Cheating the Hangman

by Judith Cutler

  Before she could reply, a figure stopped abruptly before me. ‘Master Tobias – can it really be you?’

  ‘Walker!’ It was fortunate the old man’s hands were empty, as I clasped them with an affection I had forgotten I’d always felt for my father’s valet. ‘How very good to see you! How are you? But I have forgotten my manners. Mrs Hansard, may I present Mr Walker, my father’s valet, whose good advice has saved me many a beating? Mr Walker, this is my dear friend Mrs Hansard, whose husband has had the honour of treating my father for his gout.’

  Walker laughed grimly. ‘I fear your husband has had to endure some of His Lordship’s worst – I was about to call them tantrums, Master Tobias! We are never at our best when beset with the gout,’ he continued in his more usual deferential tones.

  ‘As if I could forget,’ I said. ‘How does he now, Walker? I have followed his progress through the good offices of Dr Hansard, but as for calling in myself—’

  He shook his head sadly. ‘That was a sad business, Master Tobias, and we could all wish His Lordship’s words unsaid. I would not advise, for a few more days, that you present your card and ask to be admitted. He is still tetchy with pain, but soon, very soon, he will be tetchy with boredom and grateful to listen even to the Ancient Mariner. If you permit, I will say nothing of this conversation. But when the time is ripe, I will speak to your husband, ma’am, about the best way of bringing it off.’ He looked me up and down and tweaked the shoulders of my coat. ‘Time for another visit to Weston for a new one, if I might make so bold. For preference before you see His Lordship. You have lost weight, My Lord, have you not?’

  ‘I have indeed. But pray, Walker, call me Master Tobias – Mr Tobias, if you must.’

  ‘Forgive me: ’Tis now Dr Campion, is it not?’

  ‘It is for only my new friends, however, not my old ones, Walker. But you must not keep my father waiting, or he will vent his spleen on you.’

  ‘Good day to you then, Master Tobias. And I promise to tell Dr Hansard when I think the moment is right. It will do my heart good to see you back in each other’s favour.’

  ‘Thank you, Walker – and God bless you.’

  I believe we both had tears in our eyes as we parted.

  Mrs Hansard soon joked me out of my reverie. ‘So when will you be going to London to visit your tailor?’

  It was only when she repeated the question that I realised she was not joking after all.

  ‘A trip to a tailor I must make, if you insist – but it will not be a London one, rather the best that Warwick or Coventry can provide. Yes, if the weather is fine I will ride over to Coventry on Monday. Meanwhile, if I may, when I have prepared tomorrow’s sermon, I will wait on you and Edmund this evening in the hope that you and Mrs Heath have between you plumbed the depths of Sally’s secret.’

  Most of the discussion over dinner involved my conversation from my encounter with Walker and my proposed errand to the lovely medieval town of Coventry, my vanity occasioning a good deal of amused laughter: ‘Imagine Tobias turning into a tulip of fashion!’ Edmund declared affectionately

  ‘He will not be a nonpareil if his tailor is provincial,’ Toone said truthfully.

  ‘You wait – I shall put Brummell to the blush.’

  ‘But possibly for the wrong reasons.’ However, Toone, soon bored with the ribbing, volunteered to accompany me, claiming he needed to purchase reading matter even his host’s excellent library could not satisfy, and offering, to my amazement, to undertake any minor commissions for Maria.

  At last, Burns having brought the tea tray into the drawing room and been kindly dismissed for the rest of the evening, I asked about Maria’s second visit to Orebury.

  ‘There is very little to tell. Sally is a good little worker, but her efforts are very uneven – perfection one day, the opposite the next. Mrs Heath has had cause to speak to her more than once, and even threatened not to hire her next quarter day. But each time she redeems herself. There is no rhyme or reason to it. And she does have this very bad habit of taking herself off for far longer than she ought. Sometimes this heralds the wonderful Sally, sometimes the annoying one. Sometimes she is consistent for days at a time; sometimes she changes by the hour.’

  ‘I have often observed how young girls of her age can be aux anges one minute, and in the depths the next; sometimes it seems to be related to their monthly cycle,’ Toone said. ‘If so there is little that one can do about it – unless you have any remedies, Hansard?’

  ‘Alas, there seems to be no cure for such attacks of the vapours. As for such an extreme case as Sally …’ He shook his head. ‘Is she from a village family?’

  Toone’s laugh was almost offensive. ‘Ah, more of your family experiments. These are people, Hansard, not hyacinths.’

  ‘Mrs Heath will know,’ Maria said, riding over Toone’s second sentence. She looked pointedly at the clock. ‘Now, Tobias, I believe tomorrow’s service is eight o’clock Communion …’

  After a calm and pensive Sabbath, we set out early on Monday morning. The day away from my parish, even in the acerbic company of Toone, by turns amusing and irritable, left me feeling like a schoolboy released for a half-holiday in the middle of a long hard term. I found I did not want to return early, even to Langley Park, and we drew the day out with a visit to every promising shop, buying this and that because we needed it and that and this because we didn’t. We might have been children at a travelling fair. I enjoyed myself so much I resolved to put in a stern day’s work on the morrow.

  First, however, after a most pleasurable late dinner at Langley Park, we presented our friends with the trifles we had purchased for them. They exclaimed like children at Christmas. Just as I had found gifts for my household, Toone had made an especial effort, remembering the Langley Park servants. He presented an assortment of parcels to Burns when he brought in the tea tray. Burns was always far too much on his dignity to beam with joy, but the sight of new cricket balls brought a decided twinkle to his eye as he bowed himself out, far more swiftly than usual.

  ‘Ah – I had almost forgotten with all this largesse before us,’ Maria said, passing Toone his tea, ‘that Mrs Heath tells me that Sally comes from Oxford way. She is an orphan, as far as Mrs Heath knows, but she does have a sister in service somewhere in this area. I hope she is less troublesome than Sally.’

  ‘Does Mrs Heath know where exactly?’

  ‘She started with a respectable farmer but left a couple of quarter days back – first for Lambert Place, but then for somewhere else that Mrs Heath has forgotten. She has promised to question Sally when an occasion presents itself.’

  After our excursion, my life returned to its usual humdrum pattern. There was a great deal to do in Moreton St Jude’s, but little of it worth the telling, which, Mrs Trent’s cooking apart, was almost enough reason to spend my evenings, when invited, at Langley Park. I made a point, however, of taking luncheon on as many days as I could at the rectory. I was working, awaiting the inevitable summons to the dining room, when Susan showed Archdeacon Cornforth, who had presumably arrived in all his equestrian pomp, into my study. I had at my elbow Maria’s sketches of the late traveller. In my clumsy efforts to cover them I merely drew attention to them, of course.

  ‘I did not know that you had turned artist, Tobias,’ he said, so like Toone in his patronising delivery that I felt my hackles rise.

  ‘When I have I will tell you,’ I said, more pointedly than politely, as I tucked them swiftly into the desk drawer where I kept them, turning the key automatically. For nothing would I expose Mrs Hansard to his disapproving derision.

  For some reason his eyes repeatedly strayed to the drawer as our conversation continued. His visit, he said, was to tell me that neither curate had been happy with his reception at All Souls’, and wished more experienced priests to replace them.

  To my shame I snorted. ‘My dear, Archdeacon, we all have to be blooded, do we not? I often think that that is why rectors who should know better send n
aïve young men, still wet behind the ears, on the toughest missions. Or perhaps I misjudge them and they simply prefer to lead idle and self-indulgent lives while others do their work. You must have met many of that sort,’ I concluded, with a half-smile, as I proffered sherry.

  His answer was at best non-committal. ‘I would ask you to reconsider your refusal to serve there.’

  ‘My answer would be the same regretful negative. My own star is so low that I travel there only with the bravest of companions – in particular, my admirable housekeeper, who keeps the unruly villagers at bay simply because her family are from the place. Every time I go I fear a lynching: nay, pray do not laugh. There is a hostility towards me I have never known before, and God knows I only go there to do His will.’

  ‘How have you managed to offend a whole village?’

  ‘If I knew I could apologise—’

  ‘To a mob?’

  ‘A soft answer is supposed to turn away wrath, is it not? Indeed, Archdeacon, had the English a revolutionary turn of mind I would fear the construction of a guillotine.’

  ‘You jest.’

  ‘If I do it is the blackest of jests. No, Archdeacon, God has called me to serve, but not at the expense of my own parishioners – whose lives are hard enough, goodness knows. The neighbouring gentry are generosity itself, but someone has to distribute their alms. I have no curate. Both my churchwardens died during the winter. Their replacements are decent, hardworking men, but need to refer constantly to me.’

  ‘It is a different excuse from last time. Then you were dashing about the countryside as would-be Bow Street Runners. I take that problem has been resolved.’

  ‘By no means. It is very tempting to believe that there is nothing more to be done, and leave all to divine justice. But others would argue that without the rule of law there can be no civilisation, and that miscreants must be detected, apprehended and punished – particularly for such a crime.’

  He had the grace to flush. ‘Indeed. But are you truly no further forward in your enquiries?’

  ‘We still know the identity of neither the victim nor the villain. Perhaps when bellies are full again, and people disposed to trust those who regularly have meals on their tables, then perhaps someone will come forward with information. Until then …’

  ‘Are you suggesting that the murder was occasioned by jealousy? The poor envying the rich?’

  ‘I cannot imagine the family of a rich man failing to raise a hue and cry if he disappeared.’ I felt I was being disingenuous – but in truth there had been no frantic enquiries, no appearance by the Runners the Archdeacon mocked me with. Why ever not? Even if a recluse like Lord Wychbold had disappeared, his servants would have raised the alarm. This was certainly a reflection to take with me to Langley Park this evening.

  Although I was carefully enthusiastic with my invitation to the archdeacon to join me in some refreshment, with equal politeness he found himself forced to decline. He was certainly angry that I had not given ground, but without a direct instruction from the bishop himself I would not change my mind.

  ‘Such determination is quite unlike you,’ Hansard declared later that evening, ‘and I honour you all the more for it.’

  ‘Will it have an adverse effect on your preferment?’ Maria asked anxiously.

  ‘What if it does? I have no wish as things stand for a bigger parish with a better stipend. I feel that God wants me to remain here. And I am certain He does not want me to become a prince of the church.’ Staring at the claret in my glass, I mused, ‘When I first met the archdeacon I thought he was deeply spiritual, a man to emulate. Then I saw his equipage: a man with that taste in horses is not one blessed with humility. And the more I am acquainted with him, the more I see him as a politician, trying to manipulate others, though whether for good or otherwise I am not in a position to judge.’

  ‘But you did not want him to see Maria’s sketches,’ Hansard observed.

  ‘They were not mine to show. They will be safer in your library than in my study, Edmund. It was wrong of me to leave them in full view, though I dare swear that neither Mrs Trent nor Susan has seen them.’

  Toone, hitherto quietly sipping his wine, looked me straight in the eye. ‘Yet you credit this man with having prompted you to wonder why no one has mounted a search for a missing relative or friend? – which, hitherto, to our absolute shame, we have collectively failed to generate between us. You are a generous man, Campion.’

  Jem nodded. ‘But no longer generous to a fault, thank God. Recollect, Toby, that when you do have to venture to Clavercote you may call on my company. I’m training up a puppy some children were trying to drown. He’ll rival Matthew’s Salmagundy in size the way he’s eating. We’ll guard you!’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, adding in parentheses to Toone, ‘Matthew prefers canine teeth to those on a man-trap to deter poachers.’

  Toone nodded curtly. ‘You’ve been keeping your ears open for useful gossip, Jem. Am I correct in assuming that since I arrived nothing at all of interest has happened in the village and its environs?’

  ‘In the village, no,’ Jem declared cheerfully. ‘Nothing at all. Being so far from London we don’t get all the latest news about which great lady has been found in a compromising position with which lord.’ With hardly a pause to enjoy Toone’s amazement at his retort, he continued, ‘In the environs, however, we have news of a wicked bogeyman, sent specially to make bad children attend their betters. Since this apparition arrived less than a week ago, I suspect he might be too late for some hardened cases. And I also suspect he might indeed be human. Matthew has been keeping an eye open for someone who seems to have been helping himself to birds – even birds’ eggs – and beasts and cooking them over a campfire. But each time Matthew locates the fire, the ashes are cold, and he finds signs of another bivouac elsewhere in the forest. He suspects he’s harried him on to someone else’s estate by now.’

  ‘A fugitive from justice? Could he be the killer?’ Maria asked eagerly. ‘No,’ she answered herself, ‘not if the first sighting was only a few days ago.’

  ‘But the first part of your theory might be correct, in which case he might be a dangerous man,’ Toone agreed.

  ‘Or he might be a pauper struggling not to be returned to his parish poorhouse. Or a deserter. We cannot know until he is found and questioned,’ Jem said flatly. ‘And it is hard to mount a manhunt for someone so skilled at not being caught.’

  ‘Pray God all our neighbours have obeyed Tobias’s demands from the pulpit to remove mantraps from their land,’ Maria said.

  It was obvious that when three villagers’ cottages were broken into everyone would deduce that the man in the woods was the miscreant. In truth, since no one ever locked their houses in Moreton St Jude’s, it was more the case that an uninvited guest walked in and made a mess. No one could discover that anything at all was missing, not even bread from the kitchen. Everyone was still talking about the drama – which would no doubt prove Toone’s theory that nothing of note ever happened in the village – when Jem, out for a walk with his new dog late in the evening, experienced a similar invasion. He found his books left in disarray; someone had taken all his clothes from the press; but nothing was missing. Then it was Mr Tufnell’s turn.

  Together Mr Mead and Mr Tufnell visited me, and insisted, apologetically, that the church must be locked. Both sucked their teeth as their eyes took in my books and some of the ornaments my mother had pressed on me to remind me, somewhat equivocally, of my home.

  ‘Pity you’ve not got a dog,’ Tufnell said. ‘That horse of yours would make enough fuss if anyone ventured into his stable: ’Tis a pity you can’t keep him in here.’

  ‘What about the lad who looks after him? Young Robert? No,’ he answered himself, ‘he’s too hen-hearted, poor little mite. Still not speaking?’

  ‘Only to Titus, in general. Though he knows his letters now.’

  ‘You don’t want him to write a letter to this here burglar – you wa
nt him to shout out loud!’ Mead said, though his laugh was kinder than his words. ‘He’ll be one like my grandson – says nothing till he’s four and now you can’t stop him.’

  ‘Excepting that Robert must be pushing ten,’ Tufnell mused. ‘Mind you, he’s turning into a nice little batsman …’

  Mrs Trent refused to countenance my asking Robert to sleep anywhere except where he chose. ‘The lad’s coming on. Knows he has to say please and thank you for his food. But any argy-bargy about burglars and you know where he’ll fetch up – sharing Titus’s stable again. In any case, you can’t break into a rector’s house – it would be nigh-on blasphemy! Everyone says that Mr Tufnell is a warm man, and, apart from Jem, most of the others are rumoured to keep a well-filled sock under their beds. Don’t you worry, Dr Campion. I shall keep my eyes and ears open, and lock up the silver without saying anything to Robert. And you might lock those bookshelves of yours: no one would know except you and me.’ She patted my arm. ‘If they try to steal any of your clothes I think people might just guess, don’t you?’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Blasphemy or not, one night when I was present at a deathbed in the village, I did become a victim. Whoever had entered my study had done it so silently that Mrs Trent, Susan and Robert, cosy in the kitchen, heard not a sound. The women were sewing, Robert practising forming his letters – both quiet enough occupations. So whoever broke open my book cupboards and forced my desk drawers must have worked like a cat. The china and porcelain remained intact. Nothing was removed, as far as I could tell. And of course no food left the house.

  The Hansards had no qualms about taking stern precautions. As Edmund pointed out, his patients depended on his being able to lay his hands on their medicines, nor would they want the notes he kept on their conditions and the treatment he prescribed being bruited abroad. So he sent for a locksmith, despatching him to the rectory once he had secured Langley Park. To reassure Mrs Trent, who reminded me cheerfully that lightning never struck twice, and the less confident youngsters, I agreed to the man’s expensive suggestions, though I cannot recall ever using the locks he fitted once the strange epidemic was over – which it very soon was. Someone tried to remove the few coins the innkeeper had taken one evening, but was dissuaded by a large but sadly flat-footed dog, which returned from its futile chase with its jaws clamped round a juicy marrow bone stolen, it later transpired, from an irate neighbour’s kitchen.