An Oxford Tragedy

by Norman Russell

  John Fowler had turned pale, and seemed frozen with shock. Timothy remained inscrutable, but a nerve was throbbing in his temple. Frances, the blue-stocking daughter, had flushed with anger, and her eyes had filled with tears. She began to tremble, and Henry Ballard placed a diffident hand upon her arm.

  ‘How – how much?’ muttered John Fowler, the elder son.

  ‘Well, after the minor bequests, you would each have received about forty-thousand pounds. Even in these times, that would be a very goodly sum… .’

  ‘It’s nothing short of outrageous!’ John Fowler had sprung up from his chair in agitation. ‘Oh, God! What? I heard a rumour in the City that Father was going to squander our money on some damned useless institute or other. We shall contest this Will… .’

  ‘Oh, but that wasn’t the Will, Mr Fowler! I never said it was, you know. It was merely a draft, and I urged Sir Montague to think very carefully before taking a step that he might have come to regret. This document was never signed, but it was important that you should have been aware of its contents.’

  ‘Then you mean… .’

  ‘I mean that all is well as regards your respective legacies.’ He held up a second document and showed it to them. What fun it had been! These Will readings were always like a gathering of vultures.

  ‘In this Will, dated 11 February, 1890, after making the usual arrangements for servants, Sir Montague stated his major dispositions as follows:

  ‘“To my faithful and, dare I say it, devoted, secretary, Henry Ballard, I leave the sum of ten thousand pounds free of duty.” Yes, Mr Ballard, you may well exclaim! I have never before heard of such a generous bequest to one who is a servant at law. But let me continue. “The residue of my estate, that is to say, the monies lodged by me with Hodge’s Bank, of 31a Queen Street, in the City of Oxford, and whatever sums are raised from the sale of my goods and chattels, together with my property in Woodstock Road, also in the City of Oxford, I leave to my three children, John, Timothy and Frances, to be divided equally among them. And I give and bequeath my house, Forest Park, at Lynham Hill, in the county of Wiltshire, to my son John, to enjoy absolutely, or dispose of as he thinks fit. And hereto I set my hand and seal,” etcetera, etcetera.’

  ‘How much?’ asked John once again.

  ‘Roughly £160,000 each.’

  He could feel the elation of the three children like a tangible wave pouring into the room. During his reading of the draft Will, they had all three sweated with fear, and the atmosphere had become close and stifling. What had those three siblings got to fear? They were all obviously badly in need of money. From their point of view, their father’s death had been providential… . Had they…? No, such a thought was gratuitously wicked and uncalled for. John Fowler was saying something.

  ‘We’re all very grateful to you, Mr Groom, for dissuading Father from signing that appalling draft. I sometimes think that his brain was softening – but there, one mustn’t speak ill of the dead. Please send me your bill as soon as you like. You have my London address.’ The elder son turned to look with something like wonder at the self-effacing secretary, who was still sitting stunned in his chair.

  ‘I must say, Ballard, that you were evidently a marvellous help to Father over the years. I congratulate you on a very opulent legacy.’ There was no malice there, thought Arthur Groom. Now that John is a man of fortune, he can afford to be magnanimous.

  ‘Well, sir,’ Ballard replied. ‘I must admit that I am overwhelmed, and deeply moved. I was indeed devoted to Sir Montague, but this … this… .’ His voice trailed away, and his eyes brimmed with tears. Standing up abruptly, he groped his way out of the room.

  ‘Well,’ said Frances Fowler as the brothers and their sister emerged from the solicitor’s premises into New Inn Hall Street, ‘Ballard may have been the ideal secretary, but ten thousand pounds was ridiculous. Maybe you were right, John. Father was entering his dotage. I’m sure you agree, don’t you, Timothy?’

  ‘What? Oh, very likely.’

  Frances smiled to herself. Timothy had evidently relapsed into a brown study. Had he really heard what she’d said, he would have regaled her with one of his pious platitudes. Really, there was no earthly reason why a clergyman should be either overtly pious or tediously platitudinous.

  They walked up New Inn Hall Street and into Queen Street, and at Carfax they went their separate ways.

  Timothy’s elation at the news of his father’s bequest had been overshadowed by something that came unbidden into his consciousness. It often came to plague him at moments of sudden happiness or success. It was a scene from his student days, a gently flowing river on a summer’s day, a placid scene suddenly marred by a cry of distress and the frantic threshing of cramped limbs… . Shake it off! Banish it! Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

  ‘I was overcome, Mr Maxwell. Sir Montague left me what amounts to a fortune. He was always a generous employer, and I was able to put a bit aside during all the years that I worked as his secretary. But this! Ten thousand pounds!’

  Henry Ballard sat in the dim, fire-lit bar parlour of the Manciple Tavern, which was to be found at the end of a cobbled alley lying in a tangle of old tenements behind the ancient church of St Peter in the East. He took a sip from his glass of port, and waited for his companion to frame a suitable answer. He liked thickset, belligerent Joe Maxwell, a police officer of the better sort, a detective sergeant no less, and a man who could keep his own counsel. Not very sharp, perhaps, but a good, respectable friend to have.

  ‘Well, of course, Mr Ballard,’ said Sergeant Maxwell, stroking his black walrus moustache, ‘you and Sir Montague shared a natural affinity for each other, if that’s the word I mean. Affinity. So I’m not surprised to hear that he left you a legacy. But I’d agree that ten thousand pounds is a hefty sum.’ He drank deeply from a pewter tankard of mild ale.

  ‘Did you – er – see the deceased after he was dead? Well, of course, he must have been dead if he was deceased. I just wondered whether the family had let you view him. I hope I’m not being indelicate.’

  Henry Ballard did not reply immediately. His mind flew back to the previous Sunday, when Mr John had sought him out in the Lodgings, and told him that he was welcome to view the body of his late employer. ‘It’s only right, Ballard,’ he’d said. ‘You were very close to my father, and he to you.’ Mr John had always been a kind and courteous gentleman.

  ‘I went into Sir Montague’s bedroom,’ said Ballard to his friend, ‘and reverently turned down the sheet that was covering his face. As you may imagine, Mr Maxwell, his face was white and gaunt, and it still held the marks of prolonged suffering.’

  Sergeant Joseph Maxwell saw his friend’s eyes brim with tears. Yes, he mused, Henry had been very much attached to his employer, and he to him. Ten thousand pounds… . It made you think.

  ‘His cheeks seemed to have collapsed inward,’ Ballard continued, ‘making him look far older than his years – he was only sixty-two – but that fine Roman nose was as intimidating as it had been in life. Not intimidating to me, you understand; but many people held him in awe because of his patrician appearance. He was always approachable, you know, but people knew from his general deportment that “Noli me tangere” applied very well to him.’

  Sergeant Maxwell nodded his agreement, and drank some more of his ale. Henry was a good man, but at times it was impossible to know what he was talking about. ‘Patrician’, and that bit of Latin – what did it mean? He’d lose face if he asked him outright.

  ‘You’re quite right, Mr Ballard,’ he said. ‘I’m sure those words certainly applied to poor Sir Montague in life.’

  ‘They did,’ Ballard agreed, ‘and despite the ravages of the last ten days, his mortal remains still retained an air of solemn dignity. I shall never forget him.’

  ‘Food poisoning, wasn’t it? You don’t expect that in the winter, it’s more of a summer malady, if I may put it like that. There was a family last summer out at Headington wh
o consumed a tainted lobster one warm evening for their tea, and all died. Father, mother, and two children. Very sad, really.’

  ‘Yes,’ Henry Ballard continued, ‘these things are really tragic. Sir Montague had left Oxford on a visit to a friend in the country on the eighteenth of May. He returned, looking pale and agonized, on the twenty-second. That same afternoon he took to his bed, and never left it. Severe gastroenteritis was diagnosed, and at first the physicians were cautiously confident that he might recover with time. Indeed, when they had induced Sir Montague to swallow white of eggs, there was a temporary rally. That was on the twenty-fifth; but on the Monday following, nephritis supervened, and the two doctors warned the family that the case was hopeless.’

  Ballard’s eyes once more filled with tears, which this time he angrily dashed away. He remembered how, in the chamber of death, his tears had fallen upon the Warden’s dead face.

  ‘Have you heard …’ Maxwell began, but Ballard stopped him abruptly by raising an admonitory hand.

  ‘Yes, I have heard,’ he replied. ‘He’s only been dead a few days, and already the rumours are going the rounds. People aren’t content with the accidents of human life: they seek for sinister explanations. The Senior Common Room has been airing the lethal properties of various poisons, as though the death of the Warden was a mere intellectual problem. The Common Room butler told me that. I think it’s all wicked nonsense.’

  Later that day, Sergeant Maxwell encountered one of the Fellows of Magdalen College in the High. Maxwell had cleared up an incident of petty theft at the college, and had helped this particular don to avoid a scandal.

  ‘Sir,’ Maxwell asked, ‘if I was to mention the word nephritis, would you oblige me by telling me what it means?’

  ‘Why, certainly, Sergeant. It means inflammation of the kidneys.’

  ‘And supervened, sir? What would you say that meant?’

  ‘It means that something followed closely after something else.’

  ‘Well, thank you, sir,’ said Maxwell. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’

  As the college Fellow walked away, he thought to himself: Now, who has he been talking to? Evidently the police are taking notice of all this gossip about poor Fowler’s death. It makes one wonder… .

  The Reverend Timothy Fowler was quietly satisfied with his wife’s preparations to receive their distinguished neighbour Lord Stevenage at the curate’s house. Dear Kate, she was now twenty-four, but had lost none of her endearing timidity and lack of self-confidence, so that even a quiet dinner for three presented her with a daunting challenge.

  She had been assisted in the preparation of dinner by a rather clumsy but good natured village maiden whom they called the Slow Girl. Between them they had prepared oxtail soup, roast lamb with boiled potatoes, and a ginger pudding – all this in the minute kitchen with its old-fashioned rusted iron range.

  ‘I suppose you could describe this little house as bijou, or conveniently compact,’ observed Lord Stevenage, waving his fork in the general direction of his host, ‘but others would say it was not only cramped, but riddled with dry rot. With all due respect, Fowler, it should be pulled down as soon as possible.’

  Lord Stevenage, a white-haired, red-complexioned man in his mid-sixties, was the patron of the living of Clapton Parva, and owner of the advowson. He had a lot of respect for the curate of the parish, and had determined to do all that he could to liberate the young man from the genteel poverty in which he lived. He was also very fond of Kate Fowler, a very pretty, delicate and rather clinging type of girl who was the mistress of the mildewed house.

  ‘On the other hand,’ Lord Stevenage continued, ‘the vicarage is a very fine house – a very fine house indeed. Poor old Canon Gossinge lives only in a couple of rooms on the ground floor… . I think the Bishop will have to move in the matter very soon. Gossinge has become senile, and he is quite unable now to carry out his clerical duties. He stood in for you, of course, on Sunday, and it was – well, it was embarrassing, to say the least. The burden of the whole parish is falling upon your shoulders – the services, the visiting, etcetera, all on a curate’s stipend of seventy-eight pounds a year.’

  Young Mrs Fowler was gazing at Stevenage as though he was the most fascinating man on earth. Her big violet eyes looked into his with what seemed to be awed devotion.

  ‘So here’s what I propose to do. Gossinge can’t last the year out. I want you to have the parish, and I want you to achieve total security in the living. Gossinge is the incumbent, but I am the lay rector, as I think you understand. Twice during the last year I’ve offered to sell you the advowson for £1,000, and twice you told me that it was not possible. I will now offer you the advowson for £800. This will mean that, once you are appointed, the parish will be yours in perpetuity, together with the stipend from Queen Anne’s Bounty of £180 per annum. Following the sad death of your father, and the reading of his will, I assume that you will now have expectations. This, by the way, will be my last offer in the matter.’

  ‘You are very, very kind, Lord Stevenage,’ said Timothy Fowler. ‘And you are right in assuming that I have received a very substantial legacy. I hope that you will be able to wait just a day or two until the first cash payments of my inheritance have passed into my bank?’

  ‘Of course, of course. You’ve done marvellous work here, and I want to see that work expanded, so that you and Mrs Fowler can live decently, as gentlefolk should. More claret? Thank you, my dear, I think I could enjoy another glass, and then I must bid you goodnight. Meanwhile, let’s all rejoice at your well-deserved good fortune. What is it that Browning said? Or was it Matthew Arnold? “God’s in his heaven, all’s right with the world!”’

  ‘Oh, Tim,’ said young Mrs Fowler, after Lord Stevenage had departed, and the Slow Girl was washing up in the black slate sink, ‘how kind he is! And you’re quite sure that your papa has left you enough to buy the – whatever he called it?’

  ‘The advowson? Oh, yes, my dear. There will be no difficulty about that, now. On those two previous occasions when I approached Father for help, he refused. He accused me of wanting to live in idle luxury, and said that he had other, more worthy, calls upon his purse. Well, all that is changed, now. Not only us, but John and Fanny have come into very decent inheritances. When we’re alone tonight, my dear, I will give you the full details – I don’t want to speak while the Slow Girl is in the house.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so glad, Tim,’ cried Tim’s wife. ‘If I’d had to live much longer in this damp ruin of a house I would have died!’

  ‘Don’t worry, little one. As Fanny rather unkindly observed, Father’s death came just in time to save the whole family from ruin. You’ll see: all will be well.’

  He took one of her hands, and kissed it tenderly.

  ‘You are content, aren’t you, my love?’ he said. ‘You’ve no regrets about … about what might have been?’

  ‘Oh, no, dear Tim,’ said Timothy’s wife, ‘I’ve no regrets at all! Especially as we can leave this dreadful house now, and live somewhere really decent!’

  Early the next morning, after breakfast, Timothy Fowler set off on his daily round of visiting. The sun had not yet risen, and the fields surrounding the little Hampshire village were clothed in low-lying mist, but Timothy felt an inward exhilaration that belied his sober clerical garb and wide-brimmed parson’s hat. He turned out of a side-lane and into the village street, his eyes turning automatically to the gracious, ivy-covered vicarage, the grounds of which faced the wide thoroughfare. Built in 1712, it was a fine example of the spacious and elegant architecture of that period. Very soon, if God so willed it, it would be his – his and Kate’s.

  A villager leading a horse from the livery stable greeted him deferentially, and he raised his hat it return. These poor folk had been suspicious of the new curate at first, but had soon warmed to his generosity and genuine concern for their spiritual and physical welfare. He had his own ambitions, but if he were appointed vicar of Clapton Parva he w
ould be quite content to remain there for the rest of his life.

  Both Kate and he loved the rolling fields and the gentle hills clothed with woodland that surrounded the village. They enjoyed the company of Lord Stevenage, who lived at Clapton Hall with his lady wife and three lively daughters. Yes, their life was about to take a decided turn for the better.

  When Timothy reached the lively brook that flowed under a little bridge near the village inn, the sound of the water seemed to be interrupted for a brief moment by a strangled cry. Help! But of course there was no one there. He crossed the bridge, which led to a quiet lane, and in his mind’s eye he saw the fresh and lively face of a young man, which still held the look of reproach that had seared him to the heart all those years ago. Death by water… .

  At his ordination to the priesthood, when the Bishop laid his hands on his head, he had seen the same censorious face in his mind’s eye, and heard the reproaches from the lips of a man long dead.

  Time to get on! What’s done is done, as Lady Macbeth declared. The future, bright and hopeful, beckoned.

  Kate Fowler was vexed. She had received a long letter from her mother on the day of Lord Stevenage’s visit, and had sat reading it in Tim’s cramped little study. It was full of delicious gossip about various neighbours and their erring children, and amusing tales about her father, whom Mother always referred to as ‘The Household Manager’. When the Slow Girl had arrived at the kitchen door, Kate had pushed the letter into her husband’s desk.

  And now, to her great annoyance, she realized that Tim had locked the desk before leaving that morning. Well, she wasn’t going to sit doing nothing while the reading of Mama’s letter remained unfinished. She knew where there was a second key!

  Kate sat down at the now open desk, and unfolded the letter, but something in one of the pigeon-holes of the desk caught her eye. What could it be? She withdrew a blue paper packet, carefully sealed at each end with gummed wafers. A handwritten label told her what the packet contained. Kate’s face was suddenly drained of blood, and her violet eyes opened wide in horror.