Cheating the Hangman

They stop before the oak tree. There is no argument. They must carry out their task, no matter how heavy their hearts, no matter how even the most hardened man is sickened by the grievous sound of the nails being knocked through still warm flesh. Those holding the limbs in place wince with each blow: nails pierce the hands, then the feet.

The birds have gone silent; the trees are still; no animals scurry. It is as if nature itself abhors the deed.

At last they stand back, wiping their hands on the bright grass. They might be admiring their handiwork; in truth they are merely making sure that the nails will hold the corpse above the reach of scavenging creatures – though it cannot be long before the birds peck out the eyes.

Still no one speaks. No one seeks another’s glance. To a man they shift their feet, as if waiting for some sign that they may quit the troubled place and creep home. Everyone will know where they have been, but no one will speak of it. The enormity of the act, conceived in righteous fury, is beginning to press upon them, one by one: at all costs it
must be kept secret in the depths of the dense, neglected woodland.

As country men, in their hearts they know that that is impossible. If they can track game, how much easier it will be to follow their heavy paces, which crushed alike bright celandines and delicate tendrils of wood anemone. Yet by the time the stench drifts on the wind to some hamlet they hardly know of and have certainly never travelled to, maybe bluebells, and certainly more grass, will have shot up to hide the maimed undergrowth.

The noon sky darkens, heavy clouds gathering so fiercely that in summer they would know it heralded thunder. To their terror, even in the chill March, it does indeed. The sky is cleft by a fork of lightning; the clap of thunder makes them reel. One man turns towards the distant church spire, afraid it may have been sundered. What is to be done with the pile of clothes? In these hardest of times, it seems sinful to destroy such fine linen. Many are tempted. Someone mentions dicing for it. But Adam Blacksmith has promised to feed everything into the fire in his forge, and few would argue with a man with forearms like the hams they can barely imagine after the long winter’s hunger.

It is not until they are trudging wearily home, to face the swift, underbrowed glance of the silent waiting women, that the strongest amongst them asks the question that they might have posed earlier: ‘Why didn’t we just bury the bastard?’

Wherever I was going, it always gave me enormous pleasure, tempered with guilt, to ride Titus. He had always been far too grand for a parish priest, but I found he was one indulgence I could not deny myself. Nor, since today I was riding to meet my mother at Radway Park in Worcestershire, could I restrain myself from wearing my most fashionable buckskins. My hat was well brushed, and my boots polished to perfection – without, I must say, the use of champagne – by the stable lad, Robert, until recently a workhouse orphan.

Tomorrow I would have the pleasure of escorting Mama to my cousin’s home near Banbury, part of her journey to London. But I would be going no further. To think that once my heart would have beaten harder at the thought of all the excitements of the capital: the theatre, the concerts, even riding in the park. Now I—

‘Stand! Stand and deliver!’

How could I be so stupid as to fall into a reverie on this deserted stretch of road and expose myself to the attentions
of a highwayman? Not that this man was the handsome be-masked gentleman that my sisters would have naively expected. He was a poor, starved wretch, hardly able to hold still the pistol he was trying to aim at my head.

Holding Titus with my knees, I raised both hands. There was no point in doing anything else: my pistol holsters were empty. ‘You shall have all I carry, my friend,’ I said, ‘and my blessing with it.’

‘And be hanged for dressing like a lord?’

He had a point.

‘I might dress like a lord,’ I said, ‘but I am a man of God, serving the parish of Moreton St Jude’s. If you want money, let me reach for it – I promise you I am unarmed.’ Do not think that because I spoke calmly my pulses were not racing. What had a man in his position to lose by killing me? He would be hanged for taking my few gold coins; he might as well be hanged for taking my life, since alive I constituted a threat.

‘You don’t look much like a parson,’ he objected reasonably. But he lowered his pistol. I tried to place his accent – it was not from around here.

‘I don’t, do I? But you have my word that I am. Should your travels take you into Warwickshire, I can promise you shelter and food. Work, if you have the right skills. The village of Moreton St Jude’s, remember. I am the parson there. Meanwhile, my friend, let me give you—’

My words were interrupted by shouts and halloos. It seemed that help was at hand, but at what cost? The man’s life, assuredly. I leant down. ‘Give me your pistol and I will save your neck. Quickly. Butt first, of course.’ Quickly I slipped the offending weapon into my holster. ‘Thank you,
kind sir,’ I said, in the carrying voice I use to make sure that even those lurking in the side aisles of St Jude’s can hear my words. ‘I will be sure of my way from now on. No! Pray wait.’ I pressed a few pence into his palm, which barely closed on them he was so surprised. ‘Moreton St Jude’s,’ I repeated softly.

By now my rescuers were upon us. His arrest was imminent unless he played his part as well as I was playing mine. One man, carrying a cudgel, was probably, from his assured air, the parish constable. ‘We saw you from yon hill, sir, and have sped to your rescue,’ he panted, tugging his forelock.

At his behest the motley group behind him surrounded my attacker, grappling him to the ground. My few pence were torn from his grasp, and the constable seized on them as evidence of robbery.

‘My dear sir,’ I said, affecting my father’s drawl, ‘you are too generous in your rescue. But you are sadly mistaken – had I been robbed, do you not think he would have a great deal more in those ragged pockets?’ If only I carried, like so many of my contemporaries in the
ton
, a quizzing glass to depress pretension. ‘I merely stopped to ask the way. The hayseed took forever to fathom the answer, but at last he gave me the information I needed and I rewarded him with those few pence.’ Only now did I see that I had perhaps been overgenerous, even in the circumstance I had invented. But my father was renowned for his largesse. Perhaps I had inherited this tendency; my dear friend Dr Hansard would no doubt venture some worthwhile opinion. I felt in my purse again. ‘Gentlemen, since you have been put to such needless trouble, perhaps I might reimburse you. But return
those paltry coins to the man and send him on his way first. I fear he has already been delayed too long.’

How much of my tale they believed, I do not know. I doubt it was much. But their credulity was oiled by the sight of two bright half-sovereigns. My would-be assailant loped off into woodland the far side of the road from which they had appeared. Soon my rescuers dawdled away, no doubt reflecting on the eccentricity of the Quality.

But it was not only aristocrats who were eccentric. The highwayman had tried to ply his trade without loading his gun.

The rest of my journey was uneventful enough, possibly because I now kept my eyes and ears open. If I had hoped for a glimpse of the man, to reassure him that I would keep my promises, I was disappointed.

Naturally I would say nothing of this to my mother. She always found plenty to worry about without my giving her genuine cause.

‘I do not like to see you looking so thin, Tobias,’ Mama told me, as she drew me down on to the sofa beside her. She paused as Lady Radway graciously passed us our tea. We were both guests at Radway Park in Worcestershire, whence I would accompany her to the Mintons’ seat. Thence she would progress to the family’s London house, for the best part of the Season, and I would return to the rectory I was honoured to call home.

As our hostess moved away, Mama added, ‘I fear you may be ill. You ate so very sparingly – and rarely have I seen so many tempting dishes at an informal dinner party.’

‘You know, Mama, that Lady Radway can never let slip
the opportunity to feed her guests so that they resemble nothing so much as oven-ready capons.’

‘She is the most generous of hostesses. But you did not share in the general indulgence, Tobias.’ She looked at me searchingly. ‘Is it your stomach that ails you? Or is it your heart?’ She touched the back of my hand with her fan.

‘I assure you, my dearest Mama, that my heart is intact.’ My response was too abrupt. I added thoughtfully and by no means untruthfully, ‘In fact, I might commission you to find me a suitable wife amongst your acquaintance.’

My mother had the most expressive smiles of any lady I knew; you might say indeed that she had a range of smiles at her disposal. This one indicated a most unladylike cynicism. ‘And I suppose I have an absolutely free range?’ She counted off attributes on her fingers. ‘An heiress? Yes – provided that she would not mind giving up her life in the
ton
and her ten thousand a year so that her new husband might feed the poor? Yes, certainly an heiress.’ Her smile changed subtly: ‘A light and elegant dancer? I know you would have no other, but I must find one familiar with the works of all the philosophers? A great reader? She would love your library, but rarely sit in it, since she must constantly devote herself to good works amongst your flock. Have I missed anything? Ah, yes! You require a notable musician – but one whose nimble fingers would surrender their rightful place on an elegant harp in a warm parlour to wrestle with the mysteries of ecclesiastical music, as manifest by some wheezing organ in an ice-cold church.’

‘Indeed, Mama,’ I said, rising to her bait just as she knew I would, ‘the one that graces our otherwise humble St Jude’s is accounted by the cognoscenti to be amongst
the finest provincial instruments in the country.’ I sighed. Was it a sin to have such an extravagance that was hardly ever played, let alone listened to with any understanding, in such a poor parish? I once suggested it should be sold, the proceeds being given to those who were literally starving, but the churchwardens had greeted my proposal with a most decided negative. Taking the long view, I knew that they were right.

‘If your heart is whole,’ Mama persisted, returning to her original theory, ‘it must be the case that you are ill. The truth, if you please.’

‘How could that be the case, with my dear friends Dr and Mrs Hansard to care for me?’ I parried. Were I to tell her of my self-imposed rules for Lent, she would be even more alarmed. There was nothing in the Church’s teaching that required me to give up so many of the delights of the table. But how could I indulge myself with a clear conscience when my Master gave up everything in the wilderness? ‘I promise you, Mama, that their dining room is more familiar to me than my own, much to poor Mrs Trent’s despair. In many respects, she is a most admirable housekeeper: her care of linen is unsurpassed, I believe; the rooms are spotless; she rules my little maidservant with a rod of iron.’

‘You have omitted one essential in a woman not merely the housekeeper but also, in an establishment your size, the cook,’ Mama pointed out dryly. ‘The ability to produce a palatable meal. I infer, Tobias, that the reason you dine so often with your friends is that you are barely able to eat your own cook’s offerings. But that should not have prevented you from indulging yourself tonight.’ She looked at me shrewdly.

‘I will confess that I have strangely lost the ability to feast without stinting.’ It was true: the less I ate the less I wanted to eat. But I might go on the offensive: ‘I will not sully the evening’s entertainment by disclosing to you how much port we gentlemen consumed tonight before we joined you ladies here in the drawing room. Whereas Lord Merrivale and his brothers are still steady enough on their feet to play billiards, I truly believe that I would be under their table, snoring loudly, had I taken a quarter of what they had imbibed.’

‘Your father fears you are turning Methodist,’ she observed, so quietly that I had to lean towards her.

‘Then you may tell him how much I enjoyed the Chablis with the fish, and the port with the excellent Stilton,’ I said coldly. I feared that if I did not check her enquiries she would discover that I took no tithes from the parishioners; even if I had been so desirous, it did not take a mathematician’s brain to tell me that a tenth of nothing was – nothing.

Never had I been so pleased to see our hostess sailing towards us again, her turban more like the crest on a knight’s helmet than a piece of innocent silk. Her figure, according to the Gainsborough portrait of her that graced the morning room, had once been sylph-like, and she had been, by Mama’s account, a most wonderful dancer, always the first to have her hand claimed at a ball or assembly, though that might have owed a little to the circumstance of her having been the most notable heiress of the season; all too clearly, over the last quarter of a century she had enjoyed the dishes that made her table groan.

‘My dear Lord … Oh, I still find it hard to call you Dr Campion,’ she said, with the vestiges of a winsome
smile showing regrettable teeth. ‘My dear sir, it deeply grieves me to see a handsome gentleman such as yourself sitting apart from my other guests, even if – perhaps especially if – the lady to whom he is dedicating himself is his mother. Now,’ she continued, looking about her with satisfaction. ‘There are enough young people here to set up a country dance or two, and the governess has fingers that will make your feet fly. And I know that dear Lady Hartland is the most proficient of whist players: my husband craves the indulgence of partnering you in a rubber or two.’

‘You mistake, ma’am,’ I said with a smile. ‘My mother is not merely proficient: she enjoys most extraordinary good fortune. It is to be trusted that her opponents play for no more than pence.’ Truth to tell, were my father ever to lose all his money on ’Change, Mama would have been more than capable of running a profitable gaming house, with no weighted dice and not a single bent card in the establishment.

‘And if Lady Hartland is to be otherwise occupied, might I present you to a partner?’

I hesitated.

My mother spoke swiftly. ‘Tobias, you might wish to mortify your flesh by declining to join the set, but I tell you straight that you should not mortify the flesh of a poor young lady by making her a wallflower. Of course my son needs a partner, Lady Radway.’ Turning so that only I could see, she mouthed the words, ‘And a saintly wife!’

Much as I might wish my heart to be saintly, the moment I took my place with a pretty blonde Miss Chisholm for the first country dance, my feet took over. I had always enjoyed
dancing, probably even more for the movement than for the chance to become acquainted with a charming young lady. Miss Chisholm gave way in time to a fubsy-faced Miss Fairclough, and she to a red-haired Miss Anne – I never learnt her surname. Alas for my mother’s hopes, they were interchangeable in their determined smiles and insipid conversation, and none had dainty feet.

But Lady Julia Pendragon was altogether different. She emerged from a bruising encounter with Lady Radway’s nephew, a lad about to go up to Oxford, still managing a smile, though I would conjecture that it concealed gritted teeth. Tall, dark and lithe, Lady Julia was the younger sister of a college friend of mine; my recollections of her included her climbing an illicit but tempting tree to rescue the housekeeper’s cat and a failed attempt to teach me to skate. Now, however, she appeared perilously like any other demure young lady, determined to talk vapid nothings.

It was clearly time to remind her of the time when her scapegrace elder brother put a lowly domestic article on the head of a particularly ugly Roman statue on the terrace of one of their country seats – was it in Radnorshire or perhaps in Herefordshire?

She flushed becomingly, shaking her head and failing to suppress a laugh. ‘Indeed, Tobias – Oh, I beg your pardon …’

‘Tobias is my name, Lady Julia, and I am more than happy for you to use it. However, I prefer to be known to strangers simply as Dr Campion – as Henry may have told you.’

I fancied the pressure on my hand might have increased as she said, ‘Indeed, Tobias. I honour you for it. But I
must tell you that there are incidents which it is entirely inappropriate for a man of the cloth to allude to.’ This time her chuckle was open. ‘And I have to confess that I am no longer so adept with a cricket ball.’ It was she, after all, who had thrown the missile that had mercifully despatched the piece of china.