A Christmas Secret (6 page)

The only sound was Harry's feet on the hall floor. He came padding through, looking interested at last, his head on one side, eyebrows cocked.

“She's gone down there after mice,” Clarice explained, then thought how absurd she was being, talking to the animal as if he understood. Actually she was ridiculously pleased that at last he was taking more notice of her. He went to the door, slithered through the opening, and disappeared down the steps. “Fetch her back up,” Clarice called after him. “I'm not leaving this door open all morning. It's far too cold.”

She stood hopefully for several minutes, but neither of them reappeared.

“Drat!” she said fiercely. She was now thoroughly chilled and rapidly losing patience, but she really did not feel as if she could close them in. This was their home; she was the interloper. Impatiently she picked up the lantern and went down the steps again.

Neither Harry nor Etta was visible. She held the light higher and up near the far corner, which was where she found the rather narrow entrance to the second cellar. They must be in there. More mice, no doubt. She had not known that dogs ate mice, too. Or perhaps he was just curious.

She went through the doorway, her skirts brushing against the sides. Now she would be covered in coal dust. Perhaps it would brush off without staining, but then it would still need sweeping up. “Harry!” she said sharply. “Etta!” She held the lantern forward and saw them immediately, standing side by side; Etta's tail was up and bristling, Harry's tail down unhappily. He let out a long, low wail.

Then she saw the crumpled heap beyond them, dark but quite definitely not coal. Her stomach clenched and her hand shook so the light danced unevenly. She moved forward until it was all horribly clear. An elderly man lay faceup on the rubble remains of an old coal heap. His eyes were closed; his gaunt features smeared with dust and dark with what might have been bruises. A gash was scored across his nose, but any blood had long since dried and darkened.

Clarice breathed in shakily, gasping. The heat drained out of her body as if sucked away. The cat and dog were so close they seemed to be touching each other, as though for comfort. She did not need to question if that was their master; the dog's repeated low howl of grief was answer enough. Anyway, who else could it be? Even smeared with coal dust, the white of his clerical collar was clearly visible.

There was no question if there was anything she could do for him; it was perfectly obvious there was not. Slowly, her knees wobbling, the lantern swaying, she fumbled her way back up the steps again and then stood gulping air at the top. She grasped the door lintel in the gray daylight. She must report the death. The poor old man had probably had a heart attack or something of that sort. Everyone thought he had gone away, so no one would have missed him and gone to look. What a bitterly sad way for a vicar, of all people, to die. From everyone's account, he had been a fine man, and deeply and justly loved.

She could wait for Dominic to return, but in this weather he could be a long time doing all that was necessary. She did not want to stay here alone, knowing what was downstairs. She was perfectly capable of putting on boots and a cape and going to find the doctor herself. She knew where he lived; that was one of the things Mrs. Wellbeloved had told her. It was a stiff walk, but along open road all the way. She would make it in half an hour, even in the snow, and he might have a pony and trap for the way back.

Extinguishing the lantern, she left the cellar door wedged open so Harry and Etta could come out if they chose, or stay and mourn if that was their nature. Perhaps that was more fitting anyway. She rather hoped they would. Then she put on the boots, wrapped herself around in her cloak, and set out, her mind so filled with pity she scarcely noticed either the cold or the way the deep snow dragged at her feet.

“Heart attack I expect, poor man,” Dr. Fitzpatrick told her, coming back up the steps and closing the cellar door behind him. The cat and dog had come upstairs again, persuaded with some difficulty, and were now sitting side by side in front of the kitchen stove. “Only comfort is he probably felt very little,” Fitzpatrick went on. He was a fussy man with a large mustache. “Are you all right, Mrs. Corde? Horrible experience for you. What on earth were you doing down there?”

She had already explained to him, or she thought she had. Perhaps she had been more incoherent than she supposed. “I went to fill the coke scuttle, and the cat came, too, and then I couldn't find her.”

He nodded. “Smelled something, I suppose. Or perhaps just after the mice.” He held up his coal-smeared hands.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” she apologized quickly. “Please come into the kitchen and wash, and perhaps you'd like a cup of tea?” She glanced down at his trouser legs, sodden where the snow on them had melted in the warmth of the house, then her own heavy, wet skirts.

“Yes,” he said with alacrity. “Thank you.”

She busied herself with water in the kettle, warming the teapot, fetching milk from a very chilly pantry, and offering him a slice of cake, which he made an excuse for accepting as well.

“I'll take care of the arrangements,” he said with his mouth full. “I daresay they won't be able to hold a funeral for a few days, considering the weather and what the bishop might care to do, but I'll have the body removed and all the appropriate registrations dealt with. You don't need to concern yourself, Mrs. Corde. I will take care of it all. And I would be obliged if you would speak of this to no one yet. There is a proper order of things, which we must observe.”

“Thank you.” She felt relieved, but more than a little sad. It was a lonely and undignified way to go. Not that she supposed he was more than briefly aware of it. He had lived well, very well, and in the end that was all that mattered. “Thank you,” she repeated. “No doubt my husband will be in touch with the bishop. He may … he may wish us to remain a little longer.” She realized as she said the words how much she hoped that he would—a lot longer, perhaps always.

It was ten minutes later with the doctor on his second cup of tea when Dominic came in, slamming the front door behind him and striding down the hall, shedding snow everywhere. “Clarice!” he called urgently, fear edging his voice sharply. “Clarice!”

She came to the door immediately and almost ran into him. His coat was wet, his face whipped red by the cold, his eyes frightened. As soon as he saw her he was flooded with relief. “Someone told me you sent for the doctor urgently. What is it? Were they wrong?”

She could not help smiling. It was wonderful, and still faintly surprising to her, that he should care so intensely. “I'm perfectly well,” she said, almost all the shiver gone out of her voice. “I went for coke in the cellar and the cat got into another cellar beyond. I found the vicar's body. The poor man must have gone down there and had a heart attack. I felt the doctor was the best person to inform.” She met his eyes, looking to see if he understood what she had done.

He was momentarily shocked. “Dead? The Reverend Wynter? You mean he has been down there all the time?”

“Yes. Don't look like that,” she added gently. She touched his hand. “There was nothing we could have done for him.”

The doctor drank the last of his tea and came into the hall.

“Fitzpatrick,” he said, introducing himself. “You must be the Reverend Corde. Sad thing to happen. So sorry your poor wife had to be the one to find him.” He shook his head. “But I'll take care of all the details. Perhaps you'd just give me a hand to carry the poor old man up the steps, then I can fetch the blacksmith's cart and have him taken away. My trap is rather too small, you know.”

“Yes, of course,” Dominic replied quickly, beginning to take off his heavy outdoor coat.

It was an awkward job up the cellar stairs, and required both men, so Clarice walked in front of them with the lantern. On the way back up she moved ahead and laid a clean blanket on the kitchen table so they could put him down gently on it. As soon as it was accomplished, the doctor went to find the blacksmith.

“I think I should clean him up a bit,” Clarice said very quietly. Her throat ached, and she found it hard to swallow.

Dominic offered to do it, but she insisted. Laying out the dead was a job for women. She would wash the coal dust from his head and face and hands. She did it with hot, soapy water, very gently, as if he could still feel pain. He had had fine features, aquiline and sensitive, but they were hollow now, in death. There was a bad scrape on his nose, as if he had struck it falling—and yet they had found him on his back, and to reinforce that fact, there was a deep gash in the back of his head. He must have gone down hard.

In straightening his legs, Clarice also noticed that his trousers were slightly torn at the shins, and the skin underneath abraded and bruised.

“How did he do that?” she said curiously.

“It happened before he died,” Dominic said quietly. “People don't bruise after the heart stops. He must have stumbled as he went down the steps. Perhaps he wasn't feeling very well even then.”

“I wonder why he went down at all,” she said thoughtfully, pulling the fabric straight. “The buckets of coal and coke were all full.”

“I expect Mrs. Wellbeloved filled them,” he pointed out.

She looked at him almost apologetically. “If she'd gone down there, and he had the buckets with him, then why didn't she find him?”

“What are you suggesting, Clarice?”

“I don't know,” she admitted. “I just wondered why he went down there, and nobody knew.”

“They thought he had gone away on holiday,” he answered. “We all did.”

She frowned. “Why? Why did the bishop think he was going on holiday?”

“Because he wrote and told him,” Dominic said.

She said nothing. Something made her more than sad, but she wasn't sure what it was.

There was a voice at the door, calling out urgently. Dominic turned and went back to the hall. “What is it? Can I help?”

“Oh, Vicar!” It was a man's voice, deep and unfamiliar. “Poor Mrs. Hapgood's had bad news, and she's that upset, I don't know what to do for her. Can you come? Dreadful state she's in, poor thing.”

Dominic hesitated, turning back toward Clarice.

She knew how much it mattered; this was their chance to prove they could do everything that a parish needed. “Yes, of course you can,” she said firmly. There was no need to tell this man that the Reverend Wynter was dead. He had his own griefs to aid first. “There's nothing here I can't take care of.”

“Oh, bless you, ma'am!” the man in the hall said fervently. “This way, Vicar.”

The doctor came back with the blacksmith and his cart, and the two men carried the body out quickly and discreetly, wrapped in a blanket. After they had gone Clarice went back to the kitchen and washed the few dishes they had used, her mind whirling. There was something wrong. She could not put her finger on it standing here at the bench. She would have to go down to the cellar again, and yet she was reluctant to. It was more than the cold or even the memory of what she had found.

“Come on, Harry,” she said briskly. “Come, keep me company.” She relit the lantern and the dog, surprisingly, obeyed her. It was the very first time he had done as she'd asked. Together they went to the door and opened it. She went first down the steps, very carefully, and he followed behind. A little more than halfway he stopped and sniffed.

“What is it?” she said, gulping, her hand swaying so the light gyrated around the walls.

Harry sniffed again and looked up at her.

Swallowing hard, she retraced her steps up to him and bent to examine what he'd spotted. It was a very small piece of fabric, no more than a few threads caught in a splinter of the wood. At first she thought how odd it was that the dog had noticed it; then she saw the smear of blood. It wasn't much darker than the coal-smudged steps themselves, but when she licked her finger and touched it, it came away red. Was this where the vicar had stumbled, and then gone on down the rest of the way to the bottom? How could she find out?

She held the lantern so she could see the steps closely. They were dark with years of trodden-in coal dust, each bit dropped from a bucket or scuttle carried up full. No matter how closely she looked, all she could distinguish were the most recent marks, a heel dent, and the smear of a sole. They could have been anybody's: Dominic's, the doctor's, even Mrs. Wellbeloved's.

She went to the bottom and looked again, not expecting to find anything or knowing what it would mean even if she did.

Then she saw it: a small, neat pattern of marks she understood very easily—cat prints. Etta had been this way. She walked after the marks, for no real reason except that they led to the second cellar. They were easy to read because they were on plain ground, as if someone had swept all the old marks away with a broom. Why would anybody sweep just a single track, no more than eighteen or twenty inches wide? It was not even clean, just brushed once. Several times it was disturbed at the sides by footprints.