The Anathema Stone

by John Buxton Hilton

  ‘Thomas and Thaddaeus were terrible and efficient partners – Arthur James Rankin, Matilda Foulds, Jeremiah Malkin and Ebenezer Scadbolt were amongst those whose bodies disappeared from this churchyard of ours before the grave had had time to corrupt. In the case of Caleb Mycock, the mourners cast their dust and ashes on a coffin ballasted with stones before the cortège departed from the dead man’s cottage.’

  Dunderdale brought on an artist’s impression of Hob’s Kitchen before the stones of the barrow had fallen.

  ‘So far we have been talking of the Allsops and the Brightmores at a time when there was nothing in their souls but sweetness and light. Alas, they were soon to enter into rivalry. The two principal clients for Allsop-Brightmore produce were a Dr William Baines of Sheffield and a Dr T. Armstrong Bramwell of Derby. And Thomas Allsop, having heard theories that the three-cornered mound was an ancient burial chamber, saw hopes of a new source of merchandise. The removal of one of the cornerstones to his yard was a mere incidental. What Thomas Allsop had not realized is that the human skeleton, deprived by time and decay of its ligaments, does not hold together with that obliging integrity postulated by the grotesque illustrators of irresponsible fictions. All that he could do was to fill a linen bag with as many bones as he could gather. And that is how the remains of an eminent man, a Bronze Age Chieftain, came to change hands at the back door of a Derby surgery at the knock-down price of half a crown.’

  The picture changed to a photograph of the mahogany cloak-tree.

  ‘And so, you see, we move nearer home. Dr Bramwell, refusing more than a nominal fee for Thomas Allsop’s bag of bones, nevertheless prevailed upon him henceforth to operate independently, with a promise of bonuses if he could ensure that no more bodies were wasted on the obscurantist medical schools of Sheffield. From now on, the Allsops and the Brightmores worked in bitter opposition. And if there had already been macabre scenes by night in Spentlow’s acre of rest, the traffic now became complex indeed. There was trickery afoot, even running fights in the byways after disinterment. It became the acme of business acumen to take possession of a corpse after you had let a rival family do the digging.’

  The vicar tapped the image of the hat-stand with his pointer.

  ‘The professional rivalry between the Brightmores and the Allsops went on for some fifteen years. At times when the death rate in Spentlow was too low to ensure economic viability, excursions would be made to other settlements – to Hartington and Tissington, and even as far afield as Alstonefield and Longnor. But at last Thaddaeus Brightmore, the older and less firm of the two, had a premonition of his own approaching end, and began to be haunted by the thought that his own mortal shell might find its way on an Allsop wagon to the dissecting table. He accordingly summoned courage, dismissed pride and went on a diplomatic mission to Dogtooth. His proposition was that Thomas Allsop should have twenty golden sovereigns here and now, and another twenty one month after the event, together with three articles of his own choice from amongst the Brightmore heirlooms, in return for an assurance that his, Thaddaeus’s remains should be held sacred. A deed was signed. Thomas Allsop collected his cloak-tree and two other pieces which we can no longer account for. Yet at dawn on the morrow of Thaddaeus’s burial, his mound was found torn open.’

  Dunderdale paused for effect. Somewhere in the Hall a baby in arms began to cry.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I do not believe that Thomas Allsop would ever have been guilty of the gross deception which his contemporaries and posterity have ascribed to him. Would he have let himself in for a night’s hard labour and the certain loss of his second instalment of twenty pounds? Was not Thaddaeus Brightmore more probably the victim of a Malkin or a Scadbolt – or, as seems to me most likely – of some vengeful soul from as far afield as Hartington, Tissington, Alstonefield or Longnor?’

  Kenworthy crept out whilst knots of people were still gossiping in the precincts of the Hall. In the Recruiting Sergeant as he had expected, he found old Billy Brightmore, the landlord, holding the fort of the yellow-plastered bar.

  ‘Well, Superintendent – do we know the truth now?’

  ‘We have laughed our sides sore over it.’

  ‘And is it going to make a sliver of difference?’

  ‘It ought.’

  ‘It ought for sure. The sort of fighting we’ve had here for as long as I can remember is bad for a place. Full marks to Dunderdale if he’s put an end to it.’

  He did not add, did not perhaps fully grasp, that he had all his life been as active as any in the internecine warfare.

  It was only a few minutes later that the usual clientele began to arrive for their usual pints. They were all either Brightmores or neutrals, but all full of the lecture, and repeating bits of it to each other with relish. Dunderdale came in with Horrocks and Christine. They joined Kenworthy, who had placed himself safely out of eavesdropping range of the main gathering. Dunderdale was physically and mentally elated by the success of his talk; at the same time inclined to philosophize, and clearly already beginning to feel the reaction of emptiness that follows the completion of a big task.

  ‘So this time next week, you’ll be gone, Mr Kenworthy. And you two others, I expect, will be moving into lodgings nearer John’s work, until he finishes his term.’

  Horrocks nodded.

  ‘So you leave the world to darkness and to me? Spentlow is going to be a singularly empty place.’

  ‘Surely Spentlow’s greatest claim to fame is still to happen?’ Horrocks asked. ‘I’m very conscious of the lull before the storm. Everything that matters is hanging fire. Even the press has grown tired. I don’t know why the place isn’t still crawling with policemen.’

  ‘My feeling too,’ Dunderdale said. ‘I don’t understand the inaction.’

  They were all looking at Kenworthy as if they held him responsible for what was not happening.

  ‘And I still think that the play should have gone on,’ Dunderdale said. ‘Spentlow has lost the chance to stage its first dramatic production since the pageant they had for the Jubilee of 1935. Two full houses: one hundred and twenty seats each. For most of this village, it would have been their first taste of the living theatre, pantomimes excepted. We should have gone through with it. It’s like the tradition of persuading the bereaved to touch a cold corpse. It dispels fears and delusions. Why, oh why, did Davina Stott have to wreck it all for us? Sometimes I think I understand, and sometimes I don’t.’

  ‘She had to wreck anything that was bigger than herself,’ Kenworthy said. ‘I have no doubt at all that she was the one who was responsible for the blown fuses, the falling lamps, the stolen scripts: and the attacks on the Colonel.’

  ‘She can surely never have meant to kill him?’

  ‘Of course not. Any more than she meant to injure her father when she tampered with the stair-rods. Ultimate consequences were remote from immediate purpose. But I think she had another reason too – as far as the Colonel was concerned. She could have destroyed the play; she might also have been the making of it.’

  ‘Sorry, Kenworthy – I don’t see what you mean.’

  ‘She laid traps for the Colonel because she desperately wanted him out of the cast – and someone else in –’

  ‘But is that reasonable?’ Horrocks asked. ‘When she conceived those traps, I don’t think you’d come on the scene, had you?’

  ‘It wasn’t me she wanted as Gabbitas.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘I saw you make a very good job of the part for the sake of Christine’s demonstration.’

  Horrocks was keen to establish a disclaimer. Dunderdale used a second round of drinks to smooth over embarrassment. And Christine was quick to add that John would never have agreed to play a main part and produce at the same time. Then Kenworthy suddenly changed the subject.

  ‘We still haven’t answered the main question of who beat Davina with nettles. You can’t tell me you don’t have suspicions.’

  ‘Suspicions!’ Christine
said. ‘That was the horrible thing about it. We suspected everyone. It was all so unfair. It ended up with everyone in the commune under a cloud.’

  ‘But if you did not know who did it, how did you even know it had been done?’

  ‘It was all anyone talked about, next morning at breakfast-time. People just seemed to know.’

  ‘I suppose that’s how folk legends get off the ground,’ Horrocks said. ‘Even those about Hob and the Anathema Stone.’

  ‘You see, Mr Kenworthy, some of the women went mad about Kevin O’Shea. He was a bit of a legend himself. It was a joke at first, when Davina looked as if she was after him too. Then it suddenly looked as if she was going to get him. Please don’t think I hold any brief for their outlook –’

  A day or two ago, it would have been impossible to believe that Christine could talk so reasonably. The success of her stage test seemed to have altered her entire personality.

  ‘I don’t think that for a moment. But I do think you must have some idea about who was the ring-leader.’

  ‘I do. I always did have. And I could be totally wrong. That’s what makes it so dangerous.’

  ‘You’re going to tell us sooner or later,’ Kenworthy said. ‘It might as well be now.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘I know you all believed in communal property, but there must have been someone who thought of O’Shea as her own.’

  ‘That wouldn’t prove anything.’

  ‘Much as I admire your sense of fairness, Christine –’

  She smiled at him remotely.

  ‘I hope I am proof against that sort of flattery, Mr Kenworthy.’

  Then John Horrocks spoke up.

  ‘You might as well tell him, Christine. You know you are right. And if it serves to clear up the larger issue –’

  But she shook her head. So Horrocks simply answered for her.

  ‘You remember the girl Triss, Mr Kenworthy?’

  ‘The difficult one? The one who didn’t want to stay in the room, the night I came? The one Christine pushed back into her seat?’

  ‘Triss had fallen for O’Shea in a big way. And she was the one who was fullest of rumours next morning.’

  ‘But could Triss have attacked Davina on her own?’ Kenworthy asked.

  Christine shrugged her shoulders. She did not seem to resent the way in which Horrocks had pre-empted her. It might even have been a relief to her.

  ‘That lot were a weak-kneed mob. If Triss led the way, she’d have no shortage of helpers.’

  ‘And where is Triss now?’

  ‘Gone away.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘She didn’t say. We didn’t ask. Perhaps back where she came from, wherever that is.’

  ‘Gone, in fact, wherever good Ultimate Anarchists do go?’

  Christine smiled waterily. Then there was a rustle of attention throughout the pub. The door had opened and Jesse Allsop had come in.

  He stood for a moment just within the bar, surveying the premises as if he had never entered them in his life before; which, it was later established, was actually the case. Conversation dried up on all sides – including among Kenworthy and his party. Allsop nodded to one or two men, with whom for a lifetime he had not been on speaking terms, but who were characters of such substance as to be recognized as leaders amongst his enemies. He went up to the bar. Billy Brightmore served him a double whisky, and was seen to wave away the offer of money. Within a few seconds, conversation struck up again, but in suppressed tones. Billy Brightmore leaned on his bar and looked benignly outwards.

  ‘Your hat-stand fetched a good price, then, Jesse?’

  ‘Success for you, Vicar,’ Kenworthy said. ‘The object of the exercise, I take it?’

  ‘It’s up to Jesse from now on. I know which way he wants it.’

  ‘He gave me a tip this afternoon that I thought had broken the case for me. What Christine just told us has come as a surprise to me.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘A Gabbitas note book that has come down the family through Gertrude. There was the sketch of a Hob story, suggesting that it was village women who had driven Gertrude away.’

  ‘So you thought –?’

  Dunderdale was now looking at Kenworthy keenly.

  ‘You’re not suggesting –?’

  ‘That it was village women who were harassing Davina? I certainly thought it was village women who had beaten her with nettles.’

  Dunderdale was now leaning across the table, keeping his voice dramatically down.

  ‘I can’t think of any woman in this village –’

  Kenworthy too spoke quietly, almost the delivery of a ventriloquist, his eye fixed on Jesse Allsop and the men who were now talking to him.

  ‘Tell me, Vicar: which woman in this village had most to lose – or thought she had – when Jesse Allsop started receiving visits from Davina?’

  But Dunderdale was unimpressed.

  ‘Oh, I’ve known for years, we’ve all known for years, that Jesse has a mistress. He’s always been discreet, but never discreet enough to fool Spentlow. Tuesdays and Saturdays were always her nights. Still are, as far as I know.’

  ‘And who might have begun to fear for the reputation of Colonel Noakes?’

  ‘Oh, there I must protest. There was nothing between the Colonel and Alice Brightmore. She is the gentlest of creatures, the most law-abiding, the most timorous –’

  ‘Timorous women can change, if they see a certain kind of threat. And tell me: who is the one woman in Spentlow sufficiently literate to capture other women’s fancy with the turn of a phrase – a woman to whom scandal of any kind is so odious that she would not miss the shadow of it? Although, of course, she would leave material activity strictly to others –?’

  ‘There are women like that in any community.’

  ‘And who is the one woman who always says and does what she thinks fit, irrespective of consequences? Who was the only one who saw a chance of a mercenary deal at your Charity Auction – provided she could find enough shareholders to pool their capital? You followed her eyes that day, just as I did.’

  ‘Vera Scadbolt is a menace. It did my heart good to see you frustrate her.’

  ‘Finally – and I make no apologies for asking you this, Vicar – even for asking you in front of our friends here. Who was the woman who was most infuriated when Davina Stott put you yourself into a compromising position?’

  Dunderdale actually blushed. And then lost his temper.

  ‘You are off your head, Kenworthy.’

  ‘I’ve been accused of that before now.’

  ‘The woman whose character you are now tearing to shreds is the most reliable, the sweetest-natured, the least susceptible to mass hysteria –’

  ‘Odd things happen to the nicest of people when they allow themselves to take on the facelessness of a mob.’

  ‘There are no mobs in Spentlow – now.’

  He looked at Horrocks and Christine, and Kenworthy did his best to signal to them to ignore the remark.

  ‘There was a self-appointed committee, wasn’t there, a sort of posse of vigilantes, set up when Spentlow was first enlivened by the threat of anarchy? Don’t you at least admit that I am right about its membership?’

  Dunderdale did not subside. He managed to control the untidier elements in his rage, but he was still seething.

  ‘Moral indignation. With the best of intentions – and no harm done to a soul.’

  ‘You believe that? No involuntary harm, even?’

  ‘Even if there was an inkling of truth behind your insinuations, Kenworthy, it is something you would be hard put to it to prove. Besides – you have had the answer from Christine: this girl Triss and her friends –’

  Christine leaned forward to protest.

  ‘Not from me: from John – speaking out of turn. I never spoke. I told you I was far from certain –’

  ‘Kenworthy, you will never make any sort of case against Vera Scadbolt and her friends. Emmeli
ne Malkin is above suspicion. Geraldine Cartwright, as you yourself said, knows better than to involve herself in anything that might soil her fingers. And of the other two, I could never believe anything but their innocence.’

  ‘It is your own innocence that I find the most touching, Vicar. And I propose to join battle. But for that I shall need Christine’s co-operation and John’s permission.’

  Chapter Eighteen

  ‘Geraldine Cartwright,’ Elspeth said. ‘Aged fifty-four, married woman. An immigrant as far as Spentlow is concerned – came here in 1948. Husband ex-RAF, now a technical representative and away from home a lot. For which you will say, no doubt, that you don’t blame him. They have two children, both grown up and left the nest: son in Zambia and daughter in Chile. Geraldine has held just about every office there is in every organization, great or small, in Spentlow. I can give you chapter and verse.’

  ‘We can take that as read.’

  ‘She’s the only Spentlow woman whose committee work takes her outside the village: Red Cross, WVS, British Legion Women –’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘And she’s done a lot of canvassing, so far in vain, of members of the Lord Lieutenant’s committee for the appointment of JP’s.’

  Elspeth was speaking from exhaustive notes, which she had offered Kenworthy to read. He preferred to sit dreamily whilst she picked out the highlights.

  ‘Vera Scadbolt, maiden name Brightmore. Mother an Allsop. Married woman, forty-two. Husband an invoice clerk with the Milk Marketing Board, and they have the one daughter she told you about – a classmate of Davina’s. In season she works almost full-time, as house help to Allsop’s tenants. She’s also worked at the school as a cleaner, kitchen help and crossing patrol – but a month’s about as long as she’s ever held that kind of job. It’s not that she’s unreliable. It’s the personal relationships she can’t manage. Other people start handing in their notice – and so we come to the Vicar’s housekeeper.’

  She turned a page, tabulated with zealous neatness.

  ‘Doreen Malkin, aged forty-three. Born a Scadbolt, and her mother was a Brightmore. Married in 1947; her husband died in ‘49: of leukaemia. She became a home help for the local authority, was also in charge of the Sunday School when Dunderdale moved into his living in 1950. In 1951 she became his full-time housekeeper. There are no serious suggestions of illicit relationships between them – only ribald jokes in the lowest of company, not meant to be believed.’