I cried out when Uncle John told me, his face grim with the news Richard brought back to the Dower House. My mama was by my side at once with more hartshorn and water.
‘Drink this, my darling,’ she said, and I drank it, obedient as a little child, with my eyes fixed on John’s face, seeking the merciful numbness of the drug.
‘What can have happened?’ I asked, grief and sleep clogging my tongue.
‘She was strangled,’ he replied bluntly. Mama’s hand flew out to stop him, but he shook his head. ‘She has to know, Celia,’ he said. ‘She has to know what is happening in Acre. Richard is talking to the village youths and girls. No one can think what could have happened. She had been quarrelling with her betrothed. They think in Acre that she meant to jilt him.’
‘No,’ I said swiftly. ‘It could not be Matthew Merry. He has the sweetest temper, and he has loved Clary ever since they were children. He could not have hurt her.’
‘The lad who had the fainting fits?’ Mama asked. Her eyes went to John’s face. ‘He used to faint, and when he came to his senses, he had no memory of himself or what he had done,’ she said, her voice low.
Uncle John nodded.
‘He never did anything bad when he had his fits,’ I said suddenly. ‘Don’t look like that, Uncle John. He just had a weak head and sometimes he used to faint. He was the sweetest boy and he is a dear young man. He could not hurt a fly, let alone Clary! They were quarrelling, yes, but that does not mean he would hurt her. He adored her!’
Uncle John nodded. ‘He knew where to find her,’ he said quietly, ‘and they found him holding her body and weeping. It looks very black against him.’
‘No,’ I said positively. ‘It could not be. He would never hurt Clary. He would kill himself first.’ I broke off then, for I was afraid I would start weeping again. No one in the Dower House knew Clary and Matthew well but me. Mama and Uncle John might be kind, but they had not played with the Acre children under the Wideacre trees. They did not know that those two had been plighted lovers since they were little children, that Matthew would have died rather than hurt Clary and that this quarrel must have pained them both.
‘Perhaps Lord Havering can make something of it all,’ Uncle John said. ‘He is the nearest Justice of the Peace. Richard has gone to speak with him.’
I nodded. The truth of what had happened was only now starting to come clear to me. ‘And Clary is dead,’ I said slowly. ‘Would she have been in much pain?’
I saw Mama’s quick gesture to John again, but he answered me steadily and told me the truth. ‘Only for brief moments,’ he said. ‘The killer strangled her with his hands. But she would not have been in pain or fear for long, Julia. She would have lost consciousness very swiftly.’
I nodded. I could hear the words, but I could not speak, for a rising wave of nausea was threatening to choke me. I could see in my mind Clary’s bright pretty face and the tears in her eyes when she said Matthew had broken her heart and she promised she would meet me at the dancing.
‘I can’t bear it!’ I said on a half-sob. ‘On Wideacre!’
Then Uncle John took one arm, and Mama the other, and they helped me up the stairs to my bedroom. He poured me a measure of laudanum and Mama held my hand until my tight grip on her loosened and I started falling into sleep.
‘Mama!’ I suddenly called out, on the very edge of panic as I slid into sleep. ‘Mama!’
For in that second between sleeping and wakefulness I thought that I was Clary running for my life through the woods of Wideacre, and behind me was the man who was coming to kill me. Coming to kill me because I had seen something so dreadful that he had no choice but to kill me. I had seen that decision in his eyes, and I knew that if I did not rim faster than I had ever run in my life, he would catch me and throw me down to the ground and put his gentry-soft hands around my throat and tighten them until I could breathe no more. And in the dream I was Clary, running as if the devil himself were on her heels. But I was also myself. And I was as afraid as Clary.
I was more afraid, because I knew that when he caught her and she turned around and felt his hands at her throat and saw his face…then I would know who he was.
22
Matthew Merry had been the butt of the village since he stammered his first words. In the hard years he had done badly for food, since his only protector was his grandmother, old Mrs Merry. While her word was law with the older village people, she carried little weight with the younger ones who could not remember the time when she had been the most skilled midwife and layer-out in the county.
He was easily frightened. Protected only by his grandma, he had been bullied from babyhood. I think that was why Clary first treated him so sweetly. He made her feel motherly and she shielded him from the others in that hard little wolf-pack which she ruled.
When he found her dead, he lost all his shy cleverness, which she had seen first and which Ralph had encouraged. The confidence he had drawn from the men who praised his poems deserted him at once and he behaved like the idiot they called him. They found him with her sodden body held tight in his arms, rocking at the river’s edge, crying her name over and over again. The tears were pouring down his cheeks so much that his face was as wet as dear, dead Clary’s.
Richard and Lord Havering’s man took him abruptly by an arm on each side and he made no effort to resist. They took him away from where he had found her, just above the weir by the mill-pond, where the body had stuck. He called her name louder as they led him away, but when they took him up in the Havering carriage with the coat of arms in the door, he fell silent and did nothing but weep. They made him sit on the floor, because he was so wet and grimy from the river. He did not object.
Then they questioned him. Where had he been that morning? When had he last seen her? As he was afraid, his stammer got worse. Richard blamed the stammer upon a guilty conscience; and all Matthew could do was to weep and say her name, over and over again. He could say no other word at all.
My grandpapa, Lord Havering, was not unkind, but he was brisk, impatient with the common people, familiar with lies and deceptions and accustomed to liars and criminals from Acre village. Richard had brought him an open-and-shut case, and all he needed to hear was young Matthew’s confession. He did not shout at Matthew or offer him clemency if he would own up to his crime. He just mended his quill and looked at Matthew with cold eyes. And Matthew, heartbroken, and with the memory of an angry parting with Clary on his conscience – and knowing full well that Clary would only have been walking alone by the Fenny because she was struggling with their quarrel in her mind-stammered like an idiot and wept in his fright. Finally he flung himself down on the floor and said, ‘It is my fault. It is my fault. It is my f-f-fault.’
That was as good as a confession of guilt, and his lordship called his clerk and had it written out fair. Young Matthew, blind and numb with grief, put his name to it, perhaps thinking to end this miserable interrogation so that he could go home and grieve for her in peace.
But they did not let him go. The clerk had two constables with him and they bundled him into their own carriage, a horrid affair with no windows and no door-handles on the inside. They took him to Chichester gaol and they threw him in with the self-confessed murderers and rapists to await sentencing at the quarter sessions.
And Richard rode home under a sickle moon humming the tune Matthew had sung with the others when we had brought the spring to Wideacre only the day before.
I was still asleep and I did not wake until the next morning when a great shout from downstairs woke me. It sounded like Ralph’s voice, but I could not believe that Ralph could have raised his voice in my mama’s house. I glanced at the window. It was late, nearly ten o’clock. Mama must have given orders that they should leave me asleep. For a moment I could not think why, and then my heart sank as I remembered that Clary was dead, killed by a stranger, and that there had been a murderer in the woods of Wideacre, that my wrist was broken in a fall from my horse and
that I had somehow lost my courage – perhaps for horse-riding, perhaps for life – and that I could not stop a little tremor in my hands. I could not stop myself from weeping.
I stretched out for my wrapper at the foot of my bed and gave a little gasp of pain. I moved more cautiously then and dragged it on over my shoulders. I opened my bedroom door and listened. It was Ralph’s voice and he was shouting in the library.
‘An Acre lass dead, an Acre lad in Chichester gaol for her murder and a worthless confession to hang him! My oath, Dr MacAndrew, you have been damned remiss in this!’
Uncle John’s voice was soft; I could not make out the words.
‘Why was Julia not there, then?’ Ralph demanded. ‘If you did not summon me, why was it not done before Julia? She is part heir to Wideacre, equal to Master Richard. Why was Master Richard alone so busy in the matter?’
Ralph was silent while Uncle John answered, but I still could not hear what he said.
‘If Miss Julia was half dead with typhus fever, she should still have been there!’ Ralph bellowed. ‘This news has gone like wildfire around the village and everyone is angry, knowing a mistake has been made. Something like this could wreck the accord between the village and you. Acre has trusted you, and now there is an Acre lad behind bars with a hanging crime over his head.’
‘He made a confession.’ John’s voice was clear now, louder.
‘Aye,’ Ralph said with sarcasm. ‘And who was there? Lord Havering, who comes to the county in the shooting season and when he is short of funds. And Master Richard!’
‘What exactly are you saying, Mr Megson?’ Uncle John demanded, his tone as icy as Ralph’s was hot.
‘I’m saying that Acre does not trust the ability of Lord Havering to tell a horse from a haystack,’ Ralph said rudely. ‘We think he is half blind and half drunk. And I am saying that I do not trust Richard farther than I can pitch him. Why he should want poor Matthew Merry to hang, God alone knows, but everyone in Acre believes that Richard has sent that lad to gaol and will send him to the gallows.’
There was absolute silence in the library. I held my breath to listen.
‘I take it you will accept a month’s wages in lieu of notice, Mr Megson?’ asked Uncle John coldly.
‘I will,’ said Ralph, and only I could have heard the despair in his voice.
‘No,’ I said, and I ran across the landing to my mama’s room. She was sitting before her mirror, her hair down, with Jenny Hodgett frozen behind her, brush upraised. Mama looked around as I came into the room and nodded at the mute appeal in my face. She tossed the lovely unbound hair carelessly over her shoulders and went past me, downstairs. We went in together. I scarcely glanced at Ralph Megson. I was trembling again and praying inwardly that Mama would take control. I was as much use as a new-born kitten. I could feel the tears under my eyelids. Uncle John was sitting at the table, writing out a draft on his bank account.
‘Mr Megson must stay,’ Mama said. Uncle John looked up and noticed her morning dress and her hair tumbling down her back. His eyes were very pale and cold.
‘He has accused your step-papa of drunkenness and incompetence, and he has accused Richard of perjury,’ Uncle John said blankly. ‘I assume that he would not wish to work for us any more.’
I glanced at Ralph. His face was impassive.
‘Mr Megson,’ my mama said softly. ‘You will withdraw what you have said, won’t you? You will stay? There are so many things in Acre yet to be done. And you promised Acre you would help to do them.’
His eyes met hers for a long measuring moment, and then he nodded.
He was about to say yes.
I know he was about to say yes.
But I had left the library door open behind me; the front door opened and Richard came in and checked as he saw us. He took in the scene and he beamed at Ralph as if he were delighted to see him.
? problem?’ he asked.
‘Mr Megson thinks that Matthew Merry is innocent,’ John said abruptly. ‘Are you sure you put no pressure on him, Richard? It is a hanging matter, as I am sure you realize.’
Richard’s smile was as candid as a child’s. Of course not,’ he said. ‘Lord Havering was there all the time, and his clerk too. It was all completely legal. It was all conducted with perfect propriety.’
Ralph puffed out with a little hissing noise at Richard’s mannered enunciation of ‘perfect propriety’. I saw my hands were shaking and I clasped them together to keep them still.
‘And have you no doubt at all?’ Uncle John demanded. ‘Matthew is a young man, ill-educated, and he was taken by surprise. Are you certain he knew what he was signing? Are you positive he knew what he was saying?’
‘That is really a question for the examining Justice,’ Richard said easily. ‘You should ask Lord Havering, sir. It was his examination and deposition. I was just there because I reported the crime to him and told him that I thought there was a case against Matthew Merry if he chose to examine it. I had no other role to play in the matter.’
I said nothing. I was watching Ralph. His eyes were narrowed and he was staring at Richard. ‘You’re your mother’s child, all right,’ he said. Uncle John looked at him, and they exchanged a hard level gaze.
‘I’d like to stay if I can,’ Ralph said abruptly. ‘May I have a day to think it over, and also to go into Chichester to see what can be done for Matthew?’
Uncle John nodded. ‘I should like you to stay if we can agree, Mr Megson,’ he said. ‘We’ll leave the decision for a day and a night, if you please. We were both heated and I should hate to lose you because of hasty words of mine said in anger.’
Ralph’s shoulders slumped, and he gave John one of his slow honest smiles, ‘You’re a good man,’ he said, surprisingly. ‘I wish we were all clear of this coil.’ One swift hard look at Richard made it clear that he blamed Richard for all that had come about.
I looked from one to the other and I could not tell where my loyalty should lie.
Ralph nodded again. ‘There’ll be no work done today,’ he said, businesslike. ‘The carpenter is making her coffin and they’re digging her grave. She’ll be buried this afternoon at two o’clock, if you wish to attend. Tomorrow they’ll go back to work. They don’t want to keep the maying feast with the prettiest girl in the village dead and the sweetest lad in the village under wrongful arrest. It has all gone wrong for Acre this year.’
Uncle John said, ‘Yes’ softly, his head down. That last sentence seemed to toil in my head like the echo of a church bell which sounds on and on long after the ringers have stood still. It seemed I had heard it before. Then I saw John’s stricken face and guessed that someone had said it to Beatrice when she wrecked Acre, and that he was afraid that the Laceys were wrecking Acre again.
Ralph swung out of the room without another word and we heard his wooden legs clump across the polished floor of the hali I went weakly into the chair by the fireplace and sank down, my head in my hands, the tears spilling over, helpless.
My mama went to John. ‘Don’t look so desperate,’ she said. ‘It will all come right. We cannot help poor Clary, but you and I can go to Chichester, as well as Mr Megson. If Matthew denies his guilt today, now he has had time to think, then perhaps Richard and Lord Havering may find they were mistaken. Certainly the quarter sessions are not for months yet, so there is plenty of time to set things right if a mistake has been made.’
Uncle John’s head come up at that and suddenly I could see how aged and tired he looked. ‘Yes,’ he said. Then, more strongly, ‘Yes, Celia, you are right. Nothing is beyond our control. Events have moved very swiftly, but no final decision has been made. We can perfectly well see Matthew in prison, and if he tells a different story, then we can resolve the problem.’
We all looked towards Richard. One might have thought that he would fire up at this challenge to his judgement, but he was smiling and his eyes were the clearest of blues. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘whatever you wish.’
Some
thing in his voice made me put my head in my hands and weep and weep.
Mama and John never spoke to Matthew. As they were getting in the carriage to go to Chichester to see him, a message came over from Havering Hall. The prison authorities had sent to Lord Havering to tell him that his prisoner, Matthew Merry, had been found hanged in his cell that morning. He had hanged himself with his belt. They had cut him down as they brought him slops in the morning, but he was already cold.
A bad business, Lord Havering wrote in his aristocratic, illegible scrawl, but saving the cost of the hangman, for the wretch was undoubtedly guilty.
John, Mama and I sat in silence, and I had a feeling – a bad feeling, and the first time I had known it – that things were going wrong, seriously wrong, and I could not hold them or control them.
‘Does this point to his guilt?’ Uncle John asked himself softly, and then he said, ‘No’, without waiting for a word from me. ‘This is bad news for Acre,’ he said more clearly. But I could see it cost him an effort to speak so calmly. As for me, I had my good hand clenched to stop it shaking.
‘How should we tell them?’ he asked.
Mama took a breath. ‘I will, if you wish,’ she said. ‘I was planning to go to Clary’s funeral. I could speak to them afterwards. But I shall go down now, and tell Mrs Merry.’
Uncle John nodded. ‘I’ll come with you,’ he said.
So instead of driving to Chichester to see if young Matthew could be shown to be innocent and bailed, they drove to Acre to find his grandmama and tell her that the only child left to her was dead. A shameful death, and by his own hand.
That was the end of the May holiday and the end of the plans to dance on the green and feast and drink and make merry. The next day everyone was back to work and, although there was much to be done and the lambs were growing and the cows in calf, there was little joy for anyone in Acre.