A Dark Anatomy (17 page)

Authors: Robin Blake

BOOK: A Dark Anatomy

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I folded the paper and discreetly slid it back into my pocket, while Mr Brighouse's voice wheedled on. My mind went back to the indiscreet revelations of his clerical colleague, the squire's uncle. According to these, Ramilles Brockletower had become angry with his wife â a theme that was, by chance, under consideration at this very moment in Mr Brighouse's sermon. He was quoting (as he told us) Proverbs, chapter 6, and its warnings against unbridled passion.

â“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” ' the vicar squeaked, raising a twig-like admonitory finger. â“Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned?”'

I did not think Mr Brighouse knew a great deal about fiery bosoms, for a more passionless man could hardly be imagined. But I rather liked the words. And I was taken even more by what followed.

âIf I may be permitted a profane aside,' Brighouse continued, âone of our secular writers (of the reign before last) closely echoes the sentiments of Scripture in commenting on “how pernicious, how sudden, and how fatal surprises of passion are to the mind of man”. Although these are not sacred words, they are sensible ones, and all men would do well to take heed of them.'

I was startled by the quoted words, for I thought I knew them. But from where? I silently repeated to myself twice and three times:
pernicious â¦ sudden â¦ fatal
. And then, with delight and surprise, I placed them. Surely they were from the
Tatler
, the words of Mr Isaac Bickerstaff (as was the paper's conceit) writing upon â¦ Upon what? I could not remember.

I determined to look it up in my four-volume edition of that excellent forerunner and companion of my darling book, the collected
Spectator
.

In my library, with a few minutes' leisure before dinner, I looked up âpassion' in the index of my bound edition of the
Tatler
. I found that the vicar's reference had been to one of the numbers in volume III, where Bickerstaff reflects on the differences between men and women, and recounts the murder of a Mrs Eustace by her husband. This was interesting enough, but there was more, very much more and of such momentousness that a few minutes later I was excitedly telling Elizabeth about it over our Sunday meat.

âIt's the most surprising discovery. I don't know if it is chance, or part of a design. But it seems to bear on the Brockletower case.'

âGo on.'

âAs you know,' I said, âthe
Tatler
was written every other day by Sir Richard Steele, pretending to be Mr Isaac Bickerstaff, a retired gentleman who commented freely on coffee-house news, political gossip and anything that took his fancy. The vicar's quotation on passion is from Bickerstaff's story of Mr Eustace, a landowner who lived together with both his wife and his sister. The two women were always arguing and in these disagreements Eustace invariably took his sister's side. And then he killed his wife, in her bed at night, as Othello kills Desdemona, but with a dagger rather than by strangling. He stabbed her, my dear, and was himself shot dead by a constable while making his escape.'

Elizabeth clapped her hand to her mouth.

âWhat a shocking thing, Titus! Why did he do it?'

âThat's one of the points of interest. No reason is given. But the story is preceded by a discussion of the different tempers of men and women. Sir Richard suggests, I think, that Eustace's motive for murder was not explicit, but implicit. His mind was poisoned with the notion that male and female are in essence
irreconcilable.
Ergo
, he could never agree with Mrs Eustace, or she with him, and that his only recourse was to murder her.'

âThen his mind was deranged. Why are you so pleased with this horrible tale?'

âBecause when you think about it, there are extraordinary affinities with the Brockletower case. And, when I was in Garlick Hall's morning room on the day of the death, I found a commonplace book in her writing table. The last entry was a quotation “The Soul of a Man and that of a Woman are made very unlike”. I now know where it came from. Can you guess?'

âThe same
Tatler
essay?'

âPrecisely. I have just seen the same words in my own edition. But there was one thing more. Dolores had added six extraneous words: “Imagine therefore: my pain and fear”.'

âNot words from the
Tatler
?'

âNo. These are not the fictional Bickerstaff's words. I think they are the real Mrs Brockletower's. So what should we make of that?'

Elizabeth laid down her knife and fork and thought for a moment.

âThat she was reading the
Tatler
and was struck by similarities in the situations of Mrs Eustace and herself.'

âThe husband's passionate rages, sharing the house with his sister.'

âYes, and discovering those parallels naturally made her fear for her own safety.'

âSo it appears,' I agreed. âAnd how right she was!'

Chapter Seventeen

T
HE SILENCE OF night lay across the town. All I could hear was the coming and going of the night-soil man. But it was not his cart's squeaking axle that kept me awake. I could not sleep because of the Brockletower inquest, of thinking exclusively about it, even when I wanted to think of other things, even when I was exhausted. I dreaded, most of all, an open verdict, or âmurder by person or persons unknown'. Her killer must be known, I said to myself, over and over. And it was my task to know him.

My hope (and simultaneous fear) of quickly assigning guilt to Ramilles Brockletower was probably dashed, for Luke's enquiries showed he had a formidable alibi. The distance between Settle and Preston was surely too great for him to have done the deed with his own hand, and on his own horse. So much for my speculation about the fresh shoe I detected on Brockletower's horse at the Plough Inn. He might have got to Fulwood by riding furiously on another, very fast and fresh horse. But it seemed unlikely that he could have exchanged horses in secret. And how did he dispose of his first horse in the meantime? Were we all, in some way, bamboozled?

I lay with these thoughts revolving in my brain like wind-spinners until I heard St John's clock striking three. I sat up in bed,
rubbing my temples to ease the torrent of thought, then got up and walked around the house in my nightgown, ending by lighting a candle in the library and taking down once more volume III of the
Tatler.
I re-read Isaac Bickerstaff's reflections on the struggle between reason and passion and how the man Eustace had allowed his passion to master him and make him kill his wife. I looked with particular care at the passage from which Dolores had taken her commonplace inscription:
There is a sort of sex in souls â¦ and the soul of a man and that of a woman are made very unlike, according to the employments for which they are designed. The virtues have respectively a masculine and a feminine cast. What we call in men Wisdom, is in women Prudence . .
.

It seemed doubtful theology to me. Can there really be a gender to sins and virtues? I prefer Mr Spectator's argument, that it is the temptations that differ in men and women, while the sins they call forth are of an intermediate sex. I replaced the
Tatler
and brought down the
Spectator
, to enjoy again that essay and its measured cadences. But at once I found a jar in the first sentence. âWomen in their judgements are much more gay and joyous than men.' That was not true of Squire Bannister and his lady, at any rate: they had been as dour and misanthropic as each other. Perhaps this very mismatch of husband and wife was the reason she wrote of her pain and fear.

What, if anything, was Woodley's role in all this? Sarah had implied he was the Jago of it, the false witness, the seed of evil planted in the family. In Shakespeare, Jago murders by proxy of his master: in this case, had he done it with his own hand?

By now I had grown thoroughly cold but I did not mind, as I find to return to bed chilled is a sovereign cure for insomnia. I found the bed beautifully heated indeed by the body of my sleeping wife and so dozed off as her warmth seeped into me.
By ten in the morning I had a note from Captain Fairhurst, received not half an hour before. He wrote that the search had resumed today, as only five of the seven outer areas of Garlick Hall could be combed on Saturday, before it became dark. Nothing had been found, but the captain declared himself an optimist. âOperations were suspended for the Sabbath,' he wrote, âbut I feel it in my gut that we will find something today.' My own feeling was that, if we relied for guidance on Captain Fairhurst's gut, little of fragrance would emerge.

I turned over once again my thoughts of last night. I'd believed them at the time, with the hypnotic certainty one forms in the middle of insomnia. If Woodley was a Jago, he had poisoned the squire's mind. Or had I merely constructed from these strange events a kind of story of the sort seen in plays, romances and novels?

At breakfast Elizabeth immediately noticed my distraction, and my yawns, and said my eyes were sunken into my face, so tonight I must drink an infusion of fennel and borage in milk and brandy to soothe my sleep. She promised herself to prepare the posset for me.

At half past ten Furzey called out to say the post had come with another letter from Luke Fidelis in Yorkshire. I opened it with eagerness, hoping it would contain something, or anything, that might make solid the airy speculations of the night.

And I was very happy to find that it did.

Sir, I have the honour of continuing the account of my enquiries here in Yorkshire into the activities of Ramilles Brockletower during his recent visit.

At my inn on Micklegate I fell in with a man of trustworthy, respectable appearance named Abraham Cooper, who told me his brother-in-law works as a
confidential clerk at Bishopsthorpe, the palace of the Archbishops of York, writing letters and memoranda for His Grace. You will remember that we have been wondering just what business Squire Brockletower had with the archbishop. I am happy to say that I am now in a position to tell you what it was.

You will be aware that, because of his Lancashire connections, the archbishop owns estates in our county. So, I made out that I was a tenant of the archbishop myself, here to do business about my tenancy. I indicated that a private conversation with this relation of his might be of considerable value to me. Mr Cooper was agreeable and invited me to his house, where we found the brother-in-law playing a game of backgammon beside the fire with his sister, Cooper's wife. The brother-in-law was introduced to me as Peter Sumption. After a few minutes' idle chatter, Cooper told Sumption that I was interested in Bishopsthorpe. I took up the story, saying that I was Ramilles Brockletower's neighbour, and knew that he had paid a visit to the archbishop last week. And I admitted further, pretending to be shamefaced, that I was consumed by curiosity to know what business it was that Mr Brockletower had with the archbishop, in case it was on the matter of a boundary dispute between myself and Brockletower.

Sumption looked suddenly like a conspirator, winking and nudging me cunningly. âI am a trusted servant, sir,' he said. âAnd I must be faithful to that trust. Unless, that is, by a stroke of ill-fortune, I am left with no choice but to be unfaithful to it.'

He spoke in an insinuating way that unmistakably invited me to follow him up. I said, âAnd how might that come about?'

He held up a finger. âThere is a way, to be sure, in which we might try the case, whether it is to be fortune or ill-fortune, faithful or unfaithful.'

âWhat way is that?'

He gestured at the gaming table. âWhy, with a game of backgammon, sir. My stake shall be my trust as the archbishop's servant, and yours a small matter of three guineas.'

Puzzled by this turn in the conversation I asked him what he meant.

âWell, sir, if I win the game, I am three guineas the richer and you none the wiser. On the other hand, if you win, I shall tell you all you wish to know in return for nothing. How's that for a wager?'

I turned quizzically to my host, thinking, what den of thieves have I fallen into? Cooper just shrugged. âPeter do love to play gammon with a stranger,' he said with a laugh, then adding more seriously, âGive him his game and, if you lose, you must pay up. But beat him square, and he'll keep his word. He always do, in spite of everything. And,' (added in a whisper behind his hand) âhe ain't such a player as he thinks he is.'

So I put my three guineas down and we played.

My host was right. Sumption was not at all the hand at backgammon that he considered himself. Ten minutes later I was in an unassailable lead, having packed my fourth house with my men while he had a couple of his own sitting on the bar, unable to get back on the board. I won by a gammon and, with an oath, he leaned back and began stuffing a pipe in readiness to keep his side of the bargain. But he swore that he would never repeat any of what he had to say outside of that room, or to any official person, and he would deny it if put to him. I told
him to go on, for I would never reveal him as the source of the information, on my word as a gentleman.

âVery well,' he said, sitting back in his chair and applying fire to his pipe. He seemed to trust me completely, though I believe whether he did or not hardly mattered. Sumption was, as I was about to discover, a man who never felt so alive as when holding forth to an audience. He cleared his throat. âThe meeting between Ramilles Brockletower and Archbishop Blackburne â¦' He cleared his throat again, more forcefully. âIt happened within my actual hearing, my writing office being in a small room with a door giving into the archbishop's audience chamber, you understand. I could not help overhearing, and what I overheard I think you will find of unusual interest. Indeed, it shocked me. Mr Brockletower had come to the archbishop to enquire about a divorce from his wife, sir, no less! He felt this to be an absolute necessity as their differences were irreconcilable. Well, when he heard this my lord laughed uproariously and said show him a couple in the country not in the same condition, but Mr Brockletower persisted, saying he was desperate, that his wife was barren, and the Brockletower estates wanted an heir of his own blood, and much of the same.

âMy lord the archbishop then grew serious, speaking very gravely to Mr Brockletower, who by the way is, I believe, a kinsman of some sort. He warned him that divorce was not to be undertaken lightly and was anyway quite impossible without an Act of Parliament. It was not within his power to do anything but recommend the members and Lords to pass such an act if it were laid before them. But recommendation alone would not be enough to secure the divorce, oh no! Three further
conditions must be fulfilled before such a procedure could be successful. The first was money, a golden stream of it, with lawyers and writers and messengers and stationery all to be paid for at parliamentary rates, not to mention the money expended on, ahem!, getting the votes themselves, if you see what I mean. Some of the richest men in the land have had their fortunes drained, utterly drained, by these procedures, leaving them with nothing but copper coin to count.

âThe second attribute was time, for it might take a year or more before such a measure found room in the parliamentary calendar. And finally there had to be due cause. Criminal conversation on the part of the one you are suing was the most promising of these. In other words, adultery, he said, booming out the word, adultery by his wife, with another party. Her shame must be proved, with witnesses, beyond doubt. So, he asked Mr Brockletower, had there been any such criminal conversation, and Mr Brockletower blurted it right out that yes, he suspected so.

âI heard very little more because at this moment the servant came in and announced dinner, so my lord took Mr Brockletower into his dining room for a meal which was likely to be a long and rich affair, judging by the archbishop's girth. The last thing I heard him say was that he wanted to know all the details of Mr Brockletower's family life, and Mr Brockletower assured him he would tell all. The archbishop laughed loudly and said he was all agog.'

Now these exchanges look black for the squire of Garlick Hall, except for the fact that Sumption will never admit to a court that he heard them. That Brockletower was considering divorce comes as a complete surprise. But
I am also struck by the behaviour of the archbishop. He seemed vastly amused by the whole conversation. Nothing offends or shocks him, though he is primate of York!

Now that I have passed an hour or two in the coffee houses of the city, I realize that Archbishop Blackburne is far from being conscientious in his enforcement of the law of God. But there is more. I have heard something of Barnabus Woodley, who as you may know has been resident in this city. I have heard particulars about him that I will not write in this letter, but communicate to you when we next meet in person. With God willing, this should be on Tuesday, towards evening, or perhaps Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, I am, sir, your affectionate servant, Luke Fidelis.

I had no time to think about the letter because now another note came by hand of a soldier, this time from Garlick Hall and written by Sergeant Sutch. He asked that I ride out there at once, the âonce' underlined.

I rode off under warm sunshine, going by way of the North Moor, where the annual races are held. The open country gave my old cob the chance to run in his ponderous way, so that only twenty-five minutes had passed by the time we plunged down the lane leading directly to the gates of Brockletower's wood-enclosed park. Five minutes later I was dismounting in front of the house itself.

I was feeling happy because, though Sutch's message contained no hint of what I might expect at the Hall, I was sure that he must have recovered Mrs Brockletower's body. If so, my inquest could at last resume and I would sleep better tonight.

But I was premature: there had been no such find. Instead the
soldiers were gathered in a group confronting a similar number of workmen, not estate workers, but the men engaged in Woodley's building works. The workmen were standing at the edge of the trees, at the start of an ornamental walk. They were plainly intent on blocking the soldiers' way along the walk. At that moment I realized what this walk was: the one up which Sarah's dog had run, the one that led to Woodley's garden temple.

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