A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  The ingrained habit of obedience held true. “Cook were a nice lady. She give me buns a’fore bed when I were ’ungry.”

  “What about the housekeeper?” Emmeline asked.

  Sally’s eyes widened. “Mrs. Young?” She pronounced the name more like “Yoong.”

  “Did she treat you well? You can tell me the truth, Sally.”

  The girl twisted her apron into a knot, but she nodded. “She were ’arsh soomtimes, but she tried to ’elp me stay safe.”

  Emmeline exchanged a look with Martha, whose eyes were tearing up. Something had happened that she didn’t know about, but she’d ask her fellow Crone once the girl was gone from the room. “How about Lady Claybourne?”

  Sally hesitated.

  “You can say what you will, Sally,” Martha said.

  The girl shrugged and her gaze slid away to focus on the chair by the window. “Never sawr ’er. She just took ’er medsin an’ slept.”

  Laudanum, Emmeline thought. A married lady’s escape. Young men had their exciting opium dens, while ladies had their genteel tincture of opium bottles. A scullery maid would not see her ladyship often anyway; maids reported to the housekeeper directly, or, in the scullery maid’s case, to the cook. “Where did you come from, Sally, before you arrived at Sir Henry’s home?”

  “Home fer orphings.”

  “Where?”

  Sally shrugged. In her short and brutal life, the child probably hadn’t had even the most basic education to understand where in England she came from, nor learn anything about her parentage and past.

  A few more questions netted only shrugs or silence. Emmeline sighed. “That’s all, Sally.”

  Martha sent the girl back to her duties. When she returned to sit by Emmeline, she was red-faced and clearly had something on her mind. Emmeline asked her to speak, but the woman hemmed and hawed for quite some time.

  Finally, though, in a low voice she said, “I must tell you, tho’ it is terribly shocking … there is something more. Sally was with child when she came to me, then lost the babe a week later.”

  Eleven

  Emmeline gasped. “By … by whom? I mean, the baby … whose was it? Surely she wasn’t at the Claybourne house long enough for … for …”

  Martha, tears in her eyes, shook her head. “It cannot have been Sir Henry’s, for she was not there long enough for it to have been his. He didn’t actually … didn’t manage to touch Sally, as she became violently ill when he tried. Baby sickness, I imagine; I suffered with it terribly with all of mine. I don’t know whose baby it was. She won’t tell me anything. I don’t even know if she understands how it happened.”

  Emmeline, her throat constricted with fury and pain, took a moment to gather herself. Even if she had known of this before questioning the girl, she was a stranger; Sally would not have confided in her. If she wouldn’t tell Martha, she certainly would not tell Emmeline. This was a task for Gillies. “Excuse me a moment, Martha. I need to speak with my maid.”

  As Emmeline entered the hallway, carefully closing the drawing room door behind her, Gillies looked up from the needlework she always carried in a small tapestry bag. She half rose from the bench. “Miss? You’re white and tremblin’. What’s wrong?”

  In short muttered phrases, Emmeline, searching her maid’s pale eyes, told Gillies what she had learned. “Could you speak with Sally? Try to find out who got to her before she ended up at Sir Henry’s?”

  Gillies set her sewing aside and nodded, while still holding her mistress’s gaze. “If it’s possible I’ll talk to the bairn, but miss … are you all right?”

  “Of course, I’m fine. Go down to the kitchen, use some excuse, and find out what you can from Sally. I think she’s afraid that if she tells Martha the truth, she’ll be turned away. As hard as the work here likely is, it must seem a safe haven after what she’s been through. If we know where she came from and who made her pregnant, we can perhaps prevent another child from suffering the same fate.”

  Emmeline returned to the drawing room, where Martha awaited, and told her what she had done. “I should have asked permission before sending Gillies to the kitchen, I suppose, but we must stop whomever made the girl pregnant.”

  Her ally looked uncomfortable.

  “You don’t agree?”

  “Yes, I do, I suppose, but—”

  “But what?”

  The woman recoiled at Emmeline’s tone and looked flustered, her expression becoming befuddled as it did in the face of anyone too forthright. Emmeline curbed her inclination to snap at her and calmed herself. “What is your concern?”

  “Well, everyone knows that the lower orders can’t help themselves, can they? All those animal spirits. As much as I sympathize with the girl, the problems I’ve had with female servants! I could tell you tales—”

  “And there were no men involved in these problems?”

  Martha flinched. “Well, of course, but men will be men. They can’t help themselves. Ladies are responsible for policing their urges.” She bridled. “You wouldn’t understand, being genteelly raised and unmarried, but a woman has a duty to men to resist their blandishments and coaxing. Some girls aren’t firm enough in their rejection. If you say no properly, men will listen.”

  Emmeline kept her temper with difficulty, remembering the other favor she wanted. It was especially as an unwed female that she knew all about men, their coaxing, their flattery, and other more unsavory methods for getting what they wanted. It was challenging not to counter Martha’s conjecture, but there was no use arguing. Taking a deep breath, she settled herself, hands folded together in her lap. “Martha, are you educating your daughters?”

  The woman looked confused. “Educating …?”

  “Yes, stitchery, music, and especially French. Vital if they want to marry well. Are you educating them?”

  The woman looked baffled, her brows drawn low over mild brown eyes. “They have learned to read and do their Bible lessons. I’ve never … I suppose—”

  “You do want them to marry well, do you not? Aspire to a higher rank?”

  Martha clasped her hands to her breast. “Do you think it possible?”

  Not in the slightest if they are anything like their mother. “I don’t see why not,” Emmeline replied with a bright smile, appalled at her own mendacity. “I’ve met them before. They are presentable. A little French and some music and it’s quite possible. Now is the time to start; a few years could make all the difference. I know many in the aristocracy, you know.” “Many” was an exaggeration. “My brother’s good friend Viscount Nearley was saying the other day that he will be looking for a bride in a few years. Three years and your eldest will be of marriageable age, correct?”

  “So they need to learn French? Why?” Martha asked, her eyes wide, leaning forward. Her motherly ambition had been roused.

  “Well, not just French, but embroidery, as I mentioned, the harp; you know, the usual,” Emmeline said, with a wafting wave of her hand.

  Tears welled in Martha’s eyes. “I wouldn’t know where to start. I had no such schooling myself, just plain sewing and how to order a household.”

  Emmeline felt a moment of compunction but hardened her resolve. She needed an excuse to visit Miss Hargreaves in Clerkenwell, and the two girls were it. “As for French, all they need are a few phrases, you know, to give them that je ne sais quoi; it is très comme il faut to sprinkle a few French words and phrases in speech.” It was true. As much as the English loathed the French in person, they had no hesitation in adopting their culture, language, taste in wine, and style in clothes and millinery. “T’wouldn’t take long.”

  “Where would I take them to learn?”

  “I happen to know a young lady who gives French and embroidery lessons. I’d be delighted to take the girls myself; an honorary aunt, so to speak, and to introduce them to polite society eventual
ly. But right now you need to make sure they will not embarrass themselves even should they meet an earl or a marquess. I have an hour to spare right now; I could take the girls to meet the tutor and see if they suit.”

  Martha was ludicrously grateful and produced the young girls in a trice, rallied from their aimless habits of playing with dolls and reading novels. Once Gillies had been summoned, Emmeline and her maid and the two girls—Charlotte, twelve, and Nancy, ten—were on their way.

  Cheapside to Clerkenwell was not so long a drive. Charlotte and Nancy were not ill-looking, though doughy and unformed as any girl that age of whom nothing has ever been expected but quietness. However, the eldest had a sharpish look in her eyes that unnerved Emmeline. She suspected it was because she had seen much the same expression in the mirror when she was about that age and she had been a troublesome sort, especially after her mother died. “What would you like to learn, girls?”

  Charlotte, blonde and plump like her mother, eyed Emmeline. “Cricket,” she said.

  “Your brother can teach you. What do you wish to learn from a tutor? French, perhaps? Fancy embroidery?”

  Charlotte curled her lip and the younger girl copied her. “My brother won’t teach me cricket. Says it’s for boys only. Tells me to go back to my dolls.”

  That had been familiar treatment from Emmeline’s older brothers. Thomas, though, three years her junior, had been a willing playmate, too young to know that girls were beneath his notice.

  “I will teach you cricket myself, next summer.”

  “Adults lie all the time. Papa is always saying he will take me to his office and he never does. How do I know you will keep your word?”

  Gillies snorted, hiding a laugh and making it into a cough.

  “You don’t.” Emmeline and Charlotte exchanged steely glances, taking each others’ measure. In a battle of wills, the child looked to be a worthy opponent. Fortunately, shortly after passing St. Barts, the hospital where Sir Henry’s body had been taken, they arrived in Clerkenwell. The day was frosty and a chill breeze blew, but Emmeline let down the window to eye the neighborhood. Her last visit, in the dark and hasty, had not garnered her much information.

  The road was clogged with drays and lorries, handbarrows trundling the edge, costers with their boxes of apples and cabbages on the walk, and shoppers dodging among them all. She surveyed the scene as they turned onto Samuel Street and spied a familiar figure. “Gillies, is that Tommy?”

  Her maid started forward and peered out the window between passing carriages and carts. “Aye, it is!” she said. “The lad has taken up street sweeping. Better than nothing, I suppose, since he was let go from Brackenthorpes’ chandlery.”

  Emmeline knew how fiercely Gillies cared for the child. The maid’s own loss made little boys precious to her motherly soul. Emmeline knocked on the roof of the carriage and Josephs slowed and came to a halt. “Go talk to him, Gillies, make sure he’s all right.” She took out her pocket and found some coins. “Give him this,” she said, thrusting the money into her maid’s hand. “We’ll be at the Hargreaves’s rooms; you know where that is.”

  Gillies gave her a grateful look and hurried from the carriage, darting between pedestrians and handcarts to catch up with the lad. The carriage jolted into movement again.

  “You don’t treat her proper,” Charlotte said with a condemnatory tone. “She’s your maid, not your friend.”

  “You’re very rude. You should not correct the behavior of your elders. I’m surprised your mother has not taught you better than that.”

  Nancy snickered, hiding her mouth, then yelped in discomfort when her older sister gave her a hard pinch. Charlotte then scowled and sat back against the bumpers with a sullen look as Nancy bit her lip and watched her sister warily.

  The carriage stopped, rocking as Josephs jumped down, put down the step, and opened the door. “We’re at the ’Argreaves’, miss,” he said, his expression impassive.

  “Thank you, Josephs.”

  “I’ll knock.”

  Emmeline and the two girls remained in the carriage until a young maid opened the door next to the haberdashery shop. Josephs then handed her and the two children down out of the carriage and walked with them to the door, where the maid, a scared-looking child not much older than Charlotte, let them in and locked the door behind them.

  “What is your name?” Emmeline asked.

  “F-fanny, m-miss.” The girl curtseyed awkwardly.

  “Why did you lock the door?”

  “Miss ’Argreaves’ orders, miss; there were an ’orrible murder in the lane behind ’ere, y’know!”

  Charlotte jumped in excitement. “A murder? I want to see the spot!”

  Emmeline gave her a stern look. “If you will guide us up to Miss Hargreaves, please, Fanny.”

  The child led them up narrow stairs that opened to a sitting room fitted with worn but once-respectable furnishings set in a conversational arrangement on a worn, burgundy-colored Turkey rug with an ornate pattern. A young woman stood by a folio table stacked with books, pretending to be reading a tome in her hands. Emmeline felt that she had posed herself so, with the book and in the harsh light that came through the front window overlooking the street, to appear more scholarly, or interesting.

  “Miss Hargreaves, I am Miss Emmeline St. Germaine. This is Miss Charlotte and Miss Nancy Adair, daughters of a very good friend of mine.”

  Aloisia Hargreaves was tall, for a woman, and slim, in a plain blue gown of good fabric embellished with dark gold ribbon and a row of oyster buttons. Her dark hair was sensibly dressed, but the taut, nervous expression on her face was familiar to Emmeline. This was a woman on the edge; of what, she wasn’t sure, but on the edge.

  She shook each one of their hands with a grave nod, then asked them to sit down. “Would you like tea?”

  “Do you have cake?” Charlotte asked.

  Emmeline stifled her first reaction, which was to swat the child. “Never mind cake, Charlotte, you are here to learn. No tea, thank you.” Tea being so expensive, she had no doubt the tutor would forfeit her own tea for two days to serve her guests and possible students. The Adair girls would likely never be her pupils, so Emmeline would not have the young lady waste good tea on these children. “Miss Hargreaves, my maid, Gillies, saw an example of your embroidery in your brother’s shop when she was purchasing thread to mend one of my gowns. She said it was lovely work, and that you would be willing to tutor girls in the art.”

  “French, also, Miss St. Germaine,” the young woman said, her back stiff and her hands folded on her lap, though two fingers plucked at a stray thread, worrying it into fraying.

  “First things first, I always say; I would like to see an example of your teaching methods. Could you set these girls a task at embroidery while you and I chat?”

  Miss Hargreaves rose and guided Charlotte and Nancy over to the folio table, where two chairs were drawn up. She set a work basket between them and took out some simple embroidery samples, as well as silk and needles. She murmured instructions and showed them what to copy, then returned to Emmeline. They spoke of frequency and cost of lessons, but the appearance of Fanny with a pitcher of cordial and glasses allowed Emmeline to approach the real topic of her visit.

  As the tutor poured the cordial into tiny glasses, Emmeline leaned toward her and muttered, “My maid spoke of something I must ask about; your maid spoke of it too, when she was explaining locking the door downstairs. I understand there was a murder close by.”

  The young woman spilled a drop of cordial, but she put the pitcher down carefully and composed herself. “It is an unpleasant fact, but yes. Quite unlike this area. We are in a very nice part of Clerkenwell, you know. Quiet. Safe.”

  “And yet there was a brutal murder, if the scandal papers are to be believed, in the alley behind your rooms. Perhaps directly below your bedchamber!”

&n
bsp; Miss Hargreaves glanced over at the girls, who were busy stitching. “It has nothing to do with us.”

  “But there’s a murderer wandering loose!” Emmeline pressed, noting the tutor’s discomfort. “You must feel unsafe. I understand there was unpleasantness between you and the victim, Sir Henry, and I don’t suppose you mourn the man’s death, but you must condemn the manner.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Your brother mentioned to my maid that Sir Henry had insulted you outside … er … the back convenience,” Emmeline whispered, watching the young woman’s face.

  Aloisia stiffened. “It was the merest trifle, not worth mentioning. My brother should not have said anything to a stranger.”

  There was something that made Aloisia Hargreaves uncomfortable, something beyond being insulted by the knight. Perhaps it had not occurred as she’d told her brother, or not at all.

  “Still, you must have heard something that night, when he was killed.” Emmeline swallowed past a lump in her throat; had the young woman been looking out her bedroom window at the right time, she would have seen Emmeline creeping down the back alley and into the Claybourne townhome. But from above and a distance, she would not be able to identify her.

  Miss Hargreaves shook her head. “About the girls—”

  “We haven’t decided if you will be their tutor,” Emmeline said, injecting a cold note in her voice. “I’m not the girls’ mother, and unless I can reassure her as to the safety of this neighborhood …” She stopped and waited.

  Charlotte chose that moment to call Miss Hargreaves over; she had a knot in her silk. Emmeline watched how the young woman dealt with the child. She was not a natural teacher, but she was doing the best she could. Her circumstances must be straitened, though Emmeline knew nothing of her life beyond that she lived with her brother.