Turning the Stones (18 page)

I raked traces of dried leaf from my hair and pulled on my cap. I listened to the rasping of Croft’s broom on the planks and gradually my trembling abated.

Croft towed his sweepings towards the door and cast them out with a flourish. He hung the birch broom on a hook next to the bench where I was sitting and said, ‘Beg pardon, miss, will tha give me that hayband? I must brush the mare.’ Croft’s linen frock was grimy, his breeches frayed at the knees. I found his presence reassuringly benign, his round face as wholesome as an apple. I climbed to my feet. I had been sitting below a honeycomb of cubby-holes in the wall where brushes and lanterns and other tackle were stored.

I said, ‘If you please, Croft, may I groom her?’

Croft rocked back on his patched clogs. ‘That would be a right mollocky task for a lady’s maid.’

‘I have no objection to it.’ I untied my mantle.

He rubbed at his cheek with a knobbly hand.

I said, ‘Do not fret. I will mind what I am doing.’

Croft regarded his fingertips with surprise as if his freckles had come off on them. He wiped his hand on his frock and said, ‘Mind tha dunna smudge thyself then.’

The mare was a mild horse, standing about sixteen hands high. She was steady on a halter attached to a ring fixed on the side of the stall. With long, even strokes of the hay-band, I smoothed her milky brown flanks, while in the adjacent stall Croft cleaned out the oat drawer. After some time the mare harrumphed and looked at me with a sideways eye as if to say, Unless you ease up on the polishing, miss, I am in danger of becoming transparent. I left off the hay-band and she allowed me to rest my cheek against her glossy coat. Presently Croft
peered over the stall’s divider, swiping at the carroty hair plastered on his forehead. He said, ‘Heck, it be desperate muggy in here, ain’t it, miss?’

I dipped my knees so that I could look up into the space above the hay-rack. ‘No wonder,’ I said. ‘The pitch hole is shut.’

‘That is strange.’ Croft’s brow furrowed. ‘Here is me thinking I did open it when I got up.’

I patted the roan’s flank. ‘I will slip up to loosen the vent and throw down some hay at the same time.’

‘There is no need, miss, I will do it.’

But I, reluctant to leave the stable, was already heading towards the ladder. In a trice I climbed the rungs and raised the trapdoor, which flopped on to the floor of the loft with a thud and a puff of dust. I pressed the palms of my hands on the floorboards, ignoring the dart of pain in the arm that Barfield had wrenched, and hauled myself through the opening.

I think that even as I breasted the planked floor I was aware of something abnormal in the stillness of the loft.

The first thing I saw was a big rectangle of white sky framed by the window in the loft’s north wall. The contrast between the flaring light and the dimness below made me blink. The frame of the window moved on a pivot and it was opened by a cord running over a pulley in the ceiling and fastened by means of another cord. The reason for the stuffiness in the stable was at once apparent.

Miss Broadbent had closed the pitch hole and then the window, too. She had closed the window by looping the cord
around her neck so that as she fell forward she was hanged by her body weight.

There is a stone angel in the churchyard at Great Neston, which I have often noticed. The angel kneels on a grave, slightly leaning forward, wings folded, its gown besmirched by time and the elements. Miss Broadbent was kneeling too or crouching, suspended, sunk into her mournful petticoats. She was listing forward as if in supplication, her arms dangling, only the cord twisted around her neck preventing her from slumping to the floor. The terrible truth of the ligature could not be denied. She was dead – and, shocked as I was, I had to assume by her own hand.

I became practical. I ran to the wall where the rakes and pitchforks hung. I stared at them, trying to recall what I had come for. Oh, a sickle. Its blade looked in need of whetting – but it severed the cord clean enough. At once Miss Broadbent toppled against me, her chin dipping abjectly on her chest, and the window banged open. Cool air rushed into the loft.

I lowered Miss Broadbent gently to the floor – she was as light as a husk – and touched her cheek. It was cold and blue. Her lid was half shut on a bulging eye that I could not look at. I chafed her hands, even though I knew it was useless. Of course they would not come warm. From below came the pitter-patter of rain falling. That made no sense at all, unless Miss Broadbent and I were on the heavenly plane in the clouds where the rain is made. Then I realised it was the sound of Croft pouring oats into the scoured drawer.

I went to the pitch hole and put my face in it. I called down, ‘Croft. Miss Broadbent is up here. She is dead. She has hanged herself. Please go to the house and raise the alarm.’

Croft gaped at me.

I cleared my throat. I could not seem to get any loudness or urgency into my voice. I could not get my voice to rise to the occasion.

‘Tell Mrs Edmunds. Ask her what we should do.’

Without a word, Croft clattered on his clogs out of sight. I returned to Miss Broadbent’s side and held her cold hand.

Presently I heard footsteps in the stable and the creak of the ladder, and Rorke’s face appeared through the pitch hole. I did not say anything. He scrambled to Miss Broadbent’s side and got a view of her face. He said, ‘Jesus Lord.’

He ordered me to return to the house, but I did not care to leave Miss Broadbent alone. I was not ready to leave her. I wanted to know why she had taken this action without saying goodbye to me. I was angry with her.

After some time, Mr Otty heaved himself into the hayloft and informed me that Miss Broadbent would have to be moved and that I must go to the servants’ hall.

I held Miss Broadbent’s hand more tightly. ‘Where are you taking her?’

Mr Otty said in a gentle tone, ‘It’s a dreadful business, Em, but things must be done now according to form.’

‘But what is the form? What will happen to her?’

‘She must go to Great Neston. The coroner will conduct an inquisition into the cause of death. They always do this when the death is unnatural. Let her go now, child.’

*

I walked into the kitchen very calm and stood by the table. Only hours before, Miss Broadbent must have passed by this table on her light feet and slipped through the courtyard to
the stable. Mrs Edmunds called Abby to bring gin, and she asked me to tell her how I had found Miss Broadbent. She and Hester leaned close to me with an air of expectation.

I did not want to speak about the scene in the hayloft. I said that I expected Mrs Waterland would want to talk to me, but Mrs Edmunds said, ‘Her upstairs has plenty enough to occupy her now. It is a pity that Miss Broadbent could not wait until the young master’s guest had gone.’

Abby brought the glass of gin. Mrs Edmunds took it from her and handed it to me. I put the glass down on the table.

I said, ‘Does Eliza know?’

Mrs Edmunds said, ‘Do not concern yourself about Miss Eliza at the minute. Go to the laundry now to your smoothing.’

Perhaps I looked at her then rather stunned, because she added, ‘It will make you feel better to have something to do.’

I did not move.

Mrs Edmunds gave me a little push. ‘Come along, you must shift yourself. It is better that you do not dwell on this sad event.’

She shooed Abby and Hester away to their work as well. I had the impression that no one other than I was afflicted by the demise of Miss Broadbent. The external drama of the death was uppermost in the minds of the household, but the woman at the centre of it was absent. It was as though she had fallen between the cracks.

*

In the laundry I loaded the iron with a fire slug and smoothed a sheet or a shift, I do not remember which. Eventually I heard cartwheels grinding on the cobbles. By scrambling on to the ironing table I was able to peer through the lower pane of the laundry window. One of the farm labourers was at the
reins of the dray that was used for fetching coal and transporting grain to the mill. Beyond the dray, I saw Mr Otty backing out of the stable in a bent-over position. He was at one end of a burden and a man I did not know, who was wearing a black hat, was stooped at the other end. They were carrying between them a shape wrapped in a winding sheet, which they laid on the bed of straw on the back of the dray. The sight filled me with horror, but I did not weep over it. Despite the evidence before my eyes, I felt that to surrender to tears was to allow the actuality of Miss Broadbent’s death.

Twilight arrived, and with it came Abby to the laundry with a bowl of soup, which I could not face, and a candle. Uncharacteristically, she went away without saying anything. I took her silence badly. Could she not think of a single sympathetic remark about Miss Broadbent? I sat before the fire, my ironing long since finished. It seemed that I was in a state of sequestration, but I did not care about that. I preferred to be apart. I was the only person in the house who had loved Miss Broadbent and I wanted the story of her dying to belong me, not to be bandied about the kitchen table. I kept imagining her last actions. She climbs into the hayloft. She winds the cord around her neck. I had the lunatic idea that if I simply tried hard enough, I could change the ending of her story.

But of course I could not keep her to myself. Her death had already passed into the public domain. It saddened me to think that the way Miss Broadbent had died would now take precedence over who she was when she was alive.

*

Later that evening I was called to the library. A large man with an unshaved chin and mussed hair sat at the map table
in an island of light that was lapped by shadows. Mr Waterland was in attendance as an opaque figure in the inky background. Without bothering to introduce himself, the man, whom I guessed was a constable, ordered me to be seated. He announced that he had viewed the body of a woman who had been found hanged in the hayloft of Sedge Court and he was charged to ask me to tell when and how I had discovered her.

I described what had taken place. It never occurred to me to relate the event which had brought me running to the stables. Of course it was pointless to try to bring Barfield to account. As I spoke, I remember wondering why the constable did not write down anything that I said, but I assumed that the questions were a formality. There was nothing suspicious about the death. When I had finished, he regarded me with a sceptical eye. Then he brought out from his coat a leaf of paper, which he unfolded and asked me to read.

I stared numbly at the familiar italic hand:

To Whom It May Concern
.

Please find it in your heart to forgive the manner of my death. I could think of no other way to alleviate my sorrows. It is with relief that I commend my soul to Our Merciful Saviour
.

I do entreat Miss M. Smith to accept the books I have set aside for her in my closet and to read them in remembrance of me
.

Signed Anno Domini 1758 25th day of March
.

J. Broadbent
.

I put the note aside.

The constable turned to the master and said, ‘You see that the wench is unmoved by the note. Do you know why, sir?
Because its contents were already known to her. In my opinion she, and not the governess, was its authoress.’

At that moment the door opened and the mistress entered carrying her own light. She eyed the scene at the table with uptilted chin and lifted eyebrow as if she had chanced upon an unsavoury transaction that must be brought instantly to a halt. She sat down and placed her candle on the table. Its flame pulled the master out of his recess and exposed the constable’s face to her gaze. ‘Please continue, constable,’ she said. ‘I am sure you are anxious to be on your way.’

The constable imprisoned Miss Broadbent’s poor little note in a stockade made from his heavy hands and offered that I had deprived the governess of her life in order to obtain the valuable books owned by her. He argued that I had written the suicide note myself, employing a skill with letters that was uncanny in a servant and a spur to suspicion. No doubt my state of dry-eyed hostility encouraged him in his belief, but Mrs Waterland, who had been watching him narrowly as he elaborated his highly approximate scenario, cut him off in mid-sentence.

‘Sedge Court is a well-governed house –’ she drew from the master a confirming twitch – ‘and your conjecture is, frankly, an insult to us. Are you actually suggesting that this child made a felonious assault on the governess?’

The master coughed and said, ‘This will not do, man.’ His intercession startled me. Had he wished to see me gone from the house, here was a perfect opportunity. Instead, he said, ‘Mrs Waterland has bred this girl to honesty. My word on it.’

‘In fact,’ Mrs Waterland continued evenly, ‘great apprehensions were always upon our governess. Evidently she
came to view her life as an intolerable burden and, wretched though the outcome is, we must accept that she is a victim of herself.’

While the mistress was speaking the constable raised his hands and seemed to push at an invisible membrane that he found to be oddly resistant.

‘I will thank you not to dispute with my wife, sir,’ Mr Waterland broke in. His tone was surprisingly authoritative and I realised that despite their private disagreements, he was bound to come to the defence of Mrs Waterland and that in any public performance they would present a united front. I feared then that Mrs Waterland’s advocacy was only a matter of pragmatism and that her intervention was not for my benefit but for the sake of Sedge Court. Without Eliza at home to give meaning to my existence, my position must needs be shaky.

*

Having met with the Waterlands’ repulse, the constable could do no better than take his leave. Mrs Waterland bustled me off upstairs in a similarly crisp manner. She made only a perfunctory expression of regret at the loss of our governess. Her reaction seemed principally to be one of annoyance. Eliza’s emotions were similarly remote. When I arrived in her apartment, where Downes was unlacing her, I found her reluctant to meet my eye.