Mr. Campion's Lucky Day & Other Stories (30 page)

She laughed.

“I hated them. I could have leant from the window and shouted to them that I loved Will and that I didn’t care who knew it, but I didn’t do anything. I only stood there watching the church gate.

“I could see it from the window, just the gate and no more. I waited till they brought the coffin up the Street and took it into the church, four of them carrying it and the others following.

“I remember it seemed an awful thing to me at that time that he should be dead.”

She sank lower in her chair and the firelight shone on her twisted, capable hands where they lay crossed and quiet in her lap.

“I don’t want to die, even now,” she said. “But the thought of it doesn’t make me sick, as it did then. It’s horrible when you’re young.

“When I saw that they’d all gone into the church and the Street was empty I came away from the window and went down the stairs to get some victuals ready for James, for he was always wonderful hungry after a burying. And as I set the table and drew the ale for him, I hated him worse than ever, I did.

“By and by he came in, and that was the second and last time I saw him really happy and content with himself. He sat down at the table and I waited on him. He was smiling all the time he ate, and when he had done he pushed his chair back and pulled me down on to his knee, and he held me there whilst he told me every bit about the burying. And he watched me all the time he told me.

“I couldn’t bear to listen to him,” she said, “but I was too frightened to break away. So there he held me, laughing in my face and searching for something in it that would show the way I felt.

“I didn’t show anything for a while, but he went on so long. It was a deep grave, he said, and a well-dug one. There were plenty worms in it.

“I felt right faint as I thought about it and I nearly fell off his lap. He saw I was beginning to give way and he held me tight to him.

“‘He’ll rot soon,” he said, ‘and good riddance. He was a thief and he died like a thief”.”

Old Mrs. Hartlebury stirred.

“Then I could stand no more,” she said. “I was sick and wild with his tale of the burying. ‘You’re an evil devil,” I said, ‘and as a devil, so you’ll die.” I don’t know why I said it, but I knew it was true as soon as I heard my own words. James wouldn’t die in any usual way.

“I pulled away from him and began to clear away the dirty crocks. All the time I daren’t look at him. I knew he was staring at me, but I was frightened to look behind.

“Then suddenly he banged his shut hand down upon the table, so that the ale jug toppled over and spilt. I stood where I was, holding a plate just off the table, looking down at it, too frightened to move.

“I heard him get up slowly and come round towards me. I knew he was angry, but still I didn’t stir. He put his hand on me and it was shaking and so strong that it bruised my shoulder.

“Then he jerked me round before him and I had to look up at his face. He was terrible. His great dull eyes were dead, like a fish’s. His lip was drawn up and I saw his gums, red above his yellow teeth. Then he shook me and called me terrible things, and spoke of Will in a way that made me sure of all I thought.”

Mrs. Hartlebury laughed a little bitterly and I felt uncomfortable. She was a strange old woman.

“I did nothing,” she said. “I was so frightened of him I couldn’t even speak. Presently he beat me. I’d not been thrashed before, so I wasn’t used to it. He half killed me.

“When he had done he went out and left me on the floor. I couldn’t move for a while. I just lay there crying and I called out to Will like a mad woman. But that wasn’t much good with him lying dead in the churchyard.

“At last it grew dark and cold, and the smell of rosemary hung about the place, making me sick with it. I got up and cooked the supper as well as I could. Then I set it, and sat down shivering, waiting for James to come in. I hated him as I sat there, but when he came in I did what he told me and served him his food.

“He saw I was frightened and that pleased him, but he was still angry and we said nothing all that evening.

“After supper I cleared off the things and sat down sewing, and he sat in his chair looking up at the clock.

“When it was ten o’clock he spoke to me for the first time since he came in.

“‘Go up to bed and sleep sound, Sis,” he said.

“I stared at him, for it was that he always said before he went out at night, and I knew what that meant. I opened my mouth to speak to him, but I saw that dull look in his face and I daren’t say anything, so I went upstairs without speaking a word and got into bed, but I did not sleep.

“Outside the window I could see everything, quiet and cold in the moonlight, and over by the churchyard the trees were black like lace against the sky. I thought of Will lying in there and I could have screamed with terror. I was young, and half mad with pain from James’ beating, you see,” she put in apologetically, as though I might not understand.

“And when I thought of that man below stairs, creeping out at night to steal the boy’s body and take it up out of its shroud to sell to a lot of doctors to cut about all sense went from me, and I lay panting and crying on the bed, praying to God one minute and screaming silently into my pillow the liext.

“It was all so dark and so quiet, and even then the smell of rosemary seemed to be choking the breath out of me.

“After a while I grew quieter and I listened, holding my breath as I lay up there all alone under the thatch. There was no sound downstairs and I began to hope that James wasn’t going out after all. I was always trying to fool myself that he wasn’t what he was, you see.

“It grew later and later, and by and by the moon came full up over the garden and shone in upon my bed. It was quiet and I was tired and full of pain. James had beaten me well.

“I lay quite still and shut my eyes, hardly thinking at all. And then,” she said suddenly, leaning forward towards me, “I heard the latch go. It sounded so loud that I thought it would have wakened half the village. I was sitting up in a moment, straining to hear everything.

“I heard him go out of the door, take his pick and shovel from the corner in the porch where they were always kept, and go out down the path.

“I crept out of bed and hid behind the window curtain to peek out. I’d never dared do that before, but tonight, as it was Will he was going for, it was different somehow.

“I saw him going softly down the road and I stood there by the window, praying and hoping he wasn’t going for that. I could just see the church gate, as I told you, and I saw him getting nearer and nearer to it. I knew that he was going in.”

Mrs. Hartlebury shuddered as though she still saw him.

“He went in,” she said quiedy. “He went in, and I watched him from the window. Then everything was lonely again. I wondered what I should do. One moment I was half a mind to rush out and wake the village and let them find him at his work, but we were some way from another house and to get to the Street I should have to go by the church gate, and I daren’t do that.

“I was so frightened,” she whispered. “Oh, I was so frightened. Presently I went downstairs and found the old horse-pistol James took against footpads. It hung on a nail by the chimney and I took it down and charged it, and then I went upstairs and got into bed again, and I lay there waiting with one arm out on the quilt and the pistol in that hand.

“I didn’t think. I was past thinking. I knew when he came in I should kill him and I lay there waiting for him to come.”

The old voice died away and there was no sound in the little room. It seemed to have grown colder, but I did not move. I was trying to make out her face in the darkness.

Still she did not speak.

“But I thought…” I began at last.

“Ah,” she said quickly, “there’s been many tales, but this is the truth. That night I waited close on two hours with the pistol in my hand.

“And then at last,” she said, her voice dropping, “at last, after hours and hours it seemed, I heard footsteps coming down the path. An awful fear of him came over me. I held the pistol as though it was the only hope I had.

“I heard him put the pick and shovel back in its place in the porch and I lay waiting for the latch to click.

“But I didn’t hear it. Everything was still, quite still, like an empty church.

“Then I heard the steps going off again down the path. I jumped from the bed and ran to the window and pushed up the sash. I didn’t care if he saw me or not that time. The moon was very bright and I could see almost as clear as if it was day.

“There was someone going down the path and when I leant out I saw it was not James. He had his back to me, but I saw it wasn’t James. It was too tall and he wore a jersey like a fisherman and had no hat.

“I stood staring. I knew who it was. The pistol fell on to the floor, but I didn’t notice it. I only thought about him who was going down the path. I thought I must be mad. He went slowly, as though he was loth to go, and when he reached the gate, which was swinging open, he turned and looked right up at me. I saw his face quite clearly in the moonlight. Then I was sure.

“It was Will.”

On the last words Mrs. Hartlebury’s tone had sunk to a whisper. Now it died completely. Outside the rain had stopped and the moon was coming up over the trees. I stirred up the fire and made it blaze, so I could see about me.

The old woman was sitting hunched up in her chair, her chin on her breast, her hands still folded in her lap. The thick chenille hairnet she wore looked like bands of iron on her white hair, and her thin wrinkled face glowed like old yellow ivory.

“Then?” I said.

She looked down at me.

“He stood there a long time and if I could have found breath to speak to him he might have answered me. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t speak.

“I don’t remember any more of that night. I reckon I must have fainted.

“In the morning they brought James in dead, with an awful story of how they had found him lying by Will’s grave with the lad’s body half out on top of him and the lad’s arms round his neck.”

Once again she paused.

“That’s all,” she said.

“But,” I said, “wasn’t there some sort of inquiry? I mean, even in those days…”

Mrs. Hartlebury interrupted me. She was smiling contemptuously, her wide toothless mouth twisted at the corners.

“Ah, they had an inquest,” she said. “I was there. But I didn’t say any more than I was asked to. After a lot of talk they said James had been set on by Resurrection Men and had died defending the lad’s grave. They proved it wasn’t James himself who was body-snatching because his pick and shovel were back at home and never in the churchyard at all.”

“You didn’t say anything?” I asked in surprise.

Old Mrs. Hartlebury looked at me queerly.

“No,” she said. “Who would have believed me?”

That was true and I had no answer.

“Still, I think I should have said something,” I said, rising to my feet.

The old woman shook her head.

“Say nothing or say all,” she said. “Besides, what sort of a life should I have led afterwards, as a body-snatcher’s wife? No, that was Will’s way. He wanted it all left quiet. That’s why he brought the pick and shovel back, I reckon.”

I looked at her sitting there by the fireside, quiet and smiling a little.

“Is… is it true?” I said, suddenly.

Mrs. Hartlebury shrugged.

“You needn’t believe it if you don’t want to,” she said in her placid Essex way. “I know I saw him, and I know that’s how James died. Anyone’ll tell you James died by an open grave while his pick and shovel were at home, and they’ll tell you too that he died of suffocation.”

I nodded. I knew that.

“But they’ll not tell you one thing that I will,” she said. “And that is that the pick and shovel were clogged with earth in the morning, that were clean and bright the night before.”

There was silence for a while. Then I said good-night and I thanked her for the story.

“Good-night,” she said. “Don’t believe it if you don’t want to. But there’s an old hurricane lamp in the corner if you like. You’re going past the churchyard, aren’t you?”

I hesitated.

“Good-night,” she said again. “A good walk home to you.”

There was silence, save for the crackling of the fire. Then she looked round.

“What are you after now?” she demanded.

“I shan’t be a minute,” said I. “I’m just lighting the hurricane.”

Mr. Justice Fordred sat nodding ever so slightly at the end of the polished dinner table still littered with lace and silver and the graceful glasses of wine. He looked, his guest reflected, much as he had done on the Bench the day he retired, his small face puckered and creased like a petulant baby’s, his fine smooth hands folded, and only the little round blue eyes, surprisingly mild and ingenuous, flickering to show that he lived and did not sleep.

The guest stirred, and his heavy-lidded eyes rested unseeingly upon the plug of white ash forming on the end of his cigar.

He was a famous man.

As Mark Betterley he had made history in the courts. As a barrister he had been unsurpassed.

His practice had been general, and although the plums of the civil courts had fallen into his lap without coaxing he had not despised a few less lucrative but better-publicised criminal cases. He had taken silk at an absurdly early age, and had finally retired to go into politics, with the result that he now sat in the Lords, a grateful party’s honours at his feet.

The Earl of Coggeshall, then, was still a handsome man. The smothered fire of his personality, which had swept so many juries off their feet, and which in later days had carried so many Bills through perilous readings, still burned.

Mark Betterley had had many enemies, and the new earl was no more fortunate.

He had been blackballed from two famous clubs, it was true, but no one knew why, and if there were men of unswerving courage who had yet been known to turn in the street and hurriedly pursue some unlikely shopping excursion when his giant figure hove in sight, he yet appeared a contented man.