above the village. The path to the Hall. I am asking nothing of you. But I hope.

  Ann

  I must have read the letter a dozen times before I eventually put it in my pocket and left for work. By the time I reached the churchyard Harris had removed the shoring from the trench and was stacking the spars and planks against the wall. As I approached, he straightened up and gestured towards the adjacent heap of bones.

  ‘These will need to go back,’ he said.

  ‘Of course. But I’d like to deal with the coffin first. The bones can go in later, along with the backfill.’

  ‘I shouldn’t want to tumble them in just anyhow, sir.’

  ‘Do as you see fit, Harris. But I want the job completed by the end of the day.’

  ‘Backfilling too, sir?’

  ‘Why not? I’ll work alongside you to speed things up.’

  He shook his head doubtfully.

  ‘We’d do well to let the mortar harden off a bit more. Monday morning would be soon enough, I’d say.’

  I climbed into the trench and ran my fingernail down one of the joints.

  ‘It’s reasonably firm, Harris. I don’t want to leave the body in the spoil-heap any longer than necessary; and once it’s back in the ground we may as well press on and get the job finished.’

  He shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, sir. Shall I fetch George over to help me with the coffin? It’ll be more than Will can manage, the way he is at the moment.’

  ‘Let’s leave George out of it,’ I said brusquely. ‘I’ll give you any assistance you need.’

  A fleeting glance, a flicker of the eyes; but he made no objection.

  It might, I suppose, have been more decorously accomplished – the clumsy struggle to the trench-edge, the pole shuddering between the pegs, the ropes lengthening suddenly as the coffin dropped like a bucket into a well – but the thing landed on its base, not far from its original position; and that was good enough for me. I left Harris untying the ropes and walked over to the porch to fetch the other shovel.

  It was perhaps unwise to look in on Jefford. It was a good ten minutes before I was able to rejoin Harris, and by that time Banks was at his side, staring gloomily into the trench. Harris had patched up the lid before sinking the coffin in the spoil-heap, and its occupant was quite invisible; but Banks’s gaze was fixed on the buckled lead as though he could still see the brown face looking back at him from its stained pillow.

  ‘She can rest now,’ he said softly.

  ‘No reason why not,’ I replied. ‘We’re just about to backfill the trench. Once that’s done, she might well lie there undisturbed until judgement day.’

  He ignored the remark, apparently lost in thought. I turned to Harris.

  ‘Let’s get started,’ I said.

  Banks looked up sharply. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘I’d like to mark the reinterment in an appropriate fashion.’

  ‘We’ve simply returned the body to its original position. I didn’t think there’d be need of any ceremony.’

  ‘Scarcely that, Stannard. I’m not a man for ceremony. A few simple words, that’s all.’

  He took a pace back from the edge and bowed his head. Harris removed his cap and stood twisting it between his grimy fingers. There was a long silence.

  ‘Wherever we walk,’ Banks began at last, ‘we walk on the buried past. May we, O Lord, step lightly; and where, as here, we cannot help but disturb, may thy mercy fall upon us, disturbed and disturbers, the living and the dead, that all may know the blessing of thy peace.’

  There was a further pause before he pronounced the amen. ‘Amen,’ echoed Harris loudly, replacing his cap. Banks glanced into the trench again before turning away.

  He was clearly in no mood for conversation, but my own concerns were pressing. I fell into step beside him as he brushed past.

  ‘Just a brief word,’ I said. ‘I lost my purse yesterday. Possibly in the church. I don’t suppose you’ve seen it?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve not been in since our last discussion. I felt the need to distance myself from your work. The whole business has affected me far more deeply than I would have imagined possible.’

  We were on familiar ground. I let him run on for a moment, but once I was sure we were well out of Harris’s hearing, I came straight to the point.

  ‘I’ll be blunt with you, Banks. I believe the purse has been stolen, and I suspect Harris of the theft.’

  He came to a dead stop and stared searchingly into my face.

  ‘Harris? It seems most unlikely.’

  ‘Why? You’re surely not going to tell me the man’s the pattern of moral integrity?’

  He permitted himself a tight-lipped smile. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t describe him in those terms, but I very much doubt that he’d sink to theft. He sometimes drinks more than he should, and there have been occasional incidents – disorderly behaviour, minor brawls, that kind of thing – but nothing that would lead me to suspect him of dishonesty.’

  ‘Yet the purse has gone.’

  ‘No doubt; but it’s not clear to me why you should assume that Harris is responsible for its disappearance.’

  ‘I should have explained. He handled my jacket just before I discovered the theft.’

  ‘Handled it?’

  ‘Picked it up from the floor and handed it to me. He might easily have removed the purse as he did so.’

  ‘In full view? Wouldn’t you have noticed?’

  I tried to picture again Harris’s unbalanced stance and the movement of his calloused hand across the fabric.

  ‘We don’t always know what we’ve seen.’

  ‘Quite so.’ He paused reflect
ively. ‘How much have you lost?’

  ‘A sovereign and a little silver. Nothing to speak of.’

  ‘Then let it go. Forget about it.’

  ‘I’m surprised that you of all people should be so little concerned about matters of principle. Theft is theft, whatever the sum involved; and if we turn a blind eye to crime – to sin, as you might say – it will flourish unchecked.’

  ‘I like to think,’ said Banks primly, ‘that sin is held in check by a power which operates quite independently of our own rather questionable impulses and actions. And let me just add this: the evidence is at best inconclusive, but whether you’re right or wrong, you can’t bring your suspicions into the open without losing a first-class labourer.’

  The argument seemed vaguely unrespectable, and I might have said as much; but Banks, evidently considering the discussion at an end, broke away and struck off across the churchyard towards the rectory.

  I am stronger than I look and I think I rather surprised Harris, standing alongside him and matching him shovelful for shovelful, maintaining a brisk pace until lunch-time. By that stage it was apparent to me that I should be able to complete the job alone well before the end of the day, and after Harris had eaten his bread and dripping, I sent him off to clear the debris from the aisles.

  ‘And where’s it all to go?’

  ‘Burn it. On the waste ground opposite.’

  ‘That’s church land. Have we got the rector’s permission?’

  ‘I’m answerable to Mr Banks’s superiors. I’ve no need to ask his permission.’

  ‘No need, maybe, but my advice—’

  ‘Keep your advice to yourself, Harris. I’ll take full responsibility.’

  It seemed that I was beginning to wear down Harris’s resistance to my authority. At all events, he withdrew immediately and sloped off towards the church, leaving me to continue the backfilling at a more leisurely pace. The wind had veered round now, bringing with it a mildness which made me think of spring; and whether for that or some other reason – and my hand strayed repeatedly to the pocket which held Ann’s letter – I found myself working with an unusual degree of satisfaction, so deeply absorbed in my own actions that I was unaware of Banks’s return until he was almost upon me.