Shadow of the Past Read online

  Shadow of the Past

  JUDITH CUTLER

  For Margi, a parson in Tobias’s mould,

  with great affection

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  By Judith Cutler

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  Autumn, 1811

  He dragged himself out of the stream, cursing. Stream? It was a damned cascade, a torrent. In the half-light he’d taken it for a harmless gully, and, realising too late that he was mistaken, had grabbed at roots and rocks that had yielded under his hands. He had slithered and floundered in the almost liquid mud.

  At last he had pulled himself clear of the raging waters and found a fallen tree to sit on, huddling his greatcoat about him, though it was so wet as to be a burden rather than a comfort. Why was one foot even colder than the other? He must have worn through the sole of his boot. But he had more miles to walk tonight. A smile approaching pleasure flitted across his face. If he folded the precious paper, it would fit inside the boot. There. All he had to do now was force his foot back in again.

  He should never have taken it off. He was colder than ever, and ready to weep with the effort of cramming the frozen toes into the unyielding leather.

  Darkness had fallen quite suddenly, a giant hand pinching out a candle. The day had been so cloudless he knew there must be stars, but the trees hid all but a few. If walking had been hard before, it would be cruel now.

  A drop of brandy. That would help. There! The spirit burnt its way down his throat. One more swig – but a shake of his flask told him it was empty, and he slung it over his shoulder into the bushes.

  Folly. He might have sold it, pawned it even, to raise a bit more of the ready. But the nobs would see him all right, wouldn’t they? They wouldn’t tell him to come all this way and not give him meat and drink and a fire to sit by while he dried out.

  He heaved himself upright and staggered, cursing aloud again as he started to shake. Almost as if they weren’t part of him, he watched his hands quiver and then dance as if at the rope’s end. He couldn’t have held them steady, no, not a guinea.

  Best make a move. Move while he could still see. For the dark was more absolute than he’d ever known, since the Peninsula, that is, and he must get to the lights before he stumbled again. But where were the lights? Over here? Over there?

  A voice moaned. It was his own!

  There was someone coming towards him. Thank the Lord – it was the man he’d spoken to, wasn’t it? The man who – but he must be wrong. There was no one there after all.

  Maybe if he lay down a while. Just till the world stopped turning. Maybe some leaves would give him shelter. Give him warmth. He scrabbled some together.

  If only his mother would tuck him up, like she used to do. Here she was, leaning over him, smiling. She rolled him on to his side, as she always used to do, and then again so he lay on his face.

  Smoothed his hair.

  Pressed his head.

  Smoothed and pressed and smoothed and pressed and he was falling deep and easy into sleep.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Stay with us for dinner, Tobias!’ Mrs Hansard urged, standing with me at the open front door as the three of us watched the rain teem down. ‘You will be drenched before you reach the stable, let alone the rectory. As for Titus, ask him whether he would prefer the dry of our stable or a trudge to his own, and I think we would have a plain answer.’

  It was ever hard to resist Mrs Hansard’s pleadings, especially when they were backed by her new husband’s laughter.

  ‘Mrs Trent will hardly expect you,’ Dr Hansard said reasonably, adding, with a twinkle in his eye, ‘and you would have to rub down Titus yourself, in the absence of Jem.’

  My groom had been summoned back to Derbyshire to a relative’s sickbed.

  But Hansard was suddenly serious as a fork of lightning rent the sky, accompanied by a crack of thunder that seemed to shake the house. ‘Indeed, Tobias, it is not sensible to risk your neck in this!’

  A gust of wind drove rain under the handsome porch and into the house.

  Mrs Hansard ended the argument by closing the door. ‘We have been away such an age that we know nothing of the doings of our neighbours and it would be an act of charity to stay.’ More like an impetuous child than a lady in her middle years, she leant against the door, just in case her urgings were in vain.

  My dear friend Dr Edmund Hansard and his new wife Maria had returned to the village of Moreton St Jude only that day from their bridal tour of the romantic Lakes. I had come intending merely to present my compliments and to wish them well for their future, but yet another thunderstorm had blown up from nowhere, it seemed, trapping me here at Langley Park. Not that I was anything other than a most willing victim – but I was acutely conscious that I made a third in their party, at a time when they might well have preferred my room to my company. Although they were both in their middle years, they were smelt as much of April and May as if they were half their age.

  I confess my protest was weak. ‘But you must be at sixes and sevens—’

  ‘We have nothing to do,’ Edmund declared. ‘You forget that when Maria left her employ at the Priory she was able to bring with her the poor girl being trained up as her late ladyship’s abigail. She and the ever redoubtable Turner, who as you know would out-valet any valet in the kingdom, compete as to who can be the more efficient. And our new cook, Mrs Benn, is eager to prove herself in the kitchen.’

  I verily believe that as a former housekeeper, Mrs Hansard would have rolled up her sleeves and taken charge of the cooking herself, had not Edmund insisted that after a lifetime devoted to others’ welfare it was her turn to be waited on. I rather thought, however, that in the absence of culinary demands, Mrs Hansard would devote herself to improving Edmund’s life in other ways, some of which he would not even be aware of.

  ‘And we have two other new servants from the Priory, Tobias,’ Mrs Hansard continued. ‘Burns is a young man who wants desperately to be our butler, though he is of course a man of all work. And Kate, whose mother is delighted to keep her in the district – so many of the others, you know, have had to seek work far afield. Even Warwick and Leamington seem like the ends of the earth if you rely on your feet to get you there,’ she added with a sigh.

  ‘It’s a sad thing when a great house has to be shut up with no master and mistress,’ Dr Hansard observed.

  When Lord Elham had died, the title and the estate had passed to a distant cousin, far too content with his life in Sussex to do anything more than take the revenues from the land. He wanted no improvements, no investments, no new cottages for his workers – and no new parson, though the gift of my living was in his hands. As for the Priory itself, the shutters and doors were barred; it might
never be lived in again.

  ‘But there is good news,’ I told them.

  ‘Then let us hear it in the drawing room,’ Mrs Hansard declared. ‘We cannot be standing all day here in the hall. Go in, gentlemen, and I will bring some wine.’

  Hansard shook his head. ‘Come in, Maria, and I will ring for some wine.’ He took her hand and kissed it, before leading her ceremoniously through the door.

  Mrs Hansard blushed, though with pleasure or embarrassment I could not say.

  As we sat down, I said, ‘Yes, though the Priory is empty, at last Moreton Hall is likely to be occupied once more, at least according to the rumour about the village.’

  ‘So Lady Chase has decided to return here?’ Edmund asked.

  ‘As yet it is no more than gossip.’

  ‘So all the Priory servants sent hither and yon may be able to return to service at the Hall,’ Mrs Hansard declared, clapping her hands with pleasure. She nodded at Burns, the soi-disant butler as he entered, bowing as remotely and soberly as if he had never hurled a cricket ball from his enormous hand or wielded the willow to the imminent danger of the church windows. He could well have given lessons in dignity.

  ‘Some wine and refreshments, please, Burns. And please tell Cook that there will be three of us for dinner, which we will take at six.’

  His eyes rounded as he registered my presence; the Burns with whom I was familiar would have remonstrated, arms akimbo, that I was surely going be as welcome as a hailstorm at haymaking. But in his new incarnation he nodded with wonderful imperturbability and bowed himself out, his silent closing of the doors coinciding with another flash of lightning and smack of thunder that might have drawn his pity and understanding.

  His crows’ feet aquiver with appreciation at the exquisite performance, Edmund asked, ‘What brings Lady Chase back after so long an absence?’

  ‘I know not. And know nothing of her, of course, since she left before I arrived here.’

  Burns entered with wine, which he dispensed carefully, even though another flash of lightning was bright enough to make him flinch. This time, however, the thunder came several seconds later, bringing hope that the storm was at last moving away.

  Edmund waited until Burns had left before he responded, ‘They are an old family, originally from Somerset. His lordship was truly gentlemanlike, not at all high in the instep. Why, the first time I met him, I thought the butler must have made a mistake to show me into his study, since there was no sign of anyone in the room but a middle-aged man on his knees before the grate, trying in vain to conjure some flames. He complained of the damp kindling – you see, this isn’t the first wet autumn we’ve had, Tobias – and he stuck out a hand. Was I to shake it or haul him to his feet? I did both, one after the other. As if we were friends – which we became and were until his sad death.’ He took a reflective sip. ‘That took place in London. For three long years he and her ladyship had awaited news of their son, Hugo, Viscount Wombourn, missing, presumed lost, in a skirmish before the battle of Talavera, back in ’08. Chase, left without a direct heir, did all that was humanly possible to trace his son’s whereabouts – I hear he even made representations to the great Arthur Wellesley himself. He advertised widely, too, in the hope of humouring his wife’s unquenchable but almost certainly baseless belief that their son was alive. Then he himself is taken from us. London’s bad drains,’ Edmund added darkly. ‘Her ladyship is a gentle but determined soul, much given to good works.’ He smiled. ‘My love, you will deal very well together, with your shared interest in improving the lot of the poor. You and Tobias, of course.’

  Her smile stiffened – she was no doubt wandering how an aristocrat would treat a former housekeeper promoted out of her station. If Lady Chase and she had ever met, poor Maria would have been that most forgettable of women, a servant curtsying to her employer’s neighbour.

  Perhaps her husband did not notice, as he continued without a break, ‘And I fear intervention will be made all the more necessary by this confounded rain – if ever a country needed a good harvest, ours does. But it looks as if it will be very poor again, and the price of bread will go even higher.’

  ‘Now, let me remember,’ Mrs Hansard began, rallying, ‘was not young Hugo a very handsome young man who cast all the other gentlemen in the district into the shade?’

  ‘Indeed, my love – the girls were wild about all the men in the regiment stationed near here, but they were wildest of all about him. And with good reason – dashing he might have been, but he never forgot his manners and promised well. I wonder how he would have turned out.’

  ‘Would that be the Wombourn who was at King’s several years ahead of me? He was certainly a credit to his family and I presume to his regiment,’ I observed, conscious as always of my own non-military state.

  Mrs Hansard gave me a searching but compassionate glance. ‘There are other ways to serve your fellow men than dying for them,’ she said. ‘And pray recall the words of Milton. They also serve who only stand and wait.’

  ‘And you, my lad, do a great deal more than wait,’ Edmund concluded, in a voice that brooked no argument. ‘Now, will Jem be away from us for long? A man needs his groom.’ He topped up my glass.

  ‘He assured me he would be back for the harvest, so we look for him every day. I told him not to hurry back – his family must have first call on him in time of sickness. But he writes that his grandfather has now died and been buried and that his grandmother – a most tyrannical old lady, as tough as Derbyshire can make them – insists that he return to his post here.’ My parents, for whom the whole family worked, would ensure she wanted for nothing in her solitary old age. Mama in particular regarded caring for former servants as an absolute duty, all the better performed as if it were simply a pleasure.

  ‘And has Susan got over her pangs of youthful love for him?’

  Susan, one of Mrs Hansard’s protégées, was my maid of all work, and had of course become enamoured of my manly groom, though whether she appreciated his finer points I doubted. ‘I cannot tell and do not like to ask. All I know is that each day she becomes less a child, more a young woman, and each week I see her strolling home from market in the company of a different swain.’

  ‘But Mrs Trent keeps an eye on her?’ Mrs Hansard asked pointedly, knowing first hand the responsibilities of housekeepers for young maids. ‘The child has lost both mother and sister, after all.’

  ‘She does indeed. And usually the very knowledge that Jem is about the premises is enough to cool a suitor’s ardour. Whether he would ever return her feelings I know not – but currently he seems to stand, as I do, as a quasi-guardian. I cannot say that Mrs Trent has replaced her mother.’

  Mrs Hansard opened her mouth and shut it firmly on what she had been planning to say. ‘No, that is not her way,’ she observed.

  ‘But she is a good woman, and her firmness is always kind,’ I said, though at times, when incidents threatened to escalate into dramas, I had to temper the wind to the shorn lamb.

  ‘And is the girl still in deep mourning?’ Dr Hansard demanded with concern.

  I shook my head. ‘Mrs Trent has insisted that she cast off her blacks now, and the grey she has picked out for Susan’s workaday dresses is so nearly blue that it seems to flatter the child’s colouring.’

  ‘Good. In the midst of death, Tobias, we need plenty of life,’ he declared.

  ‘Some more wine, Tobias?’ his wife asked. ‘And then we will tell you all about our meeting with Mr and Miss Wordsworth – yes, indeed…’

  Although none of us had hoped that Lady Chase would add to the gaiety of the neighbourhood, she had a gentle impact on many lives. She was still in mourning for her husband, of course. Whatever her private pain, however, her ladyship’s public demeanour was unfailingly calm and polite. She attended divine service regularly, and, as Dr Hansard had predicted, swiftly assessed the needs of our poor parishioners.

  My little flock had endured much hardship the previous winter, but
it had not inured them to suffering, rather making them even more vulnerable, it seemed, to the illnesses I was coming to associate with poverty. Having lead my first twenty-odd years in the luxury of my family’s homes, protected from the harsh realities of the world, I had been profoundly shocked when I first came to the rectory in Moreton St Jude’s.

  Scarce could the Holland covers have been removed, scarce the last picture hung, when I was summoned – nay, invited is a more accurate verb – to her ladyship’s book room in Moreton Hall.

  ‘The cottages on my estate are uninhabitable,’ she declared. ‘And I want work to begin on new ones started immediately. There must be proper drainage, a garden for vegetables. Bedrooms enough to separate boys from girls. Here they are all herded together like animals. And a school! My steward tells me you teach some youngsters but only those in the workhouse.’

  I tried to correct her – I ran a school for all village children on the rare occasions I could gather them all together, but she ran on apace.

  ‘With respect, Mr Campion, that is not good enough. There shall be reading and writing for everyone’s children.’

  I nodded, instantly warming to her and hoping that she would not perceive the supposed social gap between us as a hindrance to friendship. ‘It is a scheme I have long wanted,’ I declared. ‘Alas, my hopes for sponsorship from the Elhams for a model village were tragically dashed, as I am sure you will have heard. But imagine it, Lady Chase – all the children clean, fed and not just knowing their letters but being taught appropriate skills.’

  ‘Exactly so! Domestic skills for the girls, so they would know how best to tend their gardens and prepare nutritious meals for their families, and woodworking and agriculture for the boys. With learning comes prosperity, Parson Campion.’

  In repose Lady Chase’s features were mild and elegant. In animated conversation they were full of vigour, the eyes a-sparkle and the mouth mobile. Though she must have been in her forties or even fifties, she had maintained an elegant figure and a spontaneity of movement to charm the eye and the spirit. Her cap sat on soft brown locks only lightly peppered with grey. ‘We must make plans now. I cannot hope that everything will be in place for this winter, but a start must be made. I prefer providing work to dispensing charity.’