After She Drowned

By Russell James

1891. Victorian England. In the small country town of Croome where the local lead mine is losing money, the year begins with a tragic drowning.
Recently arrived in Croome the new vicar, Matthew Rolfe, has escaped the tragedy of his past and hopes to lose himself in the pleasant if almost unending task of compiling a comprehensive local Flora. But life in Croome won’t be as uneventful as he’d thought, and he is gradually drawn into a tight tangle of forbidden love and passion involving two celibate young priests, both of whom have secrets, a ‘modern woman’ and her husband. A local girl falls pregnant and marries hastily. Another is told she has to marry a man twice her age.
When one of the girls goes missing Rolfe finds himself suspected of, at best, her disappearance and at worst her death.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Russell James
• Release date: Jan 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370262878

Russell James

Russell James grew up on Long Island, New York and graduated from Cornell University and the University of Central Florida. After flying helicopters with the U.S. Army, he has had multiple horror and paranormal thrillers published. His wife reads his work and says "There is something seriously wrong with you."

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AFTER SHE DROWNED

AFTER SHE DROWNED

by

Russell James

For more about the author check his website at

http://russelljamesbooks.wordpress.com/

First published in Britain in 2018

By Prospero Books

© Russell James 2018

The right of Russell James to be identified as the author of the work has been asserted by him Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.

Full-length novels by this author include:

Underground

Daylight

Payback

Slaughter Music

Count me Out

Oh No, Not My Baby

Painting in the Dark

Pick Any Title

No One Gets Hurt

The Maud Allan Affair

Requiem for a Daughter

Rafael’s Gold

The Exhibitionists

Exit 39

The Newly Discovered Diaries of Doctor Kristal

Stories I Can’t Tell

Mother Naked

1891

They knew it would happen.

They didn’t know when.

-1-

The axe of tragedy strikes when least expected. That day in January was cold in Croome, but the brilliance of the sun and the way it brightened frost-rimed branches made their eyes sparkle. It was Sunday and to have such weather meant they could skate! The pond was on the outskirts of the town and froze earlier and more thickly than the river. That Sunday they had skated in the morning and come again in the afternoon. But daylight hours were short, and by now most people had gone home. As the last few skaters scarred the ice they raised wisps of dusty snow. In another hour the sun would sink below the treetops and the air would feel much colder.

Croome was small and it was not a wealthy town; hardly anyone had proper skates; they skated in boots and clogs with wooden soles. Now, late afternoon, six skaters were on the pond: the two Burton girls with Tom Green, Jake and Caleb Beale, and brave little Michael Morgan, a plucky lad almost eight years old and destined, it was said, to be a fine sportsman when he grew up. The five laughing spectators comprised Sam and Jeannie Burton, Cissie Green watching her brother, and Mr and Mrs Morgan keeping an eye on their young son. It was their one day off – though not for the man who joined them, Matthew Rolfe, thirty years old and single, their priest these eleven months. The pond was only a field or two from his church and he’d heard the shouts and laughs the moment he’d stepped out into the porch. As Evensong was not till six o’clock he had strolled across to watch.

Rolfe rubbed his hands; he should have grabbed his coat. A rook called, sharp and harsh, then another as they flew off high above the trees to the rookery across the wood. He joined the well-wrapped watchers beneath the tracery of black branches to watch the last few skaters, all six of whom were young. Sam Burton nodded to him but Cissie Green was watching her friends and Mrs Morgan stared at no one but her son. Matthew blew on his hands; his breath felt wet and warm. He should have brought his coat. But the skaters didn’t seem in the least bit cold: Bryony and Rosie circled the pond, while Michael Morgan chased after the young men as they raced and bumped each other on the ice. Jake and Caleb laughed as Tom fell over, and he was up again in a trice. Time was, thought Matthew Rolfe, when he too would have been on the ice, but since the injury he’d held back, held back from everything. Why, he wondered, should he hold back from what life offered? He heard one of the Burton girls call out, the older one, Bryony in her green cape: Come on, Rosie. Follow me. He saw the girls skate out across the pond.

He was still smiling as the ice cracked. A sheet tilted, one side tipped up – only a few inches – while the other dipped beneath the water. Rosie shrieked. In a moment she had changed direction and spurted to one side. With a whoop of delight she reached the safety of the bank. Bryony tried to follow but where she was the ice dipped further, and suddenly the girl was on her knees on a rising sheet of ice. She slipped. Slid downwards. Sank to her waist in freezing water. When she tried to scream she could only gasp. Her hands slapped against smooth ice, trying to find a hold, but there was nothing she could hold. Nothing to help her. She slipped deeper.

The other skaters had reached the edge of the pond before – did Rolfe imagine it? – a crack in the ice sliced across to meet them. Two of the men, Caleb and Jake, skated around the edge of the pond to find a point from which they could approach on safer ice. But Rosie Burton was ahead of them and had begun skating towards her sister. Her parents shouted. The Morgans shouted. Mrs Morgan grabbed her son. Rosie found she was skating through a puddle of water on shifting ice. It dipped, she slipped, and as she slipped she slithered. She tried to clamber out of sloshing water. She was on her knees. Three men were on the ice but no nearer Bryony than was Rosie. All about them ice broke unpredictably, and they couldn’t get near. Bryony was sinking deeper, up to her shoulders now, her gloved hands waving. Her father stepped onto the ice but it tipped beneath him and he found himself sliding slowly towards the centre. He dropped to his knees, splayed his legs to keep his balance and tried to crawl across the slippery surface towards his daughter. His wife shouted but he struggled on. He could make no progress because ice kept tilting. A few feet from the bank, a few feet nearer his daughter, Sam was stranded.

Matthew Rolfe ran to the church. Behind him someone was calling for rope but he knew there was no rope beside the pond. Mrs Morgan clutched her son close, her husband dithered, while Bryony’s mother sobbed and gasped and didn’t hear when Cissie Green said Mr Rolfe was fetching rope from the church. No time for that, said Mr Morgan, though he didn’t step off from the bank. He could see how Sam was, on the pond. He had stopped trying to crawl and instead was flat on his belly trying to slide towards his daughter. Caleb Beale was behind, but not so close that his weight might make the ice crack further.

Sam was almost within arm’s reach of Bryony, whose head and arms were still above the surface. As he inched closer the ice tilted again and forced him down into the water. Caleb dropped spread-eagled, so as not to slide after him. Sam tried to shout but couldn’t because the freezing water took his breath away. He tried to swim but was encumbered by heavy clothes and shocked by the cold water. He was close to Bryony but not close enough. He splashed and gasped and when he disappeared beneath the water Cissie Green let out a scream and Rosie shouted, Dad! Ignoring the shouts from others she tried approaching from the other side, but wherever she moved she found herself on bucking, breaking ice and she dared not move.

In the freezing water Sam clutched his daughter but was so cold now, so encumbered, that he couldn’t swim and drag her with him. He reached to grab the ice but it floated off. He and Bryony were not alone: he had Caleb on one side, Rosie on the other, but they couldn’t get closer. In the freezing water Sam refused to let his daughter go. Bryony had grown so cold in his arms she seemed unconscious. No one on shore knew what to do. He was tiring rapidly.

The priest returned, running in that curious, limping way of his as he carried his big coil of rope. He ran like a man with a stone in his shoe. He’d found the rope surprisingly heavy and it had slowed him down. When he reached the side of the pond he threw an end out toward Sam and Bryony, but it fell short. Tom Green ran around the pond to see how he could help. Jake Beale joined the priest. He and Rolfe pulled the rope back from the slippery surface and threw it out a second time. It went beyond Caleb but not far enough. So the priest, panting like a dog, crawled after it on the ice. He wouldn’t fall through, he thought, because God would not let that happen. He grabbed the wet end of the rope and tried to sling it further, but it still didn’t get to Sam. The priest crawled further. Give me the end, called Caleb, slithering closer on the ice.

Hold tight, Rolfe shouted. Leaving one end free he wrapped a coil around his waist and, with Caleb spread-eagled behind him to hold his ankles and men on shore holding the end of the rope, Rolfe inched out across the ice through sloshing water. Sam Burton was yelping and splashing beside his daughter and trying to keep afloat. For a moment he lost her. Then he had her again. Closer now, sitting on his knees, Rolfe hurled the end of rope towards him. Sam grabbed it. Keep hold, Rolfe called. Wrap it round you. We’ll pull you out.

Rolfe pulled Sam, Caleb pulled him, the men on shore held tight. Sam bumped against the rim of the ice but hadn’t the strength to haul himself up on the slippery ice, and he would not let go of Bryony. Caleb and Rolfe pulled. Jake and the others heaved. For several seconds their combined efforts had no effect. Then Caleb slid backwards, and as he moved he pulled on Rolfe and the rope tightened between Rolfe and Sam. Sam banged the ice but still could not climb onto it. The ice was crumbling, dissolving into water. The men pulled, the ice crumbled. If he can’t get out, said Caleb, we’ll drag him out. Perhaps they could tug him to the shore.

And then, as if the ice had heard, a large chunk broke away and it became easier for the men to pull Sam and Bryony through a new channel of freezing water. Suddenly Sam was half off and half on the splintering ice and, in a moment as the men kept pulling, he plopped out of the water like an enormous pike. But he’d lost hold of his daughter, who slipped soap-like beneath the water. He reached back for her. He slipped but stayed on the ice. The priest slid closer to grab the loose end of rope while Sam caught hold of Bryony’s cloak. Rolfe and the men kept pulling as Sam dragged her onto hard ice. The men heaved from the shore. They were joined by Rosie who helped pull the rope more strongly. She might be puny but she heaved with all her might and, as they pulled, their load began to slide across the ice. First Caleb. Then Rolfe. Then Sam and his streaming daughter reached muddy land.

Sam was exhausted and could only watch as the others crowded round his inert daughter. His wife lifted Bryony’s hair off from her face, but Jake pulled her aside to let Caleb try to revive the girl. He jerked her up into a sitting position then thrust her down. Up again, then down. Water dribbled from her mouth but she didn’t breathe. Caleb tried again. Tom Green took over. He turned Bryony over onto her front and pounded her shoulders. But she didn’t move. Her mother knelt on the ground while her sister sobbed. Sam was shivering so badly he could barely sit, and when Cissie Green wrapped her coat around him he didn’t notice. Matthew Rolfe fell to his knees and clasped his hands in prayer. Isabella, he muttered, but he made himself stop short. It wasn’t Isabella this time; it was Bryony. She was younger than Isabella. She was Bryony Burton, and on the muddy bank the poor young woman looked sodden and so still.

-2-

In his early Victorian church – it stood on a Saxon site – Matthew Rolfe climbed like an old man into the pulpit. He glanced at the grey stone walls and simple arches to the bell-tower at the rear, then lowered his gaze to the sorrowful congregation. His words would not bring comfort. He had done nothing, he felt, except run off for a rope. Yes, he had gone out onto the ice eventually but he had been as useless when Bryony Burton died as he had been for Isabella. Should he not have gone onto the ice immediately? Could he not have saved her? If he had got to Sam more quickly, when Sam first held her in the water, might Bryony still be alive? Perhaps if he – or any man there – had dragged her out of the water earlier, there would have been no funeral service today. If only he had done more.

The church was three quarters full, a respectable crowd for a family’s funeral. The Burtons, he knew, had lived in Croome for the whole of Bryony’s life, and now Sam Burton sat hideously alone in a dark wooden pew between his wife and remaining daughter. As Rolfe began his peroration Sam looked up, but his wife didn’t; she had hardly raised her head all day. Perhaps she had dipped her head to avoid the ray of sharp sunlight which around midday shone in from the high window, cutting through dust-filled air to dazzle the eye. Sam squinted and looked aside. But his daughter Rosie defied the sun, and as Matthew Rolfe began to speak she stared up at him in his pulpit. The mocking ray of midday sunlight picked her out like a Renaissance Madonna. Light glinted in her dark hair and despite the brightness of the sun her eyes remained wide open. Her dark and lustrous eyes, moist perhaps with tears. To Rolfe her accusing stare suggested that she and he shared a guilt. For had they not been there? Had they not failed to save her? They had done nothing. They had allowed Bryony to drown.

*

As people filed out from the church they buttoned their coats and jackets against the cold. No one wanted to linger by the porch except, it seemed, Sam Burton and his wife who waited a few paces from the door, seemingly unaffected by the winter chill. Their remaining daughter stood a little further off in conversation with Mrs Cass, old widow Cass, and the girl nodded to those who passed and gave condolences. What could anybody say? What could she say in return? Rosie Burton was wearing a dark green cloak, a startling choice for a funeral, though it was probably the warmest thing she had. Bryony had had a similar one and used to wear it almost daily in cold weather. Matthew hadn’t realised her sister had one too. When he approached her parents the couple with them melted away.

Them was lovely words, old Samuel said. Old? He was in his early fifties, but he looked far older than that today. His eyes were red and watery, as if he’d stared into a fire too long.

God’s words, the priest replied. He will bring you comfort. Though it may take time.

We was there, Mr Burton said. We couldn’t do nothing.

I wish we could have.

Well, you prayed for her, Mr Rolfe. You dropped down on your knees right there at the waterside and said a prayer. Rolfe didn’t reply. Rosie told us, see? We hadn’t noticed, not then. We was doing our best with Bryony, trying to… Then we watched her … well, you know.

Die, her father meant, but he couldn’t say the final word. Mrs Burton looked as if she couldn’t say any word. When Rolfe reached over and squeezed her arm she didn’t move; her arm felt lifeless. It was his duty to bring comfort, but what could he say to one bereaved? She stared at the ground. Her hair, he realised, might once have been as raven-black as her daughter’s, but now was listless and streaked with grey.

It’s hit our Rosie hard, poor girl, Sam muttered hoarsely.

Rolfe nodded. She’s a lovely girl – a fine girl, I mean. Though it was true: she was a beauty.

Oh, she’s lovely, yes, her father agreed. A little too fond of fun but –

Sam, his wife warned. Not now.

Sam looked contrite. Not as I was meaning nothing.

It’s terrible for all of you, Rolfe said.

Mrs Burton stifled a sob. She tried to speak, then tried again: Especially us being there and not able to do nothing.

Would have been worse if we hadn’t been, said Sam. Then later, if we’d had to be told.

Matthew patted him on the arm before taking Mrs Burton by the elbow and leading them both across the churchyard. He didn’t tell them it wasn’t Bryony he had prayed for beside the pond. He could never tell them that. He couldn’t tell anyone. No one would want to know that in another place, another time, he too had watched a loved one drown.

*

At the graveside as the wind whipped flurries of snow against their faces Matthew tried not to hurry through his words. He spoke mechanically, so mechanically that he found himself counting the mourners as he spoke and marvelling that the two gravediggers had managed to carve a big enough hole in frozen ground. They were strong; they had to be. Strength gained from daily labour on a farm. From the corner of his eye he saw the two gravediggers huddled beneath a tree. They would not intrude. It was Mrs Burton – Jeannie, he remembered now – Jeannie who cast the first handful of dirt into the hole. They heard it rattle against the wooden lid of the plain deal coffin that held her daughter. The other Burton girl did likewise and, unlike her mother, she winced at the clatter of earth upon new wood. Then came Mr Burton, his face tight, lips pressed together, his hand shaking as he released his scrap of dirt. A strong man, Burton, but not today.

Two others stepped forward to do the same. Then two more. Pallbearers, relatives of some kind, not from Croome and not men Matthew recognised, though he thought that after a year he’d learnt the kinship of every member of his parish. Someone else stepped forward: the widow Cass. Was she related? He thought not. Mrs Cass did not throw earth into the hole; she threw a handful of green stuff, herbs of some kind, he assumed, as few flowers grew in January. A sprig of black-fruited ivy and something that looked like a woven Easter cross. Was that acceptable? He shrugged. If Flynn had been here he might have stepped forward to make sure that whatever the widow had thrown onto the coffin was not pagan. But the Burtons had not objected and nor would he. Some kind of remembrance perhaps. The ancient Egyptians, like the ancient Britons, used to lay grave goods with the interred, and perhaps the widow Cass was doing the same. It was harmless, Matthew thought, though he’d liked to have known precisely what flowers she had bound into the ivy. Her knowledge of wild flowers, he’d heard, might be as extensive as his own. She’d know nothing of Latin names or formal botany but might be a fount of herbal knowledge and traditional folklore.

He mustn’t think of wild flowers now.

Amos Grant was there, of course, the undertaker, coffin-maker, and arranger of local funerals. As was his wife, Mrs Ellen Grant – not a local girl, Matthew remembered, though he couldn’t remember from whence she’d come. Before his time. He’d had this parish almost a year now and he knew his parishioners by name if nothing more. Mrs Grant stood out. Light-haired and taller than her husband, she was a little younger – in her early twenties, he thought, while her husband was around his own age or a little older. She was finer looking than her husband, the most striking woman in Rolfe’s parish, and she didn’t look a Croome girl; she seemed more sophisticated. If she had married beneath herself, then why? She was too young to have been rushed into marriage (there was no child to their union) and Amos Grant was hardly a Lochinvar; he was a decent man but not, surely, the kind to sweep a woman off her feet? That the undertaker was easy to get along with was a stroke of luck for Matthew Rolfe, as their professions brought them into frequent contact. But that contact remained strictly business: Rolfe had rarely been inside Grant’s house. Odd that although he had been in many houses in his parish he’d seldom been in the one owned by the man he might almost call a colleague. His companion in death.

Grant handled most funerals in Croome, though his reach did not extend to the further quarters of the scattered parish. He supplied the coffin, arranged transport to the graveyard, and did his best to ensure that, on the day, things went as smoothly as they could. Arrangements before the funeral were handled mainly by grieving families themselves: they were the ones who laid out the body, who washed and tended it in the house, and who kept it there until the time to say farewell. Only then did Grant and his men arrive to bear the coffin to the graveyard.

Rolfe’s parish ranged across some twenty miles: Croome the small town, Milham the largest village, five or six gatherings of houses too small to be called villages, and a number of farms overseen by Beauchamp Manor. Although Squire Lawrence held the Beauchamp benefice he hadn’t attended the Burton funeral; the Burtons were too lowly, Matthew assumed, so he’d instructed his Estate Manager, Mr Lewis, to attend as representative for the family. Was that fair? For hovering at the edge of the graveside gathering was the last unmarried Lawrence daughter. Maud was tall. Slightly stooped as tall women often were, one had to say she was plain, but with good intentions stamped across her face. So sad, she had murmured in the porch. So dreadfully sad. A girl so young. Then she’d turned and gone off for her horse. Maud herself was barely thirty, as Squire Lawrence had emphasised to Rolfe more than once – on the off-chance, he suspected, that he might find the daughter eligible. Shouldn’t any unmarried clergyman find a squire’s daughter eligible?

These thoughts drifted through Rolfe’s mind as he repeated the graveside obsequy. He had said these words so many times. As Maud had said, it was all so sad.

Finally, the internment over and the two gravediggers edging forwards from the trees, Rolfe led the family and mourners away. Jeannie Burton was crying openly and although Sam linked arms with her he kept his head erect and made sure he kept his dignity. Rosie’s friend Cissie wrapped her arm around her and although, like her father, Miss Burton seemed determined not to cry, she shivered in her dark green cloak. Rolfe wanted to tell the family it was all right for them to cry but he knew Sam would not unman himself in public and Rosie, it seemed, was equally determined to be strong. So he said nothing. There was nothing the family needed except sympathy.

-3-

Matthew Rolfe was clearing around the church, tidying hymnals and replacing kneelers but finding no litter, no forgotten possessions, for the mourners had had little to leave. Most were gone but Miss Lawrence, the Squire’s daughter, had lingered to talk to the churchwarden and to Mr and Mrs Grant. None seemed in a hurry. A lovely service, Miss Lawrence said. So very sad. She had apologised twice for being the family’s sole representative (the Estate Manager having left). Her father would have come, she’d said, but had estate business and … she’d blushed, knowing how lame the excuse sounded. Rolfe had listened politely but was in a hurry to get to one of his outlying churches, one that the Squire’s daughter would know nothing of, as it was little more than a tin hut among the shacks and sheds at the lead mine, a hut he had to share with other denominations. Didn’t her father have shares in that mine? Rolfe wasn’t certain. Not that her father’s having shares there would encourage Miss Lawrence to ride out to the mine. She was sure to feel that shares and lead mining were men’s business.

Matthew wondered: if he pulled out his pocket watch to check the time, would the others take the hint and leave, or would they be offended? A priest’s time was not his own; Maud’s father, after all, owned the benefice and in one sense, as Flynn would angrily point out, he owned the priest. Miss Lawrence was, Rolfe realised, making a sensible suggestion: Should there not be a lifeline, a rope at least, beside the pond – preferably two of them, one either side? It shouldn’t cost much and I would happily subscribe to any fund.

Excellent idea, said Mrs Grant. Amos? She nudged her husband.

Indeed. Capital. Yes, we’ll subscribe. Rolfe?

Well, I would happily –

You must chair the committee, Miss Lawrence said.

I could not do the job as well as you. Haven’t you found three subscribers here already, in just three seconds? What could you do in half a day?

Where would it end? The intervention came from the churchwarden, the aptly named Mr Saintly, who lingered on the outskirts of the group. Give us a committee and we’ll find ourselves with lifelines by the river, whistles on lengths of string, bells around the town for dire emergencies – any number of nuisances and interferences. Far be it for me to sound unsympathetic but we should encourage people to look after themselves, rather than expect Society to mother them.

Mr Saintly! Miss Lawrence cried.

"Think of the expense, first to buy the equipment, then to erect it, then to maintain it year after year. I applaud your sentiment, Miss Lawrence, but it isn’t practical. People must learn to take responsibility for themselves."

She suggested a lifeline, Rolfe pointed out. "Not a crutch. It sounds an excellent idea. May I leave the responsibility, Miss Lawrence, to you?"

I’d be delighted. We can discuss it later, perhaps?

Indeed. But now, I’m sorry, I must go.

All four followed as he stepped out into the churchyard. Maud seemed anxious to arrange a meeting: You and I can settle the details, she said eagerly. If she’d hoped to get Rolfe on his own she was unsuccessful, for she had the Grants on one side and Mr Saintly on the other, jogging her elbow. The little swarm clustered at the lych-gate.

Nothing too ambitious, Saintly said. A lifeline if we must, but nothing more.

Two at least, Maud insisted.

And a whistle, laughed Mrs Grant. We can have a whistle, surely, can’t we?

What on earth for? Saintly had manoeuvred himself in front of them, blocking the exit through the lych-gate. Ropes and whistles encourage vandalism. Young hooligans blowing them in the night and stealing the ropes.

Splashing each other with water, suggested Mrs Grant.

Oh, you may laugh –

I do.

Rolfe glanced impatiently to where his fly was waiting, but the horse was in no hurry. Its head was lowered as if in sleep, and the only sign it was awake was the occasional twitch of its black tail.

Saintly continued. Responsibility is one of the seven virtues.

Are there such things? Mrs Grant seemed to find the warden fascinating.

Responsibility and simplicity. Take for example the simplicity of today’s service. Beautiful words – but simple. Mr Rolfe’s simple words, if I may say so, gave the dead more dignity than would the flowery utterances we hear at services handled by Mr Flynn.

Now, now, Saintly, please, said Rolfe.

Mr Flynn leans towards the High Church, Saintly explained, as if anyone hadn’t realised. He favours trappings we should not tolerate. He glanced at Rolfe. "Trappings that take attention away from the departed and redirect them onto ritual."

I rather like colour in a ceremony, Miss Lawrence said. And no one speaks as nobly as Mr Rolfe.

Mrs Grant laughed. Who do you back, Amos – Mr Flynn or Mr Rolfe?

In my position I cannot possible have an opinion.

"But you have, his wife pressed on. I think you prefer Mr Flynn’s more colourful manner but you won’t say so. She nudged him. Yes, you do."

Her husband tried to stop her but she continued: Won’t you stand up for Mr Flynn?

Miss Lawrence cut in: You won’t hurt Mr Rolfe’s feelings. He’s the kind of man who sticks to his views. She coloured. That’s what I think anyway.

Rolfe turned away. Would they never stop prattling?

Mr Flynn would welcome a second Reformation, said Mrs Grant.

That’s enough, Ellen, sighed her husband.

He seems a sombre man, Maud ventured.

But noble, Amos said.

Rolfe eased away. Safely mounted in his fly he turned to the others and raised his whip in polite farewell. Miss Lawrence was on her horse, the men were discussing evangelism, and only Mrs Grant was still watching him. Rolfe smiled, gave a flick of the reins and with a jolt the fly moved away. He hoped his departure would not strike them as impolite but he had much to do; he had crammed the funeral into an already crowded day and couldn’t waste more time on mere chat. Was politeness a vicar’s role? He should have told them that High or Low Church was not the question; what mattered was how God’s will was carried out.

How was God’s will to be explained today, he wondered, at the funeral of a girl aged twenty-one or twenty-two, who’d had so much ahead of her and whose family was now deep in grief? Rather than indulge in esoteric chit-chat at the lych-gate he should, first and foremost, be with the Burtons in their mourning, and then with the poor and needy, not the comfortable middle classes who regarded church as little more than a social duty and chance to chat.

Rolfe rode on. Out in the outskirts of Croome the last cottages looked run-down, for this was a rural parish. His last placement in London (where he had been curate) had been poorer, containing few from the comfortable classes. In that parish his parishioners