The servant we had seen in the hall, a wiry and capable-looking woman of around my own age, came into the room with a heavy tea tray. She was followed by a red-faced maid, puffing beneath the weight of another tray. Mr Arden leapt up, as quick and spry as a much younger man, to assist the servants.
‘You look startled, Mrs Rodd,’ he said, once we were alone again. ‘The fact is that they have instructions to serve up a lavish tea party as soon as they hear the bell – whether I have one guest, or an army of them. This is the time of day I set aside for society; my friends and neighbours know they’ll find me at home.’
He made the tea himself and tried to fill my plate with sandwiches, wedges of cake and slices of cold roast ham until I convinced him to let me off with one piece of shortbread.
‘Now, as to this business of yours, Mrs Rodd. You are seeking Joshua Welland.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have a letter of introduction from his brother, who believes you may be able to help us.’
Mr Arden broke the seal of the letter and quickly read the few lines it contained. ‘Poor Welland! We met in Argentina, Mrs Rodd. The fact that we were both exiles made us friends. He told me something about the tragedy of his marriage, and his longing to be reconciled with Joshua.’
‘Do you know Joshua?’
‘I know him,’ Mr Arden said, ‘but that’s not to say I know where to find him.’
His attention was absolute and his attitude so sympathetic that I told him the whole story, including the fact that Joshua’s brother was on the point leaving him a fortune.
‘I’m not telling most people about the money,’ I said. ‘I don’t want the stories to get even more extravagant.’
‘You can trust me to keep it quiet,’ Mr Arden said sincerely. ‘As far as it’s in my power to do so, though I’m sure you know how next-to-impossible it is to keep any kind of secret in the countryside.’ He was frowning slightly, deep in thought. ‘It’s quite right that Joshua should be told of his brother’s illness.’
‘When you say you know him, Mr Arden, does that mean you’ve spoken to him – or even seen him?’
‘I’ve spoken to him; not often, and always in some remote place. I believe he trusts me, as much as he trusts anyone. When the nights are bitterly cold, he sometimes creeps into my kitchen here, to sleep beside the embers of the fire. My servants are quite used to him and know not to bother him.’
‘What does he look like? What is his manner of speaking? I’ve heard a dozen fairy tales, without getting hold of one concrete fact.’
Mr Arden smiled. ‘The prosaic reality is that he’s a quietly spoken man – a gentleman, in fact. My library is a great attraction and I have sometimes lent him books. He has long hair and a long beard, and wears a long black cloak, like a medieval hermit.’
‘I don’t understand how he manages to live like that in this day and age.’
‘Modern life is not as all-encompassing as it seems,’ Mr Arden said. ‘There are still places it has never penetrated. The last I heard of Joshua Welland, he was living in the woods near Freshley Crossing. My guess is that he’ll stay there until after the hay has been got in. He has a great dislike of crowds, and as I’m sure you know, the hay-harvest brings the entire local population out into the fields.’ He added, ‘I always give a hand myself – I’m incapable of idleness when I’m surrounded by people working. My hands positively itch for the scythe.’
‘That must be strange for your labourers,’ I said. ‘Do they mind you working alongside them?’
He chuckled. ‘Opinion is divided. On the one hand, my presence stops the coarse exchanges between the men and the women, and generally spoils all the fun. On the other hand, I provide the strongest beer.’
My liking for this singular man was increasing by the minute. My instincts told me that he was entirely at ease with his humble background, though his speech and bearing were wholly gentlemanly. He drew me a hasty map of the neighbourhood around the woods in which my scholar might be hiding.
‘The woods are my property, Mrs Rodd; you must feel free to roam as you wish.’
While he was still drawing his map, we heard shrieks from outside; through the window I saw Mr Barton striding across the lawn, one small boy tucked under each arm. The younger maid ran out to claim them and bear them off to regions unseen. A few minutes later Mr Barton came back into the drawing room.
‘Jolly little chaps,’ he pronounced. ‘And they’re far better grounded than you led me to believe, Mr Arden.’
‘I have been their only teacher,’ Mr Arden said. ‘Up to now.’
‘In which case, you’ve been a very good one. They know a lot of irregular Latin verbs for such little fellows, and Master Jack is a veritable tiger with his Greek alphabet. How do you think I ought to proceed?’
The conversation turned to the business of the boys’ education. I listened with half an ear, thinking what a fine father Mr Barton would make one of these days, and planning the next stage of my search for Joshua.
Now details begin to be important. Something very unpleasant happened that afternoon, while Mr Barton and I were driving back to Hardinsett. I set it down here because it was later to prove significant.
My guard was down and Mr Barton saw first. To be precise, when we were half a mile from the village in a lonely lane he swore, pulled up the horse and leapt out of the carriage.
I saw three people around a farm gate: a ragged, filthy man and woman – and Rachel.
She was pale as death, on the point of fainting away; I have a vivid picture in my head of her terrified face, the two vagrants menacing her, and the pieces of white calico that had spilled out of her basket strewn across the rough grass at her feet.
In a moment, Mr Barton had dealt the man a mighty punch on the jaw; he drove the pair away with a torrent of the most extraordinary language, while I supported poor Rachel with my arm about her waist.
I see them now – the man was young, with a horrible sort of handsomeness under the dirt, and the toothless, leering crone might have been his mother.
‘We’ll be back!’ the crone shrieked. ‘This ain’t finished – we’ll be back!’
Mr Barton chased them to the bottom of the lane. He then jumped down into the verdant ditch to retrieve his hat which had somehow fallen into the hedge, and returned to us, sucking the knuckles of his right hand.
‘Thank you – oh, thank you, I’m perfectly all right.’ Rachel did her best to smile. ‘I’m sorry to be so silly – they were only begging and I’m sure they didn’t mean to hurt me—’
‘By God, if that blackguard so much as laid a finger on you—’
Their gazes locked and there was a long moment of silence, during which they both turned scarlet.
This would never do. I ordered Rachel to take my place in the carriage, deaf to her protests that she was utterly recovered. Mr Barton and I gathered up the scattered contents of her basket.
‘I beg your pardon if my language offended you, Mrs Rodd.’ He could hardly look at me. ‘I’m afraid I let my temper get the better of me.’
‘Please don’t think of it, Mr Barton. I’m profoundly thankful we came along when we did. But what were you doing here, my dear?’ I turned to Rachel. ‘You must know how dangerous these lonely roads can be at this time of year, when there are so many people in search of work.’
‘I was taking a short cut,’ Rachel said. ‘On my way home from the sewing circle in the village. They must’ve followed me. They refused to believe I hadn’t any money with me.’
I was sure there was more to it than this, but now was not the time to interrogate her, when the colour had only just begun to steal back into her lips. I walked the short distance to the rectory beside the carriage, keeping up a cheerful stream of chatter while the shaken couple pulled themselves together.
‘I must ask you both,’ Rachel said, just before we entered the house, ‘I must beg you – don’t tell Arthur.’
‘But of course Arthur must know!’ I was ta
ken aback. ‘I can’t keep this from your husband!’
‘Please, Mrs Rodd! Nobody must know.’
‘The constable should know,’ Mr Barton said hotly.
‘No harm was done, and I don’t want one incident blown up out of all proportion. And Arthur will only be upset, without having the least idea what to do about it.’ She had fully recovered now and spoke with ringing firmness. ‘I have learnt my lesson and I promise not to take any more short cuts.’
She picked up her skirts and swept into the house.
‘Oh dear, I seem to have made a promise,’ I said. ‘But I’m not sure that I want to keep it; doesn’t Arthur have a right to know that his wife was attacked?’
Mr Barton stared after her, with a very unpriestly glint in his eye. ‘I’ll keep my promise not to tell Somers – but if I see that brute again, I’ll thrash him to a pulp.’
‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr Barton,’ I said. ‘Good afternoon, and please don’t get hurt.’
His face cleared and he smiled. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Rodd – you may trust me not to roll up to matins with a black eye. Good afternoon.’
Seven
On the following day I had an appointment with a Mr Silas Jennings of Gabriel College. He had been a student alongside Joshua, and was one of the very few people who had spoken to him since his disappearance.
‘I know Jennings,’ said Arthur, ‘and I know why he wants to meet you at the water meadows.’
‘They must be at their loveliest now,’ I agreed.
‘It has nothing to do with the meadows. He’s dodging the Gorgon.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The Warden’s wife, Mrs Watts-Weston – known far and wide as the Gorgon of Gabriel.’ He smiled at me, with a flash of the old intimacy we had enjoyed in Herefordshire. ‘She pounces on anyone who puts a toe into the porters’ lodge, demanding to know all their business. I daresay Jennings is hoping to speak to you without any Gorgons looking over his shoulder.’
It was another fair summer morning. Arthur had kindly undertaken to escort me to Oxford, in the little one-horse open carriage. I was driving – I had forcibly taken the reins away from him the second time he nearly ran us into a ditch. Being a passenger suited him much better. He sat beside me, chattering happily in quite the old way, and it occurred to me that this was the first time we had been alone together since my arrival.
‘Do you know Mr Jennings well? I asked.
‘Not well. We’ve met once or twice at Swinford, though I haven’t seen him there for a while.’
I had been waiting for a chance to talk to him about that place. ‘Rachel told me you are often at Swinford.’
‘Yes, I try to walk over at least three times a week. It’s only a matter of a few miles as the crow flies. I consider myself very fortunate to be so close.’
‘What is the attraction, exactly?’
I spoke lightly, but he knew what was coming; his blue eyes took on the soulful expression that meant I had hit granite; like many gentle people, he was capable of extreme obstinacy.
‘It is the most beautiful place on earth – not outwardly, but spiritually,’ he said. ‘I go to Swinford for the refreshment of my soul.’
‘How nice.’
‘Nowhere else do I have the sense of standing before the Great Mystery, with my own sinful will annihilated.’
‘All well and good,’ I said carefully. ‘Provided it does not interfere with your duties in the parish.’
Arthur reddened a little and became more soulful. ‘I never forget that my chief duty is prayer.’
‘Well, of course, that goes without saying.’
‘When we came to Hardinsett we found a great deal of ungodliness. People only attended to the outward observances of their religion, believing it was enough to pay their tithes and turn up in church of a Sunday. There was a kind of spiritual famine.’
The word ‘fiddlesticks’ was in my head, and must have got out into the surrounding ether, for Arthur flushed a deeper red, and said, ‘I know that your late husband would not have approved, Mrs Rodd. But times have changed. The hungry souls are clamouring to be fed.’
‘I wouldn’t know about that,’ I said. ‘I was a little surprised, however, to observe that you leave a great many matters to your excellent Mr Barton.’
‘I’m afraid you’re right on that count.’ He chuckled suddenly. ‘He’s so tremendously capable, that’s the trouble. I’d be all at sea without him.’
‘He should not be making decisions on your behalf.’
‘At least he makes the right decisions, which is more than I can say for myself.’
‘Arthur dear, I think you ought to take your head out of the clouds occasionally.’ I spoke as kindly as I knew how, not wanting to wound him. ‘You’re the vicar and Mr Barton’s the curate, yet you appear sometimes to defer to him as if the positions were reversed.’
‘You’re quite right, Mrs Rodd – Barton himself has said as much to me more than once.’
‘He’ll get his own parish one day, and then what will you do? Your next curate might not be such a paragon.’
‘I might have known I was in for one of your lectures.’ Arthur was smiling now. ‘I felt it brewing the first time you heard the word “Swinford”. Let me assure you that I’m not about to turn Roman. I mainly go there for the sake of Gerard Fogle. We are very old friends and he has helped me through more than one crisis. I went to him when I had that bout of illness a few years ago – you remember, of course.’
Yes, I did remember, and with a sharp sense of unease. Shortly after the fainting incident that so angered Matt, our young curate fell into a state of weeping exhaustion, and went away to recover. The official reason given was that he had tired himself out with too many devotions, but I had a powerful instinct that there was something else going on, and I had nagged at my husband to tell me, until he said very seriously, ‘Please stop asking me, Letty – yes, of course there was more to it, but all I can tell you is that Somers stood in the shadow of a very grievous sin, and I had to tie myself in knots to save the man from absolute disgrace.’
Frankly, I did not understand. What grievous sin had poor Arthur ever committed? Why was he so frightened? And why was Matt so wrathful?
The golden city of Oxford was unspeakably lovely now, at the tail-end of Trinity term. The narrow streets around the colleges were still busy with undergraduates – those that were not on the river, at any rate – but there was a sense of the approaching Long Vacation, when the place would fall into its summer slumber.
We left the carriage in the stables at the Mitre Inn, and Arthur escorted me to the Fellows’ Door of Gabriel College; a low door, set into a long blank wall, at which a young clergyman was waiting, rather anxiously, to meet us.
‘Mrs Rodd?’ Mr Jennings had a fresh pink face, and a dome of a forehead where his light-brown hair was already receding. His eyes, large and of a pale reddish-brown, swam behind thick spectacles. ‘I beg your pardon for the informality; I thought you would like to see the gardens, and we can talk there without fear of interruption.’
‘Thank you, Mr Jennings; I believe you know Mr Somers.’
‘Oh, yes – of course—’ For a fraction of a moment, Mr Jennings looked uneasy and the pink in his cheeks deepened. ‘From Swinford.’
He and Arthur shook hands.
‘It’s been many months since we last saw you there,’ said Arthur.
‘I’ve been very busy,’ Mr Jennings replied. ‘And the college authorities don’t entirely approve of the place. One has to be so careful.’
He unlocked the low wooden door upon a beautiful garden, one of the secret jewels that hide behind those blank college walls. The velvet lawns led down to a gravelled walk through the meadows beside the river, where swans preened in the reeds, and the dappled fallow deer browsed in the long, sweet grass. It was delightful, and my compliments broke any remaining ice between the three of us.
‘We’re proud of our gardens
,’ Mr Jennings said, smiling. ‘Naturally, I consider them the very best in the whole city – though men from other colleges might disagree.’
Lovely as the surroundings were, I had not forgotten that I was here on business, and I quickly broached the subject of Joshua Welland.
‘Poor old Welland,’ Mr Jennings sighed. ‘I should very much like to help him. He deserves to be helped. We were close friends at one time.’
‘How long have you known him?’
‘We entered the college together, as undergraduates. There was nothing singular about him in those days. He was a shabby young scholar, like a hundred others – like myself, in fact. We lived on the same stair and I would’ve been very lonely without him. I knew nobody and was painfully shy, and Joshua was the first real friend I made here.’
‘I’m trying to make up a picture, Mr Jennings; what manner of man was he? What was his character?’
‘He was extremely clever – brilliantly clever.’ The two of us were strolling side by side, with Arthur keeping a tactful distance behind us. Mr Jennings relaxed a little and stopped looking over his shoulder. ‘His talk dazzled me sometimes. I thought he was destined for greatness. But then he left us.’
‘Were you surprised when he left?’
‘I was astonished,’ admitted Mr Jennings. ‘I didn’t believe the reports at first, they seemed so far-fetched. I was certain he’d be back. This wasn’t the first time he’d been absent without leave; the college authorities turned a blind eye for as long as possible.’
‘Did he tell you what he’d been doing during these absences?’
‘Never. When I asked him, he smiled and said he’d been “seeing sermons in stones”.’
‘Mr Jennings, you are one of the very few people to have seen Joshua since his so-called disappearance. It would help me very much to hear the details of your encounter.’
‘Well – it was an odd sort of business.’ The baby-faced clergyman took one more cautious look up and down the path, though there was no one nearby. ‘I came across him, quite by accident, more than a year after he left the college. It was on a winter’s afternoon, at a lonely river-crossing near the old woods at Freshley. I had been out walking and I was making my way home. The dusk had come on very suddenly, and in the shadows I saw that someone else was waiting there on the riverbank for the ferry. I’m not superstitious by nature, but for a moment I thought he was a ghost – this strange figure, wrapped in a long black cloak. Imagine my astonishment when I heard his voice, quiet and friendly, speaking to me out of the darkness – “Hello, Jennings”.’
Laetitia Rodd and the Case of the Wandering Scholar Page 5