The Barchester Murders

by G. M. Best

  ‘Your advice may be sensible but it is a painful choice to make and I do not know whether I have the strength to do what you suggest. Please forgive me but I can’t decide on this alone. I must tell the archdeacon and seek his view on the matter because the poor man is unwittingly involved in this tragedy. There’s a one in two chance that he may possibly be the husband of Catherine Farrell’s daughter.’

  ‘You realize that by telling him you may ruin your daughter’s marriage? He may never forgive you for the situation in which you’ve placed him.’

  The warden nodded and his face showed all his grief.

  ‘And you equally realize that you can’t rule out that he might be the murderer?’

  ‘Just as you can’t rule out that I’m the murderer,’ Mr Harding retaliated.

  ‘My mind acknowledges that what you say is true but my heart tells me that you’re innocent.’

  The warden said nothing but rang the servant’s bell. When Mrs Winthrop entered, he instructed her to tell the archdeacon that his presence in the study was required as soon as was convenient. Only then did he address Trollope again. ‘I would value your presence when I inform Dr Grantly about Catherine Farrell,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve a sharp mind and there may be questions about recent events that you may be better placed to answer than I.’

  Trollope immediately agreed to stay. ‘I’ll do all that I can to help you. Your kindness all those years ago deserves a happier outcome than this, but it’s often the case that good intentions can lead to bad consequences. I learnt that as a child.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘My father was a highly educated man and a very successful barrister in London. Unfortunately he decided that he should set himself up as a country gentleman and to that end he leased farmland near Harrow. It was a big mistake. He had neither the fortune nor the expertise to succeed. As a consequence our family descended into a genteel poverty and at school I was subjected to daily ridicule by my fellow pupils, who saw I had no pocket money and not much in the way of clothes.’

  ‘Why didn’t he just return to London?’

  ‘In his depressed state he resorted to medication and that seemed to make him increasingly unable to control his temper. As a consequence he lost all his clients.’

  ‘It must’ve been very difficult for you and the rest of your family.’

  ‘Yes, but worse was to come. My parents moved to America to create a new life there and I was sent to Winchester College as a boarder. However, my college bills weren’t paid and the school tradesmen were told not to extend any credit to me. The teachers despised me and regularly flogged me. I had no friend to whom I could pour out my sorrows. Such was my plight that one day I contemplated ending my life by jumping off the top of the college tower. I was rescued from suicide only by my father’s return. He rented a farmhouse and sent me as a day boy to Harrow, but my fate there was no better. What right had a wretched farmer’s boy, reeking from the dunghill, to sit next to the sons of peers, or, even worse, the sons of rich tradesmen who were paying thousands of pounds to board their sons there? The indignities I endured are not to be described.’

  What further account might have followed this was interrupted by the arrival of Dr Grantly. Mr Harding greeted him with obvious apprehension and then stated, ‘I’ve summoned you here to confess that I’ve done you a great wrong. Mr Trollope is here because he knows the circumstances and may be able to answer some questions that I can’t. ’

  Dr Grantly heard with mounting horror what Trollope had to say. It was obvious from his manner that he had possessed no prior knowledge of the warden’s deception and that it came as a huge shock to him that he might be married to the child of a woman who had been publicly hung for her crimes. After asking Trollope a few questions to clarify exactly the extent of John Gaunt’s knowledge of the situation, he suddenly gave vent to his anger at what his father-in-law had done. ‘How could you do this? What folly possessed you!’ he stormed.

  The warden began playing his imaginary violincello as if his life depended on it and his eyes took on such a haunted look that Trollope feared for the poor man’s sanity.

  ‘’Twas enough kindness to pay for a woman to bring up the child without bringing her into your home!’ continued Dr Grantly. ‘Your dead wife must be turning in her grave at what you’ve done. Not only have you made your daughter grow up alongside this monstrous woman’s child but you’ve pretended they’re of equal worth!’

  Mr Harding’s hand paused mid stroke and suddenly a look of defiance replaced the anguish. ‘I should not have to remind you that all are of equal worth in the sight of God,’ he said, ‘and both Susan and Eleanor are of equal worth in mine!’

  ‘Damn it, sir, this is no time to preach at me!’ retaliated the archdeacon and he vented his anger by sweeping his right hand across the warden’s desk, scattering the precious musical manuscripts that lay on its surface to the floor. Trollope decided that either Dr Grantly was a superb actor or the story of Mr Harding’s secret had come as a genuine and devastating blow. If it was the latter then it was very likely that he had no hand in the murders. He would have had no reason to do so.

  ‘I might not have loved them equally had I not taken the action I did,’ continued the warden. ‘And would Susan and Eleanor have developed the same kind of loving relationship that they did? I doubt it. And think of the child itself. How would knowing her mother murdered her father have helped Catherine Farrell’s child grow up with a balanced mind? What I did may have been wrong, but, until today, it brought peace and happiness. It made Susan and Eleanor the people they are, the daughters I love, and, dare I say it, in Susan’s case, the woman you courted and married.’

  ‘Possibly to my cost!’ replied the archdeacon. ‘This will seriously jeopardize my chance of becoming a bishop.’ The tone and manner in which this was said made Trollope fear that their news might have shattered once and for all the happiness of the marriage. However, both of them had underestimated Dr Grantly’s deep affection for his wife and the high regard in which he held her. The archdeacon paused and wiped his face with his hands as if somehow that would restore his equanimity. Then he looked up and said in a much quieter and far more controlled voice, ‘Forgive me, gentlemen. I shouldn’t have said that. I love my wife and nothing will make me regret for a moment marrying her. Susan has been an exemplary wife and a most loving mother to my children. If she’s Catherine Farrell’s child she carries no trace of her mother within her nature. Nor does Eleanor. If the world finds out about all this I’ll stand by both of them and defy anyone who dares malign them!’

  The warden’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Bless you!’ he cried, and, to hide his emotions, he began picking up the manuscripts from the floor and returning them to his desk. Only when this was done did he ask, ‘Do you think we should tell Susan and Eleanor?’

  ‘Susan and I both made a vow when we married that we would always be truthful to each other. I’d find it difficult to keep this from her and, if she is told, I think she’ll want Eleanor to also know.’

  ‘I think it would be foolish not to tell them,’ commented Trollope. ‘They need to be prepared because there is every likelihood that the truth is going to enter the public arena sooner or later. Would it help if I told them? I lack your emotional involvement and so may be able to tell them more easily and in ways that might alleviate their distress.’

  ‘That’s a very kind offer, Mr Trollope, but this is a family matter and they should be told by one of us.’

  ‘And it should be me who does it,’ interrupted the warden, ‘because I’m responsible for all of this. I’ll go at once to their rooms. Pray for me, gentlemen, that I may find the right words.’ He moved to the door, opened it, and then, before leaving, added, ‘And pray for them.’

  No sooner had he gone than Dr Grantly turned to Trollope and declared bluntly, ‘This is a terrible business. Few men would have so foolishly promised to bring up the child of such an evil woman. My father-in-law is of
ten too kind and generous in his dealings with people. I don’t wish to sound melodramatic but I fear he’ll not cope with what he has to face over the coming days and that his mental health will suffer as a consequence unless somehow you and I protect him.’

  ‘I’m willing to assist in whatever way I can, but I fail to see what I can do.’

  ‘You can go back to London and see if you can uncover which of his daughters is the child of Catherine Farrell. Why should both suffer? If it’s my wife, I’ll seek another position in the Church to take her away from the scandal. If necessary, we’ll leave the country together and undertake mission work. If it’s Eleanor, then I’ll arrange for her to work as a governess in France, where she can hopefully build a new life for herself. I would undertake the investigation myself but I daren’t leave my father-in-law here unsupported.’

  ‘I will do as you ask, but it’ll not be easy after all these years to ascertain the truth. At the time Mr Harding did all he could to cover his tracks.’

  ‘See if you can trace those who brought the children to him in London. Better still, trace those who cared for the two girls. I refuse to believe that there’s not someone somewhere who can give us a clue to their true identities.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can but I think it would help if I had the assistance of Inspector Blake.’

  ‘What?! Tell that nincompoop! He’ll blab the tale around the town before the day is out!’ exclaimed the archdeacon.

  ‘You will all be placed in a terrible situation if you don’t tell him and he finds out for himself. As I said earlier, he’ll think that you’ve deliberately tried to pervert the cause of justice and he may communicate that to the press.’

  ‘Damn it, you may be right!’

  Their conversation was interrupted by the unexpectedly early return of the warden. His face was ashen white. ‘I went to tell Susan first but she already knew!’ he gasped.

  ‘How? And why has she said nothing to you or me about it?’ responded Dr Grantly, looking like a man whose world had suddenly fallen apart.

  7

  FAMILY RESPONSES

  Mrs Grantly swept into the room close after her father before he could say any more. Her face looked flushed and Trollope could see small beads of perspiration on her forehead. She eyed the three men nervously and then hurriedly moved across to her husband. ‘Pray forgive me for keeping this matter secret,’ she pleaded as she grasped hold of his hands. ‘I know I should have had the courage to tell you about the mystery surrounding my birth, but I feared to risk our happiness by telling you. Although my heart told me that you wouldn’t let anything come between us, my head gave me a hundred reasons why you should cast me aside.’

  ‘How could you possibly think that?’

  ‘Not because I doubted your character but because I know what others would begin to say if they found out. Their malice would not be content with shaming my father. Nor would it be satisfied with encouraging people to avoid Eleanor and me on the grounds that one of us was almost certainly the spawn of the devil. They would also wish to bring you down. They would say that in marrying me you had shown a severe lack of judgement and helped introduce a monstrous cuckoo into the cathedral nest. Those who currently see you as the natural successor to your father as Bishop of Barchester would turn against you. How could you not resent me for that? Overnight my ancestry would have negated all those years in which you’ve worked tirelessly to promote the interests of the Church.’

  Dr Grantly sought to reassure her. ‘You should have listened to your heart rather than your head, Susan. I will not deny that I would like to follow in my father’s footsteps and I believe that I’ve the qualities to make a good bishop, but you matter far more to me than any ambition.’ His wife bit her lip and tried in vain to disguise her emotion. The atmosphere in the small study seemed to crackle with the intensity of the moment. The archdeacon then voiced the question that all three men in the room wanted answered, ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘I only discovered the truth when Papa moved here to become the warden and vacated the home in which we’d all lived for so many years. If I’d known about Catherine Farrell when you asked me to marry you, I would never have consented to become your wife because I would rather have remained a spinster then place your career in jeopardy.’

  Dr Grantly sighed. ‘You have removed a great weight from my shoulders because I’d begun to fear that you might have been deceiving me for years.’

  She turned her head towards her father. ‘If you recall, Papa, I decided that you ought to get rid of much of what you had accumulated over the years before you moved. In that process I took it upon myself to sort through two large boxes that contained lots of old paperwork in order to burn everything that was obviously not worth keeping. Within one of the boxes I found a small bundle of old letters. They were letters from the man who had been Papa’s doctor in London before he came to work here in Barchester.’

  ‘I was a wretched fool not to have disposed of those years ago.’

  ‘Don’t worry. They no longer exist. Once I’d read them I showed them only to Eleanor and then we agreed to destroy them. We didn’t want any other person to see what they contained.’

  ‘So Eleanor knows too!’ groaned Mr Harding, involuntarily striking chords on his imaginary violincello in his distress. ‘Why did neither of you talk to me about it?’

  ‘We’d no desire to upset you, Papa. Why should we force you to speak of this matter when you’d gone to such great lengths to hide the truth from us?’

  Conflicting emotions swept across Trollope’s mind as he observed the drama unfolding before him. He admired Dr Grantly’s fortitude and forgiveness and was amazed by the strength of character shown by Mr Harding’s two daughters. Few women would not have sought greater clarification on such a matter of personal importance. However, he was horrified to hear of Mrs Grantly’s awareness of Catherine Farrell and the danger she posed. It made her – and, of course, Eleanor Harding – the prime suspects in the investigation. What would the inspector do, especially if he relayed what Jonathan Crumple had told him about Eleanor Harding’s movements prior to both murders? ‘Your tactfulness does you both credit, Mrs Grantly,’ he said, trying to disguise his alarm, ‘but would you mind telling us exactly the extent of the information that you uncovered in those letters?’

  Mrs Grantly turned towards him. It was almost as if she had noticed his presence in the room for the first time. Her face turned pink with the blood that rushed to her cheeks. ‘We learnt that Eleanor and I could not be sisters,’ she said, her voice tense and low. ‘The first letter that I opened was a letter of condolence from the doctor who had attended Mama in childbirth. It was quite clear from its contents that she had given birth to her first and only child. Can you imagine what I felt when I read that? All the certainties in my life instantly disintegrated.’ She paused and for a brief moment looked on the verge of tears, but was able to recover and resume. ‘I learnt from the doctor’s subsequent letters how increasingly depressed Papa had become in the wake of his wife’s death and how the child was eventually sent away into care.’

  ‘And how did you discover the existence of Catherine Farrell?’

  ‘Other correspondence referred to payments also being made for the upkeep of an entirely different infant girl. I was unsure where this child had come from until I read the last letter in the bundle I’d found. In it Papa’s doctor offered various reasons as to why Papa shouldn’t execute his plan to bring both girls up as his natural daughters. That included some very derogatory comments about the other child’s origin. It was in those passages that I read how Papa had vowed to bring up the daughter of the murderess prior to her execution.’

  ‘That must also have come as a terrible shock,’ commented Trollope sympathetically.

  ‘Yes, it did. At first I thought I would tell no one of what I’d discovered, not even Eleanor, but she detected my unhappiness and she wouldn’t rest until I’d confided in her the cause of my grief.’r />
  ‘And what was her response?’

  ‘She was equally upset but she said it made sense of memories we had both suppressed. People never entirely forget their past and we had long been puzzled why each of us appeared to have vague recollections of people and places that were unknown to the other and unconnected to Barchester.’

  ‘I find it amazing that both of you were able to keep this discovery to yourselves,’ interposed Dr Grantly.

  ‘Eleanor and I saw no reason to upset anyone. We agreed the letters were a thing of the past and best destroyed and forgotten. Neither of us could have wished for a more loving father or for a more loving sister. We have grown up together and been such constant companions that no blood relations could be closer. What Catherine Farrell did and what happened to her means nothing to either of us. She gave up her rights to call one of us daughter twenty years ago! She was never part of our lives.’ These last sentences were said with not only vehemence but also a hint of defiance.

  ‘I agree, my child, I agree!’ sobbed the warden.

  ‘And so do I,’ added her husband, ‘but sadly the world may not. Is not that the case, Mr Trollope?’

  ‘I fear so.’

  ‘I’m not naïve. As I have already said, I’m all too aware of what some of the ladies of Barchester would say,’ replied Mrs Grantly sharply. ‘That’s why I decided to have the letters destroyed. So there would be no evidence.’

  ‘Unfortunately there is every reason to believe that the two bedesmen were killed to stop them speaking about your family’s secret,’ pointed out Trollope. ‘That leaves not only your father but also you and your sister as the prime suspects.’

  ‘You can’t be serious! Anyone who knows us would find the idea of any of us committing murder laughable!’ she exclaimed.

  ‘It’s a pity you and your sister ever read that correspondence because ignorance was your best chance of proving your innocence. The only way now is to find someone else who would want the story suppressed.’