The Keeper of Secrets

by Judith Cutler

  ‘If only I could have done more with her cottage,’ I fretted. ‘I once condemned my father for his wickedness in uprooting a whole village so that he might build a fashionable folly. But at least he replaced the apologies for dwellings – they were nearly as bad as those at Marsh Bottom – with good, sound cottages. Each had its own pump, there were proper ashpits, and every family had enough land to grow a year-long supply of vegetables and keep a pig. Aye, and he provided a church, a school and an inn.’

  ‘A model village, in other words?’

  I nodded. ‘I thought it stiff and ugly at first. But now I know what the picturesque conceals. The folly of our artists to hail tumbledown, higgledy-piggledy slums as romantic!’

  Glancing at me from under his eyebrows, he got up to pour me another glass of wine. ‘Come, Tobias, it is many weeks since I let you beat me at billiards. I have had a fire burning in the billiards room all day in hopes that you will do so this time without my assistance.’

  But I could not be comforted with a game of billiards every day, not when news came from Lady Elham in a letter with neither address nor date that shocked us all to the core. Lizzie was never coming back!

  ‘The wench has taken it into her head to leave my service for that of a lady living a less retired life,’ she wrote indignantly to Mrs Beckles. ‘And to London she must go, to my cousin, Lady Templemead. In vain have I remonstrated her, reminded her of what she owes me and my family, and not least my dear cousin Campion, who taught her her letters. No doubt she will write to you when she has time. But I should warn you that she is not the Lizzie Woodman whom we once held in the highest regard.’

  ‘And you, poor Mr Campion,’ Mrs Beckles said, ‘will no doubt take upon yourself the unhappy task of breaking the news to the other pretenders to her hand, Matthew and Jem.’

  ‘Jem?’ I repeated, sitting down sharply.

  ‘My dear Tobias,’ she said gently, removing the letter from my nerveless fingers and substituting a glass of wine, ‘you and Matthew are not the only ones who carried a torch for her. Can you not think of the times Jem insisted you come here by gig, as befitting a gentleman, so that you did not have to present yourself at dinner in your riding boots? Why do you think he should want to spend an evening in the servants’ hall, when he might have been snug in his own quarters? Oh, you gentlemen – you’re so blind!’

  I blushed deeply. I had thought his concern was as always for me, and once or twice had absolutely forbidden him to turn out with me. And on other occasions, thinking he enjoyed Dr Hansard’s valet Turner’s company as much as I enjoyed the master’s, I had veritably prised him out. Then I recalled the day of Jenkins’ death. ‘I did see a look exchanged between them… But Matthew! Was she not pledged to Matthew?’

  ‘In his mind at least. But I believe that as soon as she and Jem set eyes upon each other they fell in love.’ She sighed at the thought of their romance.

  ‘But he is even older than I!’

  ‘When did love ever look at a calendar?’ she asked. But she looked away quickly.

  I felt unequal to broaching the matter of her and Dr Hansard. Gathering my hat and my riding cloak – this was a journey on which Jem had not pressed to accompany me – I pressed her hand in farewell.

  ‘I have no need to ask you to be gentle with the lads,’ she said, returning the pressure. ‘And in any case, they will have ways to dealing with their emotions. I see a whole forest of trees succumbing to Matthew’s axe – his aunt will not need any more logs for weeks. Jem will make sure your horses glow, so make sure Titus is muddy enough to justify his exertions. And you – you, Tobias – what will you do?’ To my surprise, she enfolded me in her arms as my nurse was used to do. At last pushing me on my way, with a little squeeze of the shoulders, she said, ‘You will behave as the Stoic Dr Hansard says you are. You will be all sympathy and compassion and ask nothing for yourself.’

  ‘There is one other person who deserves to know the news,’ I remembered. ‘Mrs Woodman. I hardly know the lady. She is a Methodist, I believe, and does not hold with me.’

  ‘But you still made sure she received extra fuel when the frost set in.’

  I gave a shamefaced smile. ‘Perhaps that was not in the interests of Christian forgiveness, but more because she was Lizzie’s mother.’

  ‘Would you prefer that I broke the news to her?’

  ‘I would indeed.’

  Matthew flung his axe down so hard it quivered inches deep into the tree stump. Then he turned on me. ‘I knew as how all that learning would turn out, making her dissatisfied with her lot. I knew it! And ’tis all your meddlesome teaching, Parson!’

  ‘You do not think that having seen life in a city, she has become dissatisfied with a country existence? She may also feel that if she earns more, she can send more home to her mother and be able to find Susan a better place than in a country parsonage. But if it is my doing, Matthew, I ask your pardon. And beg you to believe it was never my intention.’ Never did I speak more sincerely.

  By way of reply, he turned and punched the nearest tree.

  ‘I do not have the address of her new employer,’ I said. ‘But I could write to Lady Elham on your behalf, and ask her to forward a letter asking her to write to you.’

  ‘Much good it would do, seeing as I can’t read,’ he spat.

  ‘You deserve to hear in her own words why she made the decision,’ I urged.

  ‘And who would read it to me? You, you, with your fine letters!’

  ‘I would have thought Mrs Beckles would be the one best fitted to deliver her sentiments, not the man you see – quite wrongly – as the cause of your distress.’

  His face still averted, he said, his voice thick with tears, ‘In that case, Parson, I would be indebted if you would write to her.’

  Without wishing to intrude further on his grief, I walked off in silence.

  Breaking the news to Jem was a different matter. Matthew was an accredited suitor, but Jem and she had had but an illicit romance, if such indeed it was. Jem and I had been friends as boys, when there was no social chasm to divide, and cricket bats and fishing rods to unite us. We had rescued each other from many scrapes. Our friendship had even survived my time at Eton. But our ways had diverged when I went up to Cambridge and his becoming my groom set us irretrievably apart. Could I for a moment recapture our previous innocence?

  At this time of day he would be mucking out the stables, so I changed from my clerical garb and donned boots to join him.

  He raised an eyebrow, and grinned, but threw me a shovel without comment. I filled the wheelbarrow; he trundled it away and emptied it. Together we completed the task in no time, a fact I celebrated by fetching a couple of tankards of Mrs Trent’s homebrew from the kitchen.

  We moved into the lea of the stables, warmed by a feeble sun.

  ‘Got yourself in a scrape, have you?’ he asked, touching his tankard against mine. It was an expression he had often used when we were lads together.

  ‘Not me. I’m worried, that’s all. About Lizzie Woodman.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asked swiftly.

  ‘Nothing yet, as far as I know. But I always worry when a country-raised girl decides to seek her fortune in London, and according to Lady Elham that is what Lizzie proposes.’

  ‘Is she out of her mind?’

  Did he mean Lizzie or her ladyship? I waited in silence.

  ‘Has she simply quit her ladyship’s service or has she found other employment to go to?’

  ‘Lady Elham tells me she has gone to her cousin, Lady Templemead. Even so…’

  ‘Even so indeed.’ He spat. ‘’Tis a bad business, but it could be worse. She did not write directly to you, Toby?’

  ‘No, indeed. She has not written even to Mrs Beckles. It was Lady Elham who told her.’

  ‘What is she thinking of?’ he asked harshly. ‘Her friends deserve better than that. I had not thought it of her.’

  I had not expected him to sound so cens
orious, though he had always been the first to speak plainly if my conduct was ever found lacking. But as I took the tankards to return them to the kitchen, I caught sight of his face. His gruffness had been an attempt to conceal his tears.

  If I could not write directly to Lizzie, I had every right to ask my cousin for further details, a plan which met with Mrs Beckles’ instant approval. We hoped that Lady Elham would write back by return. She did not. Days merged into weeks, and weeks into a month. Still there was no news.

  ‘No doubt she’s gone up to London for the start of the season,’ I said, as Mrs Beckles commiserated with me.

  ‘But surely she’s left directions with her Bath household for her correspondence to be forwarded to her.’

  ‘You would have thought so.’ I grew restless, thinking I might go down to the capital myself.

  But I did not, because my parish duties increased. In the icy weather, even the most reluctant family conceded that it was worth sending their children to my school if only to get them from under their feet. They also knew there would be warmth and a solid meal for the little scholars. I divided the lessons between letters and numbers, ending each morning with a lesson from the Bible.

  ‘And do you charge them?’ Mrs Beckles demanded, arriving as I was waving the last child off.

  ‘A halfpenny a month,’ I conceded. ‘And another halfpenny when the child can read and write his name. Mrs Beckles, there is so much more I could do! If there were space, Mrs Trent could teach the girls to sew, or to cook.’

  She smiled. ‘I think your master must be proud of you,’ she said affectionately.

  ‘The bishop?’ I asked, suppressing a sharp reply that as far as I could see he cared nothing for any of those he had ordained, especially some of the curates whose pitiful stipends were on a level with farm labourers’.

  ‘No, your Master! The One who told His disciples to suffer little children to come unto Him. Now, Tobias, I want you to look over my shoulder. What do you see?’

  I blinked. ‘The sky?’

  ‘Exactly. And what colour is it?’

  ‘Blue.’

  By now she was laughing. ‘So what should you do? You should go out and enjoy what nature has to offer. Wrap up warm, for the wind is still chill, and enjoy yourself.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Go and do as you’re told, for once, my lad.’

  It was the first of many solitary walks. As the weather grew insensibly more benign, and the frost began to lift, I ranged further and further afield, taking an interest in the changes about me. How different was this Warwickshire spring from the much later ones I had been used to in Derbyshire. Despite the cold, the trees were coming much earlier into bud, and the fields were greening before – I should imagine – the snow had left the Peaks. I was especially charmed by the birds, increasingly frantic in their courtship and nesting, though my own heart remained empty, hollow.

  ‘You should make a study of them, Tobias,’ Edmund said one night as I enthused about the structure of a robin’s nest I had come across.

  ‘It would be a gentlemanly occupation, would it not?’

  ‘It would be better than that. It would be a scientific one, and add to the sum of human knowledge.’

  I nodded. If both Dr Hansard and Mrs Beckles thought I needed fresh air and a new interest, who was I to argue?

  And so began one of the most fascinating episodes of my life. And then, though I was as yet in blissful ignorance, by far the worst.

  * * *

  At last I received a letter from Lady Elham, also undated and without an address. She was sorry to tell me, she said, that Lizzie had not taken advantage of her place in Lady Templemead’s establishment for long. She had told her new employer that she was homesick, and had left by stagecoach for Warwick, from where she hoped to obtain a lift to Moreton St Jude from a farmer or a carrier. However, she added, Lady Templemead knew not whether to believe this, as a footman had disappeared from her service the day Lizzie left. She believed that far from being in Warwickshire, Lizzie was in an illicit embrace.

  Lady Elham still clung, she declared, to the belief that Lizzie missed her family and friends. She hoped I would remind Lizzie of her good fortune in being taken up as an abigail to a lady of fashion, and not live to repent the folly in giving up such a situation.

  Lizzie on her way home! My heart rejoiced, even if my head insisted it was a most unlikely possibility.

  ‘But this time I would leave it to you, my dear Mrs Beckles, to tell my rivals in love,’ I declared. ‘For I could not wish them well with an honest heart.’

  For several moments I did not notice the disquiet in her eyes. At last she said, ‘I wonder when she set out. And I wonder why she has not safely arrived.’

  ‘She’s a country girl, born and bred. She will not mind a long walk if she finds no cart coming this way.’

  ‘Of course she won’t.’ But the look of foreboding did not leave her face.

  ‘What is it you fear?’

  She turned from me, pacing her parlour in her agitation. ‘Her ladyship does not tell us when she set out, but it was clearly an accomplished fact when she wrote. So why is there no sign of the poor child?’

  I rode to Leamington and then with increasing desperation to Warwick, just in case her ladyship had made a mistake as to the destination. But there was no sign of Lizzie ever having travelled by stage or even post to either town. She had simply disappeared.

  Lady Elham, to whom I wrote in haste, replied at leisure that Lady Templemead had retired to one of her West Country estates, she knew not which one, but she would write to her at once. But did I not realise, she asked, why girls usually left good places? Reliable as Lizzie had once been, she suspected that Lady Templemead’s fears were fulfilled, that Lizzie’s head had indeed been turned by one of her fellow servants and – to put the matter crudely – the girl had probably found herself in a promising way. Perhaps she had persuaded the man to marry her; perhaps not. It was likely that in either case she had been too ashamed to confess the matter to Lady Templemead. If that turned out to be the case, she would wash her hands of the girl, and so should we.

  ‘Any other girl and I might have believed it,’ Mrs Beckles sighed. ‘But not Lizzie. She had too many scruples, too much loyalty, to embark on such a flirtation.’

  ‘But it might not have been a flirtation,’ I said, reminding her of the then Lord Chartham’s assault upon her. ‘It might have been far worse.’

  ‘It might indeed. She wouldn’t be the first young woman to be forcibly deflowered and then discarded.’ She turned to me and took my hands. ‘My poor Tobias, what are you going to tell the others?’

  ‘God help me, I don’t know,’ I confessed, and fell sobbing into her arms.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  More and more I turned to the study of ornithology to comfort my aching heart, the innocence of my new feathered friends compensating in part for the woes of my human ones. How Matthew and Jem dealt with their grief, I respected them too much to ask, Mrs Beckles having kindly broken the news to them.

  But by some paradox, speaking to Mrs Woodman, a woman whom I suspected of cordially despising me, had fallen to my lot. It was not, I am sure, what Mrs Beckles would have wished, but, without a word of warning, the new Lord Elham had announced a plan to return, and Mrs Beckles was manoeuvring the great house over the shoals of chaos, all too aware that by the time everything was ready he might have changed his mind.

  Mrs Woodman greeted me with caution, perhaps even suspicion, not warmth. Trying to keep my voice steady, I read aloud to her Lady Elham’s letter.

  I expected tears, railing against an unkind world, or even cursing the Will of God, and had provided myself with a vinaigrette.

  She looked slowly at the letter and then at me. Then, her whole frame shaking, she cursed Lizzie. However I had tried to dress the matter up, Mrs Woodman thought Lizzie to blame. Terrible words penetrated the inarticulate sobs. ‘No daughter of mine,’ I distinguished.
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  I tried to remonstrate. She pointed with a gnarled finger at the door. ‘Leave me!’

  And I did as I was bidden, fearful that I would say something I later repented.

  Hardly had Lord Elham called off than his mother did indeed return. One of her first acts was to summon me. Never had her ladyship, who could, as Lizzie had once observed, charm the ducks off the water, looked more regal, so intimidating, staring down her aquiline nose.

  ‘You should know that the wench has been found and been taken care of,’ she declared, the rouge standing out on her otherwise ashen cheeks. How had her new maid allowed her to appear like this?

  ‘Some workhouse?’

  ‘Indeed no. And,’ she added, with a smile that showed neither humour nor affection, ‘I can guarantee that the babe will not be abandoned in some foundling hospital. Lady Templemead knows her duty better than that. There is one proviso, Mr Campion, to her generosity. Neither you nor any others of her suitors will attempt to find her. Or her protection will be at an end.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Did I not make myself clear? Now, if you will excuse me, I have much to do.’

  I managed to restrain a bark of ironic laughter. Once I might have agreed that ladies in her position had much to occupy their hands and their minds. Now I knew otherwise. It appalled me that what I would once unthinkingly have spent on a suit of not extravagant clothes would have fed a family – nay, two or three families – for a year.

  On impulse I went down to see what I had come to regard as my little family, to see how they did in what was now less of a hovel and far more recognisable as a cottage. The thatch was waterproof, and a curl of smoke issued from the newly built chimney. There was a solid front door. From somewhere Mrs Beckles had conjured curtains, which hung cheerily at the clean glass of the windows.