The Barchester Murders

by G. M. Best

  ‘Aye, I did,’ Paterson replied in a voice that was more refined than that of the turnkey. ‘A good woman she was and a pretty one.’

  ‘What was your connection with her?’ asked Trollope.

  ‘When I was a young man I took quite a shine to her but she chose another. Alexander Mather was a fine man to look at but he had the devil in him when he got drunk – and that was too often for his good or hers. She deserved a better husband. I got her the job of looking after Catherine Farrell’s child because she desperately needed the money. Her husband was not providing enough for her to feed herself or her family. I told John Gaunt that was because the man was ill but the only illness Alexander Mather had was his fondness for gin.’

  ‘How many children did they have?’ asked Trollope, keen to put Paterson at ease.

  ‘Two sons and a daughter.’

  ‘And are any of those alive?’

  ‘I know that the two boys died because I comforted her as best I could when those deaths happened. I afterwards heard that the girl had also died.’ The old man shrugged his shoulders and for the first time in their interview looked very uncomfortable. ‘And I’m sorry to say it, sir, but I think you’ve had a wasted journey as far as Catherine Farrell’s child is concerned. It died when it was still less than two years old. Mr Farrell was told the truth.’

  ‘But that’s not what Mrs Mather told the man who was paying her to look after it,’ said Trollope in a tone designed to instill fear into the old gaoler.

  For the first time Paterson looked apprehensive. ‘I’m afraid that was her husband’s fault. He didn’t want to lose the money that was being paid for the child’s upkeep.’

  ‘And why did you go along with that lie?’

  ‘I didn’t want to get Mrs Mather into trouble. I’d seen the poverty in which she lived. What harm did the lie make? The money probably mattered little to the man who paid it and it meant everything to her.’

  ‘When the man claimed the child, you let John Gaunt think he got Catherine Farrell’s genuine daughter. You told him Mrs Mather’s initial report of its death was a lie to ensure it was not taken away by its uncle.’

  ‘I did,’ said Paterson, looking very miserable.

  ‘So whose child did she subsequently hand over?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. She never told me and I’d no desire to know. I was content that the man got a child to love.’

  ‘So what happened to Mrs Mather and her husband?’ asked Trollope, choosing not to voice any condemnation of the man’s actions.

  ‘She eventually left him,’ said Paterson bluntly. ‘I wasn’t surprised. He treated her more and more badly. There were a number of times when I saw her and she couldn’t cover the bruises, much though she tried. I’ve no idea where she is now. I lost all contact with her once she’d fled from her husband, though someone told me that they’d heard that her daughter died not long afterwards.’

  ‘And what of her husband?’

  ‘Alexander Mather still lives near here. I’ve had nothing to do with the man since his wife left him, but from what I’ve heard he’s got what he deserves. He’s a poor shadow of what he once was.’

  ‘Can you tell me his address and give me directions to it?’ asked Trollope, trying to disguise his excitement. There was every chance that Mrs Mather’s husband would know from whence the child came.

  ‘He’s easy enough to find, sir, though I can’t imagine he can tell you anything I’ve not. The poor soul’s in the parish workhouse.’ He shook his head and added, ‘My one prayer is that I may never end up there.’

  ‘Come now, Tom, you’ve plenty of life in you yet!’ lied the turnkey.

  Trollope thanked the two men for their assistance and slipped each of them a coin. Once he had been escorted back out of the prison, he set off for the workhouse that was Alexander Mather’s home. He knew that the poor looked on entering one as the worst possible fate because it was workhouse policy to deliberately separate husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister. Moreover, they forced their inmates to perform degrading tasks in a way that no prison did. However, like many men of his generation, Trollope’s knowledge of such institutions was largely confined to what had been written about them in the books of Charles Dickens. In the event, the reality was worse than the fiction. To a sensitive mind like his the misery of the place was palpable and he tried to avert his gaze from the sight of so many people who had visibly lost all hope.

  The overseer of the workhouse was a fat and cheery man who looked out of place in his surroundings. He told Trollope that Alexander Mather had recently become very sick and was in their infirmary. Leaning over, he confided in Trollope’s ear, ‘I think he’s not got long to live, but he is still perfectly able to hold a conversation if he chooses to do so.’ Stiffly he stood up and added, ‘I’ll escort you to see him if you like.’

  The infirmary was a spacious but dim-lit room with beds arranged in two long rows on either side of it. Virtually all the beds were occupied but there was no sound from any of the sick, except for the wailing of an old woman who was beating her fist against the wall. Many of the occupants bore evidence of ill usage and it was obvious a number were near death. Their wan faces stared back at Trollope as if he might be the Grim Reaper come to collect them now they were hapless to resist his dark embrace. The overseer directed Trollope to a vacant bed at the far end of the room. Sitting on a chair next to it was the slumped figure of a man. This was Alexander Mather. By his calculations Trollope had been expecting to see someone in his forties or early fifties, but the man by the bed looked far older than that. If he had once been handsome, there was no remaining sign of it. Trollope judged that drink and disease had probably altered him beyond all recognition. Mather’s grey hair was long and lank, his cheeks were pale and sunken, and spit dribbled from his mouth.

  As Trollope drew up to him he could hear the man’s laboured breathing and he saw in his rheumy eyes the kind of despair that he had last seen when looking into the eyes of a cornered fox which had exhausted itself fleeing the hounds. ‘Mr Mather, my name’s Anthony Trollope,’ he said loudly in the hope of making the man hear what he said. ‘I’ve come to ask you about your wife. Are you willing to talk with me?’

  ‘I’ve no wife,’ muttered the sick man feebly.

  ‘But there was a time when you did.’

  Mather seemed to struggle with this idea but then a glimmer of recognition appeared in his eyes as memories of her began to surface. A rather lewd look flitted across his face, and this was made more obscene when he leant across to whisper in Trollope’s ear, ‘She were a pretty woman, she were.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ asked Trollope, moving back a little and trying not to show his disgust.

  Mather ignored the question, lost in a sudden flow of memories from his past. ‘There were quite a few would ’ave liked to ’ave ’er, but it were me she chose,’ he said proudly. ‘I were quite a lad then. Me mother used to say that I ’ad the looks to charm the angels, let alone any woman.’ His lips pursed into a rather supercilious sneer. ‘We did it all proper too. She were far too well brought up to jist live with me. Married in church, we were, like the gentry.’ He paused and a look of distaste flickered across his thin face. ‘Not that any came from ’er family.’

  ‘Why was that?’ enquired Trollope, deciding he might get more out of the man if he let him remember the past in his own way.

  ‘They thought she were too good fer me, me being jist a workin’ man. Yet I was ready to look after ’er. They weren’t. Left alone she was when ’er father died.’

  ‘And were you happy?’

  He did not respond immediately but then made a grimace and said in a hollow voice, ‘At first, though I had to knock some of the airs and graces out of ’er. Make ’er know ’er place.’

  Trollope dreaded to think what terrible deeds lay behind these words. Educated and brought up in a different world, she must have suffered much at her husband’s hands.

  ‘Then it
all went wrong,’ continued Mather.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘We ’ad two sons, fine lads they were, but she let ’em take sick with the scarlet fever. She nursed ’em for day after day but they both died.’ From the expression on his face it was obvious that he still found the memory of their loss painful. ‘It’s ’ard to see yer sons lying cold and stiff,’ he murmured, ‘and so I took to the drink. I sought to drown me sorrows in gin. After that things got bad between us, ’specially when I ceased getting work because the drink made me unreliable. She promised me another son but the silly cow gave birth to a girl. What use was that to me?’

  ‘How did you live if you had no employment to bring in money?’ asked Trollope, trying not to show his revulsion at the man’s uncharitable words.

  ‘I told ’er she should make ’erself available.’

  ‘Available?’

  ‘To men. She were still a pretty woman. I needed money for drink and she’d only to open her legs to get it fer me. But she wouldn’t, not ’er, not even when I hit ’er. Right stubborn she were.’

  Trollope was shocked that there was not a hint of any regret or remorse that he had asked his wife to become a prostitute; just anger at her refusal to obey him.

  ‘She took in washing and did other work instead, though that brought in precious little,’ continued Mather, clearly oblivious of the bad impression he was creating. ‘She even took in some man’s child in return for money, not that I wanted another brat near me. I told ’er to keep the two girls quiet or I’d shake ’em so ’ard they’d nivver bawl agin.’

  ‘What happened to the child your wife took in?’

  ‘It fell sick and died. I was mad when she told the prison that. I told ’er not to be so stupid and to make sure its father nivver ’eard about it. That way we’d get paid without the expense of looking arter it.’

  ‘And what happened to your daughter?’

  ‘My wife took ’er away when she left me.’

  ‘Why did she leave you?’

  For a moment a fire returned to Mather’s eyes. He moved to bring himself closer to Trollope with an unexpected energy and said with venom in his voice, ‘’Twas cos I cut ’er.’

  Trollope looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’

  Mather fell back into his chair, cast an eye around him as if checking no one else could hear, and then replied in a foul-breathed whisper, ‘I’d taken money fer drink as was me right and she dared swear at me when I returned home late. Said didn’t I realize that the money from the dead child’s father was due to come to an end and that I was starving ’er and our child and that I’d left ’er with nothing fer the rent.’ His voice rose as he confided what he had said in reply. ‘I told ’er to pay the landlord in other ways. I’d seen him ogling at ’er. Easy pickings he were.’ His right hand grabbed hold of Trollope’s arm and he pulled him towards him. ‘A wife’s there to see to ’er husband’s needs and do what he wants. Ain’t that right? That’s what the Bible says. Honour and obey she promised.’

  Trollope did not say anything but he sensed that Mather took his silence for assent. ‘She got up and took a knife from the table and dared threaten me,’ the old man continued. ‘She said she’d rather use ’er looks to find another ’usband so I seized the knife from ’er and I told ’er I’d see that no man would want to ’ave her as a wife. I then cut ’er good and proper.’ He smirked and moved the forefinger of his right hand up to his face and drew a line down his left cheek. ‘Next morning she and the child were gone. I nivver saw ’em again.’

  Trollope offered neither reproach nor recrimination but his mind reeled, not just at the horror of what had been described but at what the former dockworker’s story had led him to surmise. Mather had scarred his wife’s left cheek and Mrs Winthrop, the housekeeper at Hiram’s Hospital, had such a scar. Was that a mere coincidence or was it possible that Mrs Winthrop was Mrs Mather? Once she had fled her husband, there would have been every reason for her to pass off her own daughter as the child of Catherine Farrell. How else would she have been able to ensure its welfare? She could easily have given out to others that her daughter had died. By handing the child over, she ensured that it would be brought up comfortably.

  It was not too difficult to surmise how Mrs Mather had eventually come into the service of Mr Harding. His arrangements for the collection of the two girls had not been complex. She could easily have changed her name and secretly followed her daughter’s subsequent movements and, because of her educated background, found employment in Barchester. She had then become Mr Harding’s housekeeper when the opportunity arose. What better way to have daily contact with her child? The more he thought about it the more this seemed to make sense and, if it were true, Trollope realized it gave Mrs Winthrop perhaps the strongest motive to commit the killings at Hiram’s Hospital. Had Thomas Rider somehow discovered Mrs Winthrop’s true identity? Or was it simply that Mrs Winthrop had feared he would tell the world that one of the daughters of the warden was Catherine Farrell’s child and, in the process, wreck the happiness she had worked so long to create for her own child?

  Trollope knew he had to get back to Barchester as quickly as he could and tell the inspector and the Hardings what he had uncovered. Mrs Winthrop must become the prime suspect if Mr Harding did not possess good reasons as to why his housekeeper could not possibly be Mrs Mather. Trollope left the workhouse as speedily as politeness permitted and purchased a copy of Bradshaw’s Monthly Railway Guide. He discovered that the earliest train he could catch in the morning on the London and South Western Railway would get him to Barchester by just before eleven o’clock. As he headed back to the hotel where he intended to stay for the night, a sudden depressing thought occurred to him. If Mrs Winthrop were guilty, it would make one of the warden’s two daughters the child of a murderess! His heart sank. He suddenly saw that what he had discovered was likely to expose the entire family to the most scandalous rumours when the matter became public.

  11

  A MOTHER’S LOVE

  Mrs Winthrop was not a happy woman. For years she had forgotten what it felt like to be so miserable, even though there were days when she still grieved for the loss of her two boys. At the time she had bitterly resented her husband blaming her for their deaths, but gradually she had come to see it was his way of dealing with a grief that was as deep as hers. He had not been able to grasp why he should have lost two strong sons unless her nursing was at fault. She had been more fortunate than him. In her case the passing years had eased her sorrow because she had been able to watch her daughter grow and flourish, first from a distance, and then, once she entered Mr Harding’s service, on a daily basis. It did not matter that her child did not know her to be her mother.

  Surely her decision all those years ago had been the right one? If she had stayed with her husband, she dreaded to think what would have become of her daughter and her. The combination of drink and despair had turned him into a monster. Their flight had caused him no pain because their presence had brought him no pleasure, only resentment. It had long been her wish that he might have become a better man again after her flight. He had come to rely on the money she earned for drink. Had he been forced to take up work again? Had he found himself a new wife? Had he new sons to take a pride in? She hoped so. In recent years she had grown accustomed to thinking of him more as he had been when he had courted her. The time before drink took hold of him. Her own happiness at watching her daughter’s development had progressively dimmed the memory of her suffering at his hands, even though the livid scar on her cheek was a constant reminder of his brutality.

  Pretending that her daughter was Catherine Farrell’s had caused no one to suffer. Quite the reverse. If she had reported the real child’s death, she would have simply condemned Mr Harding to a life of remorse at his failure to protect her. Knowing his kind heart, he would have felt forever guilty that he had not taken the infant straight into his home in accordance with his promise. Had not the
presence of her daughter also given much happiness to Mr Harding’s true child? Susan and Eleanor might only be sisters in name but the two children had grown up thinking they were of the same blood. Their relationship was as close as any parent could possibly wish for their children.

  It was John Gaunt’s return to Barchester that had changed everything so badly, though not for the reasons that she had initially feared. She had met him but once before – at the time when he handed over Catherine Farrell’s child into her care – and the disfiguring scar on her left cheek and many years of constant work had rendered too much change in her appearance for him to recognize her. Moreover, his loyalty and love for Mr Harding had prevented him speaking to anyone in Barchester of what had happened at Newgate all those years ago. As month succeeded month, her fears had gradually subsided. But old men like to talk and Gaunt had proved no exception. He had eventually told Mr Harding’s secret to his friend, Thomas Rider, on a day when the two old men were exchanging stories about the warden’s innate kindness to others. She supposed he had decided to do so because Rider was just as much an admirer of the warden as himself and not a man to betray a confidence.

  She would not have known about Gaunt’s action had not a very troubled Rider come to her to talk about what he had been told. How ironic was that! His first response had been the one Gaunt had expected – one of admiration for Mr Harding’s kindness – but the more he had thought about his friend’s comments in regard to the danger of bringing up a murderess’s child, the more his admiration had turned to anxiety. In the end it had driven him to confide in her. She had listened with mounting horror as the bedesman had begun babbling ever-increasing nonsense about how important it was that the warden should be protected – protected from the evil that would inevitably come from the daughter of the murderess. Rider had been all for telling what he knew to the bishop and the archdeacon to invoke their spiritual support. Telling him the truth – that Catherine Farrell’s child was dead and that her own daughter had replaced her – was not an option she had dared risk, though with hindsight that might have been the wiser course.