Cheating the Hangman (15 page)

The last thing I wanted after all the drama of the day was a loud and hysterical scene in the kitchen, but I followed, unwilling to undermine Mrs Trent’s authority. I also wanted to hear what Robert obviously wished to impart. However, in the presence of three adults, Robert unsurprisingly lost all power of speech. Susan was hardly better, covering her face with her apron, and sobbing so hard that her whole body shook. ‘I didn’t … we thought … that man,’ was all I could make out.

I drew the ashen Robert to the quietest corner. ‘Just in case, Robert? In case of what? Quietly, now – pretend you’re talking to Titus.’

But he would not or he could not.

Mrs Trent, equally frustrated, shook Susan not quite gently. ‘If you carry on like this I shall have to slap your face just to quieten you.’ She looked at Jem and me. ‘With your permission I suggest we deal with this in the morning. There’s no sense to be got from them. Go you to your room, young woman, and be thankful you’re not out on your ear without a character.’

Susan stood stock-still, shaking her head dumbly. At last she managed, ‘Please, please Mrs Trent – let me stay down here until you go up. Please!’ The girl fell to her knees, hands raised.

I expected her to receive a flat negative, but something – some sort of understanding – softened the tired lines of the older woman’s face. ‘Very well. Light our candles, there’s a good girl, and we’ll go up together. As for you, Robert, I shall expect to see a bright fire burning in here tomorrow.’

The boy went rigid.

I shot an apologetic glance at Jem, knowing he would feel that I should have let him discipline the child, and said to him, ‘Titus has had a difficult day – it’s left him very nervy. He’d like some familiar company, I have no doubt, but you and I have a lot to discuss, Jem. What would you advise?’

‘I’d advise … but that can wait till the morning.’ At last he seemed to understand me. ‘I suppose you’re right: that horse needs a bit of a fuss. Robert, look to it, will you?’

To my shame I had almost forgotten about Dan and the decisions the medical men had to make. While Jem found us bread, cheese and beer, I hauled myself upstairs to the room – once nominally Robert’s, of course – to enquire how he did. There was no one to ask but the patient himself.

He appeared to be asleep, but opened his eyes as a board creaked under my foot. ‘Still got both my legs,’ he said tersely. ‘But such a to-do there’s been, master. Such squawking and carrying on. I think Captain Keble and that man of his are blowing a cloud downstairs to calm their nerves.’ He shifted uncomfortably.

‘I’ll send Wells up to you, shall I?’

‘I’d be obliged, master.’

The temptation to head straight to my room and close the door on everyone was almost overwhelming, but I made my way down to my study. Before I even entered I gasped at the smell: someone was smoking pungent cigarillos in my private room! I could not approve such want of consideration. My study might be their headquarters, but it was not ultimately their territory, and I allowed myself to feel offended. I opened the door. Their back to me, both men lounged at their leisure, neckcloths undone, and both had their booted feet on my desk. Neither showed any inclination to turn round, a fact that perhaps owed something to the presence of three empty bottles, which had once held my finest claret.

Silently I reached across my desk and picked them up. They had left wet rings, which were already bleaching the mahogany.

‘Gentlemen,’ I began quietly, having the satisfaction of seeing them struggle into a more vertical position, ‘you are here as my valued guests, but I fear that this is an abuse of my hospitality. Mr Wells, your patient needs you. Captain Keble, I am happy for my guests to smoke, but not indoors, and certainly not in my sanctum sanctorum.’

He threw the butt – and the one that Wells had left smouldering on the edge of my desk – into the fire, and straightened his clothes.

‘We told you that we had made this our headquarters,’ he said. ‘They never bleat like that when we commandeer properties abroad.’

‘I’m sure they don’t,’ I agreed affably, throwing open the
windows despite the cold night air. Suddenly I found my brain clicking together things that people had said or done earlier this evening. What had Dan called it? A to-do? I felt anger burn within my breast. ‘Your smoking apart, is there any other trivial cause for me or my servants to
bleat
?’

‘Oh, you heard about that silly wench, did you? Couldn’t take a bit of friendliness? Tried to give her a guinea to stop her crying, stupid bitch. There it is.’ He pointed to the coin as if it made all well.

‘I will pass it on to her when I see her in the morning,’ I said coldly. ‘I take it that Wells will sit up with your patient tonight? In that case, sir, I suggest it is time you retired to your bedchamber. I would suggest that you do not smoke your cigarillos there but limit yourself to snuff, if tobacco you must have.’ I held the door open for him.

Jem was waiting in the hall, arms folded. He waited until Keble had made his unsteady way upstairs before steering me by the shoulder into the kitchen, where Cribb, dealing with a bone, barely looked up as I collapsed on to a chair, needing the table to support me. ‘Well done, Toby. I was ready to wade in and offer a little assistance if necessary, but you handled that beautifully, if you don’t mind my saying so – and after all today’s heroics, too. Come, tell me all – what happened when I scooted off?’ He poured beer for us both and pushed a tankard towards me.

‘In a moment. I want to see that Titus is all right.’ I struggled to my feet.

He pushed his chair away from the table, apparently determined to accompany me. ‘What was all that about nerves? That horse would walk through cannon fire without turning a hair.’

‘I have a hunch. Shh.’

Together we walked on tiptoe to the stable. When our eyes got used to the dark we could pick out horse and stable lad curled up together. Robert was still whispering in the great soft ears. In a moment he would talk himself to sleep – infinitely better than crying himself to sleep. ‘Just in case, Titus. That’s what it was. Nothing soppy. Just in case …’

I pressed Jem’s shoulder – we were to return without waking either of them. In fact we were seated again at the kitchen table before either of us spoke.

‘We may have misjudged him and Susan,’ I said mildly, topping up his tankard. ‘According to Dan, there was some trouble – a to-do – earlier. Keble says he offered “the wench” a guinea to stop her crying. And Susan wouldn’t go upstairs on her own – in fact I’ll wager she is sharing Mrs Trent’s room even now. As for that romp in the hay, my guess is that Robert took Susan to the stables ‘just in case’ the men – whichever of them or both – misbehaved again. He is but a child, surely, and you will remember that her affections were rather embarrassingly engaged elsewhere.’

‘Indeed they were.’ He laughed sadly at the hopeless passions of first love. ‘But surely by now she must be looking for a beau in the village – which I would be the first to agree that young Robert is not.’

Cribb, now asleep, twitched and turned, as if chasing a dream butterfly.

‘You are nine-tenths asleep yourself, Toby. I am, too. Go to your chamber; I will use young Robert’s bedroll down here beside Cribb. If anything untoward happens, call me.’

I was too weary to argue. If I thought anything as
I dragged my way upstairs it was a vague wish that the immaculate Binns might have been at hand to drag off my boots. But I had used a bootjack before and could do so again. And before I slept I must plan the next day’s sermon.

To my amazement it was Binns himself who brought my shaving water the next morning. ‘And I must respectfully suggest, Dr Campion, that speed is of the essence if you are to be ready to take the morning service at St Jude’s. Pray allow me to assist.’

‘Indeed – great heavens, is that the time?’

‘It is indeed. If you will be still, sir, I will endeavour to apprise you of this morning’s activities while I shave you. Your stable lad arrived at Langley Park betimes, I gather, with a letter for Dr Hansard, the contents of which he shared with my master, still in his bedchamber. The gist was that the village schoolmaster considered that Dr Keble and his colleague Mr Wells were too inebriated to take proper care of their patient, whose groans they had failed to hear and whose medicine they failed to administer. Dr Hansard and Dr Toone were invited to come here to give their professional opinion. Naturally, knowing that you lack a valet, I offered my services, and here we all are. Dr Hansard has warned your churchwardens that Divine Service may start a few minutes late, but you can hear that the bells are already ringing. One moment, sir! You need two boots …’

‘… You obviously know, my friends, why I cannot insult you by offering a half-considered sermon this morning,’ I said with an apologetic smile, as the last member of my
congregation settled down. To my amazement, as I had scurried into church, my surplice like a sail behind me, all my flock raised their hands in applause. One or two had actually called out a blessing on me. I was very near to tears. ‘But let us worship God with joy in our hearts as we sing our first hymn …’

Mrs Trent’s breakfasts were second to none, whatever else defeated her. Today she had to feed a small army – though fortunately without any actual military men, who had resentfully slunk off, still full of righteous indignation over what they saw as their Turkish treatment. The only thing that made her baulk was being required to sit down with us, so that we might thank her for her heroism the day before. Maria had warned us that the good lady would find it excruciatingly embarrassing, so we kept our meal short – my excuse being that there must be enough left over for Susan, waiting on us with unusual dexterity, and Robert to share. Jem, Mrs Trent and I had apologised for ever having doubted them, and I had passed over Keble’s guinea. Since I found a half-guinea to reward Robert for work well outside his remit, they were both happy, but, on Robert’s advice, both handed over their new-found wealth to Mrs Trent – ‘Just in case,’ Robert said solemnly, but with a glance in my direction that was almost impish.

The news of Dan cheered us; for all their personal faults, Captain Keble and Wells and their fomentation had apparently saved his leg. Now there was a question of what should happen next. Maria suggested once again that he should be removed. She was tactful enough not to mention her previous apprehensions and her insistence that
he should be guarded, simply pointing out the rectory was not a hospital, and that as soon as he was deemed well enough to travel, he should be taken to somewhere where he could recover his strength without burdening Mrs Trent.

To my surprise, Mrs Trent did not protest that she did not mind the extra work. She and Maria exchanged a glance that suggested that the matter might have been discussed in private beforehand, and that Maria might have been more explicit. In fact, Mrs Trent suggested that Dan might find a safe haven on a farm in Worcestershire run by a second cousin who would find some extra income useful. With our approval she would write to him tomorrow to see how much he would charge for bed and board – and also to ask if he might be able to offer Dan work as he got stronger.

To my surprise Toone, who had been very quiet, drawled that he would pay the piper, by way of apology for the behaviour of a man he had once thought a gentleman. No one argued.

Predictably my appointment with the two Clavercote wardens was far from satisfactory.

I would have much preferred to interview them in my study, but it still bore more relation to a soldier’s billet than a gentleman’s reading room, and I had expressly forbidden Mrs Trent and Susan to set foot in it till the morrow. Considering the dining room the most formal alternative, I sat with my back to the window, the bright sun playing on their resentful faces. Jem sat almost invisibly in the furthest corner, taking notes.

‘I was amazed that you were absent from yesterday’s gathering – amazed, disappointed and indeed insulted,’
I began. ‘And horrified that, suspecting violence might occur, you did nothing to prevent it. I hesitate to ask if in fact you hoped for a violent outcome – that you hoped to be rid of your troublesome priest.’ I suspected that they might not immediately place Longstaff’s version of the quotation. Indeed, I doubt if they recognised this. ‘Indeed, I wonder what has already happened to the curates whom Archdeacon Cornforth asked to replace Mr Coates. Let that be my first question. The curates, gentlemen – are they leading a nascent Sunday school or are they dead, hanged by an angry mob?’

Boddice looked at Lawton; as squire he should do the talking. Lawton fidgeted at the unwelcome honour.

‘Well?’ My father could not have spoken more coldly.

‘As we told you, they weren’t satisfactory. They couldn’t preach, couldn’t—’

‘I am less concerned with the negatives than with the positives. Are they still alive?’

‘Lord bless you, yes, sir. As far as we know,’ Boddice added with a sudden rush of honesty. ‘We just told them not to come back – paid their fees till the end of the quarter, too.’

‘How uncommonly generous. So how do you propose to fulfil your legal obligation to hold regular worship? After all,’ I added dryly, ‘had things gone as someone planned, I might have been otherwise engaged.’ I leant forward, pointing from one to the other. ‘Very well, gentlemen, which of you planned my death? First of all as I quitted your village by night, secondly, when that venture failed, by lynch mob yesterday?’

They stared, twin gargoyles of terror.

‘Answers, gentlemen!’ I counted silently to twenty. ‘Very well, I have no alternative but to ask Lord Hasbury, in his capacity as magistrate, to question you.’ I half-rose. Fully rose. ‘You may go. You may expect to face me in a court of law.’

Boddice broke first. ‘Please, sir – it weren’t like that. We were shocked as you by that dreadful attack – and then you go and care for the man what did it. Even the Good Samaritan didn’t do that, did he?’ he added ingratiatingly.