The Slow Death of Maxwell Carrick

by Jan Harvey

  In recent weeks I had felt the need for stability, my wilder days were behind me and I had begun to realise that I found no joy in my club nor in my very occasional visits to the houses of my friends. Everything was so very dull. How terribly spoilt it all was, everything tinged with loss, tragedy and heartbreak.

  The unhappy period before this war had been one of belt tightening, but one always hoped that fourteen-eighteen really had ended it all. We had all been convinced that we would soon be back to some sort of normality until this abominable Austrian (for God’s sake, we once thought him comical) had undone everything we held dear.

  I removed my shirt and ran a finger across my chest; the scar was still livid, but not so crimson in colour. It was my eyes, with the deadness behind them, that told me the damage was still there. It was as powerful as ever, crouching in the dark corners of my mind, waiting until I could no longer contain it.

  A light rapping noise broke into my thoughts. I pulled on my dressing gown and opened the door. It was Cécile. She was standing in front of me in a black cocktail dress that fitted sheath-like over her slim frame. She had swept her hair back and on each side, she wore a delicate diamanté pin. Her lips were scarlet; the oval eyes pencilled black. I looked at the pale rise and fall of her décolletage where lay a necklace, a delicate chain with a single silver feather on it.

  ‘Carrick, please forgive me, I saw you walking to your room, I don’t know where anyone else is to ask.’ She was demure, her accent more noticeable with her voice low.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  ‘I just wondered if I am wearing quite the correct thing?’ She smoothed down the dress with her hands. I noticed how flat her stomach was, how narrow the hips. ‘I have no idea of what is appropriate in England, in Paris we have lost our way in fashion for some time.’

  ‘You look perfect, my dear,’ I told her. ‘And, if you allow me, I will change swiftly and then come to collect you and escort you down to dinner.’

  ‘Would you?’ She seemed genuinely touched by my offer.

  ‘Of course, I should be honoured.’ Her eyes met mine fleetingly and I saw a brightness that was so very opposite to my own. All at once, I realised there was nothing I would like better in the world than to walk down the wide stairs of Lapston Manor with the beautiful Cécile Roussell on my arm.

  7

  ‘Bob, it’s Martha.’

  ‘Hello there. How are you?’ I was standing by the window, the rain was spitting against the glass, the sky bruised and purple. Bob’s voice was warm in the chill of the dining room; it was lovely to hear it, like sipping a hot chocolate.

  ‘I’m fine, Bob; enjoying being a free spirit.’ I wasn’t sounding convincing and I knew it. I wanted to be back with him, helping me to work out the content of our next issue. ‘I’ve got a little project to work on, a book, hopefully about the village.’

  ‘Oh, I am pleased. I shall look forward to seeing it.’

  ‘I’m calling about that, Bob. I wonder if you could do me a favour?’

  ‘Anything, Martha, fire away.’

  ‘Could you ask Polly to send me a back issue of Land? June/July.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  ‘And, would you ask the editorial team of Home if the magazine has ever featured a Lapston Manor? There might be a record, before we digitised, somewhere. I haven’t seen anything in my time, but I need info to pad out a chapter for the book.’

  ‘Of course. Happy to.’ Bob was always cheerful and very helpful, and I knew he would come up with the goods.

  ‘Thank you, I really appreciate it. Give my love to Frances. We’ll invite you over to dinner soon.’ I found I was shaking when I pressed the red button. I could picture them all, as I stood gazing at the floor, working in the buzz of the office, the meetings, the colours, the tick tick sound of typing and emails pinging. I missed it so much.

  I sat back at the table and reached for the fifth file. It was a fascinating read about the policing of the village. A cottage halfway down the sleepy old High Street had been the local police station and its neighbour, now covered in a deep crimson Virginia creeper in the autumn, was once the library. Nowadays the lorries thundered past them on an A road and sleepy was the last word you would use. There was a sample of crimes committed in the eighteenth century. “1791 Burglary of silver ornaments from a house in Meadow Lane. 1723 Stolen one loaf, punishment flogging: James Polder aged eleven.” Then there was the twentieth century by comparison; “A bag of coal stolen from the merchant’s truck; a racing dog missing; a bike stolen from outside the saddlers, now recovered.”

  There was the story of three Edwards brothers, who were caught stealing from “The Manor.” The police had been tipped off and laid in wait by the window where the men had entered the property. As the threesome jumped out there had been a scuffle and one of the brothers had been knocked out, and later died. It was nineteen twenty-one, the manor was unnamed, I wondered if it was Lapston.

  I read through some more articles and the time passed very quickly. The rain was battering against the glass doors of the dining room, a real squall. So much for little April showers. The next file was a thick one dealing with the church, which dated back to the twelfth century, and the Prebend House, where the Cannon had lived as part of his stipend. A short write up said: “The earliest known part of the present buildings are the two pilasters which formed part of the twelfth century granary, and in the graveyard between the two, many of the residents of the village are buried, including the famous cellist, Dame Margaret Dean.”

  When the rain cleared, I took a walk down to the church, with a view to looking at the Prebend House. St Judes was quite beautiful. The shingle path led to the front door, which was heavy and hard to open. Inside it, the air was chilly, the smell musty and damp, not a building that was heated very often. I had never been in before and I certainly recognised myself as part of the problem of dwindling worshippers, but Steve and I had never bought into the concept of God.

  There were various memorial stones on the walls around me, and I walked along the length of them looking for a mention of Lapston. I found the granite tomb in the south transept, the place where the “Amsherst family of Lapston Manor” was interred: “Sir Reginald and Lady Augusta who left two sons and one daughter.” Their names were carved into a marble plaque at the foot of the plinth and on top was a wreath of flowers, the petals delicately carved. I touched the cold stone and looked around the walls. There was no further mention of the family, no remembrance for the children.

  A blast of music made me jump out of my skin. I stepped back into the nave as, without warning, Frank Sinatra was blasting out from all the speakers. “And now the end is near; And so I face the final curtain; My friend, I’ll say it clear –” It stopped, the needle was scraping across vinyl, when did I last hear that sound? I couldn’t recall. “But then again too few to mention, I did what I had to do.”

  It stopped dead and the silence was deafening. I peered around the column in front of me and saw the silhouette of a man in the anteroom at the back of the church. He was on his knees and fiddling with an old record player. As I attempted to leave unnoticed, he saw me and quickly stood up.

  ‘Oh dear me, I do apologise. So sorry, I didn’t see you there!’ He was a tall, slim man of about forty. He had salt and pepper hair, which although receding from his brow, was full at the sides. ‘How awful for you. I hope you weren’t deep in prayer; that’s why they call it the Devil’s music, you know.’ He looked both flustered and amused in equal measure. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You’re absolutely fine,’ I reassured him. ‘I was only looking around, I haven’t been in the church before.’

  ‘Well, that’s a fine welcome I gave you. I am sorry, I was testing out the old sound system.’ He pointed towards the record player. ‘Funeral, tomorrow, they want Frank to accompany the coffin out. I’m afraid I find it poor taste,
the vicar has to walk ceremoniously down the aisle to that.’

  I was imagining the sight. I felt for the vicar and could imagine an elderly man trying to remain po-faced as the record player crackled into action.

  ‘It must be difficult for him.’

  ‘Her, she’s a she.’

  ‘Oh, a lady.’

  ‘Yes, Reverend Sonia. She started here three months ago. We’ve been vicarless for almost a year, but the last one left under a bit of a cloud, you see.’

  I leaned in. ‘A bad cloud?’ The journalist in me had her ears pricked.

  ‘Oh yes, he made a bit of a mess of things and disappeared completely for the whole Christmas period without a by your leave. I take it you’re not local or you’d be up to speed on this?’

  ‘Oh no, I am. That is, we’ve lived here in the village for three years, but we’re not religious.’

  ‘Ah, that explains it, I wondered why I’d never seen you around. I’m Simon Young, I sort of look after the church for my sins, as you might say.’ He raised his eyebrows and smiled. I told him my name and explained that I was recently retired and had started to see more of the area now that I had nothing to do.

  ‘That is, it’s not like I’m idle,’ I said. ‘I’m actually working on a book about the village.’ I was validating my existence again.

  ‘History group?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘This is Camilla Crocket’s Cowards and Conundrums, isn’t it?’ he said.

  I suddenly realised it was all Cs. ‘Yes, she likes her C words!’ I replied.

  His eyebrows rose again towards his vanishing hair and we both burst out laughing. ‘Would you like a cup of tea? I have no milk though I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’d love one.’ I followed him into the small kitchenette tucked away behind a screen.

  The kettle was soon bubbling loudly as Simon searched in the fridge.

  ‘No I’m sorry, no milk. Would you prefer a coffee?’

  ‘Coffee would be great and actually, I take it without anyway, so that’s perfect.’

  We sat on the back pew, hands wrapped around the warm mugs. The nave stretched out before us to the chancel where two stunning floral arrangements, in white and pastel blue, stood each side of a rich crimson carpet.

  ‘Is it a local person tomorrow?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, lovely man, Charles Bury. He celebrated his seventy-eighth birthday last week. His wife Muriel and he met here in the village and have lived here all their lives. He had a very sad early life; he was brought up at the Children’s Home.’

  ‘Lapston?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It was a sad place. Muriel was telling me that he suffered greatly there. He was taken there because he was ill and they kept him in because they said his parents were too poor to look after him. Muriel says he never talks, that is, talked about it, but he had terrible things done to him, from all accounts.’

  A shiver ran through me. ‘Poor man. It doesn’t bear thinking about with what we all know now.’

  ‘Terrible.’ There was a pause and it felt a little awkward.

  ‘And Lapston. I’ve been reading about it. Do you know anything about a death up there?’ I asked.

  ‘You mean one of the children?’

  ‘No, before that time, the Amshersts?’

  ‘Oh, yes, they are buried here. Weren’t you looking at their tomb just before?’

  ‘Yes, but there was only Sir Reginald and his wife, not the children.’

  ‘I don’t know for certain but the children died elsewhere, I think. I really have no idea, I’m sorry. I know that there were three children, two were called George and Anne I think.’

  ‘Alice,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Alice, that’s right, she was a lovely person apparently. She was part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, the ATS, as a subaltern, just like the Queen, during the war. She could strip an engine and that’s where she learned to drive. You see they had chauffeurs before the war, but the family’s fortunes hit the rocks shortly after and they were reduced to just a few staff, and one man who looked after the garden and drove them around when they needed him. He died the month I came to live in the village, Jim Ogden, lovely man, very humble by all accounts.’

  ‘So what happened to the family? It all seems a little unclear?’

  ‘I don’t have any idea. They were very withdrawn, they lost the heir to the house and after that, life at Lapston was very quiet. Certainly the annual ball had long stopped and I think they used to attend the tiny church in the grounds rather than come into the village. They only had a small number of staff; there were the two I knew of, Jim of course, and the gardener’s boy, Seth.’

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard about Seth. It seems that the whole demise of the Amshersts is shrouded in mystery, and perhaps deliberately so?’

  ‘Possibly, the village has its secrets, quite a sprinkling of them.’ Simon was enjoying himself. It occurred to me that perhaps he had quite a lonely life and a conversation was very welcome because he was very easy to talk to. ‘Did you know about our monk?’

  ‘Monk?’

  ‘Oh yes, he was a young postulant during the Reformation. He hid from the Reformers in The Crown while they sacked the church. The villagers disguised him and took him back into the church where he hid in a tiny room above the porch for months. The Reformers came back and failed to spot the tiny door in the wall because it was partly concealed behind a tapestry. That’s it there.’ Simon pointed to a narrow wooden door beside the entrance. ‘Would you like to see it?’

  ‘Oh yes please.’

  Simon fetched a ring with a number of keys on it and selected a large one, very old and rusty with a thick barrel. He pulled the tapestry to one side, sliding it along a metal pole and revealed a narrow, wooden door set into the stone.

  ‘Follow me,’ he said. ‘Do mind the steps, they are very precarious.’ The staircase was almost vertical and very narrow. I’m not brilliant with tight spaces and I felt my throat constricting a little.

  ‘Are you okay?’ He asked as I reached the top of the stairwell.

  ‘Yes, I just get a bit claustrophobic, it’s fine though.’

  ‘This is the room; not much to see but this little window looks over the porch. It’s a sort of priest hole. Legend has it there is a tunnel from the church that leads to a concealed exit, which is how the young man escaped, but I see no evidence of it. To be honest, every old building in the country thrives on the intrigue of their priest holes, which means just about every sixteenth century laundry cupboard you come across must, at one time or another, have been used to secrete a clergyman.’

  The room was no more than two metres square and the ceiling was low. There was a shelf cut into the wall and on it a faded picture of a blond Jesus with a star halo, in a tatty frame. ‘Goodness, you’d never guess this room was here, would you.’

  ‘No, and can you imagine being in here for months so no one could give you away?’

  ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘They got him and killed him just outside the church gate. They say he walks from the church to The Crown each year on the anniversary of the day he died.’

  ‘Have you seen him?’

  ‘No, I’m not a ghost type, much too level-headed.’ He winked. ‘But there are lots of villagers who swear they’ve seen him. Personally I would suggest that they’re all the ones on the way home from The Crown!’ I laughed with him but, as I took another look around the room, a wave of dizziness was coming over me.

  ‘I’ll have to go back down,’ I said. ‘But thanks for showing it to me, I appreciate it.’

  We were back in the main church a few seconds later; the half a dozen steps we climbed down were very tricky because they were so steep.

  ‘Any time,’ Simon pulled opened the heavy church door for me. ‘Are you all right?
Would you like me to walk you home?’

  ‘No, no I’m fine. I’m much better now, I just don’t like tight spaces that’s all.’

  ‘Well, it’s been lovely chatting, if you ever want to drop in again, feel free. I’m always here pottering or repairing and I’m one of the campanologists too, so if you hear the bells that’s me as well!’

  ‘Thank you, I might well pop in to say hello and, please, if you remember or find anything out about the Amshersts could you let me know? I live up at the villas, where the accidents always happen on the bend.’

  ‘I know the ones, are you on the left or the right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘If I come across anything I’ll certainly let you know. Take care, Martha.’

  As I walked down the wide flagstone path through the gravestones with worn away inscriptions, the sun burst out and the grass around me shone a bright emerald green. I looked down at the road where the young monk had met his death and then back up at the room over the porch. The tiny window was barely noticeable, only a slither of the sun’s reflection gave any impression it was there at all.

  8

  We were the first in the lounge and I poured us both a drink. Cécile wandered over to the tall windows at the far end of the room. Long tendrils of evening light, bright as marigolds, were moving across the knot garden.

  ‘What a beautiful sight,’ she said, sitting on the window seat. ‘The garden has been designed for this time of day, has it not?’

  ‘George’s father loved horticulture,’ I told her as I passed her drink to her.

  ‘Horti-culture? I don’t understand, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Gardens,’ I explained. ‘He loved gardens and he had this knot garden designed in nineteen twenty-eight. He dedicated it to his wife Augusta – there is an ‘A’ at the heart of it, shaped from the hedging.’