Aurora Read online

  “What old Charles meant by marrying a mischief-making chit as common as dirt is beyond me. A Miss Marlowe from Somerset—no one ever heard of them. Oh, she appears well enough—has learned the right accent and speaks like a lady. I refer to her pronunciation only, and as to the content of her speech, it is best forgotten. Always after the men, too—always had an eye to them. We came to meet her right after the wedding. You weren’t married to Bernie yet, Marnie, and I don’t scruple to say the woman was rolling her eyes at him shamelessly, right under Charles’s nose. Well, at Kennie too if it comes to that, and he no more than a schoolboy, though he was always a handsome rascal. She’d have been happy enough to have a go at my Alfred as well, if he’d had the gumption to raise his eyes from his boots. Look up, Al­fred.”

  Alfred looked up shyly, but made no oral contribution. Marnie said, “I am aware of her behaviour. Bernard mentioned it to me.”

  “Bernie behaved very well, my dear. There is no cause to poker up. He was aghast at her carrying on. He never made up to her in the least, but certainly Kenelm had an eye to her, the rogue.”

  Rorie became alert at this. She found it not in the least difficult to believe, and was strongly inclined to hear more.

  “Tell me, Marnie,” Hennie ran on, her faded eyes flash­ing, “for you were here at the time. Did she have any fellows on the string when old Charles died?”

  “I was not here till immediately after the death. She had no one then, I am convinced. She never left the house. Later, when Bernard and I were living at the Hall, we had little enough to do with her. We maintained cordial rela­tions, but were not bosom bows. She had her own set of friends whom she met here at the Dower House. I don’t know that one of them was any special beau.”

  “She’d be happier keeping court,” Hennie decided.

  “A handsome gel,” was Alfred’s only contribution to the talk. He was rewarded with a pair of scowls.

  “Who does she have her eye on since she’s been working at getting little Charles made baron?” Hennie asked next.

  “She has dropped the old crowd. I never see any of them at the Hall. She has very few callers, to tell the truth. I think she must be lonesome. She is not much taken up by the respectable people and no longer favours the other sort. I suppose we are the closest she has to a friend.”

  “Lord, and not a man in the house save the servants. She’ll be setting up a flirtation with the butler if we ain’t careful. Wouldn’t put it past her,” Hennie said, slapping her knee in delight. “Wilkins, isn’t it? She won’t get far with that old stick. He never had any use for her.”

  The Gowers were to remain a few days. Hennie said bluntly she wouldn’t miss the exhumation for a thousand pounds. She was too curious to see who Clare had mur­dered, and how she had done the deed.

  She didn’t actually get to see the corpse. Rumours of the digging up had leaked out, and to avoid a crowd, the thing was done at seven-thirty in the morning, in the middle of a cold, drizzling rain. The dowager Lady Raiker was there with Coons, the man who called himself Lord Raiker was there with Cleary, and the officials appointed by the court were there. There were as well two gravediggers, but this was the complete audience for the grizzly show. With so much animosity existing between those present, there was not a word spoken as the shovels dug into the firm earth. In the ten or so years the ground had been allowed to settle, it had baked into something resembling black clay, and was not easy to disturb. But eventually the shovels hit wood, and as the top layer of dust was scratched away hearts beat faster, breathing was quick and light. After an eternity, a raw wooden box was lifted out, rougher even than the coffin of a parish pauper. The lid had been nailed shut, but the wood had begun to decay, and no hammer was required to pry it off. The two gravediggers did it with their bare hands.

  There was a gasp of surprise. Lady Raiker reeled back into the arms of her solicitor, but Lord Raiker stood staring in fascination. Ten years had been sufficient to remove any human features from the corpse. There was black hair, teeth, bones, with some congealed matter adhering to them in patches, but gruesome as this sight was, it received scant attention. The remainder of the box’s contents were too bizarre. A mildewed, spotted uni­form covered the remains of the person. It had once been scarlet, was now mottled with purple and blue, The brass buttons and gold lace too had lost their lustre, as had the medals on the chest, but the skeletal hands crossed over the chest bore two magnificent untarnished rings. One was a heavily chased gold affair with a large ruby glowing in the hazy light of dawn. The other was a signet ring, also gold, with a diamond in the lower left corner of the ring’s crown.

  They were both familiar to anyone connected with the Raikers. The signet ring was a sixteenth birthday present to Kenelm, a replica of that given to Bernard at the same time, and the other family heirloom also given on his sixteenth birthday, by tradition, to the younger son. What they were doing in the coffin, and even more curiously what the body was doing in such a handsome uniform, was a matter of great interest. The uniform too was familiar to the Raikers and their associates, though it had never before been worn by anyone.

  Lord Raiker, old Charles, like all the nobility in the area, had established a volunteer brigade to protect the coastal area in case of attack by Napoleon. It had been set up some years prior to Kenelm’s departure, but still ex­isted at that time, and Kenelm had been made one of its captains on his return from school that spring. To please an adolescent son, Lord Raiker had had a gaudy uniform designed and made up, and this was what remained of it. It had never even been tried on. At the time of the family quarrel, in fact, the sleeves were only basted in, and the thing had not been finally fitted. What it was doing on this or any other body passed imagining.

  The dowager recovered sufficiently to recognize the rings and uniform. Lord Raiker stood staring, his face blank with astonishment. For a long moment he looked, taking in every detail of the spectacle before him, then he raised his eyes slowly to Lady Raiker’s white face. It was impassive. Not triumphant, not frightened, certainly not surprised—it was cold. Satisfied, perhaps, was the closest he could come to reading that white mask. He went on regarding her closely for some time, then turned to his solicitor.

  “It is time we heard Lady Raiker give us her explana­tion of this matter,” he said.

  Clare nodded her head in acquiescence, and they all walked, carriages being ineligible in the graveyard, to Raiker Hall, which had been chosen as the scene of her deposition. They said not a word as they walked through the rain, but their separate minds were seething with conjecture. Within a quarter of an hour the principals in the drama were installed in the study. The gravediggers hauled the coffin onto a wagon and took it to the local doctor for examination.

  The magistrate asked Clare in a polite tone for an account of the proceedings that had led to this death and her knowledge of it, along with her reasons for withhold­ing her evidence for so many years.

  She composed heir face to gravity, only her breast heav­ing up and down revealing that she was at all ruffled. “It all happened eleven years ago,” she began in a low voice, “when Kenelm came home from school. He was—attracted to me,” she said simply.

  Kenelm sat with his jaws and fists clenched, but uttered not a word of contradiction.

  “He used to follow me around, pester me—try to make love to me,” she said, her voice falling lower on the last phrase, while a blush suffused her cheeks. “I made a joke of it at first—did not want to be rude to him because of my husband, but told him firmly he must not be so foolish. One night my husband retired early and I went to my own study to read. Kenelm came in—he had been drinking. Drinking a great deal, which he did not normally do, of course. He began making advances, very improper ad­vances. I hesitated to call for help because of making a scene before the servants—it would be bound to get around the neighbourhood. I fought him off as best I could, but he forced me to the sofa, a chaise longue I used to sit and read on. When I saw he was going to
overpower me, I called for help. Unfortunately, it was my husband who came in and saw what Kenelm was about. He ordered him from the house on the spot. Told him never again to darken the door. I left then. That is all I know firsthand, but I learned the rest later.”

  She took a sustaining sip of wine, cleared her throat, and went on. She had an attentive audience. There wasn’t a sound but the scratching of a pen moving rapidly over a page, the scribe taking notes for her to sign. She lowered her eyes modestly, as though ashamed to have to relate such a tale. “I knew nothing more for six months. Kenelm left. I never saw him again from that day, but assumed he had gone abroad. My husband refused to discuss it, or allow me to. ‘He is no longer my son’ was all he would say. As you perhaps know, some six months later my husband was standing at death’s door—it was all too much for him. He was never really well again. His conscience bothered him at the last, and he told me the rest of it, just so I would know, but it is hearsay evidence, you understand. He told me Kenelm demanded money, said he would not leave the house without money, and my husband agreed to give him a certain sum, a thousand pounds he always kept in the family vault. Kenelm demanded more, demanded some other things, jewelry, a note, I don’t know what. My husband refused, and Kenelm, his own son, struck him. Began beating him repeatedly till he feared for his very life. Kenelm was drunk, of course—he would never have done it otherwise. He was not really a vicious boy, except when he drank,” she assured her auditors, with a forgiv­ing eye.

  “My husband kept a pistol in the safe, a loaded pistol. He managed to get hold of it and shot Kenelm, to protect his own life. It was self-defense. Joe Miller, my husband’s groom and faithful old retainer, took care of the—the burial. I can’t imagine why he chose the uniform. I expect the outfit Kenelm wore was—bloodied,” she said with distaste.

  “Out of respect for the dead, I suppose, he chose the uniform. Charles, my husband, wanted his son buried in the family plot, but could not reveal what had happened to him. He was afraid of the scandal—a trial and all the rest of it, and Kenelm disgraced. There was little Charles and the rest of the family to think of. A simple burial seemed to him the best way. One of our servant girls had just given birth to a stillborn child. She was not married, and we said it was the child’s grave. Actually the child was buried in another parish by my husband. He didn’t tell me where, unfortunately, so I cannot tell you that. He was weak at the end, you know, and had trouble telling me even this much. But in this manner my husband managed the last rites of his son with some decency. He was buried with the minister in attendance and so on. Charles told me all this on the night he died, and told me never to tell a soul. I never have, nor intended to. His way of handling the matter was irregular, of course—he may even have broken a law—but he did the charitable thing, what he felt was best for the innocent survivors in the family. This man—” she glared at Kenelm with loathing “—has made it necessary for me to break my word to my husband, and reveal the truth about Kenelm.”

  Raiker rose to his feet, his face set in rigid lines of anger. “Hypocrite!” he said to Clare. “I might have for­given the rest, Clare, but not this. I was only amused at your attempt to cut me out of my rightful inheritance—it was no more than I expected of you—but now you’ve gone too far, to accuse my father of murder, and myself of having the poor taste to want you. I should have told him the truth.” He pushed aside his chair and strode from the room. No one made a move to stop him, nor did his counsel follow him.

  “We’ll be wanting a few details,” Cleary said to her in a businesslike tone. “The exact date, name of that feller did the burying, name of the minister who officiated, name of the servant girl who had the . . .”

  She obliged him by repeating the name Joe Miller, since dead, and the minister retired to Cornwall, but was un­sure of the servant girl’s name. Smith, she thought, or possibly Jones or Brown.

  “I’ll speak to the doctor then, and see if we can find out who this corpse really is. Horace Rutley, I expect,” he said, and he too took his leave.

  Lady Raiker went to her room and locked the door, but within an hour had called for food, so her household concluded when the empty tray was returned to them that she would recover from her ordeal.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  At the Dower House, Kenelm’s arrival was most eagerly awaited, but all the day long he didn’t come. Mr. Berrigan came and had not relented a whit regarding allowing Lady Raiker to accept a house from her brother-in-law. Nor did he quite screw himself up to an offer, but told Marnie in a backward way that he had no notion of making her stay in the same house as that “dashed dowager,” if that was what she thought. Every half hour Aunt Hennie pulled out her hunter’s watch and demanded to know what was keeping Kennie, and at three-twenty even went so far as to suggest a run over to the Hall to see what was going on, but no one arose to accompany her, and she sat down again to her impatient vigil.

  At dinner­time they were no better informed about the exhumation than the lowliest villager. They had heard from the dairy-maid that the body wore a grand uniform and had his hands stuffed with fabulous jools, but they treated this rumour with the contempt they thought it deserved, just wondering ten or twenty times if it was the emerald necklace that was meant. Malone declared that she hoped she knew truth from faction, and waited as eagerly as the others for the bearer of hard news to arrive.

  Not till eight p.m. did he present himself at the door, and he was in such a pelter still that they had every hope for a good story from him. Malone might have stayed away, considering the presence of the Gowers, but with such “unpresidented” goings-on to hear, she took up an inconspicuous stand behind Marnie’s chair with her ears flapping, and refused to budge.

  “Kenelm, do come in and tell us what happened!” Marnie pleaded. “We have been hearing such strange tales of buried jewels and uniforms that there is no making any sense of it.”

  “True—all true!” he said, striding in. He was so angry, so upset, he could not remain seated, but like Malone stood leaning on the back of the chair, Aurora’s chair, from which he took several turns about the room. “There was the corpse—skeleton, really—of a man in a box, and he wore a uniform. It wasn’t even a proper pauper’s coffin, but an old gun box that Papa had received rifles in for the volunteer brigade. They didn’t even give the poor devil a proper wooden box. And he wore my uniform.”

  “You were never a soldier,” Marnie pointed out.

  “I nearly was a volunteer one. I was to be captain of one of the groups of Papa’s volunteers. I had a swanky scarlet tunic and black trousers—unfinished, incidentally. The corpse wore a jacket with the sleeves basted in, and it also wore my rings. You remember, Marnie, my signet ring with the diamond, like Bernard’s, and my ruby. A family heirloom. Now why the deuce did she bury those valuable rings? That doesn’t bear the stamp of Clare. That is unlike her, to allow those two valuable rings to be buried.”

  “Was it Rutley, the body?” Malone demanded.

  “The height and size seem right. Dr. Ashton figures the man must have been close to six feet. I rode down to talk to him this afternoon, after he’d done his work. What a job! I was under six feet at the time actually, about five feet ten in those days. The teeth are sound and in good repair except for a few small cavities. There’s a wisdom tooth missing on the bottom. I have all mine still.”

  “How did she kill him?” Hennie asked, smiling in glee.

  “He was killed by a bullet in the back. Nice touch, don’t you think? Can’t you just see Papa shooting me in the back?”

  “She never said Charles did it!” Hennie gasped.

  “Oh, yes, for conduct on my part too reprehensible to repeat. Beating him up. But there were extenuating cir­cumstances. I was drunk at the time. I was always a little vicious when drunk, it seems.”

  “Oh Ken, she didn’t say that!” Marnie asked, her eyes round with disbelief. “You used to be so silly when you drank a little too much. You used qui
te dreadful language, but were not vicious.”

  “It was after I had much too much that I became vicious. And beating Papa is but the tail end of my conduct on that infamous night. Had I done a half or a quarter of what she accused me of, I would have deserved the bullet. By God, I won’t stand still for this.”

  “You was raping her, I suppose?” Hennie asked greedily.

  Kenelm glanced at her and scowled, in a repressive way. “There’s more. I demanded a reward for my performance. A thousand pounds was not enough—I wanted jewels and a note as well. She said I struck him and was beating him to a pulp so that he had to kill me in self-defence. The foolishness of it, saying he kept a loaded pistol in the safe. As though anyone would. And how did he get hold of the gun, with me busily taking him apart? It makes no sense. No one could believe such a story.”

  “Did they believe it?” Rorie asked him.

  “I don't know. No one tried to stop me when I left, and I haven’t had a constable at my heels all day.”

  “What accounts for the uniform?” Malone asked.

  “Just to add a touch of respectability. Papa—no, it was Joe Miller, since conveniently dead, you know. I knew it must be a dead man who performed the act—disliked to bury me in a bloody jacket, and chose for my shroud an uncompleted uniform. I don’t know why Joe should have decided to rifle my jewelry box and stick those two rings on my fingers. That will always remain a mystery, I fear.”

  “What did Clare say about that?” Marnie asked.

  “She says it is all hearsay, a deathbed confession from Papa, and she knows only what he told her with his last gasp. That leaves her free to be ignorant of any details she hasn’t figured out an explanation for. Oh, and there is more. Not a stitch under the uniform. Naked as a needle but for the jacket and trousers, Ashton says. And boots. I was buried in my boots. Corpses never are, you know. I don’t understand. I just can’t make any sense of it. I’ve been cudgelling my brains all day. I thought at first someone was wearing the outfit for a masquerade party, but then the jacket would have a bullet hole, and it doesn’t. It is in good condition except for the mildew and a little rot, and of course the basted sleeves. It wouldn’t have been worn unfinished. Besides, something would have been worn under it. It was put on after the death—call it murder, a shot in the back.”