Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Afterword
Acknowledgements
An Exclusive Chapter From The Body in the Boat
Copyright
Also by A. J. MacKenzie
The Body on the Doorstep
To Cloudesley, Bertha and Refus, who made working on this book more difficult and more entertaining.
Chapter 1
An Indigestible Christmas
Amelia Chaytor looked at the table in consternation, and made a swift survey of the room for places of concealment. Heavens above, she thought. I knew Christmas dinner would be an ordeal, but my imagination never prepared me for this. For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful . . .
She had accepted the invitation to spend this Christmas Day of 1796 with her friends Miss Godfrey and Miss Roper with some reluctance; only her genuine affection for the ladies had overcome her experience of their cooking. She just hoped that their servant had been able to make some of the food, and at least part of the meal would be as enjoyable as the ladies’ company. If not; well, she had spotted several handy pots and a vase which might serve as receptacles for the more inedible items.
A groaning board is not usually a literal statement, she thought, as she studied the elderly, sloping dining table. She moved quickly towards the uphill end of the board and chose a seat as close as was polite to the struggling fire. Miss Roper’s two nieces followed her, wrapping their shawls more tightly across their shoulders as they entered the room. Both had recently returned to England after several years in India; one was a widow whose husband had died in Calcutta, the other had returned in advance of her husband, who had been posted back to the East India Company’s offices in London. Both felt the winter weather keenly.
Their hostesses fluttered in after them, Miss Roper moving to stand at the higher end of the table and Miss Godfrey at the lower. Mrs Chaytor wondered if the more robust Miss Godfrey had chosen this place in order to catch anything that slid off the table.
A tureen of soup, redolent of burnt onions, stood at the higher end of the board. The other end was occupied by a fish covered in green artificial scales and surrounded by what looked like seaweed. Various things encased in pastry marched down each side of the table, its centre commanded by a boar’s head – more likely, that of a pig – whose rather collapsed visage was crowned with holly, ivy and crab-apples.
‘How festive it all looks,’ exclaimed one of the nieces. The other guests murmured similar sentiments, gazing at the quantities of greenery and ribbon festooning the pictures and hanging perilously close to burning candles.
‘We do like to decorate for Christmas,’ said Miss Roper, ‘and of course everything stays up until Twelfth Night so we have a lovely long time to enjoy our festive house. So much more cheerful in winter; particularly with all the cold and ice. It has been a terrible winter, has it not?’
Everyone agreed. The winter had indeed been bitterly cold. Down here on Romney Marsh they had been largely free of the snow that lay thick and white on the downs further inland, but even at midday the land was still covered with ice and frost. ‘We can be snug inside with reminders that the green leaves will come again in spring,’ said Miss Godfrey. ‘Reverend Braithwaite, who was with us here in St Mary in the Marsh before Reverend Hardcastle, said that our decorations were pagan, but we are pleased our present rector does not share such Quakerish views.’
‘No one could accuse the rector of being Quakerish,’ said Mrs Chaytor.
‘And it is a very particular pleasure to have our dear visitors from the East Indies to share our celebrations,’ said Miss Roper to her nieces. ‘So very different for you, my dears; we are eager to hear about what decorations and food you had for festivities in India. I suppose it must have been hot? How strange to have Christmas when it is warm; no snow and ice for you! And we have been truly grateful for your advising us about the currey sauce for the eggs. You must try some, Mrs Chaytor, for it is most delicious, and invigorating. We were quite surprised that we could obtain the necessary spices from Rye.’
‘Perhaps we should be seated now, dear,’ said Miss Godfrey, drily.
‘Oh, yes, yes, we must have the soup before it cools or it will lose its savour.’
When tasted, the soup bore out all the promise of its odour. Mrs Chaytor drank the generous portion served by Miss Roper as quickly as possible, keen to move on to something more palatable. The fish, surprisingly, proved quite tasty once its dressings had been removed, and the eggs with currey sauce were also good, although Mrs Chaytor noticed Miss Godfrey’s eyes water as she tasted them; chilli and Indian spices were a novelty here on Romney Marsh.
‘To be sure,’ said Mary, Miss Roper’s younger niece, ‘I have not cooked a currey sauce myself, but I had the receipt from our cook in Calcutta. Most of our servants there were so willing and helpful.’
Her remark sparked the inevitable discussion at all middle-class dinner tables about servants and the quality, or otherwise, of their work. The nieces told some amusing tales about the difficulty of directing servants when there is no common language, and Mrs Chaytor related some of her own experiences in managing diplomatic households in Paris and Rome. Despite the food, the evening was becoming enjoyable.
Miss Godfrey and Miss Roper praised the loyalty and hard work of their maid, Kate, and reminisced about the elderly gardener and general man-of-work whom they had suffered for many years until his death in the autumn. ‘Our new lad is a great improvement,’ said Miss Godfrey. ‘He had been one of the Fanscombes’ grooms, and came to us after old Albert died. Kate and he work together very well, and I must say that the garden is looking much better, even if we do have to check that he is digging up weeds and not plants. Still, he is a prodigious digger, and we shall set him to making a new sparrow-grass bed once the soil becomes workable.’
‘Of course, he misses the horses he worked with up at New Hall,’ said Miss Roper. ‘Our poor old Nellie is no match for the magnificent beasts that the Fanscombes had in their stables.’
‘Speaking of New Hall,’ said Mrs Chaytor, ‘is it true that the two men who came to the village the day before yesterday are living there?’
‘Kate and the lad Jed assure us that they do indeed appear to be staying in the Hall,’ replied Miss Godfrey. ‘Their horses are in the stables, although the house is still shuttered, and smoke has been seen issuing from at least one of the chimneys.’
‘It must be a bleak place to live, given that the house has lain empty for so many months,’ observed Mrs Chaytor.
‘We sent them a little note asking if they would like to join us for our Christmas feast,’ said Miss Roper, ‘for certain there cannot be much comfort at the Hall. There are no servants since that dreadful caretaker went off to Lydd on Friday past. But sadly we have had no reply from the gentlemen. We must hope that they have some food and warmth at the Hall.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Miss Godfrey, ‘for this is surely not the winter to be without sufficient fuel. Our own supplies are growing a little low, although Kate assures us that there is plenty to be had outside, if you know where to look.’
Mrs Chaytor glanced at the small, struggling fire beside her and hoped that Kate did i
ndeed know where to look, for there was hardly enough wood in the hearth to last until the end of the meal. ‘It is rather puzzling that anyone should come down to New Hall at this season,’ she said, ‘especially with the caretaker having gone, and no one there to look after them.’
This line of conversation was interrupted as Kate and Jed, the latter in a badly fitting suit of black coat and baggy breeches, entered the dining room to remove the first course and then bring in the second. As they departed, Miss Godfrey asked Jed to bring more wood for the dying fire. The lad mumbled something that seemed to be agreement.
An enormous plum pudding with a large sprig of holly sprouting from its top was perhaps the most unsurprising, though still startling, element of the next course. A formidable rib of beef provided balance at the other end of the table, and the rest of the space was filled with jellies both savoury and sweet, coloured orange and red and green, and what Mrs Chaytor recognised as the ladies’ attempt at a croque-en-bouche. Where, she wondered, had they encountered this quintessentially French sweet dish?
Conversation paused while everyone sorted out their selection of the delights on offer. The beef proved to be quite burnt on the outside and frequently raw on the inside, while the croque-en-bouche illustrated the ladies’ usual heavy hand with pastry. The savoury jellies helped to disguise the rawness of the beef, however, and the sweet ones were unexceptionable. Those must have been made by Kate, thought Mrs Chaytor.
As the company dealt with their food choices the conversation turned once again, in that particularly English way, to a combination of the weather and gossip about their neighbours. ‘I do hope that last night’s thaw lasted long enough to make the rector’s early morning journey to Ashford an easy one,’ said Miss Godfrey, ‘for the cold has come down again this forenoon and it is frozen hard once more. For how long is he away, do you know, Mrs Chaytor?’
‘For some days, I believe. I imagine he will return to St Mary to take service on Sunday morning.’
‘Oh, I am certain that he will do that,’ said Miss Roper. ‘You know his strong views on rectors fobbing off awkward services onto poor curates, especially at this time of year.’
‘He is pretty much alone in those views,’ said Miss Godfrey, severely. ‘The rector of Ivychurch has not taken a service in his parish for many, many months. That is why we churchgoers have to endure the vile odour of that old man from Brenzett, for he insists on what he calls a “proper priest” when he goes to church.’
‘Well, at least he comes to church regularly, which is more than many do in St Mary,’ said Miss Roper, ignoring the loud clearing of the throat from the opposite end of the table. ‘Most only want the rector when there is someone to be buried, or to visit them when they are ill. Or, more rarely, to marry them or baptise their child; and they don’t always wait for the marriage before having the baptism.’
‘Not everyone who has faith chooses to go to church every Sunday, my dear,’ said Miss Godfrey, gently but firmly.
Miss Roper looked up at Mrs Chaytor in sudden guilt. ‘Oh, my dear Mrs Chaytor, I was not thinking of you at all! Please take no offence at my words. It is only that the rector has been so busy looking after people over the past month, making sure that no one goes cold or hungry. And then to have only six people at Christmas Eve midnight service! It did make me so cross on his behalf.’
‘It was very cold, aunt,’ one of her nieces murmured.
‘Indeed it was,’ said Mrs Chaytor, ‘and Reverend Hardcastle appears to care little about the size of his congregation. I am certain that even if he found himself alone on Sunday, he would still say the services.’
‘I am sure you are correct, Mrs Chaytor,’ said Miss Godfrey. ‘Mind, there have been times in the past when he did find it a struggle to concentrate on Sunday mornings, so bad was his head. But it seems to me that in recent months there has been less of that trouble.’
‘Perhaps his new legal responsibilities have occasioned a more sober approach to life,’ suggested Miss Roper. ‘Being a justice of the peace is a serious matter.’
‘I am not certain that Reverend Hardcastle’s appointment as a temporary J. P. is the reason for his more measured manner of life,’ said Mrs Chaytor, ‘but whatever that reason may be, I think we must all agree that he is in much better health, despite the cold and the hard work he has been undertaking of late.’
‘And I think we are very fortunate to have him,’ said Miss Godfrey, firmly. ‘After the events of last spring, it is good to know there is someone reliable looking after the affairs of the district.’
‘I wonder if he has met the two gentlemen at New Hall,’ said Miss Roper, returning to their earlier conversation. ‘Has he said anything to you, Mrs Chaytor?’
Amelia shook her head. ‘No. But then I have not seen the reverend except in passing for several days.’
One of the nieces sneezed. Miss Godfrey apologised for the chill in the room. ‘I wonder what is taking Jed so long with that wood? Do you suppose that the fire in the drawing room will be any better? At least we can all sit closer to it. Shall we withdraw?’
As the noise of a banging door and running footsteps penetrated the room, she continued, ‘Ah, perhaps we shall have some warmth at last,’ but her words were cut off by loud cries from the corridor. The dining room door burst open and the maidservant tumbled in, staring in shock.
‘Oh, oh, oh, Miss Godfrey! Miss Godfrey! I saw someone trapped in the ice up at New Hall stables! I think he might be dead! Jed says he is dead! He must be dead, to be frozen into the ice like that, face down. For certain, he must be dead!’
*
The man was indeed face down in the horse pond next to the stables behind New Hall, and he was certainly dead. Mrs Chaytor looked at the body in the dim light of the lantern, and shivered in her fur-lined cloak; not from the cold, but from pity and sorrow at the death of the unknown man before her. Lifting the lantern higher, she saw marks on the frozen ground that suggested he had crawled here from the direction of the house. No mercifully swift death then, but one filled with pain and fear. She shivered again.
New Hall was silent and dark. No flicker of light showed from its windows. There was no obvious trace of the other man who had ridden into St Mary’s only two days ago. The silence around the house was complete.
Mrs Chaytor turned to Jed, who was standing and looking steadily at the body in the ice. He had said nothing since he and Kate burst into the dining room; Kate had done all the talking and exclaiming. ‘Jed, we must get Mr Stemp to see to this.’ Stemp was the parish constable, who would need to take charge until the rector’s return. ‘Please find him and bring him here as soon as you may.’
Miss Godfrey had insisted on accompanying Mrs Chaytor and Jed to New Hall. Now she put a gentle hand on the younger woman’s shoulders and said softly: ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word. I hope that the poor soul has found peace in death, for his last moments cannot have been quiet.’
Chapter 2
The Body in the Ice
In the cold, grey light of a December morning the scene had nothing of last night’s remembered horror, only a certain bleak tragedy. The body lay face down, the torso frozen into the ice of the pond, the legs and hips resting on hard ground. The man’s arms, so far as could be seen in the ice, were twisted around his head. He wore an overcoat, beneath which were a pair of shabby black worsted breeches and thick stockings. One of his black half-boots had been wrenched off and lay on the frozen ground at the edge of the pond; the exposed stockinged foot was stiff and rimed with ice. He had, thought Mrs Chaytor irrelevantly, quite small feet.
The wind that whistled around the eaves of the stable block was strengthening; overhead, the weather vane clattered uneasily on its iron mount. The wind had a tang of iron, laced with salt. Joshua Stemp, the parish constable, rubbed his mittened hands together and scowled at the body. ‘I wish that doctor would hurry up.’
Mrs Chaytor turned to look at the house be
hind them. ‘The caretaker has not returned?’
‘He has family down in Lydd, ma’am,’ said Stemp. ‘He’ll have gone down there for Christmas.’
His companion, a fisherman named Jack Hoad, grunted. ‘If that’s so, he’ll be blind drunk ’til New Year and beyond.’
‘We’ll go down and drag him back, you and me.’
Mrs Chaytor held up a hand. ‘I think that may be the doctor.’
They heard the sound of a pony and cart, clopping hooves and iron-rimmed wheels rattling against the hard ground, turning off the main New Romney road and up the drive to the house. A moment later the cart pulled up in the yard behind New Hall and halted, the pony shaking itself and blowing steam from its nostrils. Mrs Chaytor walked to meet the doctor as he stepped carefully down from the box, the yard icy beneath his feet.
‘Dr Mackay. It is good of you to come out. I trust we have not ruined your Christmas.’
‘Not at all,’ said the doctor, bowing. He was a short, stocky Scot, heavily muffled like them all against the wind. He looked at the two men standing by the frozen horse pond, and then back to Mrs Chaytor. They were not well acquainted, but the doctor knew her for an unusual and intelligent person. ‘Where is the body, then?’
She pointed, and turned to walk with him towards the horse pond. ‘I imagined you would need help in moving him, so I have summoned the parish constable. I have also sent my groom to fetch Reverend Hardcastle from Ashford. I should think he will return directly, tomorrow or even tonight.’
‘Hardcastle is in Ashford? I didn’t know the man travelled anywhere. He’s as sedentary as a mollusc.’
‘He went to spend Christmas with an old friend,’ said Mrs Chaytor, patiently.
‘Didn’t know he had friends, either. Right, what have we here?’
The other three waited while the doctor circled the body, testing the ice once or twice with his boot. ‘Frozen solid,’ he said. ‘Not surprised, given the cold last night. Any ideas as to who he might be?’
The Body in the Ice Page 1