A Matthew Corbett Short Story by Robert McCammon
One
Lord Mortimer Hopes
When December had reached the doorway of the new year of 1703, a sallow white-haired man in a black suit, black tricorn and black fearnaught coat also reached the doorway of Number Seven Stone Street in the town of New York. It was the middle of the afternoon, yet the blue light of evening lay upon the hills and streets. The sallow man began his climb up the stairs, and to his meeting with the problem-solvers above.
His ascent reached the realm of Hudson Greathouse and Matthew Corbett. They had been waiting for him, alerted by his letter of the past week posted from the New Jersey town of Oak Bridge. Thus by the blue light that fell through the windows, by the eight white tapers that burned in the wrought-iron chandelier above their heads and by the polite flames that crackled in the small fireplace of rough tan and gray stones, the two associates of the Herrald Agency sat side-by-side at their desks as the sallow man removed his coat, hung it upon a wallhook and then seated himself in a chair at the center of the room. He removed his tricorn and held it between his gnarled hands, and he looked at Matthew and Greathouse with sad and watery gray eyes. He had signed his letter With Most Hopeful Regards, Jesper Oberley. Without further hesitation he answered Hudson’s first question, which was How may we help you?
“I am servant to a very rich master. Lord Brodd Mortimer,” said the sad-eyed man. “I have been so these past eleven years. It pains me to say it, but Death is coming for him.”
“True for everyone, isn’t it?” asked Greathouse, with a quick glance at Matthew. The great one was yet hobbling about on a cane after the incident at Fort Laurens in the autumn, and what pained Matthew was hearing him struggle up the stairs and then a further struggle for breath at the top before coming to his desk. Matthew had to wonder if Hudson would ever again be the rakish and adventurous hell-hound of a man he’d once been. Of course he held himself to blame for that, and nothing Hudson could say would shake from his burdened mind the thought that he’d failed his friend.
“Lord Mortimer,” said Jesper Oberley, with the faint trace of a smile that did nothing to alter his expression of solemn finality, “is nearer Death’s hand than most. His physician predicts the end will come within a few days. Lord Mortimer has been ill for some time. It is consumption. Nothing can be done.”
“Our condolences,” Matthew said. He was studying Oberley’s face, with its hanging jowls and furrowed fields. Matthew thought that Oberley resembled a loyal dog that had been much mistreated but always came back to lick the master’s hand, because that was the nature of a loyal dog. “Such an illness is a tragic thing. But…as Mr. Greathouse has asked…how may we help?”
Jesper Oberley spent a moment staring into space, as if the answer to this question hung there like a spiderweb in a corner. Finally he drew a breath and said, “My master believes…very strongly…that Death will come for him in a physical form. The form of a man. My master believes that Death, in this physical form, will enter the house and come into his bedchamber. There, Death will not hesitate to take my master’s soul and leave the husk of the body behind. Therefore, kind sirs, my master wishes to hire you to…shall we say…cheat Death.”
“Cheat Death,” said Hudson Greathouse, in a graveside tone. He had spoken it an instant before Matthew could.
“Yes sir. That is so.”
“Hmmm.” Greathouse tapped the musket-ball cleft in his chin. “Well…usually…one has not the power to do what your master is asking. I mean to say…Death is his own master and eventually master of all men, isn’t he?”
“Lord Mortimer hopes,” said Oberley, “that you might use your powers of persuasion in this instance. For certainly this would be a problem to be solved, would it not? The result being that Death— when he arrives at the manor—can be persuaded to allow Lord Mortimer a little extra time? A few days, perhaps, or even a few hours? It would be of great importance to my master.”
“May I ask why?” Matthew prodded.
“Lord Mortimer’s daughter Christina is a teacher at the school in the town of Grainger, some six miles from Oak Bridge. He moved the household from England five years ago, to be near her. But… there has been difficulty between them for many years, gentlemen. She is thirty-two years old and unmarried. She is…a free spirit, one might say.”
“Must run in the profession,” said Matthew.
Oberley of course did not pick up on this comment concerning a certain red-haired young woman who often bounded into Matthew’s world and thoughts with no warning. Oberley simply nodded as if this made perfect sense. “Lord Mortimer,” Oberley went on, in his dry and quietly raspy voice, “wishes to make peace with his daughter before he passes from this world.” The watery eyes moved from Matthew to Greathouse and back again, seeking empathy and understanding. “It is of vital importance, to the resting of his soul. Vital,” he repeated. “That Lord Mortimer sees his daughter, and settles some issues disturbing to him, before Death takes the bounty.”
Neither Matthew nor Greathouse moved for a moment. There came the sound of a creak on the staircase, which Matthew thought might be one of the office’s ghosts curious as to how this situation might turn out, and perhaps a little jealous that he had not been so valued.
At last Greathouse cleared his throat. He said, “I have to wonder if we are up to this task.”
“If you are not,” came the reply, “then who might be?”
“The daughter,” Matthew ventured. “Possibly she might not wish to visit her father?”
“I have spoken with her, four days ago. She is still pondering the invitation.”
“But the visit is uncertain?”
“Uncertain,” Oberley allowed. “Which is why you gentlemen are needed so urgently.”
“It would probably do better to use our powers of persuasion on Christina, and not any vision or illusion of Death,” said Matthew. “I would think a real ear should be more likely to listen.”
“Vision?” Oberley’s white eyebrows went up like signal flags. “Illusion? Oh, sir…my master is utterly convinced Death will come wearing the costume of a man, and that this man will not hesitate to end Lord Mortimer’s life. I should say…it has been a fitful life, both for himself and others. He has many regrets.” A thin smile surfaced. “He should.” The smile faded. “Nothing I, any of the other servants nor Vicar Barrington can say will change his mind or alter his belief. He is convinced Death will come in this fashion, and— gentlemen—he greatly fears the moment of his reckoning.”
“I suppose you’re saying he’s not only rich,” said Greathouse, “but less than saintly?”
“His riches have sprung from the fountain of his greed,” answered Oberley, his face displaying no emotion. “Many others have drowned in it.”
Matthew and Greathouse both glanced at each other, but neither commented on this damning statement.
“I am empowered to offer you money.” Oberley reached into a pocket of his velvety black waistcoat and brought out a leather pouch. “One hundred pounds, sirs. I should hope that Christina will come to the house tonight or tomorrow. Later than that will be, I fear, too late.” Greathouse made a sound between a grunt and a whistle. Matthew knew that one hundred pounds for two nights’ employ was quite the golden sum, and yet…it was a preposterous deed to be done. Intercept Death on his way to Brodd Mortimer’s bedchamber? Convince such a tenuous phantasm to allow a few extra hours of life? It was absolutely—
“A fine problem to be solved,” said Greathouse. His face was as serious as granite, but Matthew could sense the wolfish smile beneath. Greathouse’s black eyes sparkled. “We’ll do it. Or… rather…let me say that Mr. Corbett will do it, as I am not yet able to travel comfortably and this wet cold in the air tells me trouble is coming.”
“Oh yes,” said Matthew tightly. “Trouble is coming.”
Greathouse’s laugh was not merry. He kept his focus upon Jesper Oberley. “We accept this worthy challenge, sir. And may we have delivery of the money now?”
“Fifty pounds now,” Oberley said, as he leaned forward to put the pouch into Greathouse’s outstretched hand. “Fifty pounds when the task is done.”
“Well done,” said the great one.
“Burnt to a crisp,” said Matthew.
“A few papers to be signed.” Greathouse retrieved them from a drawer of his desk and pushed forward the quill and inkpot. Done way too eagerly, Matthew thought. Oberley got up from his chair and gave his signature on the necessary forms. “I have a coach down the street.” His attention was fixed upon Matthew. “If you’d care to pack a bag for one or two nights, I will have the coachman take you to your house.”
“That would be fine, thank you.” Matthew also stood up. Oberley retrieved his fearnaught and began to shrug into it. The black tricorn went atop his head and the fearnaught’s bone buttons were fastened. “Mr. Oberley,” said Matthew, “may I send you down to your coach and spend a moment speaking to my associate?”
“Of course. I shall be waiting.” The sallow servant departed the room and a moment later came the sound of his boots on the stairs.
Are you insane? Matthew started to ask, but Greathouse’s voice was there first: “Calm down, now. Settle yourself.”
“Settle myself? You’re sending me on a trip to have a talk with Death? On behalf of a dying man who must be at least half as moonstruck as you are!”
Greathouse was already opening the pouch to inspect the gold coins within. “Nice. Look how they shine in this light.”
“I’ve been blinded by such glitter once before. Hudson, are you serious? This is like… highway robbery!” A job for which Greathouse seemed to be well-suited, Matthew thought.
“Wrong.” Greathouse aimed his black gun-barrel eyes at Matthew. “It’s a worthwhile task to be undertaken on behalf of a dying man. Put yourself in his position.”
“I’d rather not.”
“For the moment.” The great one found the temptation too great not to spill the handful of coins across the green blotter on his desk. “You—being Lord Mortimer—fear the coming of Death in physical form. You wish to speak to your daughter, to correct past ills. It will be a comfort to you in your last hours, Matthew, to have yourself there at your bedside.” He frowned and shook his head as if to clear his ears of cotton wads. “You know what I mean. Anyway, you have experience with lunatics. So go heap pride upon the banner of the Herrald Agency.”
“I think it’s wrong to—”
“Tut, tut!” came the reply, along with the aggravated wave of a hand. “Off with you!”
Being dismissed had never pleased Matthew’s hackles. He therefore felt the rising of said hackles as he put on his gray cloak, black woolen gloves and black tricorn hat with a thin red band. He was aiming himself toward the door when his more mercenary associate said, “Getting colder outside. Ice may be coming. Guard yourself so you don’t have to speak to Death on your own behalf.”
“When I get back from this,” Matthew said with a little crimson heat in his cheeks, “I’ll be going to dinner at Sally Almond’s as your guest. From wine to crumble cake.”
“A pleasure. Now stop whining and go crumble the problem.”
Two
The Best Man
The black coach with its seats of fine dark red leather rumbled along the road, as cold rain swept in from the west and began to ice both earth and trees. Matthew was untouched by the weather, the coach being enclosed and having its own candleflame lamp attached to the wall beside his head, and yet he did feel the heaviness of the dark clouds above New Jersey. Across from him sat Jasper Oberley, half-dozing in spite of the jarring ride. The suffering driver was a man so wrapped in coats and shawls that only his eyes could be seen and these squinted behind ice-frosted spectacles. The four horses sometimes slid on dangerous patches, but they blew gouts of steam and righted themselves and muscled forward into the gathering night.
“Surely,” Matthew said as the coach rocked back and forth and ice cracked at its seams, “Lord Mortimer can’t really believe Death will come to him in human form.”
The servant’s eyes opened, and if he had been half-dozing a moment before now he was fully awake. “You would not be here, Mr. Corbett, if it was otherwise.”
“It’s a delusion. From his condition, I’m sure.”
“He’s nearing the end, but he’s not raving. His mind is clear.”
“Hm,” Matthew said. He frowned in the yellow light. “I have to say, I feel I’m robbing a dying man.”
“Lord Mortimer can afford to be robbed.” The eyes had slid half-closed again. “He has robbed so many himself.”
Matthew had no response to this rather cold statement. It seemed to him that Oberley both cared for his master and yet also reviled him. “Lord Mortimer has made his fortune at what concern?” Matthew asked.
The eyes closed. There was no response for perhaps ten seconds, and then: “Many concerns. Mining. The building trade. Logging. Shipbuilding. Money lending. He has made several fortunes. And held onto his money with an iron fist, save for his own desires.”
“A selfish man,” Matthew offered.
“He would say he was a self-directed man. I would say he has the ability to…” There was a pause as the thought was formulated. “Use others, on behalf of that self-direction,” Oberley said at last.
Matthew let both the subject and Jesper Oberley rest. The coach jubbled over a stony path. Freezing rain whipped against the black window curtains. Matthew felt the oppression of storm and winter, a treacherous combination. At one point he felt the coach wheels slide to the left for a precious two seconds of terror before the horses pulled onward. He realized his hands were clamped to his knees so hard there would be ten bruises. It was difficult to relax, on a night when Death was roaming. But there was a silver lining to this very black cloud: for a while he would count himself lucky to be away from New York and the presence of the two shadows in his life, the devilishly-handsome Dr. Jason Mallory and the doctor’s beautiful wife Rebecca. Those two seemed to be walking at his heels these days. Wherever Matthew went—to Sally Almond’s, to Trinity Church, to the Trot Then Gallop, or just covering the distance from his converted dairyhouse to the office—those two made an appearance, casting their dark eyes upon his progress. Matthew knew that the lady Mallory wished him to come to their house for dinner, and that it had something to do with a certain professor of crime, but…
…what did they really want?
He was sure that time would tell the tale.
Matthew pushed aside one of the black curtains to see where they were and was rewarded with a scattershot of sleet in his face. When he got his eyes clear, he saw they were still on a forest road, rutted and ill-travelled. The horses were heroic, to be pulling weight on a night like this. Then suddenly the road came to a covered bridge across a rush of water—the Oak Bridge of the town’s name, Matthew assumed—and the sound of the hooves echoed between roof and planks. The sides of the bridge were open save for a plank railing, and ice was beginning to form even on the rough boards. It was not a night for man nor beast, Matthew thought. Certainly even Death would not wish to be wandering on such an eve.
Just beyond the bridge was the town, which passed in nearly a blur: it seemed to Matthew to be several stores, a few whitewashed houses, a church, a cemetery, a stable, a tavern throwing lamplight from its windows, and a long building with chimneys that might be some kind of workshop. In any case, the place was there and gone in a moment.
The coach went on. Jesper Oberley was awake now, and also peering out the window. “Not very far now,” he said to Matthew’s unasked question though it was indeed about to be asked, for even the richly-padded leather seats could not cushion an ass from a rocky road. And Matthew certainly felt himself to be an ass in this situation. The robber of a dying man, as well, even though in Oberley’s opinion Lord Mortimer was robber enough.
In another moment the coach took a curve and began to attack a steep incline. The attack, however, was thwarted, for Matthew both heard and felt the wheels slip on icy gravel and the horses strained to obey the whip even as their own hooves slid one way and the other.
“Go on! Go on!” the driver hollered through his shroud. The whip cracked and the coach shuddered but there was no forward progress. Then the driver evidently gave up and eased the team backward, for the coach was sliding back down the incline and when it stopped there was the thunk of the brake’s sharp end being speared as far as possible into frozen earth.
“Well,” said Oberley, his voice heavy. “It appears we’re—”
“Can’t make the grade, in this stuff!” The driver’s swathed head had appeared, frighteningly so, through a window. “Team can’t pull it!”
“It appears we’ve arrived,” said Matthew, to finish Oberley’s statement after the driver had withdrawn to tend as much as possible to his horses.
Bundled up against the biting cold and carrying his belongings for two nights in a leather bag, Matthew followed Oberley up the incline. Their boots crunched through a crust of ice. The bitter rain was still falling, making tapping noises on the curled rim of Matthew’s tricorn. His boots slid and threatened more than once to drop him on his reputation. As they reached the top of the hill, Matthew made out through the trees the shape of a huge—one might say monstrous— mansion, candlelight showing from some windows but many others—indeed, most—absolutely black. A dozen stone chimneys rose from the peaked roofs, but only two spouting smoke. If the mansion was akin to a monster, it was indeed a dying beast. As Matthew and Oberley got nearer, the problem-solver saw that withered trees stood around the mansion, and the wet dark stones of the place were matted with dead and leafless vines that resembled brown cobwebs spun by an equally monstrous arachnid. Matthew decided he might spend one night in such a house, but the second night? No.
They reached the front door. Oberley beat twice with a knocker shaped like a lump of coal. The icy rain continued to fall, crusting Matthew’s coat. At length a bolt was drawn, the door opened, and a slim woman with a tight bun of gray hair and sad but cautious eyes peered out. She wore a black dress laced with gray and was holding a triple taper.
“I’ve brought someone,” said Oberley. This simple explanation seemed to speak volumes, for the female servant with a face like a wrinkled purse nodded and stepped back to give them entry.
“Sir? I’ll carry that,” said another serving-man, who came forward from the gloom with his own burning candle and took Matthew’s belongings. He helped Matthew shrug from the coat and also took his tricorn before he retreated.
“How is he, Bess?” Oberley was addressing the woman after the door had been closed and the bolt thrown.
“Failing,” replied the woman, whose thin-lipped mouth moved only enough to squeeze the word out.
“We’ll see him, then. Shall we, Mr. Corbett?”
“Yes.” Did he have a choice?
“Bess, make Mr. Corbett some hot tea. And I think a platter of corncakes and ham. I’m sure our guest is needful.” As the woman moved away across the foyer, Oberley picked up a burning taper in a pewter holder from a table and said, “Follow me, please.” It was spoken less like an invitation than as an act of solemn and dread duty.
Matthew followed Oberley through a hallway lined with suits of armor. Their helmets and breastplates reflected the single candleflame. It occurred to Matthew that such suits were constructed to protect the bodies within from crushing and cutting blows. No such protection could now be offered to the body of Lord Brodd Mortimer. Matthew felt the heaviness of dread illness in this house. He felt a kind of hopelessness here, like a contagion. He did not fail to note the mounted heads of stags and wild boar, the display of crisscrossed swords upon the wall and the collection of muskets in a glass case. At one time Lord Mortimer had been a huntsman, a vibrant man of action. Now, though, a gilded grandfather clock ticked in a corner and the sound of each passing second seemed as loud as a gunshot.
The hall widened to a staircase. Matthew followed Oberley up, and in another moment a door was reached and a knob turned and the two men entered a room where even the softest candlelight was the harshest cruelty.
A few candles burned about the chamber. It was a large space, its floor covered with a red carpet accented with gold trim. The furnishings were dark and heavy. The ceiling was high, with exposed beams from which hung flags that might have been emblazoned with the symbols of business ventures and money-making industries. Huge paintings adorned the walls. Here a three-masted ship battled the waves against a moonlit sky, there a quartet of gentlemen sat about a table engrossed in some game of cards with a pile of gold coins at their midst. The chamber’s four-poster bed stood so far from the door that it seemed a coach must be called to reach it. Beside the bed in a spill of candlelight was a black leather chair, and from this chair a silver-haired man in a gray suit stood up as Matthew entered behind Oberley.
“Dr. Zachary Barker,” Oberley said to Matthew. “He has been at my master’s side these last few days.”
They approached the bed. Barker, about sixty years of age, wore square-lensed spectacles and had a trim, straight-backed figure.
His silver hair fell about his shoulders. He had a strong jaw and the clear blue eyes of a youthful mind. No country physician this, Matthew thought. Likely from Boston or perhaps even brought over from England.
“Good evening,” said Barker, nodding at Matthew. The eyes were inquisitive but not rude. “And you are…?” The hand was offered.
“Matthew Corbett, at your service.” Matthew took the hand and felt a strength that ten years ago might have put a man on his knees.
“Ah. Come from New York, brought to confront Death, I’m presuming?”
“As I understand my task, yes.”
“So be it.” A quick glance was speared at Oberley. “Nonsense and double sham, but here we are.”
“Corbett?”
And again: “Corbett?”
The voice that had rasped the name was like the sound of dry reeds blowing in a wind. It was like a lonely echo in a barren room. It was like the rattle of bones at the bottom of an empty bowl of broth. It was like the saddest note of a violin, and the sound of the whimper before the sob.
“Speak to Lord Mortimer,” said Dr. Barker, and he motioned toward the bed.
Matthew had not looked upon the bed as yet, for he was consciously delaying that action. He had been aware that something was lying amid the sheet and red coverlet, but his mind hadn’t yet let his eyes go there.
Now, though, he turned his head a few inches to the left and he looked upon the rich man.
Could flesh become liquid, while it still clung to the bone? Could it become puddled, and glistening, and mottled with dark splotches like an overripe pear on the edge of rot? Indeed, it appeared so. And then there were the plasters covering what must be open sores, and there were the open sores that were so large no plaster or healing cloth could contain them. And there were too many of those, it seemed, to be counted.
Lord Mortimer had surely thinned since his last hunting excursion, for sticks such as those could never hold a musket nor indeed a handful of musket balls, and legs skeletal as those could not hold even such a frailty aloft. Spidery hands were folded upon the bony chest, and above the chest was the veined neck and the cadaverous face grizzled with beard. Upon that face the nose seemed already to be collapsing inward, the lips were whitened with some kind of salve to deaden the pain of those raw red sores at their corners, and below the spriggins of sparse white hair and the sweat-sparkled forehead two eyes peered up at Matthew with an expression of both terror and hope. The left eye was dark brown, the right lost under a pale oyster-color film of blindness.
The smell of sickness, which Matthew had already caught upon entering the room, was as strong here at the bedside as if a plate of spoiled and worm-eaten beef had been offered for his delectation. He wondered about his mettle, as he looked into the ruin of Lord Mortimer’s face. He couldn’t help but wonder if he might end his days in such a fashion, and God forbid he live one moment as damp and dissolving flesh with the odor of illness and piss and excrement rising up from the bed like a foul green miasma.
“Help me, Mr. Corbett,” whispered the rich man. “I know you can.”
It took a moment for Matthew to find his tongue. “I’ll do my best, sir.” At what? he asked himself. The heartless robbery of a wretch such as this?
“Your best.” There was a twist in Barker’s voice. “Oberley,” he said to the servant, “I protest this…this travesty. Going to New York to bring this boy here? Look at him! Wet as water behind the ears!”
“Zachary!” Even so near his end, Lord Mortimer could still summon a faint rumble of thunder. “I trust…that Oberley has done as I asked. Brought…the best man here. I know…” He had to stop, to breathe for a moment. If that wheeze could be called such. “I know your objections. They have been noted.”
“This is a farce, Brodd. Paying anyone to—”
“Objections,” said Lord Mortimer, “noted.”
And that voice was near the thunder of distant cannonfire. It caused the good doctor to look down at his shining black boots and then examine his well-manicured fingernails.
“Mr. Corbett,” the dying man said, “I just need you…to be here. To help me…to give me time. To speak to Death on my behalf… when he arrives at the door.”
“Oh my God,” said the doctor, but it was muffled by his hand.
“She will be here.” The face nodded. “Yes. I think she will come tonight. I think…she will come.”
“In this weather, sir?” Oberley moved forward to adjust the coverlet. “It’s very foul. I’m not sure Miss Christina—”
“She will come,” Lord Mortimer said, and that ended the discussion. For all his sickness, the rich man still held command in his castle.
“Yes sir.” Oberley did his work with a mannered hand. His face was solemn and somber; he was a loyal dog who knew his place. He withdrew and stood a respectable distance away, there if needed.
One of the spidery hands moved. Slowly, as if in agony. The hand came up, trembling, and motioned the best man nearer.
“Dr. Barker,” said the dying man to Matthew Corbett, “doesn’t believe. He doesn’t…know. What I know.” The single eye blinked; there was still a red spark of fire at its center. “Are you listening?”
“I am, sir,” came the firm reply.
“Death will arrive here. In human form. As it did…for my father. For my grandfather… as well. Yes. I am certain of it.”
Matthew said nothing, for nothing was required of him to say. He had taken the measure of the doctor’s bag open on the table beside the bed, and arrayed around it all the gleaming instruments and bottles of potions and herb packs and linaments and little jars of mysteries. Alas, no human hand or medical creation by even a London physician could stay the impending moment. It seemed to Matthew, from the labor of Lord Mortimer’s troubled lungs, that the moment must be very near.
“Listen,” said the voice from the bed, as if his instinct for reading people was still as strong as it had been when he was striding Godlike through the fields of industry. “Hear me,” he insisted. “Death came as a man for my father. My father…saw the same…with his father. My poppa,” came the soft breath. “Always…always, so busy.”
“Brodd, you should rest,” said the doctor.
“Rest? For what occasion?” This was spoken with near vehemence, and for awhile Lord Mortimer had to breathe slowly and steadily to, Matthew assumed, hold his tenuous grip upon this world. “Mr. Corbett,” came the voice when it was able, “I saw a man enter the room…where my father lay dying. When I was ten years old. A young man…well-dressed. He entered that room…and when he left it, my father was dead. Did anyone know that man? Or…from where he came? No. I was standing outside…in the rain…when he passed me. And he looked at me and smiled…and I knew…I knew…this was Death, passing by. It was the man my father always knew was coming. Oh, yes…I heard him many times…speaking of the man he saw enter the room of his own father. A young man… well-dressed. Confident, he said. Walking away…no coach or carriage, and no horse. The same as I saw. The same who will be here… very soon.” The hand reached up for Matthew’s sleeve. “You must speak to him. Give me time…to make my peace with Christina.” A sob rose up and nearly overcame the voice, but Lord Mortimer pushed it down. “My daughter,” he said feebly, losing ground. “I must see my daughter.”
Oberley came forward. “The weather, sir. It’s so wretched.”
“She will come,” said Lord Mortimer drowsily; his strength was leaving him. “I know she will…by however means she can get here.”
Matthew looked at Oberley, who sadly shook his head. A glance at Dr. Barker brought a shrug.
Across the room were long windows covered with heavy red curtains. Matthew went to one of them, drew aside the curtain and peered out. The window was glazed with ice. There was nothing to be seen but darkness. He sensed someone coming up behind him and knew who it would be. “Might she arrive tonight?” Matthew asked quietly. “She lives six miles from here, yes?” It was a hard distance to be made on a night like this. He considered that he’d answered his own question. “Perhaps she’ll come tomorrow.”
“Perhaps,” said Oberley. “But tomorrow may be too late.”
Matthew nodded. Brodd Mortimer must surely be a man of great strength and determination, but his clock was running down. Matthew crossed the room again to be near the bedside, and that was when he heard the distant, hollow thump…thump…thump.
He realized it was the lump of coal. The doorknocker. Someone had come to call.
Suddenly Lord Mortimer lifted himself up on his elbows. His glistening face with its agony of sores contorted. The single eye found Matthew.
“I beg you!” His voice was harsh even in its pleading. “Help me! If it’s her, show her up to me! If it’s him…for the love of God…talk him into giving me a few more hours!”
“Sir, I—”
“Please! Now is the moment! Please!”
“All right,” said Matthew. “I’ll go.” He turned away from the bed and the ruin of a rich man and started for the way out, and suddenly Dr. Barker was walking at his side and the doctor said in Matthew’s ear, “The consumption has taken his mind. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know I’ve been paid to perform a task. Which I shall perform to the best of my ability.” Matthew reached the door. With taper in hand, Oberley came up beside him and opened it, and together they left the room and went downstairs to greet the night visitor.
Three
Sins and Abominations
The grandfather clock began to strike as they descended the stairs. It ended on the ninth bell as Oberley told Bess to stop on her progress to the door. Matthew pulled the bolt, opened the door and was pelted by icy rain and a bone-chilling wind.
“I’ve come,” said the figure wrapped in a hooded black cloak, “to see him.”
“Oh…please.” Oberley, in his eagerness, pushed Matthew aside. “Please come in, Miss Christina.”
She crossed the threshold, and shivered. Oberley closed the door at her back.
“Your cloak. May I?”
She shook her head. “No, not yet. I’m very cold. Not yet.”
“The tea and corncakes are made,” Bess offered.
“Neither thirsty nor hungry,” Christina Mortimer answered. Her voice was tight and clipped. “I just want to get this over with… and then I’m going home.”
“I’ll take some tea, thank you,” Matthew told Bess. “A little sugar, if you don’t mind.” He then focused his attention fully on the rich man’s daughter, who stood rubbing warmth into her arms with what seemed to be nearly desperation.
“I’ve never been colder in my life,” she said. Her eyes, the same brown as her father’s, scanned the foyer. “Dear God, what am I doing in this house?”
“The right and proper thing, I think,” said Matthew.
Which caused Christina to look at him as if she were first seeing him, and he had been a moment before only a shade barely illuminated by candlelight. She frowned, her brown brows knitting. “Who are you?”
“My name is Matthew Corbett. I’ve come from New York.”
“That tells me nothing. How do you know my father?”
“He has hired me.”
“For what purpose, sir?”
There was no use in hiding such a thing. “For the purpose of cheating Death. Or, rather… asking Death to give your father more time to speak to you.”
“Oh…that old story.” Christina gave him the faintest and most disdainful half-smile. “You are here, then, on a madman’s errand.”
“An errand, none the less.”
“Hm,” she said, and they seemed then to take the measure of one another.
Christina Mortimer shrugged out of her hood, perhaps the better to let Matthew see who he was dealing with. Her thick reddishbrown hair tumbled about her shoulders. Her face was pale, her jaw firm, her eyes intense. She was of medium-height and solidly-built, a formidable wall of prideful intent. Something about her put Matthew’s nerves on edge. He could see how father and daughter might shatter the world between them. Her stare into his eyes was unyielding. “You don’t think this is nonsense, sir?”
Bess came with a brown mug of tea. Matthew sipped it before he answered. “My opinion doesn’t matter here. Your father’s does.”
“I see.” She started to remove her black gloves and then, blinking, seemed to think better of it. “Cold,” she said quietly. “I should never have come out this night.”
“I thank God you have,” Oberley said. “Would you not want some tea to warm you?”
“There is no warmth in this house,” she answered. “I should suffer a chill here even with a belly full of fire.”
“But you are here,” Matthew said, and she gave him her piercing and unsettling stare again. “You braved the elements to come. That means you are at least interested in hearing what your father has to say.”
She was silent. Her mouth opened and then closed once more. Her head took on a crooked angle. “The elements,” she said, and seemed for a few seconds to be drifting. Then: “Yes. Pardon me… my mind is…” She shook her head. “I don’t care for this place. I have passed it before, in daylight. It grieved me then. At night it just…” A gloved hand came up and stroked the back of her neck. “Wounds me,” she said.
“Shall we go see Lord Mortimer?” Oberley asked, in a quietly apprehensive voice.
“Yes. All right. I am here…for how long, I don’t know, but I am here.”
“Long enough, I trust,” said Matthew, “to honor a dying man?”
“Honor.” She made it sound ugly. “You, sir, must not know the meaning of the word. Take me to him,” she told the servant.
They started toward the stairs. “Your horse made the incline?” Oberley asked.
“My horse?” Christina frowned in the candlelight. “My horse has…run away, I think.” Her eyes had frosted over, like ice on glass. “I tried to…catch the reins, but…I think he has run away.”
Oberley and Matthew glanced quickly at each other. “Miss, aren’t you feeling well?” Oberley asked.
“I’m feeling…I don’t know. I think I…shouldn’t be here. I think this is wrong.” She stopped at the foot of the stairs and peered up, and Matthew saw her tremble.
“It will be all right,” Matthew said.
“It is wrong,” she repeated, with some force. “Wrong. Everything is…” She put a hand to her forehead and staggered, and when both men tried to steady her she shrank away and said, “Don’t touch me! I don’t wish to be touched!” with such ferocity that both Matthew and Oberley immediately drew back.
Matthew thought this woman must be either on the edge of madness or she needed something much stronger than this sugared tea to calm her nerves. In fact, he was beginning to crave some courage juice himself, in the form of a rum toddy. With less toddy and more rum.
“I can go on,” Christina said softly yet with grit in her voice. “I can go on.” And, so saying, she started up the stairs.
Almost to the top, Christina staggered again and looked wildly about herself. Both Matthew and Oberley stayed a few risers behind.
“Miss Christina?” Oberley prompted.
“Did you hear that?” the woman asked. “That noise.”
“Noise, miss?”
“Yes, that one!” She seemed to be searching all around, her face pallid and eyes full of fear. “I heard…a breaking noise. Like… I don’t know.” She caught Matthew’s gaze. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t,” Matthew replied, thinking that the rich man’s daughter was in need of a penny’s worth of sanity.
She nodded and seemed to be getting a grip. Then she started the ascent again, and her followers came up afterward.
Oberley opened the door for her. She slid in. The figure in the bed was already sitting up with expectation against the sodden pillows. It was, Matthew thought, an incredible feat of decaying mind over decayed matter. He finished his tea and, feeling somewhat fortified, put the mug aside on a table. He watched Christina walk quietly across the carpet. The doctor moved back to give her room, and his chair if she needed it. She reached the bed and looked at what lay there, as Matthew and Oberley came up alongside.
There was no sound but the wheeze of the rich man’s breath. The moment seemed as icy and treacherous as the earth beyond the windows. It hung on an uncertain air.
“Daughter,” Lord Mortimer rasped.
She gave no reply. Once more a gloved hand rose and pressed against her forehead, and she weaved back and forth on her feet. She looked around the room, at the walls and the ceiling, with what Matthew thought was the expression of a trapped animal with nowhere left to hide.
“Speak to me.” The voice was near begging. “Please.”
She did not speak.
“Christina,” said Lord Mortimer, as if kneeling before the Cross.
Matthew saw her gaze fall upon her father. He saw her flinch. He saw her gloved hands ball into fists at her sides. But she was of his blood and perhaps of his nature, and she held herself firm.
“Of what shall I speak?” she asked quietly, her voice eerily controlled. “Shall I speak of my mother…your wife…and the suicide you forced upon her? Shall I speak of how Morgan was broken by your displeasure? Shall I speak of all the times I and Morgan reached out for you with love and you turned your back upon us? Because…Poppa, you were always, always so busy?” She didn’t wait for a response, but continued along this headstrong and crushing path. “Shall I speak of the hundreds of people—perhaps thousands—who suffered in your mines and workhouses, in your fields and sweatboxes? Shall I speak of the shame we felt, when we discovered how you used people…and how you enjoyed doing so? Shall I speak of the Nance family, and the Copelands, and the Engelburghs? Friends of our family…until your needs led you to destroy their fathers in business and ruin any dream those children might have had? Shall I speak of the Wittersen building, and the workmen who died? And of the lawyers you hired to year after year block any payment of what you must know to be right? What shall I speak of, then? All these, or other sins and abominations? Other hurts and misdeeds? You tell me.”
The dying man shivered. Matthew thought he might be contemplating the fact that Death had not yet come for him, but Truth had.
Christina Mortimer plunged the sword deeper. “And you dare to follow me here? To send your hired man to woo me? To make me forget all the horrors of being your daughter? Of seeing you destroy my mother, my brother, and most everything I held dear?” She blinked, and a wild terror leaped into her eyes, and she looked around and around the room and nearly wailed it: “Why am I here? What am I doing in this place? I don’t know…I don’t know!”
“Miss Christina,” said Oberley, and he reached out to touch her shoulder but she recoiled. “Please. Have a little mercy on him.”
“No,” said Lord Mortimer, in almost a clear, strong voice. “No,” he repeated, with a crooked smile on his grim-lipped face. “Not mercy. That’s not why…why I asked you here, daughter. I have shown no mercy in my life…I ask for none.” His single good eye glittered wetly. “None was ever shown to me. I don’t understand it. I have no use for it. Weakness. A crutch. It is kill or be killed…and that is what I have ever known, all my life. Even my father… it was a death battle against him…for he tried to destroy me…to find out what I was made of. Locked me in a closet. You talk about a sweatbox, daughter? Locked me in a closet…for some piddling infraction of his rules. And I could not come out…could not be fed or watered… until I would beg his forgiveness. Do you know how long I stayed in that closet…in the dark? With my piss and my shit all around me? Do you know…how long?” He nodded, as if still proud of his childhood triumph. “The butler told me…it was five days and fourteen hours. They took me out over my father’s wishes. And when I was well enough…he put me right back in again. This time…I nearly made a full week. But I learned, daughter. I learned…a man—a boy, let us say— cannot survive on a good heart. He survives only on the strength of will. Yes. That is why I am living today. This moment. For I have wished to see you…to speak with you, and hear you speak…and I will not die until that is satisfied within me.”
“Kill or be killed?” she asked. “What did Mother do to you that made you so angry? What did Morgan do? Dear God, Father…” Her voice cracked. “What did I do?”
Lord Mortimer did not answer. Perhaps, Matthew thought, he could not.
“Were we not good enough for you?” she asked. “Were we not strong enough?”
The answer at last came, with a harsh and hollow rasp. “You were too good for me. I know that now, through the backwards mirror…of time. And I was too weak…to let those things…inside me…go. Too weak. And here I thought…I was so very, very strong. Now look, daughter…at what I am, and what I have…look,” he said, addressing Matthew, Oberley and the doctor, “as a warning of what a man may become…who never fully emerged…from that dark little room…and who lives there, in terrified silence…still.”
“I will not ask for mercy,” said the sore-covered mouth in the glistening face, “but I will say…as I would never say to my father or to any other human on this earth…I am sorry.” The eye closed and he sank back against the pillows. “I am sorry,” he breathed. “I am sorry.”
Christina stood without moving. She stared fixedly at her father, with eyes that Matthew thought might melt iron. She was as difficult to look at as he was. Something moved in her face. Or something moved under her face. It was hard to tell. Matthew wondered if what was in her mind could ever be eased, for she was just as confined by the terrors—and errors—of the past as was Lord Mortimer. They were, indeed, a matched pair.
From downstairs there came the thump…thump…thump of the doorknocker.
The rich man’s eye opened. He gasped. He searched for Matthew, and found him.
“He has come,” Lord Mortimer whispered. “Please. I beg of you…detain him. Just a short while. We are not done here. Not done. Are we…daughter?”
She drew a long and ragged breath. She was a soul in the deepest agony, yet there was something in her—some strength of will— that was trying to swim up from the deep.
“No,” she answered, also in a whisper. “No, Poppa…we’re not done.”
“Please…Corbett…detain him, just a while longer…”
Matthew said, “Yes sir,” and he turned away and left Oberley and Dr. Barker in the room, and he went downstairs thinking he would meet the vicar or some other personage from Oak Bridge but there in the foyer stood the young and handsome man Bess had just let into the house, and the young man in his dark cloak and tricorn with a purple band smiled at Matthew and said, “Hello, sir. I’ve come to see Lord Mortimer.”
“Lord Mortimer is ill.”
“Oh, yes. I’m aware of that.”
“Ill unto death,” said Matthew.
“Aware, also, of that. Time is urgent, sir. Might you take me to him?”
“And your business is?”
“My business,” said the young and handsome man with the affable smile, “is the end of suffering.”
Four
I am no angel
Matthew may have taken a backward step. He didn’t remember if he had or not. The young man—possibly only two or three years elder than Matthew—had a friendly, open face and a light demeanor. He removed his tricorn with blackgloved hands. His hair was pale blonde and as fine as silk, his eyes the color of smoke. He unbuttoned his cloak to show a well-tailored black suit and a dark purple waistcoat.
“You’re not afraid of me…are you, Mr. Corbett?”
“What?” Matthew asked.
“You took a backward step. Did something I say disturb you?”
“My name. How did you…?”
“From New York, yes? A beautiful town. Industrious. No, I’ll hold my cloak and hat,” he told Bess. “But thank you, all the same.” The smoke-colored eyes focused again on Matthew. “The hour is late, sir. I do have other appointments. Please take me to Lord Mortimer.”
Matthew felt the breath stuttering in his lungs. “Who are you?”
“I am but a lowly messenger. A bearer of tidings. Now…I have travelled a distance. I would like to conclude my business with Lord Mortimer and be on my way as quickly as possible. These things should not be drawn out.”
“These things? What things?”
“Errands such as mine,” said the handsome man. His smile had lost none of its brightness, though Matthew thought his eyes had darkened. “Really, sir, this is a business matter to me. I regret Lord Mortimer’s condition, but…” He shrugged. “This too is part of life, is it not?”
“A terrible part,” said Matthew cautiously. He didn’t know which might go first…his knees or the top of his head.
“Not at all!” came the spirited response. “Freedom from life’s duties, trials and tribulations is terrible? The view beyond the glass is terrible? Throwing off the yoke of enslavery to pain and all the many faults of flesh is terrible? Oh, Mr. Corbett…you and I should someday drink a glass of ale and have a long discussion about the value of release from this world.”
“I think…not anytime soon,” said Matthew.
The smile became a grin. “As you please. Now, really…are you trying to detain me?”
“Uh…” He was totally jawsocked and rumpunched. His stomach was doing slow flipflops. Everything north of his border felt heated and everything south was in a frozen state. He could not— could not—believe he was speaking to Death in human form. Could not. It was just impossible.
“You came from where, sir?” he managed to ask.
“My place of origination.”
“Where is that?”
“A long ride from here.”
“You came by horse?”
“Well, yes. Did you expect me to spread my arms and fly? I have been called many things, but I am no angel. Please, sir…it’s best we get this over with. Have some pity on a solitary traveller, won’t you?”
“Where’s your horse?”
“I left my horse at the bottom of the hill. Where the coach is. All that ice…very nasty. My horse’s name is Somnus, if you care to know.”
“What is your name?”
“All these questions…should have been expected, from a problem-solver. Oh, all right! My name is Clifton. First name Kenyard. Does that suit you?”
“Is that your real name?”
“As real,” said the man, “as you wish it to be. Honestly! It does no good, putting this off! I have business with Lord Mortimer!” A small frown rippled across the face. “The night is passing, sir! I have many miles yet to go. Now…I am patient…but I don’t like being toyed with. I don’t like being denied, when this is something that must be done. As I said, to end suffering! I am here for a good purpose, can’t you understand that?”
Matthew wished for a wall to put his back against, but there was nothing. At least Kenyard Clifton or whatever he was calling himself was substantial, for the candlelight threw his shadow large upon a wall.
“Lord Mortimer is with his daughter,” Matthew managed to say. “He wishes only a short while longer. Will you allow it?”
“How short?” Irritation flared in the voice, and at last the smile went awry.
“I’m not sure. He’s fading, but holding himself to…” Matthew couldn’t fathom the moment, and suddenly it seemed almost absurd. “Listen, sir! You’re not who you say you are! You can’t be!”
“And sir, you are a pennynail short of enough to seal Lord Mortimer’s coffin, if I may be so bold. I said I’m Kenyard Clifton! That’s my name! Out on the road in this weather! Looking to get home to a wife and two children at least before dawn! Won’t you have some mercy on me and let me see him before he passes?” A frown forced the rest of the smile away. “Very well, then! Here!” A hand went into the coat and brought out a brown envelope. “Deliver this to him yourself, but by law and the dictates of my employer I must be present when it is put before him!”
Matthew was further dumbstruck. Had Death just said he had a wife and two children? Matthew stared at the offered envelope. “What is that?”
“Legal papers. If you must know. Concerning a lawsuit that has gone on for many years. I am out by the order of my employer, the law firm of Pierce, Campbell and Blunt. Based in Boston, an awfully long way from here. My understanding is that there’s been an agreement between lawyers to settle this case, and the workers who suffered injuries will be fully compensated. Plus widows who lost husbands, equally compensated…if that is at all possible.”
It struck Matthew what the man was talking about. “The building accident. The Wittersen building.”
“Correct. Several weeks ago Lord Mortimer informed his lawyers he would no longer contest the case, and as I understand it he has given over a sizeable amount of money to take care of the workers’ needs. Therefore I am here to have either him or his designated representative sign the final papers.”
“Oh,” Matthew said. It was a stunned sound, barely audible. He regained himself in the next instant. “But…how did you know my name? And my profession?”
“Simple. I asked the coachman at the bottom of the hill who he had brought to the mansion tonight, in this weather. Poor wretch is down there determined to stay with the horses. Interesting, isn’t it, how men of extreme wealth always want to build their mansions at the summit of the highest hills? Unfortunately they must often pay a price for that lofty height. Now…would you please show me to—”
“Mr. Corbett?”
Matthew turned toward the voice, which had come from behind him.
Jesper Oberley stood there, holding a candelabra with three burning sticks. His face was long and drawn and deep-shadowed. His eyes ticked toward Kenyard Clifton, held for a few seconds, and then returned to Matthew.
“Lord Mortimer,” said Oberley, “has a few moments ago passed away. Miss Christina was at his side. I am happy to say…that Miss Christina offered forgiveness to her father during his last few breaths…and that at the end she was holding his hand. I think it was a great effort for her…to speak to him so, and to touch him… but she performed that gesture with perfect calm and perfect grace. I have shown her to her room for the night.” His eyebrows went up. “And this gentleman is…someone we’ve expected?”
“He represents a Boston law firm,” Matthew said. “He’s brought papers to be signed. Important papers, I might add. Having to do with…an end to suffering,” Matthew decided to say.
He had a sudden thought. “Perhaps it would be fitting for Miss Christina to sign them?”
“She has complained of feeling faint, and of her head…as she put it…swimming. She wanted neither food nor drink, only to be left alone. I think she’s been drained by this experience. But I thank God she came. Lord Mortimer may not have had the brightest soul, but perhaps even he has earned a little rest and the forgiveness of a daughter.” Oberley held the candles forward to further illuminate Kenyard Clifton. “I regret you have missed Lord Mortimer, sir.”
“I also. But…I do need these to be signed before I can go. Is there a representative who can sign? The papers are very straightforward in the amount of money set aside for compensation of workers injured in the collapse of the Wittersen building in London eight years ago. It’s a large sum, and greatly needed.” Clifton offered the envelope to Oberley. “Might you sign, sir?”
“Me? No, sir. I am not able, as regards my station. But…Mr. Corbett is an employee of Lord Mortimer. He might sign, I think.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!” said Matthew. “Not for something as important as this. I still say Miss Christina should sign.”
“I wouldn’t want to bother her again, sir. She said she wanted very greatly to rest.” Oberley reached out, took the envelope from Clifton’s hand and put it into Matthew’s. “If you’ll follow me, gentlemen, I’ll take you to a room where pen and ink are available.”
Before his signature was applied, Matthew took the time to carefully read the document. It was, indeed, straightforward and allowed for an amount of money that might well have been half the rich man’s fortune to be divided among fourteen workmen and three widows. A duplicate document was signed, and given to Oberley for safekeeping. Then Kenyard Clifton wrapped himself in his cloak, put on his tricorn and said goodnight.
“Safe travel,” Matthew said to the young man who might have been Death, but was in actuality a new Life for many who had suffered under Lord Mortimer’s will.
Clifton left the house, Bess closed the door behind him, and the grandfather clock ticked on.
“I can offer you and Dr. Barker dinner and wine, sir,” said Oberley as he and Matthew walked back along the hallway. “Bess is an excellent cook, and Lord Mortimer has some very fine wine in the cellar.” He gave a smile that was still sad-edged, yet genuine enough. “I think Lord Mortimer would appreciate that you have the best vintage in the house.”
Matthew nodded. “I accept. And I shall drink a toast to Lord Mortimer’s spirit…and the fact that if Death had really shown up here tonight I would have been reduced to a pile of jibbering jelly.”
The dinner was indeed excellent and the wine flowed. The doctor excused himself to go to bed as the clock struck eleven, and soon afterward Matthew also asked to be shown to his room. Thus he settled down to sleep on a comfortable four-poster bed and listened to the icy rain peck the windows, and though a dead man lay in a room not far along the hallway there seemed to be peace reigning over the household tonight…a certain rightness of things…a satisfactory conclusion…and therefore Matthew had no trouble at all falling away from this world.
He came back to it with a knocking at his door. The knocking became more insistent.
“Sir? Sir?” It was Oberley’s voice, not a little bit…the word would be unnerved.
Matthew got up. Gray light showed through the windows. It appeared the rain had ceased. Outside the trees gleamed. Matthew opened the door and squinted in the servant’s candlelight. “What is it?”
“Would you come with me, please?” came the request, which carried a note of urgency.
Oberley escorted Matthew to a room past Lord Mortimer’s chamber. He opened the door to show an empty room and a fourposter bed similar to the one Matthew had slept in.
“All right,” Matthew said. “I see this. What is it?”
“This,” Oberley replied, “is Miss Christina’s room. You will note, sir, that the bed has not been slept in. There is no evidence of anyone disturbing that bed. I have searched the house for Miss Christina, and not found her. I thought she might have slept in a chair, at her father’s side, but no. I have gone to the bottom of the hill to see if her horse is there. It is not. She has gone. Why…I don’t know. Perhaps it was all too much for her. But…I was up most of the night, sir. I never saw Miss Christina leave, nor did anyone else. No one heard the door open and close. She has gone, yes…but when? And how did she leave without anyone hearing her?”
“It’s a big house,” Matthew said. “No one was watching the door all night, were they?”
“No sir, no one was. But still…I have a strange feeling about this.”
“A strange feeling?” Matthew wiped grains of sleep from his eyes. “What feeling?”
“Just that…Miss Christina was so different from when I visited her in Grainger. I can’t put my finger on it…but different. And she so willingly and completely forgave him, and grasped his hand at the moment of his last breath. It’s just that…well…I am beginning to think…” Oberley trailed off.
“Beginning to think what?” Matthew urged.
“To think…that might not have really been Miss Christina.”
A silence fell. One of the candleflames hissed in its burning progress.
“Say again?” Matthew asked.
“That…what appeared to be Miss Christina…was not. Sir,” he added. “That we were expecting a man. And…sir…Death did come in human form for Lord Mortimer, but was dressed as a woman.”
Matthew was momentarily stunned speechless. He recalled something Christina Mortimer had said with ferocity at the foot of the stairs: Don’t touch me! I don’t wish to be touched! “You’re wrong!” he managed to reply. “Utterly wrong!”
“Yes sir, I may well be. But where is Miss Christina now?”
“Home, possibly. Or on her way there. I think she…she was simply overcome by her father’s death and she had to leave the house. I don’t know why she wasn’t seen or heard, but I’d think a person could slip out without making too much noise if they really wanted to. I repeat…no one was watching the door, were they?”
“No sir, they were not.”
“There you are, then!” Matthew made a motion as if to brush Oberley away. “Nonsense is what you’re talking! The heated imagination knows no bounds!” He decided he wished no more of this house. His job was done. It was time to get dressed, pack his belongings and go home where he belonged. “I’d like to be taken back to New York within the hour. Can that be arranged?”
“It’s early, yet, but…yes, sir. It can be arranged.”
“You needn’t go with me. I am content to ride home by myself.”
“As you wish, sir. I have to take care of the funeral arrangements anyway. Vicar Barrington must be notified. I’ll pay you the rest of your fee.” Oberley started to walk away and then stopped. It seemed to Matthew that the sad-eyed servant drew himself taller. “I am pleased that you would come to do this duty, Mr. Corbett. I know… this whole idea was an affront to you, but I think—or I would like to think—that your presence gave Lord Mortimer some comfort. I will not say he was a good man. I will not say I know where his soul is now. All I know is…he was my master.” So saying, he moved along the hallway with a deliberate pace and out of Matthew’s sight.
Matthew had to walk down the slippery slope to where the horses and coach had spent the night. The driver had stayed with his team and warmed them with blankets and himself with hot tea and corncake biscuits supplied by Bess. He grumbled a bit when Matthew announced he was ready for the several hours’ return trip, but in a few minutes Matthew was inside the coach and the wheels were turning…if only slowly, due to patches of ice still whitening the road.
They were not very far along when Matthew felt the coach slow almost to the speed of a man’s walk. He looked out a window and saw they were approaching the oak bridge.
“Some trouble ahead!” the coachman announced through his muffler.
Matthew craned his neck for a better look. The coach had nearly stopped. On the bridge stood a group of men, and on the floor of the bridge was…
…something covered over with a white sheet.
The coach did stop. A man approached the window Matthew was looking out of. He was tall and slim, and had a florid face reddened by the cold. He had deep-set brown eyes under a high forehead and whorls of white hair curling out from below a green woolen cap.
“Sir? I’m the vicar Barrington,” said the man. “Do you live around here?”
“No, I’m from New York. Going back there today. What’s the trouble?”
“A tragedy, I fear. A young woman, killed.”
“A young woman?” Matthew’s heart jumped and pounded. “What happened?”
“The watchman heard it. He thinks a branch snapped with the ice over the bridge and struck the roof. The noise must have frightened her horse. She was thrown, and broke her neck on the railing. Her body is here because…no one seems to know who she is. I’m trying to find someone—anyone—who knows her. Would you take a look at her, young man?”
“I will.” He started to get out. If it was indeed Christina Mortimer, then her journey home had been a tragedy indeed, especially after she had made—and found—some kind of peace with her father. “What time did this happen? A few hours ago?”
“Oh, no sir,” said the vicar. “The watchman says it was just before nine o’clock.”
Matthew froze, halfway out of the coach. “Nine o’clock? This morning?”
“Sir, it’s only half past eight. It happened just before nine o’clock last night.”
Matthew held himself where he was. He stared at the sheeted figure that lay only about twenty feet away. He recalled the grandfather clock chiming at nine o’clock last night…a few minutes after the knock on the door. Impossible, he thought. Impossible. No, the watchman had to be wrong. It had happened this morning, not last night. And besides…it most likely wasn’t Christina Mortimer, anyway.
“We can’t understand what she was doing out in such weather,” said the vicar, as he too stared at the figure. “Whatever her purpose was, it must have been very important to her. Come, sir! Please have a look! It’s not a bad sight. She must have died instantly, for she only appears to be sleeping.”
Matthew remembered, as if in a fevered dream.
Neither thirsty nor hungry, she’d said. I’ve never been colder in my life, she’d said. I heard…a breaking noise, she’d said. “No,” Matthew whispered. His breath, ghostly, drifted away on the chill breeze. “No,” he repeated, as if he might alter history.
“Am I to take it that you’re wishing not to have a view?” asked the vicar.
“I want…” He didn’t know what he wanted. He had to focus his mind and try again. “I think you should send a man to the Mortimer house. Lord Mortimer passed away last night, so your services are needed there. But…” He could hardly speak, his mouth was so dry. “But ask Jesper Oberley to come view this…this very valiant young woman. This…very noble…essence,” he said, as if that made any sense to Barrington. “He might know her.”
“You won’t look then, sir?”
“No,” Matthew said. “I won’t. Would you move her a little— carefully, please—so we might be on our way?”
“As you wish,” the vicar answered. “Good day to you, then.”
“Good day,” Matthew said. He eased back into his seat and closed the door. He remained staring straight ahead at the opposite wall of the coach until he felt the wheels moving and they were off again, and it was a long time before he relaxed from that position and, taking off his tricorn, ran a hand across his forehead.
It seemed to him that…if one believed such things, which he did not…Death had delivered two souls from their cages of suffering. Had slipped into one and taken the image of its body, and who could say which part was Death and which part was Christina Mortimer?
If one believed such things, which he did not.
But it seemed to him that on this day Death was a benevolent shade. There were accidents in this world and there were diseases. There were things no father could fully undo, and no daughter could fully forget, and yet…some measure of peace had been offered, and taken, and perhaps that was all that could be asked for. And that alone had to be appreciated.
If one believed such things.
Matthew pushed aside the black window curtain. The sun had emerged from milky clouds. The sky was turning blue again. The world was thawing out, as the world eventually did after every storm of ice.
He settled back into his seat, determined to tell Hudson Greathouse that this indeed had been a matter of no consequence. Better that than to let the great one think he believed in such things as Death coming for a rich man in human form.
“No,” he said to himself, but he was aware that a table at the Trot Then Gallop and a mug of ale were calling his name for a long communion with the spirits of silence and the realm of the unknown, to which he was a mere child. Onward rattled the coach, breaking wet ice under its wheels. Sometimes as confused and uncertain as any human being on this spinning globe but very often the best man for the job, the problem-solver was on his way home.