A Death in the Dales

by Frances Brody

  When Mrs Trevelyan and I were alone, we chatted inconsequentially until a young maid dressed in black with a bright white apron came to tell us that lunch was served.

  I assumed that Mrs Trevelyan had despatched Susannah and Harriet so that she could confide her troubles, but she showed no sign of raising the matter she had mentioned yesterday. We talked about the girls, and the village and other topics for so long that I began to think her request for my professional help had been forgotten, or she had changed her mind. She offered another topic of conversation.

  ‘I would like you to ride with me, if you feel you can leave Harriet with Susannah. There’s a lovely wood I’d like you to see, and afterwards you’ll be able to take Harriet there, if you like it. Susannah is a very steady girl and there is nothing that will bring them to harm. She is more likely to lend Harriet a book and ignore her than lead her into trouble or danger.’

  I wished I could say the same about Harriet, who might take off on some quest to find the missing boy.

  ‘Riding would be very pleasant but my trunk hasn’t arrived.’ I did not say that when it did arrive, there would be no riding outfit packed.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that. If you don’t mind sorting through what we have upstairs, we can soon fit you out, including boots. That’s an advantage of a large house. We never throw anything away. Everything is cleaned and mothballed.’ She glanced at my feet. ‘We’ll have your size, I’m sure.’

  ‘Then I’ll be glad to go riding. But let me speak to Harriet first. I don’t want her to think I’ve abandoned her.’

  ‘Of course, and you’ll like my grey mare, Miss Shady. I don’t ride her so much since Bertie bought me the bay.’

  I found the girls by the summerhouse. Harriet seemed suspiciously eager for me to enjoy my ride. I suppressed my regret about having mentioned the nearby caves to Harriet, and my anxiety about the need to return my sister’s daughter in one piece. Caves would make a good hiding place for a boy and sooner or later Harriet would think of that.

  ‘Be very careful,’ I said quietly.

  She gave me a look of wide-eyed surprise. ‘Of course we’ll be careful, Auntie, and we’ve taken some good photographs of each other.’

  After Mrs Trevelyan and I had on our riding outfits and had mounted the horses, Harriet and Susannah came to see us off at the gate.

  ‘Where will you ride to?’ Susannah asked, with a studied innocence.

  ‘To Borrins Wood, darling.’

  If Victoria Trevelyan sensed her daughter was up to something, she showed no sign. Nor, as we rode, did she broach the subject that troubled her and that required my attention.

  I took the opportunity of her silence to ask about the murder of Mr Holroyd.

  ‘Dreadful business,’ she sighed. ‘We were in London at the time of course. Bertie was kept busy with war work and I was doing my dutiful bit.’

  ‘You didn’t come back for the trial then?’

  ‘Goodness, no. It was all dealt with so quickly. An open and shut case. The murderer really was caught red-handed. Bertie gave orders for the White Hart to be closed straight away. It was the right thing to do, though there was some grumbling at the time.’

  ‘It’s your property then?’

  ‘Yes, much of the village is. We allowed out-sales to continue once a new tenant was found but it will never again be used as a public beer house.’

  ‘Was it really such an open and shut case? Miss Simonson gave evidence for the defence.’

  ‘Did she? I don’t know that I was aware of that. She was such a nice woman, not that I knew her very well. The perpetrator was a Fenian, hell-bent on trouble when England was at her most vulnerable. He considered himself at war with us. Bertie blamed the Easter Rising in Dublin. The man probably regarded his compatriots’ futile attempts to overthrow the British as a signal for the start of their revolution.’

  It puzzled me that she could think the killing of an innkeeper in Langcliffe might contribute to a revolution in Ireland but I decided not to press her on the matter.

  A mass of delicate bluebells carpeted Borrins Wood, and their intoxicating scent made me feel lighter, younger, as our horses trotted along the path.

  We dismounted at a spot where the animals could graze and drink at the stream. Mrs Trevelyan spread a blanket and invited me to sit beside her.

  ‘You must think I’m mad, bringing you here, when I asked for your help in a professional capacity.’

  ‘I did wonder.’

  ‘I used to come here a lot, before the war.’ She picked a bluebell and held it to her nostrils. ‘Such a long time ago. It’s a romantic spot, don’t you think?’

  She was hinting at something and I would have preferred her to come out with it. ‘It’s a beautiful spot. I always wish bluebells lasted longer. No sooner have they turned you dizzy with their scent and their beauty than they are gone.’

  ‘True. Is there anywhere more beautiful than England in May?’

  ‘I can’t imagine there is.’

  Mrs Trevelyan gave me a sharp look, as if she suspected I had guessed something of her story, though I had not. I waited.

  Somewhere nearby a woodpecker tapped.

  She stretched out her legs and looked at her toes that pointed to the sky. ‘I loved it here. We loved it here.’

  Who, I wondered, sparked such a bittersweet memory?

  ‘There is a man who has something that belongs to me. His name is Gabriel Cherry.’

  Gabriel Cherry. There could not be two people of that name roundabout. I had now heard about him from several different quarters. He was the man who had set Gouthwaite’s broken leg. Freda had mentioned him in her writings as having visited her and been given books. When I had left Harriet and Beth by Catrigg Force, Cherry had come to talk to them. The man was everywhere. I did not mention my knowledge of him to Mrs Trevelyan and did not need to. She had begun her story.

  ‘He works for the Gouthwaites at Raistrick Farm.’ She did not look at me but gazed into the wood. ‘I used to come here on days like this, and so did he. He knows all the birds, he can imitate their songs. When you see him now, it will be hard for you to imagine what he was like before he went away to war. He was handsome, full of life and ideas, such a love of the country, such knowledge.’

  I began to see where her conversation was leading, but let her go on speaking, wondering whether she needed encouragement, but unsure what words to use.

  ‘Bertie and I, we rub along well enough now but at that time things were difficult between us. I’ll say no more than that he was away a great deal. We had two boys so I had done my duty. The thing is that I wrote letters to Gabriel. I want them back.’

  This then was to be my part in the matter. I waited.

  ‘We had several spots where we left our letters. One of the spots was over there, in the hollow of that tree.’ She stood and went to the tree, pointing to a hollow, high on the trunk. When she put her hand inside, she felt something, and froze before withdrawing a small posy. Three bluebells had been wound with a blade of grass. She stared. ‘Did he know I might come here?’ She took out her handkerchief and wiped her nose.

  I wondered whether there were many places they had left their notes for each other, and whether Gabriel Cherry had put posies in all of them. I hoped not. That would strike me as worryingly extreme. The other possibility was that more recent lovers resorted to the same hidey holes. This was spring after all.

  The same thought must have occurred to her. She put the posy back in the hollow of the tree trunk.

  ‘I need my letters back. I asked Gabriel once before. He said they were safe and that he wanted to keep them for his old age but I have heard that things have changed for him. He is seeing someone else.’

  ‘Could you ask him again? If you are right and his life is changed, he ought to react differently. I’ll come with you if you want me to.’

  ‘I can’t humiliate myself again, and we all know how dangerous a woman’s letters can be. I trust
ed him, but I fear they have fallen into the wrong hands and he doesn’t know.’

  ‘Whose hands?’

  ‘Selina Gouthwaite’s. She came to the May Day celebrations. You won’t have met her.’

  ‘As it happens, I have, when I was helping Beth Young look for her brother. Mrs Gouthwaite was delivering a calf in the barn.’ Her image came back to me, dishevelled, with an air of dull hopelessness. She did not strike me as having enough initiative to steal letters.

  ‘She appeared on Saturday morning. Has a knack for making herself inconspicuous. She was trying to blackmail me. She did not say in so many words that she had the letters, but I know so.’

  ‘Did she ask for money?’

  ‘Not money, no. She wants me to influence Bertie, so that she and her husband can stay on the farm. Bertie refuses to renew their lease. The Gouthwaites are slipshod farmers, cut corners. They neglect their livestock and the land. Their farm, Raistrick Farm, and Catrigg Farm, which is tenanted by the Murgatroyds, are less than two miles apart. It was never viable to have two farms in such close proximity. It makes sense to bring the land under a single stewardship.’

  ‘The Murgatroyds?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But now that Mr Murgatroyd is dead…’

  ‘Of course you heard about that through Dr Simonson. But Bill Murgatroyd’s death will make no difference. The Gouthwaites are not good stewards. Bertie has had enough of them. I don’t blame him. He has cajoled, taken a stern approach, made it clear they must improve and nothing helps. He won’t renew their lease. He placed that boy from Pendleton with them who was no doubt mistreated and now has run off. Bertie feels responsible. He says he should have known that Gouthwaite was a bully. Other boys have cleared off in the past.’

  I felt a sudden chill. Run off, or something more sinister?

  She continued. ‘There was no mistaking Selina Gouthwaite’s hints. She has my letters.’ Mrs Trevelyan grimaced. ‘I can’t bear the thought of that woman’s paws on my correspondence.’

  ‘Does Gabriel Cherry know she has them?’

  ‘I think not. That is where my hope lies. I daren’t approach Gabriel, given how touchy he was when I asked him before, and that he might misunderstand me. That is why I am asking for your help. Will you see him on my behalf, ask him to retrieve the letters from her and return them to me, or destroy them?’ She waited. When I did not answer straight away, she said, ‘Naturally I would reimburse you at your usual professional rate.’

  ‘But how might I succeed where you failed? There is also Harriet for me to consider. This is meant to be her convalescence and I am responsible for her.’

  ‘It won’t take long to ask him will it? We could try now, if you are willing.’

  ‘All right. If I can help, I will.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was a whisper.

  We sat in silence for a few moments, watching a bee as it buzzed towards a bluebell. ‘How would you begin?’ she asked.

  ‘I am just thinking about that. It’s known that I am concerned about Martin Young going missing. That would give me a reason for speaking to Gabriel Cherry. I can quite legitimately ask about Martin and then bring up the delicate matter of your letters.’

  ‘Oh yes. How clever. He’ll be courteous. He is a good man. It’s a mystery to me that he has put up with the Gouthwaites for so long. He went to that farm as a boy, and so knew little else. My mother-in-law made sure he was educated at the village school. He stayed on when the Gouthwaites arrived and took over the lease. I thought that after the war he would try his luck elsewhere, but he came back. Came back to what he knows, perhaps came back to me, but it was over.’

  I did not relish the task of asking this estimable farm labourer for love letters, no matter how many bird calls he could whistle or books he had read.

  A squirrel scuttled up a nearby tree, watched by a thrush. I gazed at the bluebells for inspiration. None came. ‘Very well, I’ll try. I’ll go now.’

  She sighed. Her body suddenly became very slack as if a weight had been lifted. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’m not sure how I’ll find him.’

  ‘I’ll come with you part of the way before I peel off for Catrigg Farm to pay my condolences to Mrs Murgatroyd. We’ll pick a spot where we’ll wait for each other on the way back.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer how I will find Mr Cherry.’

  ‘I will find him, and point him out. Strange, but I could always find him, as if some magnetic force existed between us.’

  That sounded to me rather like Beth’s casting of spells to bring Martin to her, and that hadn’t worked.

  Victoria Trevelyan looked so very sad, as if her world depended on the outcome of my mission, which perhaps it did. I thought of charming Bertie Trevelyan and imagined what it would be like for him if Selina Gouthwaite burst in with Victoria’s love letters.

  My attempt to retrieve the letters would be as much for Bertie as for Victoria.

  Fifteen

  Harriet and Susannah left Threlfall Hall by the side gate, taking their bacon sandwiches with them. She was a strange creature, more like a Spanish person than an English girl, dark and slender, but with pale blue eyes.

  Susannah swung her small round leather bag on its long strap. ‘I’ve silver thrupenny bits in here.’

  ‘I have holiday money.’

  ‘Well then, we better go to the shop.’

  First they went to the post office where Harriet purchased a stamp for her postcard home. She was surprised that Susannah hung back, refusing to be drawn into conversation by the postmistress’s assistant.

  ‘I don’t mix,’ she said, by way of explanation when they left the shop.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just don’t.’

  Next they went to a confectionery shop where Susannah bought two ha’penny drinks and bars of Fry’s Five Boys chocolate. Harriet bought strips of liquorice and cones of pear drops. The pair of them stood outside the shop, sipping at their drinks. Harriet had to trust Susannah because there was no choice. She could not break her word to Beth that she would go on searching for Martin. Beth wouldn’t be home from the mill until six o’clock and by then her brother could be miles away. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  Susannah’s drink went down the wrong way. She coughed and turned away, coughing some more. ‘I am one big secret, so yes.’

  ‘What do you mean? How can a person be a secret?’

  ‘Take no notice of me, Harriet. It’s just something I think about now and then.’

  ‘That’s very odd.’

  ‘Lots of things are odd. If you don’t know that by now, what do you know?’

  ‘What in particular is odd?’ Harriet’s dad had always said a person must be precise and look at the details or it was not possible to make a good argument. From Auntie Kate, she knew about the importance of the right questions.

  ‘I don’t go to school, am taught by a nice French woman who keeps having to rush back to France to be inspected by prospective husbands, and I live behind a high wall. Don’t you think living behind a high wall is odd?’

  ‘Not if it’s like The Secret Garden.’

  ‘Have you read The Secret Garden?’

  ‘Not properly. We were having it read to us at school when I caught diphtheria. I’m not infectious in case you were wondering.’

  ‘I’ll lend it to you. You’ve seen our garden and it’s not in the least like the secret garden in the story and there’s no Dickon. If there was, I wouldn’t mind. I didn’t show you the summerhouse but I will. I find books there, wrapped in brown paper and I know they’re for me. Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘I don’t know anyone to tell.’

  ‘Not anyone, not even your auntie.’

  ‘All right.’

  Harriet finished her drink. ‘I’d like to borrow The Secret Garden. I have a book in my auntie’s trunk that’s supposed to be coming by rail but it’s not going to arrive now is it?’

  ‘Why not?’

&n
bsp; ‘There’s a rail strike.’

  ‘I don’t hear about things like that, not unless I snaffle Father’s newspaper. It’s good you came today or I wouldn’t have escaped. I don’t come out much. Walled gardens are one thing. High walls all around and big locked gates, that’s different. Sometimes I pretend I am the prisoner of Zenda and will break out.’

  ‘I don’t know any prisoner of Zenda.’

  ‘Neither do I, but that doesn’t stop me feeling like her. There’s a book about her and I want to read it.’ Susannah tipped her glass for the last drop. ‘I don’t usually have drinks from this shop, or any shop.’

  They went inside and returned the glasses.

  A sudden whoop and cry came from the school yard. Children had been let out into the playground.

  Susannah increased her pace, hurrying to leave the school behind her. ‘Come on. I don’t want to be ogled. If we’re going to the caves we better go.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to that school?’ Harriet asked as they took a path out of the village.

  ‘I don’t know. My brothers went there but that was different. Apparently.’

  ‘When will your governess come back?’

  ‘Who knows?’ Susannah shrugged. ‘She’s gone home to Lille on some family business. They’ve probably scraped up someone for her to marry. She’s poor, you see.’

  ‘If she’s poor, who pays her fare?’

  ‘I do but don’t tell anyone. My grandmother gave me secret money because she said my father won’t, or at least he might not. I’m in my grandmother’s will.’ They walked in silence up the track towards the caves. Once away from the village, they found a sheltered spot by the dry stone wall and sat down in one of the few places where there was no sheep dung.

  Susannah handed Harriet a bacon sandwich. ‘You asked me before if I could keep a secret. I’ve told you a few things about myself so you know we have to trust each other. What is the secret?’

  Harriet dabbed at her lips with her hanky. ‘There’s a reason I want to see the caves.’

  ‘What reason?’

  She told Susannah about Martin Young, and how he had run away from Raistrick Farm and that a Mr Cherry was helping to search for him.