Cheating the Hangman Page 4

  ‘Damned for having a child in her belly before she had a ring on her finger? Pshaw! I would wager that at most ten per cent of country girls are virgins when they are married: am I right, Tobias?’

  It was Edmund’s way to fend off emotion with intellectual truculence, so I indulged him. ‘In my limited experience you are. But there is a consensus that, by wedding her, the young man is making an honest woman of his bride, is there not? And in country eyes, I fear it makes sense to prove that both man and woman are fertile before they are irrevocably bound together.’

  Jem stared. ‘Do I hear aright? You are usually the most morally upright of men, Tobias!’ He sounded as much outraged as surprised.

  I raised a mollifying hand. This was not the place to burden him and the Hansards with the pungent opinions of both my mother and the archdeacon and my reflections upon my treatment of Robert. Who was I to cast the first stone? ‘As Mrs Trent says when Susan drops yet another plate, “What can’t be cured must be endured.” I suspect that however much I disapprove of the practice, I can never change it. And at least the potential parents turn to the church to regularise the situation. I must thank God for that.’ I could not resist the urge to add with a smile of hopeful joy, ‘And every couple I bind at the altar brings to the font the infant that appears six months later.’ I added ruefully, before Edmund could voice the same thought, ‘Though that might owe less to a reverent desire to ask for the blessing of baptism than to Mrs Trent’s good offices with the layette box.’ My housekeeper’s skill with the needle was far superior to her uneven accomplishments in the kitchen. Each new mother received a sturdy box full of vital items of tiny clothing. As the child grew, the mother would launder the clothes one last time and return them to Mrs Trent, who would supply the next size. As for the box itself, it was big enough for the infant to sleep in for a few weeks. Mrs Trent liked to think that the idea was her own; Maria and I had long ago tacitly agreed not to remind her of its true origin.

  Jem’s jaw tightened stubbornly.

  Hansard laid a hand on his arm. ‘For my part, I cannot fault the injunction I am surprised that Tobias has not already repeated: “Judge not that ye be not judged.” But we digress. The poor young woman, I collect, was not betrothed to some village lad desirous of wedding her?’

  If anything, Jem’s face became even grimmer. ‘’Tis said that the maid was the paramour of a gentleman – one of Lord Wychbold’s cronies, maybe. Him of Lambert Place.’

  It was indeed not unlikely that a man of the ton had taken advantage of an innocent maid, as I was about to observe when Hansard thundered, ‘Accursed rumour once again! And is there any evidence?’ Nonetheless he placed a glass of port beside our friend.

  It took Jem a few moments to reply. When he did so it was with the uncomfortable shift in his chair that he must have seen many of his young charges make when posed an awkward question. ‘There are always tales flying round about the noble lord,’ he said, his voice weighing down the last two words with irony, ‘and his devil worship.’

  ‘There have been ever since I moved to Moreton,’ Mrs Hansard corroborated. ‘And indeed his choice of society is to say the least unconventional, though not to my knowledge actually depraved. You cannot accuse him of belonging to the Hellfire set, surely? Look at that poet, for instance: he’s a mere boy. Mr Julius Longstaff. The worst that is said of him is that he spends more time peering at his flowing locks in a looking-glass than worrying about his metre and his rhyme.’

  ‘The vanity if not the talent of Lord Byron,’ Edmund agreed. ‘Apart, however, from rumours that he has a regrettable penchant for recondite words and laboured rhymes, I too have heard nothing truly ill of him. Or, before you ask, of his two neighbours. Provided one does not pay any attention to their clothing.’

  ‘It is hard to do anything else. At least to Lady Blaenavon’s, I understand, if not to Miss Witheridge’s. By all accounts she at least is as conventional in dress as you or I,’ Maria said. ‘Lady Blaenavon, however …’ She shrugged. ‘The on dit is that she is a great ugly woman given to wearing a strange mishmash of clothes. There is, of course, something eminently practical about jacket, cravat and heavy skirt divided into two like very wide sailors’ trousers if one is striding about one’s land. Especially were one to tuck them into one’s boots … Consider,’ she continued, apparently blissfully unaware of the impropriety of her opinions, ‘how the toil of the poor laundrymaid would be eased, did she not have to wash the muddied flounces of her ladyship and the young ladies of the house when they returned from walks down dirty lanes. And in truth I will say that other housemaids would be able to accomplish other tasks with more decorum if they could wear them.’ She cast an impish glance at us all. ‘Before you upbraid me, dear Tobias, consider the inconvenience if you have to wear your surplice at all times. On horseback – what would Titus make of a side-saddle? Your ablutions under the pump? And to my mind, breeches might be no less indecent than the dampened muslin gowns of certain fast young ladies who wish to leave nothing of their figure to the imagination.’ Her smile gathered us up. ‘Now I have shocked you all to the core, let us adjourn to the drawing room.’ She did not add, though it was true, that there our tea drinking would be watched over by ladies from the distant past, whose painted selves suggested no major preoccupation with modest attire.

  Poor Molly Fowler – at fourteen no more than a child herself – had been one of Mr Coates’s parishioners. Since it was clear that he was in no position to pay a visit of condolence to her family, I went myself, taking a discreet package containing flour, cheese, part of one of Mrs Trent’s home-cured hams, and a little money. I did not wish them to feel patronised by any excess, but I had no doubt that like all the villagers they would welcome honest sustenance.

  There was a straggle of ragged children eager to guard Titus, unaware, of course, that Titus had his own way of dealing with would-be riders yet to make his acquaintance. I warned them to keep clear of his hooves. Hallooing but getting no response from within the dwelling that the urchins assured me was occupied by the Fowlers, I stooped almost double to enter, via a doorway secured by nothing more solid than a sheep hurdle, what was little more than a gloomy hovel. A hole in the bedraggled thatch passed, no doubt, for a chimney when there was a fire on the cold hearth but currently admitting occasional flurries of the unseasonably cold rain that had squalled across my path this morning. Only a couple of crude shelves occupied by some primitive earthenware showed that this was a habitation meant for man, not beasts.

  It was indeed unoccupied. Or did something stir in that bundle of rags in the deepest corner? Something? Or someone!

  As my eyes grew accustomed to the gloom I understood the origin of those groans, those ill-suppressed screams. And knew that the woman – for that was what this creature was – needed more help than I could provide.

  Shouting to the boys to fetch a woman to the hovel, I summoned Titus to me, and threw myself on to his back. This was a case for my dear friend Edmund and his medical instruments, and possibly for the precious case I kept ready by my own door: I knew not whether I would have to offer Holy Communion to a dying woman or to baptise a child emerging dying or even dead from the womb.

  Whenever there was a situation like this, Edmund and I would make our independent ways, speed being more important than companionship. Both of us would ride what my young sister romantically described as ventre à terre: not for her the concept of two ordinary men doing their best to ride swiftly on not always easy terrain. Assuredly as he got older, and was now blessed with a wife, Edmund was more circumspect than he was wont to be; I fully expected him to be there perhaps fifteen minutes later than I. What I could not therefore comprehend was a horse and rider heading away from the hovel. From this distance – I was still over half a mile from the hamlet – I could recognise neither the rider nor his mount, a handsome grey. Who but a rich gentleman could afford an animal flying with such ease and grace over hedges and ditches? And why should a rich man app
ear as eager to get away from the hamlet as I was to reach it? And what might such a man be doing in such a sad forgotten corner of God’s good earth in the first place?

  The track was now so deeply rutted that it was time to offer guidance to Titus, who took my advice as if he really needed it. We picked a delicate route through mud and worse, arriving once again outside the hovel. As before, we attracted urchins, probably of both sexes. Mrs Trent – or Robert – had filled any space in my saddlebags with last autumn’s apples, many too wizened to be eaten by anything except a hopeful horse or starving children. I tossed a few around as I threw balls at cricket practice, soft, easy catches, but, picking out the most likely child, passed not one apple but two. One was for Titus, the other for himself. As I mentally girded myself to enter the place of suffering, a figure emerged, carrying a bundle, from which a thin mewling struggled to emerge.

  ‘’Tis Eliza Fowler’s babe, Your Reverence,’ she declared, bobbing a hurried curtsy. ‘There’s a woman down yonder as has just lost her own. Sarey Tump. I thought – but I’d best be quick.’

  ‘I’ll be with you on the instant. First I must look to the poor mother.’ Fortunately I was not called on to do this alone. The sound of hooves heralded Edmund’s arrival.

  The woman looked at him bleakly, sniffed, and scurried off with her tiny burden.

  Having said prayers I could not be sure the dying woman could hear or comprehend, I baptised her puny infant with the swiftly chosen name of Joseph, Sarey, the newly bereaved mother, standing as godmother. Her bemused daughter, a child of perhaps seven, set off to find her father in the coppice, wherever that might be. Feeling that for the moment I could do no more, I returned to see if I could assist Edmund, but he had already pulled what passed for a sheet over the dead mother’s face and was forcing a little brandy down the throat of a man so begrimed and wizened it was impossible to attribute an age to him. Assuring him that I would conduct the funeral free of charge and that Edmund would pay for the grave, and leaving to hand the food I’d brought, we waited as he slid into a brandy-induced slumber.

  Edmund had other calls to make in the area so when we reached our horses, still guarded by a platoon of half-starved children to whom we distributed a shower of pennies, we parted company. Titus picked his way disdainfully to the home of Mr Boddice, the churchwarden, with whom I had a short and forceful conversation concerning Mrs Fowler’s burial service and interment.

  Once again I mounted Titus, startling him by not turning for home. To be sure, it was late for a morning call, and I had not done him the courtesy of leaving my card beforehand. But I had a few observations to make to the landlord of this pitiable apology for a village and they would not wait for a more eligible occasion.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lord Wychbold, a man in his later forties whose pallor suggested an aversion to outdoor activity, permitted himself a sneer of surprise at my precipitate arrival at Lambert Place, a huge establishment dating back to Elizabeth’s time, but now in sad want of repair. Ensconced in his library, an untidy room one end of which he clearly used as his study, he raised his eyeglass at my travel-stained garments as he bade me, with clear reluctance, to take a seat. A pile of folios tottered on the floor beside him; with an irritated sigh he closed the one on his lap and placed it on the others. On the vast and elegant range of shelves, the books in regular use could be distinguished from the others by the presence of fingermarks on the spines; the rest were covered in a rich patina of dust. Mrs Trent would have spring-cleaned this every day until well into the autumn before she could declare herself satisfied. Meanwhile my coat would act as duster for the leather armchair to which he gestured me.

  Since he had a glass of Madeira on the reading stand beside his chair, I felt it would be churlish to decline when he raised the decanter in my direction. The aged butler who had grudgingly admitted me reappeared with a glass – I cannot say a clean glass – on a salver that only its tarnish told me was silver.

  ‘Without roundaboutation, Wychbold,’ I said, suspecting that to implore him as a humble clergyman would be less effective than to exhort him as an equal, ‘I am come to tell you that more must be done for your meanest tenants. I do not suggest you are obliged to build a model village for them, but the very least they need is a supply of fresh water and adequate drains. You treat them less well than the beasts of your fields, sir!’ Truth to be told, they too were unhealthy enough, with very poor pasturage to sustain them.

  He peered at me, though with little evidence of real interest. He might have been a tortoise, sniffing the air before sallying forth. But his eyes were sharper than they appeared. ‘Ah, Hartland’s errant son. I heard you were wont to tell your betters how to conduct themselves. Well, sir, I tell you that what happens on my land is none of your business. It was good enough for Adolphus Coates. It should be good enough for a mere curate.’

  I stifled an absurd desire to point out that I was no curate but a fully-fledged rector. ‘It is the duty of any Christian man to love his neighbour as himself. These people are more than neighbours: they are your tenants, whom it is your privilege to aid and protect. For heaven’s sake, My Lord, do you really want their death by starvation on your conscience?’ I knew his sort all too well. By giving his labourers a huge Harvest Home feast and their children a few sugar plums at Christmas, he prided himself on his generosity sufficiently to be able to ignore them for the rest of the year.

  He muttered something, and rang the bell. For a moment I feared I was to be unceremoniously ejected; instead, he pushed my card in the direction of the butler. ‘See that Eacott waits upon Dr – what do you call yourself? – Dr Campion. And now, sir, good day to you.’ Donning a pair of spectacles, their tiny lenses like full stops between me and his hooded eyes, he turned his attention once again to the tome he had been perusing when I arrived.

  I would in courtesy have asked any other man the object of his scholarship, but it was clear that to give an explanation would have given him no pleasure at all.

  Whatever his instructions, no one from Lord Wychbold’s estate ventured to see me during Holy Week; the most charitable interpretation, if not one I clung to, was that Eacott had no wish to disturb me during such a sombre and prayerful period. A more prosaic explanation might lie in the weather, blowing up unseasonable thunderstorms despite the cold, particularly on the day I buried Eliza. There were no mourners except Edmund and her poor widower, who clutched a miserable bundle containing all his worldly wealth and muttered that since he had nothing in the area he might as well go and die a soldier.

  Both Good Friday services being concluded in Lenten bare, stripped-down churches, my own dear St Jude’s and All Souls’, Clavercote, I looked forward with solemn joy to the greatest day of the Christian calendar, Easter Day, when the very fabric of the buildings would be celebrating Christ’s resurrection. My engagement at All Souls’ meant I would miss the innocent pleasure of the egg-rolling competition on the village green, in anticipation of which Mrs Trent and Susan had been hard at work boiling and dyeing a vast quantity of eggs, our chickens not having heard that they were not supposed to lay during Lent. Mrs Trent, unsure what celebration might take place in Clavercote, pressed me to fill my saddlebags with enough for the youngsters there to eat, if not race. She also produced an attenuated version of her famous box for the new baby, which still, according to Edmund, clung desperately to life; not expecting any of the garments to be returned, she picked out the least good, though she made sure that each was laundered to within an inch of its life.

  Sunday had dawned with the total perfection of a spring day. The sun was warm, trees were throwing out their blossom, birds sang as sweetly as any choir and all my congregation seemed to share my joy. All Souls’ was but half full, and the singing was sadly perfunctory. The few farmers’ daughters flaunted their spring finery; of the poor cottagers there was unsurprisingly no sign. Accepting, with a reluctance I hoped I concealed, an invitation to return to Squire Lawton’s home for a festive sh
erry, I asked as I sipped if Lord Wychbold had shown any sign of improving the dwellings on his land.

  ‘Wychbold? Up at Lambert Place? A curst rum touch if ever there was one. All that book learning has fair addled his brain, if you ask me, with all those break-teeth words. There are those,’ he added judiciously, sucking his teeth and looking around to see that no one in the empty room might overhear – the rest of the household were preparing a tempting-smelling repast to which I was not invited – ‘who say it’s more to do with what he got up to when he was young.’ He gave the most enormous wink, touching the side of his nose with a dirt-engrained index finger. ‘Goings on, they say. Devil worship,’ he clarified ghoulishly.

  ‘The rumours have not escaped me. This is surely not a suitable topic for such a day as this, Mr Lawton.’

  Not quelled at all by my repressive tone and words, he added, ‘And now there’s all that to-do at Orebury House. Rakes and barques of frailty turning the fine old place into a brothel. And every man jack with a fine title to his name, as well as a fine—’ He made an indecent joke.

  For nothing would I have pointed out that by insulting Lord Hasbury and his friends he was insulting friends of my father – and, heaven forbid, my father himself. As it was, I verily believe that he could not fathom the reason for my real displeasure at his unsavoury humour. Thanking him tepidly for his hospitality, I made my excuses and left.

  Wishful to cleanse my head of his sullying conversation, I resolved to ride home not via the lanes but through the healing verdure of fields and woodlands. While not entirely embracing Mr Wordsworth’s fervour, I truly felt the cares of the last few days lifted from my shoulders as I felt the sun on my face. Titus, in tune with my mood, had relaxed to the slowest of walks.