The Keeper of Secrets (25 page)

‘Bury them in the churchyard? On hallowed ground?’ Miller demanded. ‘Both of them? Suicides?’

I said quietly, ‘Her ladyship was clearly deranged when she killed herself. And his lordship was nine-tenths drunk when he crammed that poor hunter of his at the wall.’

Lord Elham had been temporarily released from his incarceration to attend his mother’s obsequies. Though he was accompanied by two of Dr Brigstock’s strongest assistants, he had managed to elude them and fall upon the contents of his cellar. Then, even while his mother lay unburied, he had taken his favourite hunter and ridden neck or nothing across the park – with fatal consequences.

‘Bad business with the horse, that,’ Bulmer said. It was clear he considered the horse far more loss than the rider, and I could not have argued. ‘Imagine, having to have it shot, when he’d paid three thousand guineas for it, they say.’

If ever there was madness, it must be paying so much for horseflesh when so many of the Priory tenants still went unshod.

‘I have put the question of the burials to the bishop,’ I reminded them, ‘and he insisted that we hold the funerals here.’ In Christian charity, I should have agreed with him, but
there were days when, looking at the green mound containing poor Lizzie’s mortal remains, it was hard to remember the forgiveness that was the cornerstone of my faith. ‘Now,’ I continued briskly, ‘Mr Clark cannot be expected to dig both graves—’

Bulmer sighed. ‘Not with his wife likely to occupy the next, and that all too soon, I hear.’

I smiled sadly at the man. Was he at last becoming my ally? ‘Can I rely on you to find someone who will dig deep but with reverence?’

Bulmer nodded. ‘I’ll set one of my best hands on to it.’

‘Mr Davies will see him well paid for his pains.’

Miller put in sharply, ‘And that boy – what about him? They do say he tried to top himself. And I can’t see no bishop saying a thieving little pauper lad like him should be buried with decent folk.’

Was he a thief? I believed that Lady Elham had spoken the truth when she had told him to throw away my watch. How had he come to find it again? And if he had somehow smuggled it past Bulstrode, would he indeed have shown it to me? Perhaps he himself did not know: he was only a child, after all.

I shook my head firmly. ‘He may yet recover.’ Dr Hansard had summoned many distinguished colleagues to confer over poor William’s treatment. ‘In any case, should he die, William’s death will not be suicide. He was the victim of a murderer – her ladyship,’ I added. ‘You remember the evidence at the inquest.’

‘The coroner didn’t say she’d strung him up with her bare hands,’ Miller objected.

‘As good as,’ Bulmer said. ‘Is that mother of his all right for meat and vegetables, Parson? Because I could get one of my men to take some up – aye, and do any digging needful in that garden of hers.’

I felt tears rising. ‘You are a good man, Mr Bulmer.’

He looked shamefaced. ‘It was Dr Hansard told me it might be called for.’ He grinned. ‘And when will you be reading his banns, Parson, his and that lady of his?’

Was it not dear Mrs Beckles herself who had warned me against gossip? ‘Mrs Beckles is busy about the Priory, as you can imagine, helping Mr Davies set everything in order. All the silver and china is being packed in straw, the pictures taken down and furniture stowed under Holland covers. The servants are all working very had.’

‘They do say the new heir’s promised them a whole year’s wages, and God bless him for it,’ Bulmer said.

Miller nodded gloomily. ‘After that, then – tell me what’ll happen after that. They say the new Lord Elham won’t live in the place.’

‘Would you if you had any choice in the matter?’ Bulmer demanded with a shudder. ‘They say he’s got a big place of his own in Surrey or some such,’ he added.

He waited till Miller took himself off and leant to touch me confidentially on the arm. ‘Seems my daughter-in-law is in a promising way, Parson. You don’t suppose the Lord would mind if I asked him to keep an eye on her, do you?’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t, Mr Bulmer. And if you’d like to come into the church, I will gladly add my prayers to yours, for her babe too.’

We knelt side by side. I knew not the details of his 
entreaties, but they were long and I dare swear deep felt. For myself, I also commended to the Almighty the future of William. If he lived, might it be as a healthy child; if he had to die might the ending be swift, with no more suffering. Only then would Mrs Jenkins be free to mourn and care properly for her other children. She had not been unsupported, of course: Jem was among several kind souls who insisted on watching the invalid while she snatched what little sleep she permitted herself.

Did Jem perhaps begin to feel tender sentiments for the young widow? It was impossible to tell from his behaviour, and I respected him too highly to pry. In any case, was any man on this earth blessed with finer judgement of right and wrong? All I knew was that as yet he showed no sign of quitting the parsonage or the village. Whatever he did, God would guide and support him.

I prayed too for my dear friends Edmund and Maria, soon to be man and wife after their unorthodox betrothal. Not all the tragic events around them could dim their obvious delight in each other now that their relationship was in the open, and there were very few who begrudged their happiness. The moment they judged that their marriage would not offend the sensibilities of their friends, I would marry them by special licence – God knew that they had waited long enough not to bother with the tedium of banns. They insisted that the ceremony would be private, with very little white satin and very few lace veils; in spite of these deficiencies, no one would doubt the perfect happiness of their union.

I asked for God’s blessing on Susan, now aware of the full horror of her sister’s fate. She was still in her own opinion
brown and squat, but several of the young men in the neighbourhood clearly found her not unattractive, and perhaps her eyes followed Jem less than they were wont to do.

Farmer Bulmer prayed on.

Not wishing to disturb him, I dared to add a prayer for myself. My mother had written imploring me to be reconciled with the rest of the family and take up a benefice within her gift near their main country seat. I could do as much good in the wilds of Derbyshire as I had done in lush and leafy Warwickshire, she urged. What should I do? Where could I be of most use? Perhaps I was even called to serve as a missionary in far-off India?

At last, torn in so many ways, I could only utter the words of the prayer that Our Lord Himself taught us: Thy Will be done. 

Prize-winning short-story writer J
UDITH
C
UTLER
is the author of over twenty novels, including two acclaimed crime series set in the murkier depths of Birmingham. Her latest
stand-alones
show there’s no escaping crime in the countryside either. Judith has taught Creative Writing at Birmingham University, and has run writing courses elsewhere, including a maximum-security prison and an idyllic Greek island. Having nurtured colleagues as the Secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association, she now devotes her free time to growing organic vegetables.

Find out more about Judith Cutler by visiting her website at
www.judithcutler.com.

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