Fallam's Secret

by Denise Giardina

  Baxter, for his part, was wondering how he might be rid of Woodcock, who, though the constable shared his Puritan sentiments, was so shrill and meddlesome in urging Baxter to root out iniquity that he often longed to pitch Woodcock into the Pye. Baxter kept his hand on the doorknob as he waited, to make it plain to whoever answered that he, Constable Baxter, was the true bearer of news.

  The door was soon opened by Pastor Fallam’s secretary Cleyes, a scrawny lad of around twenty. Cleyes seldom had much to say, Baxter had noted, so he was not surprised when he and Woodcock were ushered through the house in silence. Baxter kept his own counsel while Woodcock nattered on about visits from the Devil, and was gratified when, before opening the door to Fallam’s office, Cleyes turned to Woodcock and said, “Please wait here, sir,” while indicating the small reception room. Then, “You may go in, Constable.” So Woodcock was left to cool his heels and grumble about the impertinence of youth, even as Cleyes ignored his glowering looks and departed.

  Noah Fallam heard Baxter’s report with the appropriate amount of interest and only faint alarm. As should be, Baxter thought, for though others may be as stirred up as any boiling pot, yet the lieutenant major-general must remain calm. And calm he was, Noah Fallam, young still at thirty-two, but a Cambridge man from Emmanuel College, a man of the cloth and a hero of the wars. Such a one would not be excitable, Baxter thought admiringly. He would know all the world had to offer and fear only God.

  Fallam leaned back in his chair and did not offer a seat to Baxter, as was proper. He heard the constable carefully, asked for a full description of the boy’s strange outfit, then said, “Did you see them on to Soane’s Croft?”

  “No, sir, for I came straightway to inform you. But I have no reason to doubt the good doctor did escort the lad there, being an honorable man.”

  “And a useful one,” Fallam noted. “He snatched your child from the jaws of death, did he not?”

  “Indeed,” Baxter agreed, suddenly nervous that Fallam might think him easy in his perceptions because of services rendered, “yet I believe I might judge him of good character even if he had not been useful to me.”

  “Tell me, Constable, for I have not heard the details of that miracle. How did it occur?”

  Baxter was glad to recount again the recent dramatic event. How Martin, a feisty lad of four, had been left in the garden to amuse himself and had been seen by Baxter’s wife to fall suddenly down as if in a fit, jerking and unable to speak. How all had thought the Devil possessed the boy. How the oldest girl had run fast to Soane’s Croft while all despaired of Martin, who was turning red, then blue, and passing from a fit to a swoon. How Mr. Soane had arrived quickly, since the Baxter cottage was fortunate in being well less than a quarter mile from Soane’s Croft. How the good doctor had raised the unconscious child to face his frantic parents while the doctor stood behind, wrapped his arms about the boy’s small chest, and squeezed with all his might as though he might crush the very life from him. Indeed, said Baxter, John Soane had treated the boy as if he were a rag doll so that his good wife screamed and rushed forward in protest. Just then a round object popped from her son’s mouth and landed on the ground. At that the boy began to breathe easily and, the color soon restored to his cheeks, he began to speak.

  Mr. Soane meantime was searching the ground and held up a crabapple, still whole save for a single tooth mark.

  It seems the boy was hungry for that which he would not have enjoyed once he bit it, Soane had said in his halting manner.

  “For the lad had swallowed the crabapple whole, and it became lodged in his throat,” Baxter explained further, “which we did not know, and if we had would have turned him upside down but likely to no avail. Yet the good doctor restored him.”

  “With God’s help,” Fallam reminded him narrowly.

  “No doubt,” Baxter agreed.

  Just then came a banging on the door, which burst open to reveal an agitated Jacob Woodcock. Fallam stood, angry to be thus interrupted, but Woodcock cried, “Pardon, sir, but a messenger has arrived from without East Gate.” Behind him stood said messenger, a boy white with fear and glad for Woodcock to make the dreadful announcement.

  “St. Pancras Church!” Woodcock cried. “’Tis blasphemous again!”

  Baxter felt a chill run through him, and noted that even Fallam blanched.

  “We shall see at once,” declared the lieutenant major-general. “Cleyes!” he called. “Saddle my horse!”

  A crowd had gathered in the usually quiet churchyard at St. Pancras. Some were angry, others frightened, women cried hysterically, men shooed away curious children and forbade them to set foot inside the church. The vicar of St. Pancras, the Reverend Smythe, stood in the midst of his parishioners, who gathered around him in a tight knot as though for protection.

  The Reverend Smythe was an old man who had seen much—the persecution of papists under Elizabeth, the liturgical innovations of the Stuart kings, and now censure and proscription by the Puritans. He counted himself fortunate to be possessed of a living in his old age, yet he could not turn his back entirely on his beloved Book of Common Prayer. Nor could his parish. And so they had continued, whenever they felt the stern eye of Cromwell and his minions looking the other way, to secretly pray together the good old words in which the bread became flesh and the wine blood—Holy holy holy, Lord God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of thy glory—without advertising to their neighbors that they still subscribed to such heresy. Until the previous curse—as some deemed it; or miracle—as others whispered—had come upon them. And now had come again.

  So the Reverend Smythe and his flock waited nervously for the arrival of Lieutenant Major-General Fallam and his constables, who were soon enough upon them in a thunder of hooves, the constables with hands on their cudgels to discourage any from pressing too close.

  “At least,” said the Reverend Smythe quietly to his frightened people, “the mob will not set on us now in blame, if they are so inclined. For Pastor Fallam will keep order, come what may.”

  Fallam dismounted with a grim look on his face. The frantic crowd fell silent. Noah Fallam had been a boy among them, yet not well recalled except as the quiet and studious son of a local squire, and gone to Emmanuel College Cambridge while still a lad. He had returned in authority a year past, and was stern beyond his years, with a handsome face and dark eyes which led many a Norchester wife to push a daughter or two in his way, so far to no avail. He satisfied himself, looking around, that the crowd was in no danger of a riot, then gestured his constables to follow and entered St. Pancras Church.

  But though the constables entered bravely enough, they stopped dead, and Baxter, following behind Fallam, was so stunned that he cried, “God preserve us!” and bumped into his superior.

  For the walls of St. Pancras were decorated as in old, papist days, with paintings, colorful images of angels, demons, serpents, the Virgin Mary, and even the Lord himself.

  “This place belongs to the Devil,” hissed Woodcock, who had entered uninvited with the constables.

  “Silence!” Fallam commanded. He was not looking at the walls, as though to do so would cloud his thinking. Then he turned on his heel and left abruptly, causing the others to scurry after him.

  Outside he made straight for the Reverend Smythe. “Who discovered this?” he demanded.

  “W-why,” Smythe stammered, “two women come to prepare the church—”

  “For a forbidden service!” Fallam interrupted.

  “No, indeed,” Smythe protested, but further words died in his mouth.

  Fallam spun around. “Who applied the whitewash to this church on the previous occasion?”

  Woodcock stepped forward. “I did myself,” he said, “and proud to serve God in that way.”

  “When?”

  “While this post was vacant, barely a month before you arrived, sir.”

  “And you do swear you made a thorough job of it?”

  “Of course,” said Woodcock. �
�Those paintings were well concealed as whitewash could make them, and I used a specially thick mixture, to stand up to the Devil.”

  Fallam had been searching faces in the crowd, even as he listened. He saw fear, and wonder, but none who betrayed any guilty knowledge, only puzzlement. He had heard the stories when he arrived in Norchester, of the church beyond East Gate, its medieval images covered with whitewash in the purifying reign of the boy King Edward the Sixth, before the living memory of anyone in Norchester. Memory, in fact, had failed to remind that such wall paintings had even existed. Yet the congregation of St. Pancras had arrived one Sunday morning to find them exposed as if newly painted. The scandal was enormous and they had been quickly covered again. But because all this happened before Fallam’s arrival, it had seemed a fairy tale to him, the working of overwrought minds. Yet here were the paintings clear to be seen.

  Fallam turned to the Reverend Smythe. “If not for your advanced years,” he said loud enough for all to hear, “I would clap you in irons and put you to trial for this. Yet…” he added as Smythe stepped back as though struck, “I shall for that consideration tell you to go to your home and stay there. Woodcock!” he called.

  Woodcock came eagerly forward. “Sir?”

  “You shall once more whitewash these walls. They are an affront to God.”

  “Amen!” came a few scattered cries from the crowd.

  “Gather some others to help you,” Fallam continued, “and start at once. For I would have the job done by Sunday morning, when I shall preach in this church, purified as it shall be. I command the members of this parish to be present, but you should expect others to join you. Be assured many of the elect shall attend, those who reject idolatry and such”—he paused for the proper word—“trickery.”

  Then he sent the people buzzing away to their homes, and the constables to escort them so there would be no disturbances. He kept Baxter, however, and set him to stand outside the church door.

  “I’m going back in,” he explained, “to look for any clues to this mystery I might find. For I believe it is not sorcery but in fact a crime of some fashion which may be solved.”

  Baxter nodded, though he was uneasy to remain alone outside the church while the late afternoon shadows passed over the graves. He glanced at the sun from time to time as it made its way down toward the tops of the trees, then disappeared behind them.

  Inside St. Pancras, Noah Fallam walked slowly down the aisle, around the perimeter, into the transepts, up to what had been the altar in Anglican days and still was if Smythe was dissembling. He went with his head tilted back until his neck ached, mouth slightly open and hands clenched in fists, studying the paintings.

  When he finally emerged, he said to Baxter, “Come with me to Soane’s Croft.”

  Chapter 7

  The Interrogation

  WHEN UNCLE JOHN knocked on the door, Lydde threw it open, then turned her back on him. “When were you going to tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Damn it, Uncle John! About Mary!”

  He came in and shut the door behind him. “Soon,” he said. “Soon. I didn’t know Mary was back and I thought Mother Bunch was bringing the clothes.”

  “It’s my sister!” Lydde collapsed on the bed. “My sister came through the Mystery Hole too!”

  “No.” Uncle John sat beside her. “Mary didn’t come through the Mystery Hole. She came from Bristol. Did she tell you about her family?”

  “Yes.” Lydde turned her head away. “She said her brothers and sisters died of a fever.”

  “And her father Charles,” said Uncle John. “Her mother died years earlier in childbirth. That’s why Mary came here. John Soane was her nearest kin.”

  “Who were the children who died? Were they Louis and Grace and Dominic and Jane?”

  Uncle John hesitated, aware of a growing commotion in the street. “They were Lewis and Grace and Nicholas and Jane. And Lydde.”

  She sat up and stared. “I died?”

  “Maybe you. But not you.” He put his hand on her shoulders. “I’ll explain it as soon as I can. As much as I know, anyway, which isn’t much. Right now, there’s trouble brewing. You need to get into these boy’s clothes. But first empty your pockets.”

  She rubbed her face and stood up, then fished out the keys and laid them on an oak chest.

  “Here.” Uncle John held up the breeches. “They’re not complicated, the pants button instead of zip.”

  “What about underpants?”

  “Don’t wear them here.”

  “My God,” Lydde said, rolling her eyes.

  Uncle John turned his back while she dressed. When she was done she turned in a circle for his inspection.

  “It needs a waistcoat,” he said. “I can just see your bust.”

  He called for Mary, who soon returned with a spare waistcoat from his closet.

  “Is Lewis all right?” Mary whispered as she handed it through the door without looking.

  “Yes,” Uncle John reassured her. “Now go to Mother Bunch.”

  When Lydde had put on the waistcoat, he nodded. “Kind of large, but it does the job.”

  “Why the rush?” Lydde said. “What’s happened?”

  He pulled up a chair while she sat on the edge of the bed.

  “We’re going to have visitors soon. There’s a big to-do outside town, at St. Pancras Church.”

  “What’s wrong at St. Pancras? I just came through there, and I didn’t notice anything.”

  “No paintings on the wall?”

  “Sure. Religious scenes. Looked like they’d been there for a long time.”

  “They had,” he said. “And then disappeared for over a hundred years. Covered over with whitewash in Edward the Sixth’s reign.”

  “Then how—” Lydde stopped. “Uh-oh.”

  “That’s right,” said Uncle John with a twinkle in his eye. “It causes big trouble here, but it’s incredibly exciting for my research. Every time someone comes back here from the future, the paintings uncover themselves. This is the fourth time, actually. The first two times I came through, the Reverend Smythe discovered what had happened before anyone else and managed to have them covered back up secretly. In fact, John Soane was a member of St. Pancras and helped with the whitewash. The Reverend Smythe was terrified he’d get the blame, and of course he was mystified about why it had happened. But I had an idea.” He winked. “John was sad to see the paintings disappear again. He thought they were wonderful. I told him not to worry, they’d be back.

  “The third time a couple of church women found them first. Word got out then, and you’d think Lucifer had strolled right through Norchester in his underwear. That was before Noah Fallam came on the scene. There was talk of witches, of burning. I was afraid they’d pick on some poor old woman and carry through on their threats. But Jacob Woodcock took it on himself as a holy mission to cover the paintings, so things quieted down. Now here we go again. I have no idea how Fallam will react. He’s an enigma.”

  “And this is the Noah Fallam who came to the New River in 1671?”

  “His brother definitely did. Robert, the one in the history books.”

  “The one in the print in your office?”

  “Right. He’s already in Virginia, as we speak. He was a Royalist, a supporter of King Charles the First. Noah is a Puritan, and fought for the parliamentary forces that brought Charles down. The English Civil War was like our own in that way, brother against brother. But it sure looks like Noah will travel with his brother in America later. You remember the inscription in Norchester Cathedral? Noah will be lost in the Virginia wilderness.”

  “So is Noah Fallam one of the bad guys?”

  “I don’t know. There are some terrible things going on in some parts of the country right now, people being tortured and murdered for their religious beliefs, women being lynched by mobs under suspicion of witchcraft, sometimes having their breasts cut off first. But nothing like that has happened here. Fallam’
s been here less than a year, although he’s not a total stranger. His father had an estate just six miles away that Robert inherited, but the younger brother has charge of it now. Like I said, Noah’s a cipher. People here seem to respect him, even though most of them aren’t Puritans, because he hasn’t allowed chaos to break out. But he’s strict, and Cromwell trusts him or he wouldn’t have been appointed.”

  “What’s a lieutenant major-general, anyway?” Lydde asked. “I don’t remember hearing about them.”

  “That’s because they won’t last long,” Uncle John said. “Cromwell just appointed the major-generals and their lieutenants last year, and three years from now the Puritans will be kicked out and the monarchy will be restored under Charles the Second. Of course, nobody here knows that.”

  Just then came a knock on the door. “Will you have some hot cider?” asked Mother Bunch.

  Uncle John opened the door and ushered her in. “Now, Mother Bunch, what do think of our young lad?”

  She set down a tray holding two cups and a steaming bowl. “A handsome boy,” she said. “He’ll do, indeed.”

  “He was just asking,” said Uncle John, “what a major-general does.”

  “Whoosht!” Mother Bunch cried. “What do they not do?” Then she hesitated. “Is it safe to speak?”

  “Yes, indeed, Mother Bunch. Lewis is family and of a like mind.”