A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Mrs. Young reached out and touched her arm, and Lady Claybourne nodded. That was their account, and Aloisia was going to stick by it. Wilkins and LaLoux, whether they had killed Sir Henry or not, would be accused and go to trial. Emmeline was virtually certain that the two men did kill Ratter. If she turned these women in, she’d never be sure which of them had done the deed and she didn’t trust the authorities to get it right. And she’d have to explain how she knew who did it, to confess to being the Avengeress. Her family would disown her, her work would be done, her life as she knew it would be over. And all for two men who most certainly were murderers and abusers of children.

  Her head ached with the quandary. How could it be right to let a murderer go free? The women had planned it together; did it matter which of them struck the blow? Weren’t both guilty? Was murder ever justified?

  However … Sir Henry was dead and would never ruin another child’s life.

  Sometimes the easiest thing to do was nothing. With the power of the press, Emmeline, as the Rogue, would make sure the Maidenhead Canal Company was disbanded and the public warned of their disgusting business trading in little girls. And somehow she’d make sure her uncle never fiddled with another child.

  “I’ll be going now,” she said. These women had no reason to fear her. They knew far too much about her. If she told on them, they’d tell on her, so her silence was also self-preservation. She slipped away, following the whitewashed passage to the back courtyard and exiting into the shadowy night.

  Twenty-Nine

  Emmeline hustled out the back door of 73 Blithestone, through the courtyard into the back alley, and straight into Woodforde’s arms. “Emmeline!” he shouted, relief in his voice.

  “Hush,” she said, grabbing him by the arm and tugging him down the alley toward the arched entrance. “What are you doing here?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said.

  Josephs, denuded of his Guy mask and illuminated by the lanthorn he held up, was relieved. “Thank ’eavens, miss. I was that afraid when you weren’t where you said you’d be! Are you done?”

  “I believe I have the information I sought.” And much more.

  “What about that lady you was wanting to warn?”

  “She needs no warning from me.” Emmeline strode swiftly to the brick arch and through it, with Woodforde on her heel.

  “I’ll go get th’carriage.”

  “You do that.”

  “You go, Josephs, but I’ll take Miss St. Germaine home in my curricle.”

  Emmeline pulled her heavy cloak about her and glared up at Woodforde. “You will do no such thing. Josephs will take me home. If you want an explanation of what happened tonight, then you will follow.”

  He blinked, his dark eyes shadowed. “Emmeline, I’m not the enemy.”

  “I do not wish to freeze in your curricle. I’m making a completely reasonable request. How is that treating you like an enemy?”

  “Why must you be so hard-headed?” he asked.

  “I’m in no mood for banter, Woodforde. Follow us home if you wish. Otherwise … I’ll see you.” She turned and trudged out of the alley, and followed Josephs the two streets to the livery, slipping along in the shadows, avoiding the last flickering flames of the bonfires now burning low, not looking back all the way to the carriage.

  Home was within sight, at last. Emmeline felt like she had aged twenty years in the last hour. In the darkness of the carriage, she began regretting how brisk she had been with Woodforde, who was, after all, only concerned for her well being. Surely she owed him consideration for that?

  Owed. Why did she owe him consideration for his feelings of concern for her? What did a woman owe a man who was merely following his own wishes in placing the burden on her of his feelings of worry and anxiety? It seemed her whole life she had been giving deference to men, feeling the burden of their wishes for her, their worry for her, their plans … for her. Their plans. For her.

  All while they went blithely on their way and did what they wanted, planning the lives of the girls and women around them. Maybe it was so the world over, she didn’t know. But she wanted self determination, the right to make her own decisions—faulty or not—and plan for her own future without the necessity of attaching herself to some man.

  Some argued that women by nature were weak and frivolous, blown about by emotion, enslaved by passion and pettiness. It seemed to her that men blamed women for their own faults, for she had seen many who appeared to be slave to their weaknesses, her brothers among them. Leopold sulked like a toddler if denied his way. Samuel was better, but he did fidget about petty things that he could not control. And Thomas … her younger brother’s entire life was devoted to indulging his passions and vices. He could not control his desire for drink, and gambling, and women.

  But those were thoughts for another day. Right now she had to determine what to do about her uncle. She had rescued Lindy—her rightful name now restored to her—from his predation, but it was only a matter of time before he sought another. She planned to use her Rogue column to destroy the company, but she had no illusion the well-connected men would suffer any kind of punishment. What was to stop them from continuing their despicable habits on their own?

  She was surprised to find, when Josephs pulled the carriage up to the door, that her townhome was ablaze with lights. Birk hurried down the steps to her, his usually calm expression twisted in panic.

  “Miss St. Germaine, your uncle—”

  “What’s wrong?” She clambered down from the carriage and headed to the door.

  “Sir Jacob is inside. He’s not himself.”

  “What do you mean, not himself?”

  “He’s reclining in the sitting room.”

  That absurd statement was followed by silence, and Birk’s face reddened to a sickly orange by the yellow glow of the lantern hung by the door.

  “Is Madame Bernadotte with him?” Emmeline swept into the house, Birk bobbing along behind.

  “No, miss. I sent up word he had arrived but she … she declined to descend.”

  Gillies was in the hall and took her cloak. “He’s in a right tear, miss,” she muttered. “Your uncle was visited by the magistrate’s men this afternoon after anonymous word was sent to them about abuse happening in his home to little girls. He came here blusterin’ on about it. I think he believes you done it. Birk dithered, Madame Bernadotte said there was no way in hell she was coomin’ down to see him, an’ Sir Jacob fainted. Birk an’ me got him up on the settee, and nouw he’s revived a mite and roarin’ for brandy.”

  Emmeline stiffened her spine, raised her head, took a deep breath, and sailed into the sitting room.

  Her uncle, his face red, struggled to sit up. “There she ish, my little troublemaker neesh,” he said, his voice slurred.

  “Uncle, you’re drunk! Why have you come here?”

  “Wanna get shomething shtraight. You’re … you can’t go ’round telling people I—” He stopped, looking confused. His mouth was droopy and his eyes unfocused. “I can’t shee you. Whatsh …” He shook his head and tried to stand, but dropped back down on the upholstered settee. It shifted from his sudden collapse.

  Gillies, behind Emmeline, said, “I didnae smell alcohol on his breath, miss, when he fairst arrived.”

  “Uncle Jacob, are you all right?” She stood staring, unsure.

  “Dr. Woodforde, miss,” Birk announced, back in control.

  “Emmie … uh, Miss St. Germaine, may I—” Woodforde stopped in the doorway, hat in hand, staring at Sir Jacob. “Sir, are you all right?” he asked.

  “I c-can’t shee!”

  “Birk, help me,” Woodforde said, tossing his hat aside. “He needs to lie down.”

  Sir Jacob was combative and his eyes started out of the sockets, the left side of his face drooping, an alarming sight. He flailed at the
m, but they got him down and he stayed, finally, reclining, and drifted into unconsciousness.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Emmeline asked.

  “He’s having an apoplectic fit,” Woodforde said, kneeling beside the man and pushing one eyelid open, examining his eye.

  “Is he … is he dying?” Her voice trembled and echoed in the hushed chill room.

  “I don’t know.” He grabbed Sir Jacob’s wrist, feeling for his pulse.

  “Will he recover?”

  “I don’t know that, either,” the doctor said over his shoulder.

  “What do you know?” Emmeline, exasperated, blurted out.

  Gillies laid a staying hand on her arm. “Miss, the good doctor isn’t God. No one knows the fate of a man but his Savior.”

  “He won’t have a savior,” Emmeline said bitterly, staring down at her uncle.

  Woodforde stood. “He must be carried to a bed and someone needs to sit with him. I’ll do what I can, but I can’t make promises.”

  “He’s not staying here,” Emmeline said.

  Woodforde stared at her, silent for a long moment in the chill dimness of the sitting room. “You’ll not give your uncle a place to recuperate?”

  “He’s not staying here,” she repeated, looking directly into the doctor’s eyes. All her life she had been taught that a lady was complaisant, made no waves, was agreeable and sweet and gentle. But something had shifted in her heart and mind; she was done with being complaisant, letting the gentlemen have it all their own way. “Think what you will, but I have my reasons. He goes.” She would not subject Fidelity to his presence. Sir Jacob Pauling had chosen his path and he must walk it alone, whether it led to the grave or to recovery.

  She ordered Josephs and Birk to carry her uncle back out to his carriage, and told his driver to take him home; there was no place for him there. Woodforde coolly took his leave, saying he would follow the judge’s carriage and make sure he was settled properly in his home. There he could assess if there was any medical intervention that would hasten recovery, if that was to be his fate. At the very least he would summon Sir Jacob’s physician.

  She knew Woodforde was appalled by her behavior, but he didn’t know enough to understand, and even then … maybe he would not have agreed with her. But she chose to stand with her uncle’s victim.

  Emmeline wearily climbed the stairs and found Fidelity shuddering and weeping in her room, Arbor trying to comfort her but not having much effect. She sent the maid away to fetch tea and spent the rest of the night with her companion. Fidelity had finally utterly broken down, memories flooding back, and the full realization of what had been done to her so many years before, memories she had suppressed, made her weak and feverish.

  She told Emmeline about years of secret meetings, in the long-abandoned nursery at Malincourt, during holiday gatherings. It had started with whispered conversations, teasing, hugs, then kisses, then more intimate fondling. Every time she felt frightened—and that was often, especially at first, before she had become numb to the indecency of his behavior—he gave her gifts, wheedled his way into her heart. She knew it was wrong, but eventually she decided she must love him. It was worth enduring for that. She even thought they’d marry, but they never did, and his attentions stopped when she reached sixteen or so. She went to France to visit relatives, then met and married Jean Marc.

  “Was he truly good to you, your husband?” Emmeline asked.

  Fidelity nodded through tears. “He knew everything,” she said. “I told him all, and it was a great comfort, the greatest of my life.” When she’d returned to England after her husband’s murder, she had thought that Sir Jacob, still unmarried, would offer for her then. She would have married him. Despite feeling that what he had done to her when she was young was wrong, she still thought he loved her. But he told her, in confidence, that he could never marry because he had been ill. His ability to have a proper marriage was lost to him, he said. She was happy to be his friend, given the circumstances.

  Finding that all these years he had been abusing little girls, many even younger than she had been at their first encounter, had been a devastating blow to Fidelity. It was almost a twisted kind of jealousy, she confessed to Emmeline, but she was starting to realize that was a result of the sickness he had planted in her mind from such a young age. The truth was that he would never have married her. If he loved her at all, he loved his vice far more, and he wanted no woman in his household who would stop his predation on little girls.

  November 6th, 1810, Morning Edition of The Prattler

  From the Editor

  It has come to our attention that there exists among our nation’s jurists a cabal of men for whom children are mere playthings to satisfy their most lascivious impulses. It starts at the Pentonville Home for Unfortunate Children, where little girls are sold to the highest bidder like prime horseflesh. The little girl is taken to a home where she should have the expectation of safety and security, and then abused in a disgraceful and despicable manner.

  All you men of good conscience; be aware that the orphanage and the group of men who invested in the Maidenhead Canal Company—which acted as a cover for the most despicable and outrageous of schemes to assault little children who were guilty of no crime but to be parentless—must be routed out and exposed. We have a list of the investors, but until we can be sure that all the names on the list knew full well what the company in which they invested traded for lucre, we will not publish.

  We call on the magistrates of this fine nation to get to the bottom of this disgrace. We know that one man, at least, invested in the company without knowing the real purpose behind it. He (who shall remain unnamed) has taken steps to aid in the dispersal of the children of that horrible orphanage to places of safety. God bless him and men like him, and protect the little children.

  Thirty

  Two days later, Emmeline sat in Lady Adelaide Sherringdon’s sitting room awaiting the other Crones. The lady of the house joined her, followed by Hugo the pug and the black Tom. She sat down by Emmeline and took her hand. “I’m so horribly upset to hear about poor Fidelity. All this time, and you never had a hint?”

  Emmeline shook her head. “It was ‘their little secret,’ as Fidelity says. Over the years, though she began to understand how wrong my uncle had been to behave so toward her, she always thought it was because he was young and unformed, and that, as he told her, it was because she was so alluring he could not resist.”

  “That it was her fault, in other words,” Lady Sherringdon said. “It is the province of the coward, male or female, to place the blame for their behavior on others.”

  “She would never have remained silent if she had known he was still at it.”

  The others arrived: Lady Clara, looking pale but composed; Dorcas Harvey, appearing happier than usual; Miss Juliette Espanson, looking as usual. Mrs. Martha Adair was the last to arrive and bustled in, a frown on her usually placid face.

  Emmeline told them all she knew. Or almost all; Fidelity’s past was her own secret to tell or not to tell, though Lady Sherringdon had been an exception. “So my uncle was at the heart of the dreadful company that sold little girls like chattel, to be used and discarded. The Prattler has exposed the name of the company. The crime that started us on this quest, the murder of Sir Henry Claybourne, has been solved. Three men involved, as Sir Henry was, had been summoned by him to his home, as he thought they were responsible for my arrival to rescue Molly.”

  She hesitated; should she tell them the truth? Yet there was no point in making Martha feel bad for how she was used and spied upon by Sally, and for how Emmeline was almost trapped as a murderess as a result. So she told them some truth, about Sir Henry’s summoning of Ratter, Wilkins, and LaLoux. “The two have been arrested and charged with Ratter’s murder. Miss Aloisia Hargreaves has named Wilkins and LaLoux, my uncle’s valet, as the two men she saw arguing with
Sir Henry before he was killed; it is suspected that they killed Sir Henry. The Crones have been vindicated. The Avengeress is safe.”

  It was a chilly November day, and with a gloomy sky overhanging Chelsea, the townhome appeared sullen. The townhomes on either side had seasonal tenants, and most folks had returned to their country homes for the hunting and Christmas seasons. Josephs helped her down, and Birk opened the door for her. She entered, wondering if she’d ever feel the same again, ever feel like she knew the people she saw every day. Her own family had held such deep secrets, things she never would have expected. What else was hidden from her view?

  Fidelity was calmer than she had been, and, Gillies told her, finally sleeping after drinking a tisane of feverfew and valerian made by Cook. Emmeline retired to her room and wrote letters and a new Rogue article following up on the Maidenhead Scandal, as it was now being called in some of the political papers. Her uncle, a Whig, was being called out by Tories as an evil man preying on the helpless; they demanded he surrender his judgeship, given the investment he had in a company that had done such evil.

  It was noted in the society pages that Lord and Lady Quisenberry had suddenly departed London for Italy, as his health was failing. Somehow, conveniently, his name had been absent from the list of Maidenhead investors that The Prattler had subsequently decided to publish. What that meant, Emmeline thought, was that he had made a deal to give up his own judgeship and then fled the country. She didn’t know what was happening to Mr. Fulmer and the others mentioned, but there was a general outcry about the whole affair, though it was muted by news about preparations for Princess Amelia’s funeral.