There was a personal and somewhat ignoble reason for my concern. I had aided and abetted this marriage, and considered it my greatest triumph of matchmaking – my earnest (and wealthy) young friend and my favourite of our curates. My dearest Matt, however, did not like it, though he would never give me a proper reason for his disapproval. The unfortunate fact was that we had often argued about Arthur Somers.
He came to us fresh from Oxford, so recently ordained that (as Matt said) the paint was still wet, and I quickly became attached to him. He was sensitive and gentle, and deeply sincere in his desire to do good, and he was very easy company at a tea-table. His pale yellow hair and soulful blue eyes caused female hearts to break right and left (I am in no position to criticize, having myself fallen in love with a handsome young curate). I was sure he would be engaged to one of our local young ladies in a matter of months. That was what generally happened to our curates (the record was held by one Mr Knox, bagged by the youngest Morrison girl inside a fortnight).
This young curate, however, remained resolutely single. His lodgings in the village were bombarded with cakes, pies, blancmanges and warm socks, and these offerings were received with nothing more than ordinary courtesy. I began to wonder if he already had an understanding with some unknown lady. Or perhaps he’d had his heart broken.
In the end, my curiosity made me ask outright one evening, when the two of us were confidential beside the parlour fire.
‘I’m too poor to think of marrying,’ he told me.
‘You’ll be appointed to a good living one of these days,’ I said. ‘And then you will need a wife.’
Mr Somers said, very quiet and grave, ‘I don’t intend to marry, Mrs Rodd. I will best serve God’s Holy Church as a celibate.’ I had sense enough not to repeat this to my husband, already exasperated by his curate’s Romish leanings – Holy Communion taken every five minutes, Latin prayers, and all the other practices brought into fashion by the so-called Oxford Movement. Of course I tried to argue him out of the ‘celibacy’; as the wife of a clergyman I could hardly do otherwise. Here, however, I hit a brick wall; mild and sweet as he was, he could be surprisingly stubborn.
Miss Rachel Garnett arrived in our parish rather dramatically, as a fugitive; her family were dissenters, and they had disowned her when she joined the established Church. An aunt of her father’s, exiled for similar reasons, took pity on her and offered her a home. She was a handsome young woman, with heavy-lashed eyes of dark grey in a pale oval face and smooth hair of a fine auburn. She dressed herself, as Fred had said, in plain, nun-like gowns of penitential grey, and she was intensely serious.
Once I had come to know Rachel properly, I grew very fond of her. She was intelligent, her piety was deep and sincere, and her wish to do the Lord’s work entirely genuine. And she had forty thousand pounds from the family brewery, settled upon her absolutely by her late father. She fretted about the morality of this, and wondered if she should give her fortune away, until it was all I could do not to box her ears. As far as I was concerned, this sweet-natured young woman could best do the Lord’s work by getting married and building a happy family. I would not have matched her with Arthur if I had not been certain the two of them were already falling in love.
‘Phooey,’ said Matt.
‘What do you mean?’ I was indignant. ‘They’re always together. And Rachel has positively blossomed!’
‘My dear, that damp sprig of parsley doesn’t have the backbone to fall in love.’
I decided he was simply too cross with Arthur to see reason. Someone had complained to the Bishop about certain Romish antics, there were rumours in the villages that Arthur was planning to turn them all into Catholics (if this sounds a little hysterical, it is only an indication of the bad feeling around at the time; it was just before Mr John Henry Newman caused national outrage by leaving his parish to join the Church of Rome), and it took Matt several stern sermons to end all the foolish tittle-tattle about Jesuit plots.
He did admit that Mr Somers’s marriage would make a fine excuse to get rid of him without (in his words) ‘causing a stink’. Thanks to Rachel’s fortune the young curate was a man of consequence, and he landed the living of Hardinsett, five miles outside the city of Oxford.
Is there a more beautiful city in England? The towers and steeples, golden in the setting sun, rose up across the meadows as we approached, like fairy castles as old as time.
The railway stopped short of the castles and I had to concentrate upon getting off the train and finding my box. I saw Rachel before she saw me – a slight, elegant figure in a grey dress and bonnet, both of the plainest style, but of the best material and very well-made.
‘Mrs Rodd – my dear Mrs Rodd!’ She clasped both my hands. ‘I can’t express how glad I am to see you!’
She had come in a small closed carriage, again of the plainest style, but the fact remained that it was brand new. I was glad to see that her fortune was being used to buy convenience, if not luxury. We drove through prosperous farming country, and Rachel smiled to hear my exclamations over the deep green lanes, the hedges filled with wild roses and the men in smock-frocks driving their cattle home.
‘You’ll see that we live at least a century behind the times here,’ she said. ‘The modern world doesn’t touch us. Just a mile or so from the railway, it is possible to slip into a world that hasn’t changed since the Norman Conquest.’
‘It’s quite lovely,’ I said. ‘And I hope the weather holds – I’m here to explore the countryside.’
‘Are you able to tell us anything?’ Rachel knew about my work and was surprisingly keen on the most lurid details. ‘Your letter was very mysterious.’
‘There’s not much to tell – I suspect you and Arthur will know more than I do, and I rather hope that you’ll be able to assist me.’
‘Most intriguing! I’ll try to contain my curiosity until Arthur wakes up for dinner.’ She quickly added, ‘He’s not ill; he spent the whole of last night sitting up with a man who was dying, and he was so exhausted when he came home this morning that I ordered him to bed.’
‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘It does nobody any good if he works himself into the ground.’
‘Just what I’m always saying to him! He drives himself until I worry for his health. I daresay you remember his mania for self-denial.’
‘Yes, indeed.’ (Oh dear – a memory flashed into my mind, of the time Mr Somers ‘fasted’ for Lent so thoroughly that he fainted during matins; I had seldom seen Matt so angry.)
‘We’ve just entered our parish; you’ll see the church and the rectory when we turn at the next crossroads – oh, I wish there was light enough for you to see it properly – I truly believe this to be the prettiest place on earth!’
For the rest of the drive, Rachel pointed out local landmarks, or the outlines of landmarks; bridges and barns and village taverns, all equally mysterious in the gathering twilight. When we stopped I had an impression of a square church tower in a nest of greenery, and a large house beside it with glowing windows. It was an old house, built of the soft, golden Oxfordshire stone, and so like the dear home of my childhood that the lights behind the lattices, and the great bed of lavender next to the stone porch, made me absolutely see the place, though it had been pulled down years ago.
The coachman handed me out of the carriage. I stood on the gravelled drive and took great draughts of that sweet summer air. The front door opened and a servant in a plain black gown and white apron emerged.
‘Mrs Rodd.’ The woman bobbed me a curtsey. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again, ma’am.’
‘Oh, I forgot to tell you,’ Rachel said, ‘Mrs Richards is our housekeeper now; she came last year when Aunt Harriet died.’
‘Mrs Richards – of course! How very good to see you.’ When she stepped towards me into the light I knew her at once and we shook hands. ‘You’re a reminder of the old village, and the happy times we had there.’ She was tall and muscular, with a blunt-featured face, sha
rp black eyes and endless reserves of patience (which she had needed when working for Rachel’s mean little wasp of an aunt; that woman drove servants away by the dozen).
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ said Mrs Richards. ‘Will you come upstairs?’
There is always, at the end of a long journey, a moment when the whirlwind stops and you know that you have properly arrived at your destination; it suddenly dawned on me that I was almost faint with longing for a cup of tea and liberally grimed with soot.
‘Yes, you must be dreadfully tired.’ Rachel, seeing my fatigue, put her arms around me and kissed my cheek. ‘I’m so glad you’ve come! Now I’ll leave you alone until dinner.’
‘This way, Mrs Rodd, if you please.’ Mrs Richards trudged upstairs ahead of me, keeping up a friendly flow of conversation over one shoulder. ‘Dear me, I don’t like to think how long it’s been! As Miss Rachel said, I came here last year after old Miss Garnett was gathered. The man’s brought in your box and I’ll send the girl up with a can of nice hot water; I’m sure you’d like some tea and a little something to eat.’
She ushered me into a most delightful bedchamber at the front of the house, with mullioned windows that looked out across a patchwork of dusky fields and meadows. In a remarkably short time I was sitting in an easy chair beside a small fire, eating triangles of bread-and-butter and slices of pound cake while Mrs Richards made my tea.
‘Now that you’re visiting, ma’am, they’ve let me serve up a decent dinner for a change.’
‘I know you’re a celebrated cook,’ I said. ‘Don’t they always have a decent dinner?’
‘Not them! They eat like birds, and the master’s always “fasting” for some saint’s day or other. I said to Miss Rachel – Mrs Somers, I mean – that I wasn’t going to take any argument about tonight’s dinner. I said, I’m doing a fish course and a meat course and a pudding, and that’s that.’
‘I’m extremely glad to hear it,’ I said, relieved that I would not be condemned to hungry holiness.
‘It would make you cry, to see the poor stuff they ask me for. You may call me old-fashioned, Mrs Rodd, but in my day, a clergyman was expected to keep a good table.’ She added, ‘As you and Mr Rodd always did, ma’am.’
‘Thank you, that was mostly due to Mr Rodd being rather greedy,’ I said, smiling at the memory (as far as Matt was concerned no dinner was complete without a sweet pudding). ‘And we had a great many guests at our table in those days. Do Mr and Mrs Somers have many visitors here?’
‘Not that sort of visitor, ma’am. They don’t go into society as they should. You’ll meet the curate, Mr Barton, and that’s about it.’
I longed to ask Mrs Richards if she thought they were happy; while I was still framing the question, she answered it anyway. ‘Between ourselves, ma’am, what this house needs is a few children. I know Miss Rachel feels it keenly.’
‘She has all my sympathy; I know from experience how hard it is to accept the Lord’s will when one is denied children. But has there never been a sign?’
‘Not while I’ve been here,’ said Mrs Richards. She shot me a wary look; I had a sense that there were quite a few other things she would have liked to tell me. ‘I hope you’ll be comfortable, ma’am.’
Four
‘My dear Mrs Rodd, this is a joy! I’m almost inclined to be thankful for the heinous crime that brought you here – and I hope it keeps you here for a good long time.’
Arthur and Rachel were waiting for me in the drawing room. Arthur was thinner and older than I remembered, otherwise just as handsome, in that white-and-gold, plaster-saint fashion. Rachel had dressed herself in a very pretty evening gown of palest blue silk. I thought what an enchanting picture they made together, against the background of this charming room, with its fine old furnishings and bright new hangings. A pair of glass doors stood open; the warm summer night was heavy with the scents of stocks, of honeysuckle and jasmine.
‘There is no crime on this occasion,’ I reassured them. ‘Heinous or otherwise. I am here on a mission of mercy.’
‘No gruesome murders?’ he teased.
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Never mind; I shall swallow my disappointment and seize the chance to show you the parish. I’m hoping you’ll give me some advice about the work that needs to be done here.’ Falling back into the old, easy manner, he added, ‘And please accept my apology for being asleep when you arrived.’
‘I hope you are rested now,’ I said. ‘Rachel told me the reason.’
‘I was helping an old man into the next world,’ said Arthur. ‘Tom Goodly, who wanted to make his confession to me, poor man; his wits were wandering all over the place.’
There was a loud tradesman’s whistle outside and a stranger stepped briskly into the room from the garden – a brawny young clergyman, so tall that his head brushed the honeysuckle over the glass doors as he crossed the threshold, and he had to shake the blossoms from his thick brush of dark hair.
He saw me, and exclaimed, ‘I do beg your pardon, I had no idea there’d be anybody else here – or I certainly shouldn’t have barged in from the garden—’
‘Didn’t Arthur tell you? Oh, my dear!’ Rachel smiled and coloured and patted her husband’s arm. ‘Mrs Rodd, allow me to present our curate, Mr Henry Barton, who would have used the front door had he known you would be joining us for dinner.’
‘But we won’t make you go out and come in again,’ Arthur said. ‘Mrs Rodd will forgive you, because it’s all my fault.’
‘Yes, of course.’ I shook hands with Mr Barton.
Arthur and Rachel were suddenly animated, as if the man had switched them on like the mechanical waxworks that used to tour the country fairgrounds when I was a child. My first impression was of energy blowing into the room with him; a cheerful energy that somehow freshened us and made us sit up straighter. My next impression was that Mr Barton was a good-looking man, well-knit and high-coloured, rude health bursting out of every inch of him.
‘Barton is my right arm here,’ Arthur said. ‘You remember, Mrs Rodd, the muddles I used to get into when it came to practical matters.’ (I did indeed.) ‘Thanks to Barton, we run like clockwork.’
‘If Mrs Rodd will forgive me, I’ll get the business matters over with,’ said Mr Barton. ‘I called on poor old Mrs Goodly, and gave her the money from the burial fund.’
‘Of course.’ Arthur sighed and rubbed his hair. ‘His “confession” rambled on for hours, and frankly didn’t make much sense, but he went peacefully at the end, God rest his soul.’
‘Amen,’ said Mr Barton. He planted his hands in his pockets and smiled around at all of us. ‘I don’t suppose he happened to confess about stealing my shirts?’
‘Barton!’ Arthur was smiling yet reproachful. ‘You know I can’t talk about it.’
‘He swiped them off the washing line, Mrs Rodd, and had the cheek to wear one of them to church. His light fingers were absolutely notorious.’
‘Do you live in the parish, Mr Barton?’ I asked.
‘No, I’m three miles away, at Millings Cross.’
‘He’s in charge of Arthur’s other church,’ Rachel said. ‘It was built twenty years ago, to provide a place of worship for the farm labourers.’
‘You can’t really describe the place as a village,’ Mr Barton said cheerfully. ‘It’s a cluster of cottages on the edge of the common. Holy Trinity struggles to shake off its reputation as the “poor” church, and it’s bursting at the seams, just like the church here – has Somers told you about our great project?’
‘I hadn’t got around to that,’ Arthur said. ‘We want to build a new church, Mrs Rodd; a place large enough for everyone.’
Rachel gave him an affectionate smile that made her face strikingly young and pretty. ‘Tell her about it tomorrow. It’s such a lovely night that I refuse to let you spoil it by unrolling the plans – he spreads them all over the carpet, Mrs Rodd, and they’re just a lot of dull blue drawings.’
Arthur an
d his curate both protested loudly over this accusation, and we made a lively, laughing party when we were called into dinner. It was a very good dinner, just as Mrs Richards had promised, of clear soup, soles, roasted mutton, and a beautiful sharp-sweet rhubarb fool (my dear mother always said this was the only thing you could do with the early rhubarb). Mr Barton, thoroughly at home here, made himself responsible for pouring the wine. He and I ate and drank heartily, while I pretended not to have noticed that Rachel and Arthur took next to nothing at all.
I told them about my case. There was no need to be secretive. Quite the reverse. I actively wanted the whole countryside to help me in my search for the wandering scholar, and their response to the story interested me very much. They had all heard of the man, but only as a kind of local legend.
‘I’ve never seen him,’ Arthur said. ‘All I can say for sure is that I’ve seen signs in the woods sometimes, and I know that some of the cottagers give him shelter in cold weather.’
‘Some of the people round about are a little suspicious of him,’ added Mr Barton, ‘because he consorts with the gipsies and appears to move freely amongst them. My opinion is that the gipsies tolerate him as a holy fool. They have a strict code of honour about such things.’
‘He was at Magdalen,’ Arthur said.
‘I’m sure it was John’s.’
‘He was at Gabriel,’ I said. ‘Mr Welland has supplied me with a letter of introduction to someone at that college who knew Joshua and – more importantly – claims to have spoken to him since he went into hiding.’
‘Jane,’ Rachel said to the young maid who was clearing the table, ‘have you heard of this man, or ever caught sight of him?’
‘Yes, ma’am, everybody’s heard of him.’ (Jane had been listening to our conversation, of course – I am constantly amazed by the things some people blurt out in front of their servants, as if they were not human creatures with functioning ears.) ‘People leave little bits of food out for him for good luck. But I never saw him.’
Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar Page 3