A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Emmeline fought, but her assailant was strong and pulled her all the way along the familiar whitewashed passage to the warmth of the Claybourne kitchen. Once there, her mask was pulled off and flung aside.

  “You’re trouble, aren’t you?” It was Mrs. Young, the Claybourne housekeeper. “Why are you here? And why you been sneakin’ around pretendin’ to be some poor paid companion? An’ now, with that Guy mask on, skulkin’ in the back alley like a thief?”

  “I’m not a thief!” Emmeline said, struggling to get out of her grasp. “I’m the woman who rescued little Molly from your master.”

  Mrs. Young’s cold gaze bored into her. “An’ killed ’im, I warrant?”

  “Of course not, and you know that better than anyone. You saw me leave, and I most certainly did not come back. Who took the silver that was missing that night? It wasn’t Molly, and it wasn’t me.” The housekeeper’s bony fingers were digging into her shoulders all the more as she tried to pull away. “That leaves you and the cook. Is that why you arranged for the rescue that night? So you’d have someone to blame when the silver went missing?”

  A gasp from the other end of the room made Emmeline twist around, still in the housekeeper’s powerful grasp.

  The cook, standing by the fire, hands clasped against her bosom, stared at them both. “You said as how she must’ve come back and stole it,” the woman said to the housekeeper. “If she didn’t, who did?”

  Emmeline finally pulled out of Mrs. Young’s grasp and straightened her dress. “She lied to you.” The cook stared, but said nothing. “Do you know that she was a scullery maid once, a long time ago, working for Sir Henry’s family?”

  The cook lurched forward. “Here, now … how do you know that?”

  The housekeeper had edged around Emmeline and stood between her and the passageway to the back door; escape in that direction was improbable. She hoped Josephs would figure she may have gone down the alley. She eyed the two women. The cook didn’t seem dangerous, but the housekeeper had a fearsome look to her. And here she had thought wandering down the alley was safer than waiting for Josephs on Chandler Lane!

  “I know a lot of things,” she replied to the cook. She recalled something that moment; she remembered the complaint the cook had made about her best knife being stolen that night. Her stomach quivered. She’d wager that the same knife had been tossed into the privy and retrieved by the night soil men two days later. The cook wouldn’t do that, or if she had, she wouldn’t complain about the missing knife. She eyed the housekeeper; that was a woman who could wield a knife with purpose.

  “Why did you come ’ere as that old biddy’s companion?” the housekeeper asked, her voice raspy with agitation. “I recognized you right away, you know; set of your chin and the color of your hair.”

  The woman had sharp eyes, Emmeline realized. “I don’t like being implicated in murder and I wanted to know who did it,” she said.

  “What has that got t’do with us?” the cook asked.

  “Nothing, I suppose … or at least nothing now. It appears that thanks to a witness, the authorities have identified the men who did it.”

  “Unless they can pin it on someone else,” Mrs. Young said darkly, folding her arms across her flat bosom.

  “What is going on here?”

  Emmeline turned. Mrs. Claybourne stood in the passage doorway with a young woman at her shoulder.

  “What is she doing here?” the young woman said, stepping around Lady Claybourne. It was Aloisia Hargreaves.

  Stranger and stranger.

  “Alice, this doesn’t concern you,” the housekeeper said. “Why did you two come to the kitchen? You should have stayed away.”

  Alice?

  “I would have,” Lady Claybourne said. “But this one”—she indicated Aloisia—“must march down here when she heard voices.”

  “Alice, go home!” the housekeeper commanded.

  Emmeline slowly eyed each woman, trying to untangle the strands of connection in her mind.

  “Go back the way you came, Alice,” the housekeeper repeated.

  “I won’t,” Miss Hargreaves said with a sulky expression. “I want to know; what is she doing here?”

  “She crept up to the back door in a Guy mask, lookin’ to cause trouble.”

  “I thought she was that old biddy Miss Honeychurch’s companion, but I assume that’s not so,” Lady Claybourne said. “Who is she really?”

  “I told you she weren’t no companion!” Mrs. Young said.

  “So she’s the one who rescued poor little Molly, right?” The cook spoke up, looking as confused as Emmeline felt.

  Mrs. Young and Lady Claybourne exchanged a look. A thrill of unease crept down Emmeline’s spine. This felt like play-acting, like they were putting on a show, all for her.

  “No, she’s Miss Emmeline St. Germaine,” Aloisia Hargreaves said. “She brought two children to me to ask about French and embroidery lessons.”

  “She can’t be everything: the companion, the rescuer, and someone who brought children for embroidery lessons,” Lady Claybourne said, glaring at Emmeline. “So who are you?”

  Emmeline examined the housekeeper again, a woman with strong shoulders and big hands. Had Mrs. Young dealt the fatal blow to the tormentor of her youth, slicing his vocal chords and then stabbing him to death? “Which of you called me in to rescue Molly?” she asked.

  “T’was about Sally at first, but then she found another job, didn’t she?” the cook said, eying the other women.

  “Shut up,” Mrs. Young growled.

  “No, let her speak,” Emmeline said. “Sally found another job but she kept in contact, didn’t she Lady Claybourne?”

  The woman’s chin went up, but she didn’t answer.

  “And Sally brought you information that led you to believe the infamous Avengeress was a part of a group, one who rescued abused scullery maids; isn’t that true?” Emmeline said.

  Cook, still with a puzzled look on her round face, continued: “Aye, that’s true. Sybil ’eard from Biddy of women as would take a little girl outta a place like this, where she was bein’ abused. I told Mrs. Young.”

  “And then what?”

  “What does any of this matter?” Lady Claybourne said, stepping into the kitchen toward Emmeline. There was a hint of menace in her tone.

  Emmeline had her confirmation, or enough of it, anyway. She knew that Sally had brought them more complete information, and this lot decided to use her to rescue Molly. She knew the reason why, too, beyond saving the girl from Sir Henry. “So how did the newspapers learn about my rescue of the child?” she asked the housekeeper, ignoring the widow.

  “What else were we gonna say when the magistrate came asking questions?” the housekeeper asked. “T’were true enough.”

  “And the timing … so convenient to blame me for his death, correct? There were already folks up in arms about me, about my missions. I made a rather convenient scapegoat. When you told them the tale of Molly and the masked woman, you implied that I was the one who killed him?”

  “We never said you did it, but Mrs. Young and Cook gave the sequence of events,” Lady Claybourne said.

  “Alice, Benny will wonder where you are. You should go while we figure out what to do.”

  The most puzzling aspect of this distinctly odd event was the housekeeper’s familiarity with Miss Hargreaves, so much so that she felt comfortable ordering her around.

  “Benjamin is out gallivanting with his friends,” Miss Hargreaves said sourly. “As men do. He’s off drinking and carousing at a bonfire while I’m expected to stay up in my room reading or sewing.”

  “He’s a man; that’s how things be!” the housekeeper said.

  “It’s not fair!” Aloisia/Alice complained.

  That was the moment Emmeline realized what the exchange reminded her of: mothe
r and child. “You’re Mrs. Young’s daughter!” she said to Miss Hargreaves, who stared at her without acknowledging or denying the charge. The tangled web of connections was starting to show a pattern. She let her gaze drift across the women in the kitchen, three of whom, at least, likely conspired to kill Sir Henry Claybourne. The cook still appeared mystified.

  “Yes, I’m her daughter and Benjamin is her son. So what?”

  “Alice, shut up!” Mrs. Young said.

  “All of you shut up!” Lady Claybourne said. “You’re making my head ache. Now, what do we do with her?”

  A jolt of awareness thudded under Emmeline’s ribs; she must not make the mistake of thinking because these were women that she was in no danger. If they truly had conspired to kill Sir Henry, then she was a threat to them. But … she was not a nameless nobody that they could dispose of her. “What happened?” she asked, as she tried to figure out what to do next. “That night, I mean … what happened?”

  “Don’t say anything,” Lady Claybourne warned the others.

  “Then I’ll tell you,” Emmeline said. “You—all of you, or some of you—used information brought back to you by Sally about the group of women who rescue children. You figured out somehow that the Avengeress was a part of the group; either that or you didn’t really care as long as one of us came and ‘rescued’ Molly in a dramatic fashion from the loathsome Sir Henry. I know what he has always been like, and I know that you,” she said, turning to look at Mrs. Young, “were among his first victims, as a little girl in his family’s household.”

  The woman was silent, but her daughter turned to look at her, mouth agape, pity and sudden understanding glowing in her eyes.

  “When it was discovered that you were in a family way at the tender age of thirteen or fourteen, you were banished from the house without a character. After your baby died, you did the only thing a girl in your position could do,” Emmeline continued softly. “Women have few choices in this life, but we have our own body. It is one of the few things we retain ownership of, though even that ends once we are wed. Selling it over and over again is sometimes a woman’s only choice if she wants to live. It’s either that or starve.”

  “That’s why you left Benny and me with that family,” Alice said, staring at Mrs. Young. “And why we never were allowed to visit you. You were … you …” She shook her head.

  Lady Claybourne moved impatiently. “This is getting us nowhere.”

  “You found a way to leave that all behind and went back into service. Finally, you came here to work.” Emmeline turned away from the housekeeper toward the lady of the house. “Did you know who she was immediately?” Even as she spoke, she was assessing; would they let her walk away? Killing Sir Henry—she didn’t know which of them did it but suspected Mrs. Young, given her strength and the hatred she must have felt toward him—had likely been easier than killing Emmeline would be. At least she hoped that was so. “Did you know?”

  “When she came to apply for the position, she soon saw there was no need to dissemble and told me all.”

  The bitterness in the woman’s gaze was sharp and dark. Perhaps she had underestimated Lady Claybourne, thinking her soft because she was well-raised and older. Emmeline’s certainty about the actual killer wavered. She turned to look at Aloisia. “What did you truly see? I know they were here, Mr. Wilkins and Pierre LaLoux, and I know they argued with Sir Henry. I have independent witnesses,” she said, thinking of Arnie and what he had overheard. “But who told the magistrate who they were?” She was treading dangerous ground, poking and prodding where it might spark trouble, but instead of things getting clearer she was becoming more and more confused, a state she could not tolerate. “Miss Hargreaves, tell me the truth,” she said, softly.

  The young woman’s gaze flicked between Mrs. Young and Lady Claybourne. “I—”

  “You don’t need to say a word, Alice,” her mother said.

  “She’s right,” Emmeline said, scanning the four women. The cook had retreated to her corner and sat in her chair by the hearth, watching with wary eyes. Of them all, she was perhaps left out of the plot, except as the one who unwittingly passed on information used to find a ready-made culprit upon whom to place the blame for Sir Henry’s murder. “But you forget that I saw what that … that despicable creature was trying to do to Molly, and I know he’d done it many, many … perhaps countless times before. It never would have ended.” Her voice was guttural with unfeigned loathing. “I don’t mourn his death, not even the manner of it.”

  “If someone had told the magistrate, brought a case against him—” Aloisia said, weakly, glancing among Lady Claybourne, her mother, and Emmeline.

  “Nothing would have happened,” her mother said.

  “She’s right.” Lady Claybourne’s voice was throaty with emotion. “A poor family in his village tried charging him after he assaulted their daughter, who worked in their home. I heard all about it after we were wed. Henry’s family hushed it up and the poor father lost his job. He was found dead.”

  “Dead?” Emmeline gasped.

  “Oh, Henry didn’t murder him, if that’s what you think,” Lady Claybourne said with a grim smile. “A villager told me the poor soul drank himself unconscious and was found face down in a water-filled ditch on his way home from the tavern. His family left the village after that.”

  Emmeline was appalled but not surprised. Aloisia’s face was a mask of shock and bewilderment.

  “That’s why he chose orphans, most of the time,” Mrs. Young said, her voice devoid of feeling. “No mother, no father to stand up for them. If someone had taken an interest …” She shook her head. “But the end would have been the same. The man let off and the little girl cast out on the street, with nowhere to go.”

  Her words reverberated in the cavernous kitchen. It was a grim indictment of how little worth their country placed on the lives of its poorest and most defenseless children. They were commodities. “Little better than unwanted kittens to drown,” Emmeline said.

  “It’s true,” Cook whispered. It was the first time she had spoken for some time, from her corner by the hearth.

  They all turned to look at her.

  “It happened to me, too, in the big ’ouse where I first worked. An’ there weren’t nothing no one would do. I told the mistress what her son ’ad done, an’ she sent me off. But I were lucky; at least I ’ad somewhere to go. I ’ad a mother. She told me to forget it ever happened and found me another position.” Tears rolled down the cook’s round cheeks. “Those who got no one … there ain’t a single person to ’elp.”

  For a moment the women in the cavernous kitchen were sisters.

  “I loved a boy once,” Lady Claybourne said. “A farmer. But my father broke off our affair and made me marry Henry. I was just a butcher’s daughter, you see, albeit a butcher who had climbed in the world some. Henry’s family had influence but little money. My father had money but little influence. So I was my father’s stepping stone to the life he wanted, one of respect and position. By the time Miss Honey­church warned me, it was too late … not that I believed her then. I would have been ruined if I’d broken off the engagement. I didn’t have the courage.” She looked at Mrs. Young and touched her shoulder; it was a gentle gesture, at odds with the topic of brutality, abuse, and the murder of a man who had hurt so many.

  It was a familiar tale, and still continuing, Emmeline thought, thinking of Juliette Espanson, Lady Clara, and Miss Gottschalk. But this was getting them nowhere. She had become reasonably sure they’d let her go, but she needed to know more. “Miss Hargreaves, I’m still wondering; what did you truly see that night?”

  The young lady shivered. “Weeks before that, the man—the man with the dog—delivered that little girl, Molly, to the back door as if she was a bottle of milk.” Tears welled in Aloisia’s eyes. “I was coming out of the convenience and heard a dog bark. I spied, saw that ma
n and Sir Henry, overheard them joking about the child. ‘Dunstable’s doing his work, I see. Pretty, this one. She suits my fancy!’ That’s what Sir Henry said as he petted her hair.” She glanced over at Lady Claybourne, whose face was rigid with anger. “The man asked how long Sir Henry would keep her. Sir Henry said the last two had run off, but he’d keep her, he said, until he was tired of her. Tired of her!”

  Cook wept softly, having retreated to her chair again by the hearth, her little corner of the world.

  “She looked so frightened,” Aloisia continued. “I came to Mother and Lady Claybourne, and they told me there was already a plan in place to rescue her. ‘What then?’ I asked. ‘What about the next little girl?’”

  “Alice, enough,” her mother said.

  “Let her talk,” Lady Claybourne said wearily. “Even though she said she wouldn’t.”

  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t ever!”

  Emmeline knew then that the ruby brooch Aloisia had received was a bribe … something to keep her quiet.

  “You told me not to worry about that,” she said to the older lady. “You said you had a plan to stop your husband. I didn’t know …” She shook her head, unable to say the word “murder.”

  “Nothing else would have stopped him,” Mrs. Young said, her tone flat.

  “How do you know?” Emmeline asked.

  “I know, because I did everything I could think of,” Lady Claybourne cried. “One more scullery maid and I would turn him in to the magistrate, I said. He laughed. If he went to jail I’d lose everything; my home, the money I came into the marriage with … everything. How is that right?”

  “So who killed Sir Henry?” Emmeline asked, glancing between Lady Claybourne, the butcher’s daughter, and the strong, strapping, and angry Mrs. Young.

  “Those two men who came to the door,” Aloisia said swiftly. “Unless you want it to be you?”

  Ah yes, the threat of disclosure.

  “It was the two men, one a Frenchman and one with a cane,” the young woman continued. “I saw them, and heard them argue, and then Sir Henry was dead. That’s what I’ve told the magistrate. I was afraid before and got Benny to say he saw them, but now they have them in custody because of the anonymous letter, I will gladly point them out as the men who killed Sir Henry.” She smiled. “I will sigh, and weep, and admit I was too afraid before to tell them, but that yes, they were the men I saw.” Her smile turned into a grimace. “And they’ll be punished.”