The Keeper of Secrets Read online

  ‘I am a clergyman, Edmund! Of course there is evil, just as there is good. But why do you ask? Just to keep us awake with disputation?’

  ‘Not at all. I have seen many things in my life, things that you could not even dream of and hope you never will, but nothing has made me so ill at ease as my present situation. For the first time in my life I can trust no one, excepting,’ he amended with a laugh, ‘yourself, Jem, Turner and my dear Mrs Beckles.’

  I did not laugh as I replied, ‘Then we are of the same mind.’

  We were still anxious the following morning, even though Mrs Beckles had sent off a lad with a note for her ladyship saying no more than that she had been summoned to a friend’s deathbed and would contact her as soon as it was possible. Naturally she gave no hint of her destination. Mrs Trent very kindly agreed to accompany Mrs Beckles on her journey. Susan, round-eyed with excitement, was to go too, never having been out of the county before and seeing Derbyshire as a magic land. The weather being fine, Jem invited her to sit on the box with him, leaving, he said, the two ladies to enjoy their gossip in peace.

  That left us with two immediate tasks. The first was to break to Mrs Sanderson the news of her husband’s present condition. The second was to have further speech with Mrs Woodman, requiring her, with the greatest authority we could appeal to, to reveal the name of Lizzie’s parents.

  With Lady Elham’s gracious permission, Mrs Sanderson still lived in the tied cottage that many another employer would have given her notice to quit the instant she became a widow. As we had expected, the outside was as immaculate as ever, with the smell of baking telling us that Mrs Sanderson was at home. She greeted us with puzzlement, as well she might, but automatically wiped the seats of two upright chairs with her apron as she invited us to sit. Before we could speak, she bustled off to the scullery to return with cowslip wine and new bread, which she served with butter from the home farm.

  ‘Her ladyship has been so good to me, so very good,’ she declared, sitting at last on the very edge of a third chair. ‘All through this hard winter I have had as much fuel as I could use, and more food than I could eat, God bless her. And still she tells me I may stay. I thank God for such a benefactress.’

  ‘Amen,’ I said solemnly. I cleared my throat. ‘What would you say if I told you that you had been misled about John’s death, Mrs Sanderson? That he was not in fact dead, but alive, though grievously ill.’

  ‘I should not believe you!’ she declared roundly. ‘Why should anyone mislead an old woman? And if me, why mislead her ladyship herself? She condescended to visit me herself to speak to me. And she told me all about his illness and the care she had ordered for him, and how she herself had bathed his brow with lavender water.’

  I ventured a glance at Edmund. He was as white as I felt I must be.

  ‘Well? Is that all you came for, to drink my wine and tell me my dear good man was alive? Let me tell you to your face, Mr Campion, there are many in the village who say you are a mischief-maker, and by God they are right. And you, Doctor, being taken in! Away with the pair of you!’

  I would have argued, tried to correct her misunderstanding, but with a sharp jerk of his head indicated that we were to leave immediately.

  When we reached our horses, Edmund spoke first. ‘Neither of us has uttered – in connection with this dreadful business – one name. But now I think we must.’

  ‘It is impossible! A dastardly crime like this! How can a woman – a lady! – be implicated? She must be the victim of someone’s coercion.’

  ‘Let us reserve judgement. Tobias, indulge me in this. Before we go to Mrs Woodman’s, let us pay a call on Mrs Jenkins.’

  ‘For what reason?’

  ‘Do you recall speaking to me about young William before Christmas? You told me he had nightmares, and asked me to prescribe a sleeping draught. Thinking if he divulged the content the dreams might disappear, I tried to question him. All too clearly he was too afraid. I thought he feared the return of the dreams. I wonder if he was afraid of something else. Someone else.’

  I shook my head. ‘Of the workhouse master? But he—’

  I could feel the effort he was making to be patient. ‘Of the person he saw pushing Lord Elham into the water, Tobias. That is who he fears. So we must go post-haste and require him to tell us everything.’

  ‘Are you saying that Lady Elham watched someone murder her husband?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Tobias. Everything we have heard implicates her ladyship. I am saying that William watched Lady Elham murder her husband!’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Why do you stand there like a chicken with the gapes! Surely you understood why I wanted to remove Mrs Beckles from Moreton Priory, and why I was all too happy for Mrs Trent and young Susan to go too? Surely you have seen that everything points to Lady Elham’s involvement!’

  Still I shook my head in disbelief. ‘But the chapel…the paintings…the Bible readings…’

  ‘Even Titus understands the need for urgency more than you appear to,’ Edmund said, getting on his own horse and kicking it into motion.

  Mrs Jenkins looked the picture of health as she greeted us at her cottage door, and I thanked God for the oasis of normality in the chaos of mind into which Edmund had plunged me. Of course, deep down I must have suspected my cousin of some involvement, but I clung to the belief that she was merely – merely! – attempting to protect her son from justice, something which he would probably have evaded anyway, given his madness. Later, when it was demonstrated that he could not have committed the murder, I thought – I know not what I thought.

  But now there might be further, terrible evidence that she was more than an accomplice.

  ‘And how is my young patient?’ Hansard enquired as he dismounted.

  ‘Is he still suffering from his nightmares?’ I asked, doing likewise.

  Her smile faded. ‘Seems to me they’ve got worse,’ she said, curtsying at Hansard, then at me. ‘And why I cannot fathom, since he’s had such a piece of good fortune we’d never dreamt of.’

  Hansard did not need to press my arm to keep me silent. ‘Indeed? And what might that be?’ He chucked the youngest child under a dimpled chin.

  ‘He’s going to be a page,’ she said.

  ‘Up at the Priory?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Bless you life, better than that. At her ladyship’s London house. She says he’s such a fine upstanding lad he’ll look good in her livery. Or maybe he’ll become a tiger, if he stays small, like his father, God rest his soul.’

  ‘And how does William feel about this – this good fortune?’ I asked.

  Her smile faded. ‘I fear that he will be a disappointment to you, Dr Hansard, and to you, Mr Campion. He weeps, him a grown boy, and will not eat, and swears he will not go. He says his place is here with us.’

  ‘He is the man of the house,’ I said quietly.

  ‘And where is he now?’ Hansard looked about him. ‘I must give my godson a golden guinea before he sets out on such a journey.’

  She nodded doubtfully. ‘He’s out in the woods on Mr Campion’s glebe land, sir, chopping some logs he said we might have.’ She looked to me for confirmation I gladly gave.

  ‘You are sure of this?’

  ‘Aye. He took a good length of my washing line to tie them up,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Do you know to which part of the woods he was headed?’ I asked.

  ‘The east covert, I do believe.’

  ‘Excuse us, Mrs Jenkins,’ I said, already turning from her and ready to mount Titus.

  Titus had once been my favourite hunter, and relished the chance to show his paces once more. We left Hansard well behind. Would we be in time? I dreaded to think what mischief a desperate child might do to himself, fearing not just to leave his home and family but to be at the mercy of a woman he had seen either letting her husband drown or indeed murdering the man. As I galloped I found enough breath to call out his name. What did I dread more, fin
ding him gone altogether, kidnapped by a woman who could not afford to leave a witness alive, or finding a sad body swinging forlornly from a noose made from his mother’s washing line, rope which, God help me, I had provided myself?

  At last the woodland became denser, and I was afraid even the sure-footed Titus might find a rabbit hole. So we dropped to a walking place. Still I called William’s name.

  Did I hear a sound, other than the twittering of courting birds? Surely that was a sob? I pressed forward the more eagerly, at last coming to a log chopped almost in two. Of the axe and its owner there was no sign.

  ‘William? William? It is I, your friend Parson Campion! I am come to tell you that you do not have to go to London! You will stay here with me! William, I will look after you. And your family,’ I added, lest my cousin had threatened the family if he did not acquiesce. ‘I promise you that you will be safe if you come out now.’

  Where was the rope? Dear God, where was that rope?

  I dismounted, tethering Titus, and ranged round on foot, still calling, still assuring him that he would be safe. Soon I heard Hansard’s voice, making the same promises.

  ‘William, here are both your old friends come looking for you! Enough of this hide and seek! Dr Hansard has a guinea for you if you come out now.’

  Up shot the good doctor’s arm, so that the sun caught the gold. We waited in silence.

  Never had a minute seemed so long. All I could hear was the pounding of my heart, which seemed to have transferred itself to my ears. Hansard grasped my arm, touching his ear with the other hand, and then pointing to our left. What had he heard?

  I strained harder. Had I heard a twig crack, or was it my imagination?

  ‘William,’ Edmund called quietly, ‘can you not see this guinea? It is only your good friends Dr Hansard and Mr Campion!’ But he did not wait for a response. Without warning, he sped off as fast as he could, his breath coming, as mine did, in painful gasps.

  A pair of small feet swung to and fro. William had even taken off his boots and put them neatly side by side, climbing in his stockinged feet onto a pile of logs he had kicked clear to launch himself to his Creator. Hansard grasped William’s legs, pushing them upwards, his old arms straining over his head in the effort to take the child’s weight.

  ‘I am not strong enough to hold him!’

  I heaped the logs quickly, clumsily, but managed to gain a foothold, reaching too, and taking the weight of William’s body. To my amazement, I heard the thud of hooves. It seemed that Hansard’s horse had learnt a trick I had tried in vain to teach Titus, to come when whistled. Standing in the stirrups, Edmund cut his way through the mercifully thin rope, and William sagged into my arms.

  I laid him gently on the ground.

  Edmund tore away the child’s neckerchief and felt his pulse. ‘He lives. Barely. He hardly breathes. Fetch the smelling salts from my saddlebag.’

  He did not need to urge haste.

  The salts had no effect.

  ‘If only I could breathe my own breath into his lungs, force his heart to beat more strongly,’ Edmund cried. ‘We have not saved him from all his travails just to have him expire like this!’ At last, in desperation, he put his mouth over William’s and did indeed breathe into him, rubbing the child’s chest as he did so. All I could do was fall on my knees, begging help from the Almighty.

  Whether it was His help or Edmund’s more mundane actions, but at last the lad seemed to stir.

  I found a feather and laid it on his lips, all the time thinking of King Lear’s vain quest to prove that his daughter lived. Perhaps it did move. Perhaps.

  ‘Try again,’ I urged Hansard. ‘Just once more.’

  At last William breathed on his own, but his eyes gave not so much as a flutter.

  Edmund lifted him carefully. ‘We must take him back to his mother, and I must stay with him. It will fall to you, I fear, to beard Mrs Woodman in her den.’

  ‘Of course. But first I will accompany you. In fact, I will run ahead and prepare her. How much shall I tell her?’

  ‘That he has had an accident. Should he die, that is what I will tell the coroner. That he was playing with a rope and slipped. It may be the truth. But I fear it was not. Whether it was an attempt at suicide or someone tried to take his life, we may never know.’

  Leaving William to the best care Edmund and his mother could provide, I set off, my heart weighed down. I could not imagine the despair, the terror, that must have driven a child to end his life rather than face a new one with a woman he knew was capable of killing. Or – would it be worse? – being torn from his homely task and strung from a bough, all too aware of the consequences.

  ‘’Morning, Parson! Why the Friday-face? You look as if you’ve lost a florin and found a rusty button!’

  At last I looked up. It was Matthew, axe in hand, shirt open to the waist, epitomising strength and sanity. He, as much as anyone, deserved a truthful explanation of my grim face. I reined in Titus and dismounted.

  ‘Matthew, I believe we are almost ready to identify Lizzie’s killer. But there is a little more information to gather. Do you care to accompany me to Mrs Woodman’s cottage? I have some questions to put to her, the answers to which you might like to hear.’

  ‘You are telling me the truth, aren’t you? And it is a truth you have paid a heavy price for, to judge by your expression. Beg pardon for my earlier jest, Parson.’

  ‘With all my heart. Will you come with me?’

  For reply, he fell into step with me. Titus consented to be led. ‘Do you ask because you need a witness?’

  ‘I ask because you loved Lizzie.’

  For a while, neither of us spoke, both deep in our own thoughts.

  It was Matthew who broke the silence, coughing awkwardly. ‘Seems I shall have to have the banns read, Parson. For me and Annie. Seems she’s in a promising way, and I want to do my duty by her and the babe.’

  ‘Of course. Bring Annie along to the parsonage whenever you care to and we shall fix the day. Congratulations, Matthew. I hope you will be very happy – and that you will bring the babe to be baptised as soon as you can. And that Annie will be churched.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I loved Lizzie any less, Parson,’ he pleaded.

  ‘Of course it doesn’t,’ I said, thinking of the Burke-reading young lady who needed a suitor with ten thousand a year, and the even brighter eyes of Lady Salcombe. ‘Lizzie would have wanted you to mourn, but not repine. Matthew! That’s smoke!’ I pointed. A steady column of smoke, far greater than from a cottage chimney, rose in the woods. There came the ominous crackle of burning wood.

  ‘Ride ahead!’ he urged.

  I needed no second bidding.

  Mrs Woodman’s cottage was well alight when I reached it, but, pulling my coat about my head, I plunged in, fighting through the smoke until I found the old lady, asleep in her chair.

  I tried in vain to rouse her, even to pull her from it. But she did not stir. In fear of my own life as the fire raged, I dragged the chair and her upon it to the door. As I reached it, a terrible creak told me the lintel was giving way. I dragged with all my might, but failed. The burning timber crashed down on her legs, igniting her skirts.

  I ripped my coat from my head and used it to beat at the flames.

  And then there was water all over us both. And more. Matthew had reached us and was filling bucket upon bucket from her well, hauling as quickly as he could.

  Her dress now a charred heap of rags, we carried the old lady, still on her chair, out of range of the sparks from the blazing thatch.

  Matthew took a look at me and fetched another bucket. ‘No point in trying to save the cottage,’ he said, ‘but we might save your hands. Just keep them in the water. I’ll see to the old lady.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Do as you’re told, or you’ll lose the use of them. Do it!’

  While I obeyed, he laid her gently on his shirt, covering her poor burnt legs with what was left of my coat. We exchange
d a sad glance. How could she live with such injuries?

  I knelt beside her. Matthew thrust my hands under water once more. ‘Lie still, Mrs Woodman. Matthew will ride for the doctor. Take Titus, man. Hansard’s at the Jenkinses’ cottage: seek him there. And bid someone bring a gig, and plenty of pillows.’

  ‘No need for any rush,’ she gasped, as he galloped off. ‘I’m dying, Parson, and that no one can deny.’

  ‘How did this happen, Mrs Woodman? You must tell me!’

  She moaned in pain. It was clearly too late for explanations.

  ‘Shall we pray for God’s mercy?’ I suggested.

  She inclined her head. I put her hands together and clasped them with my dripping fingers. A faint smile told me she found comfort in the words I spoke.

  At last, I took it upon myself to refer to the harsh words she had spoken about Lizzie when she first disappeared, letting her know that Mrs Beckles had given some explanation.

  She raised tear-filled eyes to mine. ‘But, Parson, you know now that they were the honest truth! True, I should not have uttered them, since I vowed by all I held sacred that I would never reveal the secret. I was Lizzie’s wet nurse. No more. I never knew her true parents, but I suspected. I suspected… But a woman like me can’t make accusations, especially when my mouth is stopped with a golden guinea every quarter, regular as the moon. I was to bring her up like my own, they said—’

  ‘Who said?’ My pulses were racing.

  ‘The legal men who brought her to me. I made my mark on their paper, Parson, and as God is my witness I’ve spoken of it to no one till now.’

  ‘He will surely forgive you.’ I moistened her lips with water. ‘I suppose the men of law left you no papers?’

  ‘Nothing,’ came the sad reply. ‘But,’ she added, ‘my guinea still comes each quarter, so belike they don’t know she’s gone.’

  If I had committed murder, the last person I should wish to suspect that I had committed such a heinous crime would be a man with a legal bent, so probably Lady Elham had not told them that Lizzie was no more. Why indeed should she have done, the pretence being that she had done more than leave her service, and subsequently that of Lady Templemead?