Dead Man Riding (25 page)

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When I came to the gateway to Studholme Hall there was a vehicle ahead of me. It wasn't one I recognised – a rustic wagon with a black waterproof covering, drawn by a raw-boned dapple grey. It went very slowly, even allowing for the ruts in the track. It wasn't until I followed it down to the yard that I realised it had been bringing the Old Man's body home.

Chapter Fifteen

T
HE MEN MUST HAVE DECIDED ALREADY TO KEEP
the women out of what followed. I suppose the Old Man would have approved of that, although I didn't. When I followed the cart into the yard I found all of them except Robin standing there. Alan said to me, ‘Imogen and Midge are up in your room. They'll tell you what's happening.' His voice and face were so strained that I accepted he wanted me out of the way and didn't argue for once. I found them both sitting on their mattresses, making no pretence of reading or anything else. As soon as my head came up over the stairs from the tack room Imogen burst out, ‘They're not really going to do it, are they Nell?'

‘Do what?'

‘Burn him.'

It was the problem of the codicil. They told me what I knew already – that the inquest had been adjourned and the body released to Alan as closest relative. He and Meredith had arrived home about an hour before, knowing that the body was following, and immediately gone into a conclave with the others in the parlour. Imogen was furious, not at being kept out of things but with the Old Man for imposing yet another burden on Alan.

‘It's barbaric. I don't see how they can ever consider it.'

‘If it's what he wanted, after all—' Midge started, but Imogen cut across her.

‘What does it matter what he wanted? He was quite insane, the will shows it.'

In the silence that followed we heard wheels grinding away out of the yard, presumably the funeral cart starting its journey back to town. I wondered where the men had put the Old Man's body. Not in the tack room this time or we'd have heard. Although I didn't like to mention it to the other two, there must have been some urgency to the men's discussion. He'd been dead for four days and it had been unusually hot. As we waited the shadows stretched out over the room and we heard buckets clanking as Robin kept to his evening routine. Then there were quick footsteps and Meredith's voice asking Robin where they kept spades and shovels. Imogen drew a deep breath.

‘At least it sounds as if its burying, not burning.'

Some time after that Alan called us from the stable yard and we went down to see what they'd decided.

‘We're digging a grave for him up at the top of the field near the woods. We're going to bury him at sunset.'

The Old Man had got half of what he wanted. There would be no funeral pyre but he would lie in the topmost field of his land and be buried without religious ceremony. Alan went back up to help with the grave digging.

‘At least they haven't forbidden us to be there,' I said.

Imogen wasn't sure that she wanted to go, but Midge and I were determined to show that much respect for the Old Man at least, so she gave in. The clothes I had worn to visit Major Mawbray would have to serve as funeral wear as well, so I stayed as I was while the other two changed into the darkest things they had with them. We went downstairs, through the house yard and on to our familiar track to the top field. There was half an hour or so to sunset but we'd timed it right because the men were just ahead of us, silhouetted against the golden light, carrying the body on a makeshift bier, each to a corner. They'd put Kit on the right because of his injured left arm. We found out later that the bier was an old door. The shroud they'd wrapped the body in was a horse blanket – which seemed fair enough for the Centaur. There were two figures walking behind them, separate from each other, first Dulcie then Robin.

We fell in with the procession and went in silence through the gateway, up the cropped field, where the grass was beginning to grow again, past our abandoned college barn. They'd chosen a good place for the grave, at the very top point of the field, shaded by trees at the edge of the wood. The sun was almost down now, just showing over a low cloudbank the colour of purple grapes on the horizon of an inky sea. In the paddock just below and to the right Sid suddenly threw up his head, whinnied and cantered from one side of the field to the other, silver mane flying. It was wrong, I knew, to be superstitious about animals – he was probably just restless because nobody had been up to talk to him that evening – but the whinnying sent a chill down my spine and I could tell the others felt the same. The four men put down the door and we stood round the open rectangle gouged out of the grass.

Alan said, ‘Well?' and looked at Meredith. Between them they gently lifted the blanket-wrapped figure and knelt to lower it, clumsily because the grave was deep. Although I wouldn't have wanted a conventional burial for the Old Man, I found myself wishing for the expertise of professional undertakers. But it was done. They straightened up and, with Nathan's help, started shovelling in the earth. Dulcie stood a little apart, face impassive. Robin had tears streaming down his cheeks and his lips were moving, probably in prayer whether the Old Man had wanted it or not. The first few dozen spadefuls were laid in carefully, as if the body in the blanket could feel hurt, but once it had disappeared from sight the earth rained in faster and by the time the sun had set and the edges of the cloud mass had turned red-gold from the afterglow, the job was done.

*   *   *

Perhaps it was that glow on the edge of the clouds that gave Midge the idea – Midge of all people, the practical mathematical one.

‘I don't see why he shouldn't have a bonfire at least,' she said.

We all looked at her, surprised, but the suggestion chimed with the uneasiness I think we all felt. Death needs some ceremony after all and we knew we hadn't given the Old Man his beacon to cheer his friends and enemies. Without any more discussion we agreed that there should indeed be a bonfire and scattered in all directions to find things to burn. We had no more than half an hour of daylight left and must have needed some relief from the tension by then, because it turned into a wild hunt. Some people went back to the house, others through the fence into the wood. Still in our good clothes, we dragged and carried dead branches, bits of broken chicken coop, barrel staves, the remains of an old wheelbarrow. Even Robin joined in with the rest, bringing up sackfuls of old straw too musty for horse bedding. By the time the light was going we'd built up a good pile on a reasonably flat piece of ground, far enough from the grave for respect, high enough for the flames to be seen a long way away.

‘Matches. Who's got matches?'

‘Nathan's always got matches. Where is he?'

We shouted for Nathan, thinking he was still in the woods but his reply, breathless and fretful, came from lower down by the barn.

‘I'm coming. Don't be impatient.'

When he appeared he was dragging the armchair he'd made so carefully.

Midge protested, ‘Not that. It's nice.'

‘It's meant to be a funeral pyre, isn't it? Besides, we won't be using it any more.'

Alan and Meredith helped him wedge it into the bottom of the bonfire. Robin and I pulled straw out of the sacks and pushed armfuls of it wherever there were gaps. A little breeze was ruffling the leaves in the wood. Alan straightened up and took the matches from Nathan.

‘Are we ready then?'

‘Here.' Kit stepped out of the shadows, holding a bundle of spruce and holly twigs. ‘Might as well do it properly.'

He held out the bundle for Alan to light, waited until it flared up then passed it over.

‘The bridal torch,' he said.

He and Alan stared at each other for a moment, the contours of their faces sharp in the light of the flames, then Alan made a lunge like a fencing movement and pushed the torch into the heart of the bonfire. The straw caught at once, then the dry branches and in moments the whole fire blazed up and ripped a hole in the dark sky that must have been visible for miles around. Down in the town people would see it from their back yards or doorsteps. The gossip about the will had probably got round by now and they would be sure it was the Old Man burning. Late walkers or shepherds would watch it from the hills on the Scottish side of the Solway, fishermen from the sea. Nearer at hand, Major Mawbray might be watching too, standing in his porch between his barley sugar brick pillars, and know it was a last defiance from his enemy. At least the Old Man hadn't been cheated of that. We stood round it, not saying anything. Once Alan had got the fire lit he'd stepped back alongside Imogen. They were shoulder to shoulder, hands probably touching. From where I was standing the rest were just dark shapes, with faces coming into view every now and then as the flames shifted. I thought about Kit and the bridal torch. Had he chosen that way of admitting defeat over Imogen? Quite possibly. There was a love of drama in both Alan and Kit.

The flames began to die down. Nathan's chair glowed red for a while, then flared and crumbled. We started patrolling the dry grass, stamping out bits of glowing ash. The fire drew in on itself until it was an untidy ball of burnt branches with a glowing heart. We drew in on it as well in an informal circle, kicking bits of smouldering wood back into the centre. As it happened, there was nobody close to me when my toe tangled in something that wasn't wood. I thought at first it must be a piece of tough bramble or bracken stem and knelt to pull it away before it could scorch my shoe but there was too much of it for that. My hands closed on something leathery, too straight-edged to be a plant stem. The burnt end broke and I was holding a length of it in my hand. Even then it took me a while to realise what it was. A leather thong. My heart jumped ‘Not that,' even while my head was telling me there might easily be a leather thong on the bonfire, caught round some other piece of rubbish we'd burned. But a log at the heart of the fire gave a last little spurt of flame, just enough for me to see that the thing at my feet was a tangle of leather thongs and knots and string. My mind had hardly registered that before my foot was lacking it again and again, right into the heart of the fire. I felt my toes getting hot inside the shoe, heard Midge shouting to me to be careful. The tangle caught and hung on a red-black branch, flared and fell into glowing ashes. I'm sure none of the others noticed. Because of Midge's shout they were looking at me, not the fire.

‘It's all right,' I told them.

The instinct not to talk about it came as suddenly as the one to kick. You couldn't call either of them decisions because that implies thought and I hadn't thought at all. I'd simply wanted the thongs and string not to be there and now they weren't. With the excitement of the fire gone the feeling of loss came back. Not simply the loss of the Old Man but of something in ourselves. It felt quite cold now after the heat of the flames and a tawny owl was calling in the wood. Somebody suggested going back to the house for tea and food if we could find any. I don't think many of us had eaten all day. We began to trail down the field in ones and twos, nobody talking. We'd closed the gate behind us and were on the track going down to the house when Midge said, ‘Where's Nathan?' We called for him, but there was no answer.

‘He's probably still up there mourning for his chair,' Kit said. ‘He'll come in when he gets hungry.'

But when we'd finished the ham and oatbread and Dulcie – calm as ever – had brewed a third pot of tea, there was still no sign of Nathan. We had a half-hearted discussion about whether we should go up and look for him, but as Alan said he was adult and quite capable of finding his own way home, we stopped worrying about him and went to our beds.

Chapter Sixteen

T
HE THREE OF US WENT DOWN TO BREAKFAST
together the next morning. It was quite early, around seven, and there was nobody in the kitchen but Dulcie. She was stirring something in a saucepan and said would we take some poddish. It turned out to be a kind of porridge but Imogen said she didn't want any. Dulcie ladled poddish for Midge and me, poured tea and smiled her little smile as if nothing had happened and yet it must surely have been on her mind that she was a landed woman now. The roof we were sitting under and the table we were sitting at were hers as long as the lease lasted. The baby she was carrying would be born a wealthy child. But if she was thinking of that she gave no sign, her poise as perfect as ever. While we ate we could hear the men moving around and talking in the parlour next door. After a while, Alan and Kit came in and sat down at the table.

‘Where's Nathan?' Midge asked.

Alan said quietly, ‘I'm afraid he's gone.'

‘Gone?' Midge dropped her spoon. ‘Gone where?'

Alan looked uneasy. ‘I'm afraid he just didn't come in last night.'

‘You mean he's still out there somewhere? Why on earth aren't you out looking for him?' Midge, usually so quiet, was practically screaming.

Kit said, ‘It's not entirely accurate to say he didn't come in last night. He must have come back while the rest of us were up by the fire because he's taken his things with him – or most of them at any rate.'

‘His pack's gone,' Alan added, ‘and all of his clothes – not that he'd brought many. All he seems to have left here are some books he never read anyway and some tins of tobacco he must have forgotten he'd left on the mantelpiece.'

Imogen had grabbed Midge's hand under the table and was holding it tight.

‘But Nathan's not the kind of man who goes off on his own,' she said. ‘He likes being with people.'

Midge just nodded. She was trying hard not to burst into tears. I asked if Nathan had said anything to anybody. Alan shrugged.

‘Not as far as we know.'

‘Where's Meredith?'

‘Out looking for him, in case he just took it into his head to go for a night hike.'