“What was he doing here,” Sutton asked, “skulking about like that?”
“Did he say anything?” Charlotte stepped forward shakily.
George looked to the boat where the housemaid and children were waiting. The maid had rushed to the man before anyone else had, would know if he’d spoken.
“His death was instantaneous,” George said, meeting Sutton’s eye. “Has anyone seen Rai?”
“I think he’s scouting the area,” Norvill said, “looking for others.”
“Rai!” George called.
The Hindu emerged from the bushes just as Leeson had done, the dog behind him.
“I need you to summon Wilson. Tell him only there’s been an accident, say nothing else. Edmund will go with you to see the ladies and children safely back to the house.”
Rai bowed almost imperceptibly and turned to go.
Edmund recovered his hat from a nearby boulder. As he did so, he glanced at the blanket that was covering all but the dead man’s tufted hair and dress shoes. When he’d first reached him, the man’s mouth was open and hanging to one side as if he’d been stricken with palsy, when only a minute before, in the instant when he’d emerged from the woods, he had seemed jubilant, as if arriving late for the picnic and delighted at the day. He’d alarmed no one but Norvill. The shotguns Rai had lined up for the afternoon shoot were leaning against the rocks near where Norvill was sitting, ready enough to hand that Norvill had picked one up after Celia’s first scream. Not a word had passed between Norvill and the man, Edmund reflected, none of the pomp that usually preceded engagement: no “Halt,” no “Declare yourself.” Still, the man’s proximity to the women, his muddied appearance and wild look were enough to justify the assault. Any investigation would support the claim of self-defence and, for George’s sake, the authorities would be careful to avoid incriminating language in their report. In the end George would be unmarked, but Norvill and, Edmund supposed, Charlotte would be much affected, whether word of what happened went beyond those assembled or not.
We believe that the shooting did not make the papers. What had happened took on the form of village gossip — stories that said more about the person telling them than they did about the Farringtons or the Chesters. In later years the events of that day were let slip here and there as a kind of confession — a line in a letter or a thought in a diary — declarations that now make sense to us, and to Jane, although it was hard to see them for what they were, to sense the reverberations of the day when the matter at its centre — Leeson himself — was absent from the account.
“The day of the exploring party was sunny,” the one with the soft voice says, as she watches Jane enter the pub. “The photographer waited on the far side of the lake. He had on a greatcoat and when he stepped out of the boat with his tripod and boxes everyone applauded.”
“They were probably applauding the sun,” the poet said drily, “because they’d forgotten what it looked like.”
“I think I was let go shortly after the picnic,” the theologian says, though he’s roused from his daydream when a group of hikers straggle out of the pub door, slipping back into their jackets and donning their caps as they pass through us.
“Let go from what?” the idiot asks.
“From my post. Farrington hired me. It lasted …” He squinted up at the globe light that hung outside the pub and in his concentration we could see some semblance of a man with cropped grey hair, a trimmed beard and a prominent nose. “It might have lasted a year.”
George Farrington would later admit that when Bernard Hibbitt presented himself at Inglewood estate with three trunks and a bamboo aviary containing, of all things, a linnet, he was taken aback. Not only was Hibbitt older than George had expected by almost a decade — a man in his fifties, not forties as he’d claimed — but also he appeared incapable of uncurling his lip, as if everything he set his eyes on left him with a sense of distaste.
George could only blame himself. He had arranged Mr. Hibbitt’s hiring solely through letters. On paper the man had a superior education, and the reference he had provided from his last post was excellent. More importantly, Hibbitt had written that he was willing to step in for the former village tutor immediately. Still, by the time Hibbitt had entered the parlour, George knew that if the agreement had not been hastily arranged because of his own impatience, it was likely that Hibbitt wouldn’t have been hired. And if there had been other applicants, Hibbitt wouldn’t have lasted the day.
Standing beside the sofa as stiffly as the stuffed pheasant under the nearby glass, Bernard Hibbitt listened while George Farrington outlined the terms of his employment. He inquired after the pupils and Farrington elaborated on the number and disposition of the boys who would be under his tutelage. Hibbitt conveyed his enthusiasm as best he could, restating his belief in the duty of the educator to ensure opportunities for advancement to all children, regardless of the conditions from which they’d risen.
Things did not go well from there. Within a week of that conversation a number of the parents in the village had complained about how sternly religious they found Hibbitt to be, citing his threats of damnation as a means of enforcing studiousness. It wasn’t that a handful of them didn’t employ similar tactics; it was Hibbitt’s enthusiasm they objected to: how he wed his threats to corporal punishment. Which is why, a mere ten days after they’d first been introduced, Hibbitt found himself standing in Farrington’s small parlour once again, casting his eyes nervously over the watercolour landscapes gracing the walls, the clocks tick-tocking unevenly while he waited to see if he was going to be sent out.
Hibbitt prided himself on engaging with other men, especially those of ways and means, without duplicity, so when Farrington, having offered tea that Hibbitt refused due to a welling discomfort in his stomach, asked if he meant the boys harm, he replied stiffly from the sofa, “Only when they deserve it.”
Farrington paused to consider his tutor’s logic, and Hibbitt became conscious of the way he was sitting, each bone in his torso stacked in perfect alignment, his hands resting flatly on his knees.
“Did your own father strike you when you were a child?” Farrington asked at last.
“He did.”
“Well”—Farrington sighed, as if the difference ought to indicate his stand and instruction on the matter—“mine did not.”
The walk Farrington proposed out over the lawn and through the gardens was uncomfortable for Hibbitt. Although his anxiety was diminished, he was still conflicted as to what exactly had been decided, from which families the complaints had come, and how he was expected to maintain order without corporal means. In the end he did all but ask if he could still strike them a little. The walk was made even more awkward by the fact that Hibbitt preferred to move with purpose whereas Farrington strolled like a woman. They were also under surveillance: the stable hand Dawes, who was the older brother of one of Hibbitt’s more amiable pupils, watched them unabashedly as he filed the hooves of a carriage horse. Mrs. Farrington was similarly caught glaring down at the men from one of the upstairs rooms, turning away when Hibbitt looked up from his inspection of the alpine plots. He attempted a quick smile but she had released the curtain before it reached his lips.
Hibbitt checked, as he always did in these situations, that his coat and felt bowler were in order. It was, after all, vital that he take great pains not only in his presentation but also in his manner if he was to conceal his attraction to other men. He needed to appear innocuous, and believing himself to be so, he regarded those who watched him overlong as subjects requiring greater dissimulation on his part.