The opposite was true, but I would not have admitted it.
‘I hope you’re not expecting your dinner,’ I said. ‘And by the way, I’ve got work for you.’
Elizabeth joined us at the door, exclaiming at the unexpected sight of Fidelis, who stepped back and gestured behind him at the laden cart, which was only now drawing up.
‘I took it upon myself to escort your goods from Preston. I could not have forgiven myself if some footpad took a fancy to your belongings on the way.’
‘You are extremely kind, Doctor,’ she said. ‘But, you know, we are glad to see you for your own sake – as we are to see Matty!’
She slipped out and handed Matty down from her place sitting next to Peter Wintle.
‘Matty, dear! Has it been an uncomfortable journey?’
She ushered Fidelis and Matty into the house while the girl chattered away about their adventures on the road and exclaimed over Hector. I introduced Frances Nightingale to Fidelis, then went into the scullery for beer, ham and cheese to augment the one remaining fish. When I returned bearing the tray, the two were chatting like old acquaintances.
Fidelis, Matty and Peter Wintle sat down to eat and drink while I wrote a hasty letter to Furzey to go back with the cart. Fidelis, who intended to stay for the night, rode to the Black Bull to arrange accommodation for himself and his horse while we unloaded the baggage and transported everything into the house. After I paid Wintle, he set off on his journey home, and as the empty cart rattled away Fidelis returned.
‘You claim you have work for me to do, Titus,’ he said. ‘I’d better do it today, or not at all, for I go back to Preston first thing.’
‘Good, because it wants doing today. You have your medical bag?’
‘Never go without it.’
‘There’s a woman I want you to see professionally.’
‘You introduce me to so many patients Titus for which I’m grateful, truly. On the other hand, they are always stone dead so can’t pay me a fee.’
‘This one is no exception. But she will interest you.’
‘Then I am at your disposal.’
A few minutes later we were walking towards the church, with the acting churchwarden’s keys in my hand.
‘Let us try an experiment,’ I said. ‘Suppose I tell you nothing about the circumstance of this death. You will then be able to draw your conclusions without prejudice.’
‘What would you like my conclusions to concern?’
‘The usual things. How she died. Was it disease or mischance? Was it deliberate?’
‘An act of God or an act of man, then?’
‘Precisely.’
We heaved the coffin up the crypt steps and brought it to the side aisle of the church, where there was plenty of light. A table that stood there was cleared of stacked hymn books, and the body heaved on to it. Then I locked the church door and we set about our task. Fidelis had done similar examinations for me many times, and he went about his job swiftly. My own part was to help him to strip off the clothing – she was wearing an ordinary dress – and then to idle around, as I did not like to see him cutting and then sewing up again. Concentrating hard, he would say little but perhaps hum a tune. Unlike me, Fidelis was musical.
I stood for some time in front of the Ten Commandments, trying to reckon which of them were likely to have been broken in the puzzle of Anne Gargrave’s death. Idolatry and image-making might have been charges brought against the poor papist Gargraves, but could not be laid at the door of their persecutors. The Sabbath had undoubtedly been desecrated. Killing looked rather likely, as did blasphemy and false witness. Nor was it impossible that adultery might be part of the conundrum. But the last commandment against covetousness was the one I thought about most. Were those who persecuted the Gargraves merely enjoying the pleasure of bullying and humiliating other human beings? Or was there some other motive?
‘I’ve finished and she’s sewn up again,’ Fidelis said at last.
We dressed Anne Gargrave again, with all the difficulty that is impossible to understand for anyone who has never tried to dress a corpse. Then we replaced her in Castleford’s box and manhandled it down to the crypt.
‘The dry air down here will slow the mortification,’ said Fidelis as we returned to the church, where we fetched buckets of water and cleaned the table and the floor around it.
‘So, Luke. What did you find?’ I asked, when I had locked up and we were walking towards the lychgate.
‘Later, Titus. I shall go to the inn now and write my report while all is fresh in my memory. I invite you to join me there for a glass and a little supper later on, when we can talk it over. Agreed?’
I went now to the gatehouse, where I hoped my clerk would be awaiting me. She had said she would bring a store of paper that she had at home and some ink, so we would be able to get started on preparations for an inquest. I was determined to hold it in four days’ time and to do so, as discussed with Turvey, in New Manor’s Chamber Major.
I found her as businesslike as I could have hoped. The most important matters when preparing for a hearing is the list of witnesses – which I needed to compile myself – and the list of jurors, who had to be selected, as dictated by tradition, by the Headborough, or constable, of the parish of which Accrington was a part.
‘Give me your opinion. From where will our jurors be drawn?’ I asked Frances.
‘Around Altham, most likely. John Gubb, the constable there, is a lazy, doddery old fellow. He won’t cast his net too far from home.’
‘That might be better than having them from around here. What is the feeling between the people of Altham and Accrington?’
‘Altham looks down on us as a poor relation, though God knows it’s not the Garden of Eden itself.’
I dictated a letter to Gubb formally requesting that he raise the necessary jury for the following Monday, which Frances wrote out in an excellent legal hand.
‘There is a boy, Roger Eales, who is a reliable messenger,’ she said when the letter was sealed. ‘He’ll have this over the hill in less than half an hour.’
Fidelis was sitting alone in one of the many small parlours and snug rooms that comprised the ground floor of the Black Bull Inn. He was writing at a table before the window – it was still light enough to see – with a pewter jug of beer beside him. As soon as he saw me, he drained the jug, cast sand on the paper, and jumped to his feet.
‘Ah, Titus! You will join me in a walk in the evening air?’
‘You have drawn up your conclusions? I am hoping to hear them.’
Fidelis picked up the paper that lay on the writing table, folded it, and presented it to me with a bow of mock formality.
‘But won’t you give me the pith of it?’
‘Let us walk in the air and I shall.’
Leaving the inn, we didn’t cross the bridge into New Accrington but continued along the road towards Whalley. I explained to Fidelis the difference between the two townships.
‘I can’t say that the old looks at all older than the new,’ he observed. ‘Both are primitive enough to be antediluvian.’
However that may be, Old Accrington was a lesser place than New Accrington. It amounted to a dozen dwellings grouped around the Black Bull, the mill and the bridge, with a few more scattered for a quarter of a mile along the road and others even more scattered around the slope of the valley above. Most of these homes were squalid cottages, their windows without glass, their roofs a disorderly thatch, and their children ragged and barefoot.
‘As we agreed, you told me nothing in advance about this woman,’ said Fidelis as we set off along the rutted road. ‘However, I estimate her age to be about forty years and deduce that she was either married or a widow, as she was wearing a wedding band. Her hands and feet are moderately calloused, telling me she is not quite a lady, but above the labouring class. She has given birth. Her inner organs seemed healthy, as did her mouth, though there were some missing teeth. At some point her collarbone was broken and ill set, but this was an old injury, probably from childhood.
‘There were, however, a great number of fresh wounds, mostly to or about the head, with cuts and contusions and fractures to the right cheekbone and eye socket. I also found many bruises on the arms, flanks, upper legs and buttocks, and in some cases the skin had been broken. There are also a couple of broken ribs on her left side. All these injuries appear to have been inflicted close together in time. I conclude that she had been severely beaten in a single attack lasting several minutes.
‘Unfortunately, the body had been washed after death, so any accidental traces on the skin – which might have told me a little more about her death – were absent. I have reason to think she died towards the end of the morning, or perhaps late in the evening.’
‘It was the former. How on earth do you know that?’
‘I looked inside her stomach. She had not dined.’
‘Do you have an opinion about the cause of her death?’
‘It is more than an opinion, Titus, and perhaps you will be surprised by it. She drowned.’
‘Drowned?’
‘Both her nostrils were clogged with dried mud, and there was mud in her throat and a little in her lungs. I am fairly sure she drowned in a pool of liquid mud. Does that conform with what you already know?’
I was about to give him an account of the cruel stang ride to which Anne Gargrave had been subjected when we were interrupted. We had walked for a little less than half a mile and come to a great pair of stone gateposts beside the road, forming the entrance to a house whose roof we could see another half mile from the road. There was a woman standing in this gateway, a widow by her appearance, her face contorted by agitation.
‘Oh, Sirs!’ she called out as soon as she saw us. ‘Thank God you have come. We need the doctor. A lady is sorely ill and I am fearing for her life, as she doesn’t reply or open her eyes.’
‘Where is she?’ I asked.
She pointed to the lodge cottage that stood inside the gate.
‘Here in my house, Sir.’
‘And where is your doctor?’
‘At Haslingden, Sir, on the Manchester road.’
‘There’s no need to send to Haslingden,’ said Fidelis. ‘I am a doctor. Please show me in.’
She led us into the simple lodge, through the room at the front, and into a darkened bedchamber beyond. Fidelis immediately threw open the shutters and rich evening sunlight flooded in. A young woman lay fully dressed on the bed with her eyes closed. Here and there on her face were what I took to be bumps or injuries of some kind – one or two of them, pinkish and puffy.
Fidelis sat beside her on the bed and made a rapid examination, feeling her pulse and looking into her eyes. He touched her forehead, sides, hands and feet. He spoke to her, but she made no response beyond a few moans. He put his ear to her chest.
‘How long has she been like this?’
‘She came here at about midday, Doctor. She said she felt faint and had a megrim, and asked if she could rest here for a little. I took her inside and put her to lie on my bed. She slept, but when I went in to her half an hour ago I couldn’t rouse her.’
‘And what is she? A wayfarer? A stranger?’
‘Oh, no, Sir, not a stranger. It is Mrs Horntree, from up the Hall. She said she had been out walking in the grounds when she felt poorly.’
‘That may be an understatement.’
He leant over her again and rapidly patted the back of her hand. There came no response.
‘Does she cough? Has she been feverish over the last days or weeks, perhaps? Or feeling any pain?’
The lodge-keeper, who had told us her name was Peggy Stirk, shook her head.
‘I don’t know that she did, Sir. I go up to the Hall every day to do the cooking and washing and the like, and I seen her walking around just normally this morning.’
‘With no sign of illness?’
‘No, Sir. As I said, just as usual.’
‘And the swellings on her face? Is that her normal state, also?’
‘No, Sir. It makes her look bad.’
Fidelis lifted her hand and felt the pulse again.
‘What is her given name?’
‘Flora.’
‘And what you call “the Hall” is Hatchfly Hall?’
She nodded.
‘I live here in the gatehouse. The Hall is a little way up the drive. You would be able to see it clear but for the trees in the way.’
‘So why have you not sent for Mr Horntree to bring her back home? Why solicit the help of two strangers if her husband is at hand?’
‘Because when she came in the house, before she lay down, she told me express that on no account was I to send to him.’
‘How strange. Did she tell you what her purpose was in coming down to the lodge?’
‘She said nowt, only what I’ve told you. Then she lay down, and when I came back to her she’d fainted in a half swoon.’
‘The very best thing we can do for her immediately is give her good nourishment. Have you any soup, or thin gruel maybe?’
Peggy Stirk shook her head.
‘Then we must get something nourishing from the inn. Titus, will you carry a message there?’
Through all this, the object of our attention had lain still, oblivious, her shallow breathing being her only sign of life.
‘I will fetch something back,’ I said.
‘Broth if possible, but bring eggs anyway. And I need my medical bag. Will you get it from my room? Now, Peggy Stirk, you must have some milk in the house. Would you be so kind as to warm some for me?’
I left them and hurried back along the road towards the inn.
Half an hour later I was walking back towards the lodge cottage of Hatchfly Hall, carrying Fidelis’s medical bag. Following me was the potboy from the Black Bull. In one of his hands was a pail filled with beef broth and in the other a paper bag of eggs.
Arriving at the place, we found a change. Beside the cottage door stood a roughly made chair equipped with carrying handles fore and aft, and lounging nearby were two young men who I guessed were the appointed chairmen. I recognized them at once as the brothers I had met at the bridge, from whom I thought I had acquired a rabbit for my table. Seeing me turn in at the gate and approach the cottage door, they exchanged a few words sotto voce, followed by a snort of laughter. This did not perturb me greatly, as an angry voice now made itself heard inside the cottage.
‘How dare you, Sir? You wander on to my property from the public road and immediately begin to trifle with my wife. It is intolerable, and I am dubious of its lawfulness.’
Evidently the sick woman’s husband had come down to bring her home. I heard Fidelis’s voice replying, but its tone was low and I did not catch the words.
‘You say you are a doctor,’ went on the other. ‘For all I know, it is a pretence and you are only a contemptible and low-born blackguard. Where is your wig? Your bag of tricks?’
At this I pushed open the door and went inside, closely followed by the boy.
‘Here is Dr Fidelis’s medical bag,’ I said. ‘I don’t have his wig, but I will vouch for his having one, as I have seen him wear it many times. We have also brought sustenance for the patient.’
Grevel Horntree, whom I confronted with this information, was a solidly built man of about my own age. His hair was black and abundant, his cheeks glowed, and his eyes flashed dangerously as his anger rose.
‘What’s this? Another stranger butting on to my property! What the devil are you doing here, Sir?’
‘I bring broth for your wife.’
‘Good God! Have you the impertinence to bring charity food to my house?’
‘I believe this is Mrs Stirk’s house.’
‘Only by my grace and favour. And my wife is no one’s patient unless I choose to call a doctor to her.’
We were in the parlour, into which the outside door directly opened. I handed the bag to Fidelis, then turned back to Horntree.
‘I am Titus Cragg of Preston, at your service. I believe you are Mr Grevel Horntree.’
Instead of replying, Horntree went to the cottage door, wrenched it open, and shouted.
‘Simon! Charles! Come here at once.’
The two brothers appeared at the door.
‘Show these men and the boy off the premises.’
Fidelis and I exchanged a glance.
‘If I may remind you, Mr Horntree,’ Fidelis said speaking rapidly, ‘your wife’s health should be a matter of concern. I believe I can help her, and—’
Horntree shook his fist convulsively at Fidelis’s face.
‘Be damned with you! Get out of my sight!’
Fidelis said something in a low voice to Peggy Stirk and stalked out into the air. I nodded curtly to Horntree, who continued to regard me pugnaciously, his fists clenched by his side. Outside, the two brothers followed us to the gate and stood there for a while, arms crossed, watching as we walked down the road towards Accrington.