Dead Man Riding (36 page)

‘Justice?'

He shook his head. It looked like helplessness rather than denial.

‘What happened?'

‘Alan decided this morning that he wanted to walk part of the way into town, to steady his nerves before giving evidence. He was worried because he thought you wouldn't be there. So we arranged that he should go on ahead and we'd follow in the wagonette and pick him up. We'd already decided that Kit wouldn't come with us. We all went out to wave Alan off and Kit said goodbye to him and thanked him.'

‘As if he intended—'

‘No. No indication at all. So Alan went and the rest of us started getting ready. I was in the parlour when I heard the sound of a shotgun. It sounded as if it came from the stable yard. I went running through and Robin joined me. We found him in the yard by the water trough, with the Old Man's shot gun beside him. He'd left a note in the tack room, pinned up under that picture of the horses.'

‘What did it say?'

‘It was in Greek, about the Eumenides, the avengers. Then one in English addressed to the coroner saying he was of sound mind and he intended to kill himself. Nothing more.'

‘So all your efforts were wasted?'

‘Yes.'

If he'd wanted, he could use words to defend himself more expertly than anybody I knew. He didn't even try. If anything, it made me even more angry.

‘Even the lengths you went to to deceive me. I suppose that was a great intellectual diversion for you, watching me get things wrong, encouraging me to chase down all those blind alleys.'

‘No. Not that.'

‘Did you and Kit laugh about it together?'

‘No!' He was angry now. ‘That was the last thing we'd have done.'

‘Just another nice little intellectual experiment for you, then. What did you learn from this one?'

For a few paces he didn't say anything but he must have come to a decision, because he started talking.

‘It wasn't an experiment. Perhaps at the very start of it I saw myself as an observer, perhaps a guide even. If that was arrogance, I've been well punished for it.'

‘A guide for all of us?'

‘Mostly for Kit and Alan.'

‘So you knew?'

‘I knew they had a deep friendship. I delighted in it. It was something Plato would have understood – two talented and clear-minded young men, with such a lot to contribute to the world. I thought they'd do great things, both of them. Particularly Kit. I've never in my life had a better pupil and I shan't now.'

‘You loved Kit?'

‘Yes. More than he ever guessed, thank the gods. I wanted, quite fiercely, to protect him from what I guessed was going to happen. I knew what he felt about Alan and that Alan simply didn't feel the same way. Best friend, old school friend – that's what it was for Alan.'

‘So you came with us to protect Kit from Imogen?'

‘Yes, I suppose in all honesty that was what it amounted to. I was worried back in Oxford when Alan informed me he was going to invite you all to go away together. I knew he was very much attracted to Imogen. Kit was obviously in for a bad few weeks and I thought I should be there to try to prevent him from doing something regrettable.'

‘Only regrettable?'

‘Nell, I'm talking to you the way I'd talk to no other woman, probably no other man either. If Kit … if he had made a fool of himself somehow and gossip got around it would have stuck to him for the rest of his life. He'd probably have had to leave Oxford and all that intelligence and promise would have turned to bitterness and cynicism or worse. I thought at least if I were here for him to talk to – to rave like a fool if he wanted to without anybody else knowing – it would all be over safely in the end. He could leave the bitterness here, somewhere he'd never set foot again, even never speak to me again if he wanted to forget it altogether and get on with the rest of his life.'

We'd reached the end of the path. We turned, walked back. I didn't feel angry any more, just loaded down with his regret and weariness.

‘But it didn't work.'

‘No. There were forces I simply hadn't given enough weight to.'

‘Like Imogen falling in love with Alan?'

‘Yes. I simply hadn't allowed for her being so…'

‘Passionate? You know it was the Old Man who brought that to a head – firing at them?'

‘Yes. He was a force of nature, wasn't he? I hadn't allowed for that either.'

‘I can see now that it drove Kit practically mad. He told you about that love letter?'

‘Yes.'

‘Once I'd realised that it was meant for Alan, not Imogen, I began to see what might have happened. Then the horsewhip…'

‘Yes. The Old Man must have been mad too, that night.'

‘Or very angry.'

‘It comes to much the same thing. As far as he was concerned, Kit had just been blaspheming the god he worshipped.'

‘God?'

‘Fertility. The Old Man knew he hadn't got long to live. He didn't care about that but there were two things he hoped would survive of him – the baby Mrs Berryman was carrying and his own bloodline in Alan. In his heart he must have had doubts about the baby, so the Alan bloodline mattered more. Then he overheard what poor Kit was saying to Alan. You guessed that?'

‘Yes.'

‘Alan left Kit standing there, practically ran away from him, Kit says. Then the Old Man appeared suddenly out of the hedge and started raving at Kit, calling him an offence against nature and – well, you can imagine the rest perhaps. Then he started laying about Kit with the horsewhip he was carrying. Kit says he tried not to retaliate at first but the whip got him on his hurt arm. He pushed the Old Man. He fell and cracked his head against the tree.'

‘Then it was an accident. Manslaughter at worst.'

Meredith shook his head. ‘Kit was always intellectually honest. He said in that moment he wanted him to be dead. I suppose he was a symbol of all the hurt and loss.'

‘And Kit ran to the barn and called to you to help.'

‘Yes, and that's where I'm most to blame. If I'd told Kit there and then that he must go and confess, he'd have done it. But I thought I was the cool-headed one. I should have stopped you all being there at all, so it was my responsibility. Why should a few seconds of grief and anger ruin his whole life? The Old Man had wanted to die after all.'

‘If it happened the way he told you, couldn't he have admitted it and pleaded self-defence?'

‘So he goes to the police and pleads self-defence. How does he explain why the Old Man's out there in the dead of night, horse-whipping him?'

We took a few more steps. ‘I see.'

‘Yes. Even at best, he'd have had to give evidence to an inquest. If the reason for the quarrel came out, any chance that Kit might have had of doing anything in the world would have been destroyed. The same would probably have applied to Alan. Could I let their lives go to waste like that without trying to do something?'

‘So that justifies everything?'

‘I'm not claiming it justifies anything. I'm just trying to make you understand what I was thinking, out there in the dark with a dead body, a young man too shocked to think for himself and only a couple of hours until daylight.'

We walked on in silence for a while. Two wood pigeons pecking in the dust flew up with a clattering of wings.

‘If you're thinking it all sounds cold and rational,' he said, ‘I can promise you that wasn't how it felt there and then, getting the horse to stand still, practically hypnotising Kit into helping.'

‘He couldn't have been much help.'

‘He wasn't much. That was one of the reasons I did it that way. Everybody knew Kit was scared of horses. With that and only one useful arm, he'd be the last suspect even if the police were suspicious.'

‘What would you have done if anybody else had been accused of killing him?'

‘Told the police. There wouldn't have been a moment's doubt about it for either of us. But I believed it wouldn't come to that.'

My mind was making a lot of connections, all of them bitter ones.

‘That's why you came with me to Maryport, isn't it, to make sure that Arthur Mawbray's alibi was a good one?'

‘Partly that, yes.'

‘And that's why you persuaded Nathan to go away until the inquest was over. He'd heard Kit calling to you.'

‘No, I didn't persuade him. It was his own decision to go away but…'

He stopped walking and looked at me. I stopped too.

‘But what?' Then, as it struck me, ‘Oh no.'

‘I'm afraid so. I'm sorry.'

‘You didn't fall into that waterfall – you jumped. I was nearly catching up with Nathan and you wanted to distract me because you knew I'd get him to tell me.'

He nodded and put out a hand to me. I turned and started walking fast away from him to the other side of the park, practically running. I turned at the wall and there he was behind me.

‘Nell, Miss Bray … please listen.'

‘And what about the rest of it as well? Was that just to distract me? Another heroic sacrifice for Kit and Alan?'

He shook his head. He was crying openly, tears running down his face. ‘If I've made you think that, then I've done even more harm than I've imagined. Please, if you never believe anything else I say, believe that's not true.'

‘How can I?'

I think by then I was crying too, turning away from him and trying to hide it. His hand came round my wrist as urgently as if I were the one in danger of drowning this time.

‘Look at me. Listen. Some of this has been wanting to know how much you were finding out. But that's only part of it. As soon as we talked in the train, I felt there was a kind of courage and certainty about you that I respected. More than respected, wanted. And the more we were together … I'm not saying love because I'm not sure what people mean by it…'

‘Nor am I.'

‘Liking, respecting, believe that at least. And wanting. Will you believe that?'

I think I must have nodded because the grip on my wrist relaxed enough for our hands to slide together, palm to palm.

‘Thank you. Oh, thank you.' It was more of a groan from him than words.

After a while I asked him what he was going to do now.

‘I must go back. The police will be there again. Or did you mean in the longer term?'

‘No.'

‘I shan't go back to Oxford. I'm exiling myself.'

‘I'll go back, I think.'

‘Yes.' The grip on my hand turned urgent again. ‘Nell, do something with your life, you hear me? Whatever happens, don't let this wreck you. Do something.'

I told him yes, I heard. The light was getting low and golden and even if I couldn't get far away that evening I wanted to make Carlisle at least. I disentangled my fingers from his and turned away.

‘Nell.'

I'd only taken a few steps.

‘Nell, there's something you should know. Something silly perhaps. You remember that morning on the harbour at Maryport?'

Tar-tasting tea and a cat taking bits of warm crab from our fingers. I nodded.

‘The old fisherman joked about were we eloping and you quoted the ballad?'

‘I remember.'

‘For a moment I wished – more than wished, I suddenly quite desperately wanted – to be doing just that. To be getting into a boat and sailing away with you. Absurd, but I wanted to tell you.'

‘Absurd, yes. But thank you anyway.'

I think, I hope, I might even have managed to smile at him. Then I turned away and kept on walking.

Epilogue

I'
D HAVE TRIED TO DO SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE
in any case. Whatever I've done, it wasn't because of what he said or did. If anything influenced me from that summer it was what the Old Man said, not Meredith.

*   *   *

As for Kit, the verdict was suicide. In spite of what he'd written in his note to the coroner, the jury again insisted on padding the hard fact with ‘whilst the balance of his mind was disturbed'. I wasn't there at the inquest and heard about it afterwards from Alan. Meredith had to give evidence and whatever he was feeling at the time he must have been as convincing as usual. A brilliant student, he said, probably the most brilliant he'd ever taught. The implication that brilliance may tip over into temporary madness probably wasn't lost on the jury. He hinted, delicately, at an unhappy love affair, pointed out that Kit had been in great pain from an arm injury and had naturally been distressed at the death of his host just eleven days before he took his own life.

After that, Meredith disappeared. He kept to his decision, resigned his fellowship and didn't go back to Oxford. It caused some comment in the first few weeks of the new term but not a lot of surprise. Meredith had always been regarded as a wild man and university affairs jogged on much more smoothly without him. Later – many years later after a lot of things had happened – I met him again unexpectedly and heard what he'd been doing, but that doesn't belong with this story.

*   *   *

The rest of us, Alan, Nathan, Imogen, Midge and I, went back to our colleges in October and although some rumours must have circulated the policy seemed to be the less said, the better. Cumberland was a long way from Oxford, after all, and it had been such an unusually hot bright summer that – once the autumn mists had set in – it all seemed as far away as an ancient Greek myth. So we were allowed to stay and take our final exams. Midge and I managed to persuade Imogen not to give up her course to marry Alan at once. I think, secretly, she was more ready to listen to us than she admitted at first. We all needed time to recover. As it happened, the three of us did as well or better than Alan and a lot better than Nathan, who scraped a cheerful third. Alan and Nathan took their degrees. Women weren't allowed to, of course, but at the time it worried us less than it should have done.