Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  Molloy picked up the purse and counted a number of coins into his hand. There was a chink as he set it back down. ‘I’ll send when I have news. Enjoy your healing, Mr Crowther. My best to you, Mrs W.’ He let himself out. Crowther looked at the purse he’d left behind him.

  ‘Good Lord, we might make an honest subject of him yet.’

  Harriet yawned. ‘I doubt it. He chinked the coins in his pocket, your purse he emptied. “A matter of principle”, I’m sure.’

  V.2

  THE GIRL WHO WAITED for him outside was not someone Francis would have chosen to be seen with in a public place. She was not more than twenty, but looked far older. Her eyes had the slightly lost stare of a gin drinker. She looked him up and down.

  ‘You the one asking about Penny?’

  ‘I am. Do you know something of use?’

  She tutted. ‘Nice manners on you! I was told there was a reward.’ She slurred her words a little.

  Francis thought of Eliza, her unfailing charity, and had the grace to feel a little ashamed. God alone knew there were enough Africans in London who had escaped from their memories with a gin bottle in their hand. ‘My apologies, miss. I am asking after Penny. I was a friend of her mistress, Mrs Smith who was murdered, and now I worry Penny might have been hurt too. Did you know her?’

  Her expression softened, and Francis caught a glimpse of the girl she might have been. ‘I did. I thought it wouldn’t take, her coming here. And when I saw her come out and get lifted into a carriage by some fellow, I was sorry. Thought, Oh it was all a play, after all; she’d just got some rich fella.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘Couple of nights past. He was sort of carrying her. Thought she was flustered. She never could take her drink.’

  ‘You did not speak to her?’

  The girl laughed, dark as tar. ‘I was entertaining a gentleman. Not really the moment for conversation with a old friend now, is it?’

  He could only look at the ground beneath his feet. ‘Did you recognise the man, or the driver? It was a carriage, you say.’

  ‘The driver I know. Miserable bastard named Hodges, works off the stand on Cornhill. The fella, thought I’d seen him looking for company round here from time to time. That was why I thought …’ She scratched the back of her neck.

  ‘Thank you, thank you indeed.’ Francis took her hand and shook it briefly before searching in his pockets for a coin or two. ‘If I need to speak to you again, where might I find you?’

  She seemed surprised, staring at her fingers for a second where he had touched them, then she waved his tribute away. ‘Find a place nearby that stinks of gin, lift the lid and holler for Mary-Anne. You’ll find me. And keep your coin, handsome. I’m drunk already.’ She turned away and headed off, unsteadily, in the direction of St Martin le Grand. Francis watched her go, then put the coins back in his pocket and set off for the stand on Cheapside.

  Molloy should have realised that having spent the last few hours fast asleep and snoring in the servants’ hall, his visit would be widely reported in the house. He had made it almost to the kitchen though before Lady Susan found him, threw her arms around his shoulders and kissed him hard on his unlovely cheek.

  ‘Mr Molloy! Oh, I haven’t seen you for an age! You weren’t going to sneak away without seeing me, were you?’ Her eyes were glimmering and large, her skin the delicate pink of some expensive cream in a shop window down Piccadilly.

  ‘I was. And I would have sneaked faster if I knew you were going to cover me in scent and rouge.’

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the library. ‘Don’t be silly. I don’t wear rouge or scent. I’m too young. Tell me how everyone is in Tichfield Street. I so long for news.’

  He looked down at her and spoke sharp. ‘Long for news, do you? Then go and visit. Your boy Graves still owns the shop there, doesn’t he? And if you wish to greet me, Lady Susan, a civil nod is enough. Fine thing it is for a man of my reputation to be handled like a lapdog by a member of the peerage. And what would people think of you? Have some sense.’

  Her face fell, all the life wiped out of it, and she looked as small as a beaten dog. ‘You’ve never called me Lady Susan before.’ Her lip trembled.

  ‘And that’s something to snivel over, is it?’ He produced a handkerchief and handed it to her – clean and hemmed by his own wife who, bless her, had learned long ago that tears made no miles with him. ‘I hear you’re at odds with young Graves. Time was, you offered me your mother’s own ring to keep him out of debtor’s prison. Why you so peevish with him now?’

  ‘He wants me to be a lady.’

  Molloy had never read a novel. He avoided them because he had always suspected they were full of foolish women with full bellies saying things of this sort. ‘You are a lady, you daft child. That’s not his fault, so you’d better learn how to act like one.’ He lifted his finger and narrowed his eyes. ‘Like not kissing men like me in front of your servants. Or kissing any man, for that matter – Graves and your brother excepted. You’re not a child. What are you thinking of?’

  ‘There was no one there.’ Her voice shook.

  ‘And would it have stopped you if there had been? Christ, give me patience. And no more crying, or I’ll forget my station enough to show you the back of my hand. Don’t think I won’t.’

  She managed to control herself and looked up at him carefully, as if perhaps she’d managed to crawl out of her own head for a second and look around. ‘You wouldn’t.’

  He folded his arms across his chest and studied her. So she had some sense yet. ‘No, like as not. Graves would have me in the stocks for it. What’s your gripe at a few dancing lessons and learning your manners? Want to disgrace your friends and sundry, do you?’

  She was still managing not to cry, but began twisting his handkerchief in her hands. ‘They are never going to let me do anything interesting, and then they shall force me to marry some monster with money and a title.’

  He whistled up at the ceilings. ‘What troubles you do have! Force? Your brain’s gone soft. Talk to me about force when Graves walks you to the altar with a knife at your throat, or locks you in a dungeon to starve. Force!’

  ‘Well, what am I to do?’

  ‘Lord above us, Sue. You’re in this house and you come hammering on me for guidance? I’ve eaten creatures with more sense. Come to an arrangement, girl. Tell Graves the “interesting things” you want to do and see what he says. Graves is a soft-hearted bloke, but he’s not a fool. He’ll negotiate. Now, if he’s telling you you need to know the rules before you go blundering about in the world, he’s right, and all your sniffing and maundering shan’t change it. For the rest show some sense and some backbone. You hear? And give me back my handkerchief.’

  She did, though reluctantly. ‘I hear. I miss Mother and Father. And Soho and the shop, Molloy.’

  He remembered her there. Full of mischief as a monkey and a hero with all the gutter urchins in the street for her jokes and mocks. ‘It’s only right you should miss them, sunbeam, but my bet is if you’d stayed in Soho you’d be itching to be out of it by now.’ She did not say anything but continued to look at the carpet under her silk slippers. ‘Will you think on?’

  ‘I will try.’

  ‘That’s a good brat. You’ve got a fine heart. Listen to it and stop picking fights where none need to be had.’ He put a hand on her arm and squeezed. She straightened her back, and squared her shoulders like a trooper. Then looked him in the eye. Better.

  ‘If Graves does lock me in a dungeon, will you break me out?’

  ‘More like I’ll throw one of my kids in there with you.’ She giggled and he at once scowled until his eyes became almost invisible under the brim of his hat.

  ‘Enough. I’ve got a duty to make some folks curse the day I was born, and another minute in this house will turn me soft as a milkmaid. Off with you, girl. And my best to boy Sussex.’

  Francis walked the length of Cheapside with his head down. He wou
ld find the cabman, then the fare, and then the reason why Eliza had been killed. The streets were dry and the rattle and crunch of iron wheels on the dirt seemed to push him on. He was hardly aware of the people around him, their various conditions and complaints filling the pavements, peering in at the shop windows, their hands in their pockets feeling at their purses for the measure of their worth. He passed the Mansion House and the Royal Exchange, the embodiment in stone of British Pride, and instead watched only for the cab-stand, the fine heavy horses and dull yellow carriages, the cabmen in their long blue coats.

  He stepped up to the man at the back of the line. ‘I’m looking for a driver named Hodges.’

  The driver yawned and peered up at the carriages in front of him. ‘Best hurry then, son. Looks like he’s got himself a fare.’

  Francis sprinted up to the carriage at the front of the stand. A gentleman in a long red coat with sleeves wide enough to hide a rabbit in was settling into his seat with a look of vague disgust. The driver was already clicking his horses into a walk.

  ‘Hold! Hold there! Are you Hodges?’ The driver turned and grunted at the name, but showed no sign of waiting. Francis put his hand to the horse’s bridle.

  ‘Get off out of it!’ the driver yelled, half-standing in his seat.

  ‘Just one moment, sir,’ Francis said, holding on tight. He could feel the horse’s breath on his neck, its confused thick animal smell bundled together with the scent of leather from its trappings and blinders. ‘A fare, on Sunday night. A man and a woman who seemed drunk from Paternoster Row. Who was he and where did you take them?’

  The man sitting in the cab leaned forward. ‘If you need to speak to the Negro, driver, I can find another man to take me.’

  ‘Not at all, sir. One moment.’ The driver turned back to Francis, his face puce. ‘Get away from my horse.’ The animal whinnied, trying to pull its great head away.

  ‘It’s a matter of murder.’

  ‘It will be, if I ever see your face again.’ He lifted his arm and the movement was so quick Francis had no time to prepare. The thin whip caught him across the cheek and he staggered backwards, covering the place where it had struck with his hands. The cab drove away at a quick trot.

  ‘You hurt, son?’ Francis’s eyes were stinging and the pain was like a cold brand on his skin. He felt a hand on his arm and looked up. And old, square white man. ‘Let me see, now.’ Francis took his hand away and the man hissed. ‘An inch higher and he’d have had your eye out. It’s bleeding, but put your handkerchief to it and you’ll not stain your collar.’ Francis did as he was told and found he was trembling. The old man smiled. ‘Don’t fret. Ladies all love a scar, don’t they?’

  Francis tried to breathe. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Mustn’t hold a man’s horse, son. Enrage any fellow, and Hodges is a mean-hearted son of a bitch. Always has been.’

  The first shock of the pain had lessened. Francis saw the man was standing by a yoke, wide wooden buckets tied with rope onto each end. He was the waterman for the horses on the stand then. ‘Did you notice anything Sunday night, uncle?’

  ‘I’ll remember it till my last breath. That vicious bastard what struck you tipped me sixpence. Sundays are normally quiet here by evening. He had a fare kept him busy a couple of hours. Didn’t see him pick the fella up, but he came back saying he’d been all the way up Islington Road and home again. Got tipped five shillings, which went on punch judging by his temper Monday morning.’

  ‘He said nothing more? Nothing about a woman?’

  ‘No, son, though he was in ribald humour, if you understand me. Now go and get some ice for your face before you lose your good looks.’

  V.3

  GRAVES AND MRS SERVICE both made efforts to prevent Mrs Westerman reading the newspapers, even claiming they had not been fetched in. Harriet was perversely determined to read what had been written. They were for the most part sneering in their tone, and she flinched when she saw one writer’s amusement that Mrs W— had fled her home to pursue Mr C— to London. What distressed her the most was seeing the lightly disguised names of her hosts in the same paragraphs. Someone had taken the trouble to discover that Susan had been removed from her school in Golden Square.

  Having finished reading, she left the house without speaking to anyone but the servants, and walked in the gardens of Berkeley Square until her temper had cooled. Deciding to return to the house, apologise to Graves and Susan for exposing them to the gibes and insinuations of the ink-stained monsters, and wait for Molloy, she turned north and began to make her way along the gravel pathways, only to see a carriage coming to a halt at the house and Sir Charles walking up the steps to the front door. By the time she had taken off her cloak and hurried up to the Blue Salon, Sir Charles and Crowther were seated in the cluster of striped settees in the middle of the room. Mrs Service was pouring tea, William handing out the cups and Graves, looking ill at ease, watching from his post by the mantelpiece.

  The gentlemen stood as she entered, but she waved them back to their places and took a seat between Mrs Service and Crowther, from where she could watch Sir Charles. He smiled at her with a warmth and sympathy that lifted the corners of his eyes.

  ‘I came as soon as I saw the news-sheets, Mrs Westerman. I am sorry that you have been subject to these attacks. I wished to say the same to Mr Graves here.’

  It was possible Harriet had not entirely succeeded in walking off her temper. ‘Did you, Sir Charles? How kind. I rather thought you were behind them.’

  Graves coughed into his tea. Sir Charles’s expression, however, did not change. ‘No, no. I am sorry you ever considered such a possibility. You over-estimate my influence. I fear your interference in the matter of Mr Trimnell may have been misconstrued in some quarters as an attack on the city itself. I am certain, however, that your motives are pure.’

  ‘Your confidence is a great compliment,’ Harriet said. ‘Have you heard that Crowther thinks the men who attacked him on Monday evening were the same who were responsible for Mr Trimnell’s death?’

  Sir Charles turned towards Crowther who was sitting back among the cushions. The bruise on his jaw had developed all the colours of sunset. Crowther, Harriet noticed out of the corner of her eye, appeared to be enjoying himself. ‘Indeed, Mr Crowther, is that so? I understood from Bartholomew that you saw very little.’

  ‘I did not need to do so, Sir Charles. Their pattern of attack was distinctive enough.’

  Sir Charles nodded very slowly. ‘How interesting. Could you see, Mr Crowther, if they were white men or Negroes?’

  Crowther’s expression tightened. ‘I could not.’

  Sir Charles put down his cup. ‘I see. Well, I am sorry indeed, and I make this apology in my role as Alderman and on behalf of the city, that you were injured while doing our coroner a service. I wished to tell you also that no effort is being spared in searching for Mrs Smith’s maid. She is suspected of the killing.’

  Harriet extended her arm across the back of the settee. ‘When did you conclude that Mr Trimnell needed to be locked in a madhouse, Sir Charles?’

  He hesitated, upon which Mrs Service lifted her hand. ‘William, would you offer Sir Charles one of those delightful lemon cakes?’ William did so. ‘They are so sweet without being overwhelming, I think. Do take one.’ Sir Charles gave her his most grateful smile, and for a moment Harriet’s rage increased to the point where it swallowed Mrs Service too and all her rules of hospitality. Then the frail-looking widow continued in the same voice: ‘Opponents of slavery are to be locked up as mad now? Why, Graves, we should make arrangements to have ourselves committed at once.’ Harriet loved her again.

  Sir Charles set down his plate. ‘Mrs Service, a reasoned debate with a lady such as yourself must always be a pleasure …’

  Graves had recovered from his cough. ‘Perhaps you might like to debate the trade with Mrs Westerman’s senior footman.’ He nodded towards William, who without a flicker of expression bowed very slightly from
the waist. Harriet felt almost giddy.

  ‘I would debate the trade with any reasonable man or woman,’ Sir Charles said, irritation cracking his words into flint-edged syllables. ‘But Mr Trimnell was not reasonable. I know you have heard, Mrs Westerman, that he was seen trying to grab his mulatto by-blow off the street. He ranted and raved on the public highway and spread about him the most toxic mixture of half-truths and wild fantasy. He was trying to do active harm to the reputations of honourable men, men who have served this country and her interests quite as loyally as anyone in this room.’

  ‘William,’ Harriet said lazily, ‘remind me when you received the injury to your leg.’

  ‘I fell from the rigging when Captain Westerman’s ship was demasted. It was during the holding of Admiral Barrington’s line at Barbados, December ’seventy-eight, madam.’

  ‘Oh, of course, I remember now,’ Harriet said.

  ‘Honourable men,’ Sir Charles repeated fiercely. He controlled his breathing. ‘William, I thank you for your service.’

  Crowther’s voice was dry and clear. ‘What did Mr Sawbridge say to your plan, Sir Charles? Was Mrs Trimnell happy to have her husband declared mad?’

  Sir Charles looked at him, frowning. ‘The conversation was between myself, Dr Drax and the Reverend Fischer. Fischer was well acquainted with Trimnell in their younger days, Drax is a medical man and Trimnell was a neighbour of mine for a long time. Before we had the opportunity to speak to Sawbridge or Mrs Trimnell, Mrs Westerman had arrived at the balloon-launch with news of Trimnell’s death.’ He got to his feet and the company did also. ‘Those cakes are delicious, Mrs Service. West Indian sugar, I’d know the taste anywhere.’

  ‘Is it indeed?’ Mrs Service said, offering him her fingertips. ‘I must speak to the housekeeper.’

  Harriet let Sir Charles bend over her hand. ‘I have not had the opportunity to ask after Mrs Trimnell. Is she comfortably settled in your family?’

  He let her hand fall. ‘Mrs Trimnell’s stay with us was only ever to have been of short duration while Sawbridge arranged rooms where they might live together.’