Shadow of the Past (19 page)

‘Nor any of the journey in between?’ he prompted.

‘Exactly.

He spat in his palm. We were to seal the bargain by shaking hands. ‘Done. I won’t tell no one. Not that I shall know anyone to tell, shall I? You and Parson Yeomans apart, that is.’

‘Oh dear, Willum, you’ve made a mull of it already. He’s only a parson in London, remember. From now on, he’s Mr Jem.’ I would not confuse him with the Turbeville or Yeomans problem.

Willum gave a parody of a salute. ‘Mr Jem it is.’ His face troubled, he added, ‘But you’re still Parson Campion, aren’t you?’

‘I am indeed. Now, will you stack these logs while I go and find a bit of clean rag for this cut of mine?’

As Dr Hansard insisted, we all settled quickly back into our old ways back in Moreton St Jude. Dr Toone had delivered two more babies, whose parents wanted them christened immediately, before the cold of winter set in. Old Mr Jakeman had died in his privy, which gave rise to certain jokes best not repeated in company. The mummers were deep into rehearsals.

Lady Chase, however much she would have preferred to be in Shropshire, was much to be seen about the village
dispensing charity; only three of us knew that she received regular reports of her son, which were sent either to the rectory or to Langley Park, never to the Hall.

Receiving her in my study two or three days before Christmas, I presented her with the latest. Absently she sipped a glass of Madeira, brought with a respectful curtsy by Susan, reading and re-reading the document as if studying her son’s face. She did not speak until Susan had left the room and quietly closed the door behind her.

‘The weather has been fine enough for him to sit on that swing we set up for him,’ she said. ‘And he has started to recall other events that took place there. He walks as far as the village now, and there is talk of him riding again. And – yes – he asked about his regimentals last night.’

‘That is excellent news,’ I began, but raised a finger as I heard a commotion in the hall.

Susan knocked on the door. ‘There’s a strange man arrived,’ she announced. ‘And there’s nothing for it but he sees you, although her ladyship’s here.’ She bobbed another, lower curtsy.

‘Ask him to wait in the morning room, if you please, Susan. Offer him some refreshment and tell him I will be with him shortly. Well?’

‘It’s just as – he looks very rough, sir. And he talks very funny, so I can hardly understand him. Like Willum,’ she added, with a burst of inspiration.

I had an inkling who this might be. ‘Even so, do as I tell you,’ I said gently but firmly. ‘And bid Jem join us there.’

With another bob, and a rosy blush, she left us.

Lady Chase rose to feet. ‘I will leave you to this intriguing person, Tobias.’

‘Thank you, my Lady. But you forget one thing.’ As inexorable as Edmund would have been about destroying any news of Lord Chase, I pointed at the fire. ‘The missive, my Lady.’

The visitor rose, treating us to a bow and an affable smile. ‘Alfred Mullins of the Runners at your service, gents.’

Susan was right. Mr Mullins did speak like Willum, presumably because he came from the same part of the country – London. In fact his accent was his only defining aspect: he was indeterminate in appearance, build and even age. Was that how a Runner eschewing his distinctive red waistcoat should look? Such anonymity might be needful in some duties, where to be recognisable might be a hindrance. But I found the studied nothingness unnerving, not knowing what it might conceal.

‘Like manna from heaven, that,’ he declared, running his stubby finger round the plate he held, as if to endure that not a single scrap of whatever refreshment Susan had brought should elude him. His tankard, which had held ale, was no doubt as clean as the plate.

I gestured him back to his seat, refilling the tankard. Jem, taking his favourite chair, also accepted ale; I helped myself to wine.

‘You have news for us, Mr Mullins,’ I prompted. ‘But first, I wonder if you could prove that you are who you say you are.’

Raising an eyebrow, he showed me his warrant. ‘There’s not many as has the rumgumption to ask that,’ he said, as if undecided whether my wariness merited suspicion or respect.

As for me, I became ever more convinced that Mullins was not the mutton-headed fool he would like us to believe him, but a man of considerable native intelligence. ‘Thank you. And what do you have to report?’

‘I been the length and breadth of the country,’ he affirmed. ‘And the roads getting deeper and dirtier by the minute. Durham one day, Devon the next. I tell you, I’m worn to a frazzle – and me piles getting worse by the mile. Begging your pardon, your reverence.’

‘Parson Campion will do,’ I said. ‘And what news do you bring me?’

He made a great show of reaching out his notebook, but I thought he had the information by heart. ‘I have not yet spoke to the party on whose premises you was robbed in broad daylight, sir, but I understand that he – or even they – are expected any moment in Dawlish, down in Devon, that is, for Christmas.’

‘Not yet arrived? So where have they been since they quit London in such haste some three weeks since?’

My question had been rhetorical, but he responded with a shrewd one of his own, with nothing of the rhetorical about it. ‘Why are you so wishful to know, if I might make so bold?’

Feeling that I was suddenly the one under suspicion, I temporised. ‘From London one may reach Dawlish in three or four days – Devon is hardly the end of the earth.’

‘Why, as to that… But I grant you, Parson, their route has been unusual, given their destination. And they have done mortal strange things, like bespeaking rooms at one inn, but staying at another. You sure it ain’t the crown jewels they
half-inched
?’

‘Not from me, at least.’

‘Quite so. As for the nurse, she does indeed come from Northumberland. But she will not, according to my informant, be returning there because she is still in the employ of the Larwoods, who will be requiring of her services over the festive season. And the first snowflakes are falling,’ he added plaintively and not at all irrelevantly.

I rang for more refreshment, not least because however much I had expected, nay, hoped for this news, I needed urgently to reflect. It had come at a time when I simply could not act upon it. How could I leave my flock, neglect divine worship, during the second most important festival in the church calendar? The simple answer was that I could not.

Susan, round-eyed with curiosity, brought more of Mrs Trent’s excellent biscuits and another jug of ale. I would have to invent some explanation for Mr Mullins’ visit, because, whether or not I swore both housekeeper and servant to secrecy, everyone in the village would be talking about it before dusk.

Mullins was used to practising discretion; he made no attempt to speak till she had left us on our own once more.

‘Will you be wanting me to go to this ’ere Dawlish and apprehend the party on suspicion that one of their servants robbed you?’ he asked, mouth not quite empty.

Put like that, the venture seemed absurd. I temporised. ‘It is Christmas, it is not? The time of good will to all men. And I
am sure you have a home to go to.’ I smiled persuasively.

‘Aye, that I have. And a Mrs Mullins and a whole quiverful of nipperkins a-waiting for me.’ He applied himself to his tankard, but his eyes were ever observant.

‘Be so good as to furnish me with the address that you have discovered, Mr Mullins. Then I can decide what action to take. And you, my good friend, may post back to London, happy in the knowledge of a job well done.’

‘You’re no longer wishful for me to question them? Well, if that don’t beat cockfighting!’ He fixed me again. ‘I suspicioned all along you just wanted to know their whereabouts – that all that stuff about a robbery was cock and bull.’

I raised a chilly eyebrow. ‘Indeed I was robbed in the Larwoods’ very backyard – and your colleagues at Bow Street saw my injuries with their own eyes. But as a Christian, I must practise forgiveness.’ I allowed a sanctimonious note to warm my voice, not daring the while to meet Jem’s eye.

‘So what would you be wanting to know their whereabouts for?
If
I might make so bold?’

My smile verged on the unctuous. ‘Just because I do not wish the miscreants to be pursued with the full force of the law, Mr Mullins, does not mean that I am happy for them to retain my watch. I shall write to them asking them to return it; if they do, than I shall consider the matter closed.’ Glancing out of the window, I observed, ‘Oh, dear, now the snowflakes come not as single spies but in battalions.’

‘Like sorrows, according to the Bard,’ Mullins reflected, his chin at a slightly challenging angle.

I bowed my appreciation. This man was no less a scholar than Jem.

He plainly thought of me as no more than his equal. ‘Seems to me it’s very strange that you should only have bethought yourself of a bit Christian forgiveness when I’ve done all the hard work for you. But then, I’m not man of the cloth, so I wouldn’t know about such things, would I?’

‘How I would have liked to employ Mullins further,’ I confessed to Jem as we waved the Runner on his way. ‘He knew that while I might have been telling the truth, I was far from telling the whole truth. I nearly made a mull of the whole thing, didn’t I?’ I added frankly.

Jem kindly ignored the last question. ‘He’s a downy one, awake on every suit, no doubt about it, for all he feigns to be a buffle-headed clunch. It was a good idea,’ he conceded with a grin I had not seen for some time, ‘to bring him into Leamington and see him on to the coach. It would not have done for him to go sniffing round the village, making enquiries about our activities. He’ll be pleased to return in some luxury to his family for the festive season – but I doubt we’ve seen the last of him, Toby.’

‘I fear you are right. I just hope we reach Dawlish before he does.’

‘You’re not thinking of setting out before Christmas?’

‘Indeed no. And not in this snow, either.’

‘They say in the village it will not last above two days, and not lie then. Where they get this intelligence from I know not, but they always seem correct in their predictions. If they are, her ladyship’s Christmas party should be safe, thank the Lord.’

‘As to that, amen. But as soon as the festival is over – assuming the roads are passable – we must be on our way.’ I
looked at the shop fronts, lit by flambeaux. ‘I think we have time, before we must return to the rectory, to make a few purchases for all the children, do not you? Their parents will have no money to spare, and what little they scrape together will be for useful and sensible items like boots.’

He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I see oranges over there. And tops and whips…’

All too many landlords thought that by giving a single lavish Christmas party they made up for underpaying and badly housing their labourers for the rest of the year. A little largesse in the form of copious quantities of beef and ale was supposed to compensate for the inadequacies of the diurnal diet. Lady Chase, of course, personified bountiful generosity, but nonetheless accepted my suggestion that an extra celebration might not go amiss. I thought planning the event might take her mind off Hugo, still residing in Shropshire.

Furnival had presented his usual gloomy face when apprised of her decision, but now the mummers were engaged and the carol singers particularly invited to sing at the Hall. The party itself was to be held on Christmas Eve, all those able adjourning afterwards, at Lady Chase’s suggestion, to Midnight Communion. To my enormous pleasure, Lady Dorothea even asked if she might augment the little band playing for the service by taking her place at the organ.

Ashamed of my lingering folly, I was yet impelled to solicit her hand for one of the dances at the estate party, as she stood with the other ladies of the household receiving our guests. There rose from them all an overwhelming odour of mothballs and damp. The females’ gowns were so garish as to suggest that old garments had been recently dyed to lift the
mood. In contrast, and such a contrast, Lady Dorothea wore a soft green overdress over a slip of a slightly paler hue, and carried an ivory fan. Her curls shone with brushing and good health.

With my enquiry I might as well have pulled a blind down over her face. After a moment, however, she recovered her gaiety. ‘Surely you should be engaged in leading a rustic maiden through the dance. Polly Freeman now – she would be what I hear the lads call a fine armful. Or Lucy Croft – if you do not object to her squint, of course.’ She made play with her own fine eyes to ensure that I noted the difference.

I could not forbear laughing. And yet even in the heady moment I wished she had not made a butt of the girls who had made such an effort, far greater than hers since they lacked both her beauty and her purse.

‘Indeed, I will dance with as many maidens as I can, provided their swains do not monopolise them – they are unaware that one should not dance more than two dances with the same partner. But I would be more than honoured if you would grant me the privilege of leading you into a set.’

Perhaps Furnival, standing behind us, blamed me in part at least for the revelry on the floor and the bounty on the tables. I could not otherwise explain what for a second appeared to be a look of cold hatred in our direction. But it seemed he was merely suffering one of his arthritic twinges, for he hobbled across to me to shake my hand and wish me the compliments of the season.

‘I have not welcomed you back after your travels,’ he said. ‘I trust your relative is recovered.’

‘She ever enjoyed indifferent health,’ I said with a deprecatory smile.

‘And her ladyship’s old nurse?’

‘A doughty dame, who resented our anxiety as much as she welcomed our presence. Thank goodness her ladyship has you to rely on when she has these strange starts, Furnival.’

‘Thank you, sir. I do my poor best.’

Lady Dorothea and I joined with a will in the first of the country dances she had promised me. However, she suggested we sit out for the second, and she led the way into the blue saloon, where refreshments had been set aside for the family – a break with tradition of which I did not approve, preferring that on one day at least we should all be social equals.

‘When you look so fine in evening dress,’ she said with a flirtatious smile, ‘I wish you would tell me what persuaded you to become a clergyman. I asked you once, but you were notably evasive. Now, pray tell me. Was it simply because that is the lot of the youngest son?’ She took a glass of champagne from a convenient tray and toasted me with it, her eyes shining above the rim.

I returned the gesture, but with a heavy heart. ‘Do you think the church is never chosen for its own sake?’ I could not but wonder why she had chosen this particular night to question me again. Had some rumour of my activities somehow reached her, in particular my free use of my family’s house?

‘
Never
is a heavy word. But yes, in the
never
of conversation, which means
not very often
, I do think it. For a man should distinguish himself. A man might distinguish himself in the army, better still the navy, but not in the church. A clergyman is nothing.’

‘Does
nothing
have the same gradations as
never
? I confess,
Lady Dorothea, that I shall always be
nothing
as far as leading the
ton
or making a fortune on ’Change are concerned. But I cannot call what I am doing in the sphere in which I find myself
nothing
. I am entrusted with my Master’s work: caring for my flock, both individually and collectively. I am responsible for inculcating good principles, distributing the necessities of life—’

‘As to that, a schoolmaster could do the first, and Lady Chase makes it her business to do the latter.’

‘But would either endeavour to teach not just good manners, but the difference between good and evil? Lady Chase offers earthly comfort, may God bless her for it, but I am privileged to offer the promise of heaven.’ In an attempt to reduce the tension between us, I added with a smile, ‘Which you shall hear tonight, when you play for our service.’

‘Oh, as to that—’ For a long moment I feared that she was about to break her promise. Perhaps she was. But the petulance faded. ‘Oh, as to that, I shall be too embarrassed by my mistakes to listen to any sermon. Who is operating the bellows for me?’

‘Simon Clark – a good reliable man. And musical, too, if his performance in the dance is anything to judge by. Did you not see him almost whirling Dr Hansard’s cook off her feet? Do you not think that they will make a match of it?’

She looked at me quite blankly; it was clear she did not know of whom I was speaking.

‘Perhaps we should return?’ I offered her my arm, all too conscious that the unchaperoned conversation was entirely unsatisfactory to both sides.

She took it with a smile, but drew me to an immediate halt. ‘If a church, a parish, you must have, why not a London one,
where your light may shine? Surely your family has influence.’