Shadow of the Past (5 page)

I expected the humdrum music so often provided simply as an accompaniment to vacuous chatter; instead I found myself listening to music by that vehement German, Herr Beethoven. By disregarding all the
fortissimo
and other markings to show the composer’s passionate intention, Miss Southey turned the music into social nothingness. But I never doubted for one moment that – had she dared – she
could have unleashed every scrap of the music’s power.

At the end of the sonata, I earnestly wished to speak to the musician, but she turned swiftly away, returning, under cover of the shouts of the schoolroom party demanding a game of speculation, to the shadows whence she had come.

Lady Dorothea joined in with a will, a tiny glance at me suggesting that she might not find me an unwelcome addition to the group. At first I was too conscious of her presence to play well, and perhaps she felt a similar constraint. However, as the game progressed, so she relaxed, her laughter ringing out like the clearest bell as she lost heavily or recouped her losses. Her eyes, blue as the silk of her gown, flashed; her teeth gleamed like the pearls round her long, slender neck; and I caught myself in a selfish prayer that the weather might stay so vile even longer, constraining her to stay at the Hall, if not in perpetuity, at least for a further week.

A deathbed and the need to baptise an ailing babe prevented my returning to the Hall for several days. By this time, Lady Dorothea had possibly put her embarrassing slip of the tongue from her mind, consenting readily to join me at the fortepiano for a duet. We played two or three pieces only, before retiring to listen to Lady Bramhall.

Lady Dorothea made no reference to her own performance, which in truth, was, as before, competent rather than excellent. My own was inexcusably bad, attributable perhaps to her proximity to me. I need not add that I would rather have sat beside her and played duets badly than played a great cathedral organ well.

When Miss Southey was summoned to the piano, I felt obliged to offer to turn her pages – she was playing Mozart,
this time. I almost exclaimed aloud at the sight of her arms. They were empurpled with bruises. Had she suffered some terrible accident? Before I could speak, she said, ‘I believe Lady Chase wishes to speak to you – no doubt about further provision for the poor.’

Thus dismissed, and with such venomous resentment, I did indeed retreat to her ladyship’s side, if not to converse – we were both too well mannered to insult the musician in that way – but to wonder about the manner of my dismissal. I had always assumed her to be a victim of the family, suppressing all her emotions. Now I had seen another side, which disconcerted me.

Miss Southey herself remained at the instrument. Lady Dorothea made no remark as she unobtrusively – and to my silent applause – obliged the musician as a page-turner. Since the fortepiano never rose above a delicate murmur, I assume the composer’s instructions were disregarded in this case, also. At the end the two young ladies exchanged a few inaudible words. The short conversation over, Lady Dorothea looked in my direction and offered a hesitant smile, which I returned, much, I suspect, to Lady Chase’s private amusement. But she did nothing so crass as to make the least remark. Lady Dorothea returned to her sister-in-law’s side, and soon the
tea-tray
arrived.

Under cover of passing the cups, I spoke to her in a low voice, ‘It is good of you to be kind to poor Miss Southey. I fear hers is not an easy life, and she needs the friendship of…of someone like you.’

She said lightly, ‘I cannot imagine any governess having a pleasant existence, poor thing. Miss Southey is a notable musician, is she not?’

Honouring her for turning my clumsy compliment, I agreed, but we were unable to pursue our conversation. Just as I prepared to sit beside her, a footman tiptoed over to me. I was needed at another deathbed.

At long last the rain stopped. To my eyes it was a sudden event. My parishioners, however, nodded and sucked their teeth and said they’d seen how it would be, all along.

‘They are able to predict the weather?’ Lady Dorothea asked, round-eyed but also amused.

We were in the church porch after matins. Most of my flock, including Lady Chase and her nephew and his wife, had long since gone home, but Miss Southey and her charges were dawdling round the graveyard. They and Lady Dorothea were no doubt determined to enjoy a bracing walk in the brief burst of sunshine.

‘Their livelihoods – indeed, their lives – depend so much upon the weather that they are certainly skilled in reading the signs. Much as you or I can read music, which would perplex them.’

‘So your church musicians played all by ear?’

‘They may have had some knowledge of notation. At Christmastide they reform their band and will come with the carol-singers to the Hall to serenade you. You will have
mummers, too,’ I added, hoping that she would still be present to enjoy them.

She might have read my mind. ‘There is talk of our returning to London. But only talk, and once my brother is settled anywhere, it is hard to move him.’

I could not argue, more than conscious of her ladyship’s feelings about the situation. ‘There is nothing like a country Christmas,’ I declared, ‘when all the villagers are gathered together to celebrate, regardless of rank. Lady Chase is said to be more than generous – she does not limit her hospitality to her tenants, but opens her doors to all.’

‘You used the same phrase in your sermon,’ she observed.

‘Then I was speaking of the Almighty.’

‘And urging us to follow His example.’ She nibbled an elegantly gloved finger, as if unsure whether to put her next question. At last she responded to my encouraging smile. ‘What made you take up religion, Mr Campion?’

Take up?
She made it sound like an interesting hobby. I bit my lip.

‘Was it the typical last refuge of the youngest son?’ she continued blithely. ‘Would not the army or the law have suited you better?’

‘The army, never.’ Now was not the time to tell her how my cowardice had once paralysed me. ‘And I have no interest in the law. But do not misinterpret what I am saying. The Church was an active choice. A calling. It was not a matter of what suited me. It was a matter of what suited my Master.’

‘Your Master would not have thought you suited to a more fashionable parish?’

‘It did not appear so. I can only respond to His Will, Lady Dorothea. Did we not say together this morning, using the
prayer His Son taught us –
Thy Will be done
?’

‘Of course. But they are only words, are they not?’

‘Not in my experience.’

She glanced over her shoulder. ‘I see my nieces and poor Miss Southey are waiting. Will you excuse me, Mr Campion?’

Suddenly the day did not seem so bright. I returned to my church, and repeated the solemn prayer.

During the next few days the pale winter sun did its feeble best to dry the sodden land. To my amazement, if not that of my parishioners, we had been spared serious life-threatening floods, though many suffered the inconvenience of having water in their sculleries and kitchens. Most sufferers had phlegmatically endured their lot, moving their sticks of furniture to the upper storeys and relying on their employers for soup and bread.

The Marsh Bottom hovels had indeed collapsed, but by then their inhabitants were safe in one of the Chase estate barns; they did no more harm than let their urchins of children chase a few chickens foolhardy enough to venture within. Lady Chase’s sour-faced steward, Furnival, was under instructions to build some modern new cottages for them – on higher ground. In the village there was considerable grumbling, since it was felt that ne’er-do-wells should not benefit from their total lack of thrift. In fact, since the families were actually in the employ of another landlord, the plans came to naught, until Lady Chase cut the Gordian knot and insisted the menfolk would be employed as labourers on her own land. Eventually they would be rehoused in cottages left vacant as the most loyal employees were promoted to her new model site, still currently no more than the plans on much
folded paper, to be realised when the ground became dry enough to lay foundations. All this was, as one may imagine, the product of long discussions in her ladyship’s unofficial little committee, comprising herself, the Hansards and myself, which met privately in her ladyship’s sitting room.

To my chagrin, although she regularly asked intelligent questions about our progress, Lady Dorothea never evinced any desire to participate. I ascribed that to a ladylike reluctance to appear unbecomingly forward. Similarly, although I was sure Sir Marcus must have resented the spending of every single groat that might have formed part of his inheritance, he and his wife seemed as uninterested in these plans as Miss Southey’s charges were in whatever she was trying to teach them. The boys had returned to Winchester, where I hoped they were benefiting from their education rather more than Lady Honoria and Miss Georgiana, who were far more interested in tittering at secrets than in any mature conversation.

Today I encountered the young ladies on a country walk. As I first heard distant voices, I had hoped, with a leaping heart, that Lady Dorothea was of their company – she often was, though I have not embarrassed myself by recording the trivial details of conversations quite meaningless unless one’s heart was involved.

This time I was disappointed.

To celebrate the pallid sun I had permitted myself a
half-holiday
and strolled through my favourite tract of woodland, spongy and waterlogged though the paths might be. I might even have been whistling or singing a favourite hymn: there is nothing like the glory of the Almighty’s handiwork to make the heart glad. Back from the woodland echoed – giggles.

Ceasing my noise immediately I waited until the young ladies came into sight, ready to smile and doff my hat. But they appeared not. I could hear the murmur of Miss Southey’s serious voice, followed by more giggles and veritable screams of laughter – in boys they would have been jeers.

I would find out the cause.

I strode towards the source of the sound, at last breaking into a run. I could see no cause for the cruel hilarity, just three young women whose boots were covered with mud and whose skirts and petticoats were six inches deep in the stuff. For once I looked Miss Southey full in the face. There was no doubting the pain I saw there. I must ask dear Lady Chase to discover its cause. And Lady Dorothea could – nay,
should
– befriend her. A sudden and quite inexplicable wave of anger gushed over me, choking any words in my throat.

A lesser woman would have raised her eyes heavenwards in an attempt to solicit my sympathy; Miss Southey permitted no change in her countenance whatsoever as she said politely, ‘Good afternoon, Mr Campion.’

‘Lady Honoria; Miss Georgiana; Miss Southey,’ I said, doffing my hat. ‘Such an excellent day for a walk.’

‘It is indeed,’ Miss Southey agreed, attempting with a sharp glance to quell the giggles that punctuated each utterance. ‘Are you a student of nature?’ Miss Southey prompted me.

‘Indeed I am. Some months ago I wrote a paper for the Royal Society on the warbler family. It was, I am pleased to say, so favourably received that I am tempted to embark on another.’

‘On the same subject?’ She seemed to be interested.

There was no doubt that the young ladies were not, but it
was she with whom I was conversing, so I pressed on. ‘This time it will be on
genus Picidae
.’

‘Woodpeckers,’ she explained to her charges. ‘We have already heard the drumming of the great spotted woodpecker, have we not, girls? And we also saw—? The bird that laughs, Honoria?’ She explained with scarce subdued asperity, ‘The green woodpecker, Honoria.’

The very idea of a green woodpecker seemed to destroy the last vestiges of self-control in either girl, and, as much out of pity for their governess as with irritation at their behaviour, I made my farewells and left them.

I hoped to see no more of them that day.

I had not, however, walked more than three or four hundred yards when the quiet was shattered once more – this time by true screams. Surely they betokened genuine terror! Abandoning all thoughts of woodpeckers, green or otherwise, I ran as fast as I could to the source of the growing hysteria.

Although the swollen streams had generally subsided, here, upstream of a little bridge, the waters threatened to burst their banks and had formed in fact a veritable pond. For some reason Miss Southey was flailing around in it, up to her waist in water. Had she fallen? Or been pushed? Surely she could not have waded in voluntarily? Yet only the lower half of her person was wet, which suggested the latter. Then I saw a possible explanation – a bonnet, the sad rusty black bonnet I had last seen on poor Miss Southey’s head, was floating in the middle of the stream. Even such an outrage could surely not have been, however, the reason for such apparent terror, in not just Miss Southey but in the young ladies.

‘Miss Southey! What in heaven’s name—?’

She could do no more than point at the bridge, her arms shaking and her face distorted with panic.

And then I could see why the stream had formed a pond and why the ladies were in such a quake. The bridge was partially blocked by a man’s body.

I spoke sharply to the girls. ‘Silence! Run for help!’

They screamed on. Bending, I scooped a handful of the icy water and dashed it in Honoria’s face. ‘Do as I tell you – this instant! And take your sister too.’ The latter wasted no time waiting for my unchivalrous cure but turned on her heel and sped back towards the Court. I was afraid I would have to slap her sister’s face to achieve the same end, but at last, seeing that I intended to leave her to attend to her soaked and shaking mentor, she abandoned her histrionic display and followed her sister.

Holding my hand out, I reached for Miss Southey’s icy hand and pulled her towards me, gently but firmly. ‘Avert your gaze, dear lady, from that hideous sight, and watch where you place your feet. Should you miss your step, the water is swift enough to carry you downstream,’ I added.

At last she comprehended what such movement would entail – the unwilling embrace of the drowned creature by the bridge. She nodded, her mouth still frozen into a silent scream. Gradually I brought her back to dry land.

As soon as she was safe, I stripped off her pelisse, replacing it with my greatcoat and wrapping my scarf about her thin neck. But what should I do next? If my first thought was for the living, the second must be to prevent the corpse being swept further downstream. I could no more rely on it staying where it was than I could expect an explanation from her charges to be sufficiently coherent to send assistance to us.

But it seemed that the arrival of two sobbing girls without their governess occasioned sufficient alarm for several outdoor servants to come running towards us, shouting Miss Southey’s name.

Consigning her to the care of two of them, I sent the third for Dr Hansard, suggesting he bring his fishing gear and a change of clothes, and a fourth to the rectory, with a message for my groom Jem to bring me dry clothes and boots. My first care must have been for the ladies’ welfare, but now I was shaking uncontrollably from the cold. If I was to be of any use to Dr Hansard, I must avoid becoming one of his patients. I added blankets and brandy to the list – all who were to be involved in retrieving that man colder than us all would need something to warm them as the bright day slid swiftly into chill evening.

Lit by several lanterns, with not even a handkerchief over his mouth, Dr Hansard bent over the waterlogged and stinking corpse now lying on the bridge that had impeded its progress. ‘My suspicion would be that this poor man was caught in the rain, and, losing his way, fell into the torrent. On the other hand, you will note some decay of his flesh. Surely that must have occurred before immersion.’ He cocked his head in doubt. ‘I will ask my colleague Dr Toone to assist me when I examine him.’

Jem nodded approvingly. ‘He seems to be able to read the dead like others read books or maps.’

Hansard smiled. Some villagers regarded Toone’s ability with suspicion, others with downright hostility. Jem, however, with an enthusiasm I was quite unable to share, regularly observed the two doctors’ post-mortem examination of those
patients whom Hansard’s skills had been unable to save.

Jem peered more closely at the ravaged visage. ‘I’d say he’s a stranger to the area,’ he observed.

He earned a smile. I could only look puzzled. ‘And for confirmation look at his boots, worn right down,’ Hansard told me. ‘Now,’ he continued, straightening, ‘let us have this fellow carried to my cellar so that I may have a closer look at him.’ He turned to the waiting men. ‘Could you take that gate off its hinges so we may lay him on it?’

Jem was still peering at the body. ‘Do you have any hope of identifying him? There may be a grieving family waiting for him to return, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.’

‘How can Hansard identify…that?’ I pointed to the ghastly facial remains.

‘I do not say I can, but as Jem says I must make the attempt. For one thing, I have that unusual hair to go on.’

I nodded. The man’s hair was more than ordinarily dark and coarse, slightly kinked. ‘It is unusual, is it not?’

‘Indeed, the only time I have seen any like this it was on the – mercifully living – head of a black servant of a Bristol friend of mine. Servant! I should say slave – but I know you share my views on the iniquitous Trade. Now, what else can the dead man say?’

‘He was not a wealthy man,’ Jem said. ‘It is not just his boots that have worn through – the coat is threadbare.’

Hansard nodded. ‘Turn back the collar – yes, where it is not so worn it tells us the cloth was good.’

‘So it was the garment of a gentleman,’ Jem agreed. ‘But old-fashioned, at that.’