The Keeper of Secrets Read online

  He pressed a final glass of brandy upon me.

  ‘So you see,’ he said expansively, ‘the neighbourhood does not know what to make of me. They see this fine house, and from it emerges an old country doctor. Should they admit me through their grand front doors – which, to be fair, Lord and Lady Elham have come to do – or send me, tail between my legs, to the servants’ entrance?’

  ‘A man of your learning—’ I began.

  ‘Is less respected for what lies between his ears than for his land, just as any other country gentleman is. Do you think I would have been appointed as a justice of the peace had it not been for my acres? Would my library, my travels, my learning, as you put it, have entitled me to such a responsibility? I think not, my friend. And indeed, if they knew how I had acquired my land and my house, I might not have—’ He broke off as a peal from his doorbell, veritably loud enough to waken the dead, rang throughout the house. He was on his feet in an instant. ‘At this time of night that can mean only one thing – a hatch or a despatch,’ he said with a rueful grin. ‘My young Tobias, I am sorry to bid you such an unceremonious farewell. But I have a feeling we shall deal well together.’

  With that he bustled me out, grabbing his hat and his bag from a servant already holding the front door ajar. A man was running his horse round even as we passed through it. Throwing the farm lad messenger up before him, Dr Hansard was on his way.

  Jem had brought Titus round at a not much slower pace.

  ‘Seems he has the bell connected to his kitchen and to his stable, too, so George – that’s his groom – always knows when he has to saddle up,’ he said. ‘Do you want to follow him, Master Tobias?’

  I pondered. Once again, a deep longing to be told what to do possessed me. But I had not so much as a tutor to guide me now. ‘If it’s a “hatching” I shall only be in the way,’ I mused. ‘And I know that if mother or baby ails he will send for me.’

  Jem frowned. ‘But it might be a deathbed he’s called to. And there, I tell you straight, Master Tobias, you should be.’

  To be shamed thus by my own servant! In silence, I let him heave me into the saddle, and within a minute we were following the good doctor’s tracks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  As I stood beside the grave, I thanked the Almighty that the first deathbed I had had to attend in my new cure had been such an easy one. Old Mrs Gates’s passing had been entirely peaceful with, not so much as a backward glance. Indeed, even Dr Hansard had found it hard to pronounce the absolute moment of death, it was so gentle.

  Her family, farmers comfortably ensconced in a house the origins of which must have been at least as old as those of Moreton Priory, had surrounded her, repeating after me the appropriate prayers. Perhaps they had been surprised to see me, but their welcome, once I had introduced myself, was gratifyingly warm. Only Dr Hansard allowed a gleam of surprise, then amused approval, to flicker across his face. I had had the grace, I believe, to blush. I trusted Jem far too well to fear that the reason for my presence would ever become public knowledge.

  It seemed that in this part of the kingdom it was not considered seemly for women to attend the final obsequies, and so it was only men gathered round the graveside to hear – and, I hoped, be consoled by – the solemn grandeur of the burial service. They stood in the late summer sun, their heads bowed in a final farewell, in this world at least, but in sure hope of a reunion in the next.

  ‘Thank you, Parson Campion,’ said Farmer Gates as I signified the proceedings were over. ‘Now, let me press you and Dr Hansard here to join the mourners back at the farmhouse for a glass of sherry before the old lady’s will is read.’ He clapped me familiarly on the shoulder.

  Two years ago I should have shuddered at the touch and at such an invitation. Now I would accept them both, for two reasons. The first was to keep Jem’s good opinion, so very nearly lost the other night; the second was that I rattled round my empty house like an egg in a bucket, to use his phrase, and however I tried to fill my hours of leisure with study and prayer, I felt at times a quite desperate need for the company of my fellow men – even if they were, like Farmer Gates, huge, red-faced yeomen, clothes straining at the seams and great hams of hands dealing greasy cards for whist: people, in short, to whom my family would scarcely have bowed from their carriage.

  However, even as I smiled my acceptance, Simon Clark, the verger, scuttled across the greensward with a far from reverent haste.

  ‘Simon,’ I began to remonstrate, in a serious voice.

  ‘Begging your pardon, your honour, and yours, Dr Hansard, but the doctor’s wanted,’ he panted. ‘Real urgent, they say. Down in Marsh Bottom. Young Will says it’s bad, desperate bad he says.’

  ‘Is William waiting?’

  ‘No, Doctor. He’s run straight back, fast as if his life depended on it.’

  ‘How fortunate you left your gig at the parsonage,’ I said to Hansard. ‘Let me apologise to these good people and I will accompany you.’

  ‘To Marsh Bottom?’ Simon demanded incredulously. ‘That’s not a fit place for such as you, your honour!’

  ‘Anywhere on God’s earth is fitting for His servants,’ I said as mildly as I could.

  ‘Not even a pig would want—’ he persisted.

  ‘How fortunate I am not a pig. Enough of this, Simon.’ I turned to Farmer Gates. ‘It seems I cannot accept your kind invitation. Pray forgive me.’

  He nodded, apparently bemused. I fancied, however, that even if he had not taken offence, my churchwardens had. Mr Bulmer’s complexion was dark with anger, and Mr Miller’s eyes narrowed. But from the expression on Dr Hansard’s face, this was no time for doctrinal or social argument, so, with a final shake of Mr Gates’s hand, I turned towards the parsonage.

  Shedding my surplice with more haste than dignity, and providing myself, on impulse, with the requisites for both communion and infant baptism, I bade Jem, busy with a hammer and some long nails, bring the gig round immediately. Even Jem looked solemn when I mentioned our destination, but he gave a grim nod, as if approving despite himself.

  ‘What is Marsh Bottom, that no one wants me to see it?’ I enquired lightly, as I took my place beside Dr Hansard. ‘Or is it my solecism in declining to partake of the funeral baked meats that gives offence?’

  ‘I know not why Bulmer and Miller are so hostile,’ he said thoughtfully, whipping his horses into a brisk trot. ‘They dealt extremely well with your predecessor, but that in itself is no commendation, not in my eyes at least. Simon Clark, however, is a decent man, who – not to wrap it up in clean linen – fears for your health as much as for your sensibilities. I doubt you’ll have seen much to prepare you for the Bottom, not unless you have seen military service abroad.’

  Although I felt his eyes upon me, I declined to respond. Although one day I had no doubt I would open my budget and be fully frank with him, this was neither the time nor the place, and, were I honest with myself, it was still an episode painful to refer to. ‘My health?’ I prompted him at last.

  ‘A foul, miasmic place,’ he said. ‘And Simon was right; no decent farmer would want to house his pig in such a sty. But labourers are not pigs, Tobias, and neither are their families,’ he added grimly. ‘I often think they are not valued so highly.’ He slowed his horses to a funereal walk, the lane being so deeply rutted that I would imagine it impassable after rain.

  ‘The landlord—’

  ‘—Is so busy improving his lands after at last enclosing them that he has no time to care for his workers’ accommodation. He would probably assert that he has no money, either, for putting land into good heart is not to be undertaken lightly. But soon you may judge for yourself. I normally come to such places on horseback,’ he added grimly, struggling to keep the gig upright.

  At last, the gig came to a halt – for the life of me I could not see why – and, reaching behind him for his bag, Hansard jumped down. Nothing loath I followed suit. ‘We have to walk from here?’ I ventured.

  ‘W
e are here, man,’ he declared, his voice rough with an emotion I eventually deduced must be anger.

  ‘But I see nought but a haystack,’ I protested. ‘And a damned poor one to boot!’

  ‘You see Marsh Bottom,’ he said dryly.

  He strode along what might have been a path, his boots leaving phosphorescent puddles in the ooze. I followed in an altogether more gingerly fashion, still wondering whither he led. At last I perceived two or three holes in the side of the stack, which might be doorways, with further holes emitting a quantity of thin smoke.

  ‘Can it really be that someone lives here?’

  ‘Three families,’ he threw over his shoulder. ‘One in each hovel. Now do you see why people doubted the wisdom of your venturing down here? Continue at your own risk, Parson Campion.’

  I fear that even at that moment I might have turned back, had I not heard a hideous sound, midway between a groan and a scream, issuing from the middle hole.

  We plunged within. It took me all the willpower at my disposal not to retch and recoil at the stench of a veritable charnel house. I could not but reach for my handkerchief, pressing it hard against my nose and mouth, however that might diminish me in Hansard’s opinion.

  At last my eyes accustomed themselves to the dimness within. The only light came from the doorway – there was no door that I could see – and from the hole supposedly acting as a chimney. There was a pallid glimmer of flame from a fire, but I did not think it would survive much longer. Three or four shapes cowered in the furthest corner. It took me moments to realise that they were children. To my left a woman leant over another figure on a heap of straw that was the sufferer’s only bed.

  ‘How long has Luke been like this, Mrs Jenkins?’ Dr Hansard asked, as courteously as if he had been addressing Lady Elham.

  ‘These three days, Doctor. And getting worse.’

  ‘And why did you not call me earlier, my dear lady?’

  A groan and a wringing of hands told him what he needed to know.

  ‘You must know that in cases like these I never ask for a fee. I might not have saved his leg, or even his life, but I would have spared him pain.’

  Another terrible scream rent the air.

  ‘Parson Campion, pray, take those children outside. This is not a sight for their eyes.’ He might have added, ‘Or yours.’

  I did as I was bid, holding out my hands to encourage them. They cowered further into their corner.

  ‘William, go with my new friend,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘You know what you will find in my gig.’

  I moved to the door, hoping with all my heart that they might follow and knowing that when they were safely outside I must return to pray for the dying man.

  ‘What will you find in the kind doctor’s gig?’ I asked, my voice falsely bright. ‘Come, let us find what he carries.’

  ‘Apples,’ hissed Hansard, whether for my benefit or theirs I could not tell.

  The urchins – more wild animals than humans, with their bodies ill-concealed in rags – erupted, shooting past me and lurching towards the gig, as if their legs were not sturdy enough for the business of running.

  I wondered at the doctor’s wisdom in encouraging them to eat fruit, but he must know best. I reached for the bag, allowing but one apple for each grasping hand, and fed one to both horses. The contrast between the animals and the humans shocked me. Never had those childish heads been subjected to brush or comb, never had their hands been washed or the nails pared. I judged not one of them to be more than six years old.

  The apples were devoured, stalks and all. I feared to distribute more, but spied another paper-wrapped parcel. Doctor Hansard had provided himself with bread as well. Whatever he had intended this for, I could not restrain myself from breaking it, with a silent blessing, in some strange but not irreverent parody of the Holy Communion. Had I had wine, or better, good milk, I would have administered that too.

  Another scream tore through the comparatively peaceful air. This was no place for the children. Approaching William, the eldest, I bent down and asked quietly, ‘Do you know the parsonage, my child?’

  ‘Where Parson Hetherington lives?’

  ‘He lives there no longer. I live there now, with my groom, Jem. Pray you, take your brothers and sisters and go to find him. He will find you more food and drink. Ask Jem particularly for milk, mind. And stay with him till I come back. Do you understand that? Tell him Parson Campion sent you.’ As an afterthought, I added, ‘And ask him to send for Mrs Beckles. Do you understand? Mrs Beckles.’

  The straw on which the dying man lay was soaked with blood and worse. The stump of one leg jerked frantically in its own dance of death as his body arched and writhed. I swear he had bitten his own arm to the bone in an effort not to call out.

  ‘Is there nothing you can do?’ I whispered.

  ‘If I administer enough laudanum to ease his pain it will speed his death, Parson,’ Hansard said. ‘And would you want that?’

  It was not a question that my tutor had ever propounded. I had been taught precepts and precedents, rules for a better life on this earth.

  I bit my lip. ‘I believe God would want you to ease his pain. If He chooses to call him to Him, then that is His Will.’

  He nodded. ‘Good. That is what I have already done. He will soon be quiet.’

  What of the sobbing woman even now clutching the poor sufferer’s hand and calling his name? ‘What can you offer to ease her pain?’ I asked.

  ‘I think that that is for you to do. She may not understand all the words of your prayers but she will know that they are being said.’

  At last the broken man fell quiet. It might have been a deep slumber, but for the great gasps for breath that seemed to tear his chest.

  ‘The death throes,’ Hansard murmured. ‘Pray God it is not long now.’

  For with each gasp the woman wailed anew.

  ‘Madam,’ I said softly, ‘will you join me as I pray?’

  To my horror, she stared at me, eyes wild. She raised her hand, pointing a finger in veritable accusation. But then she dropped it, and looked in bemusement at Hansard.

  ‘Our new parson, Maggie. Parson Campion. I think your good man needs all the help he can get, don’t you?’

  ‘He ain’t never been to church, not his whole life, I doubt.’

  ‘Not even to be baptised?’ I asked.

  ‘Does that count now?’ was Hansard’s swift rejoinder.

  ‘Find me a little water, Mrs Jenkins. Go, now, quickly. I will get my bag.’ It could only be an ex tempore baptism, but it was the best I could do.

  The little ceremony did not last long. Perhaps Luke Jenkins was quieter, more serene, as I read the fearsome but hope-giving words, Dr Hansard making the responses on his behalf, as if he were an infant. And then, in a request that brought tears to my eyes, Mrs Jenkins begged me to wed them on the spot. Such a rite demanded licence, witnesses – aye, and the consent of the poor dying man – for it to hold any legality. But how could I deny her at least an attenuated form of the service? It would bring her some solace in the black days to come. But still I doubted.

  Mr Hansard said in an urgent undervoice, ‘You have little time for quibbling, man.’

  I swallowed my fears. ‘Provided that you promise to come to church – soon – and let me baptise you and your children, then yes, Mrs Jenkins, with all my heart.’

  The children had had an earthly baptism by the time I reached home, Dr Hansard leaving his gig with Jem while he spoke to Simon, the verger, about the burial. Jem paraded them in front of me. They were all clean, all had had their hair trimmed or tied back, and their claws had been returned to the state of nails. They were wrapped in towels, like veritable Hindoos. But even as I stared, the smart clatter of horses’ hooves announced the arrival of another gig, capably turned into the yard by Mrs Beckles, a large bundle at her feet. To my delight she was accompanied by none other than Lizzie, the maidservant whose acquaintance I had made at the Priory. In
the midst of our darkness was sudden light, as the sun spun her hair into a veritable halo. Even as her lips parted in a shy smile, her eyes caught something beyond me, and her face was transfixed.

  Involuntarily I turned. Jem’s eyes were locked on hers. Slow flushes rose on both sets of cheeks, his turning his weather-beaten features russet, hers a delicate rose. But perhaps I imagined all, for in a second, Jem was assisting Mrs Beckles from the gig, and I was handing Lizzie down, rewarded for my pains by a shy smile and modestly lowered eyes.

  Jem was all a-bustle with the horses, while Lizzie, seizing a familiar covered basket, ran to the tongue-tied children as if to gather them to her. Mrs Beckles was not far behind, soon delving into her bundle, and producing a variety of small garments, with which they covered the children’s limbs.

  So engrossed were they in their task, they did not notice the approach on foot of Dr Hansard, looking inexpressibly weary. But he straightened at the sight before him, and a smile softened his features. Still the figures in the tableau were unaware of him.

  ‘From the poor basket,’ Mrs Beckles explained, with what seemed a conscious glance at him. ‘The maids practise their plain sewing on garments which they pass to the poor. I cut the fabric myself, Mr Campion, so each item should have the requisite number of sleeves and legs, but I cannot vouch for the straightness of seams.’

  ‘Whatever the state of the needlework, I doubt if they will ever wear better quality clothes however long they may live,’ Hansard grunted. ‘Or, ma’am, eat better food.’

  Mrs Beckles turned swiftly, dropping into a half-curtsy.

  Dr Hansard responded with a bow, but then held a hand outstretched as if to warn us off. ‘I too must have recourse to a pump, I fear.’ Indeed, his attire was covered in blood and other matter. ‘Jem, will you convey the youngsters to the workhouse? And later I will take their mother there,’ he added, in a voice blending anger and despair.