Uneasy Lies the Crown

by Tasha Alexander

  “It’s unlikely, but worth a look,” Colin said.

  “Thinking on it, I’d do Richard last,” Jeremy said. “Yes, the death itself might not look dramatic, but imagine that portrait of Richard in Westminster Abbey—the one where he’s sitting on the Coronation Chair. If someone managed to bring a dead man, dressed like a king, ermine robes and all, into the Abbey, and left him on that chair … that, my friends, would be a scene worth seeing.”

  “And a clear threat to King Edward,” Colin said.

  I sighed. “Yes, I see the wisdom in your thinking. So, what do we do?”

  “You, Emily, should continue to look for something that connects our two victims,” Colin said. “If our murderer is selecting his targets at random, it will make things far more difficult for us.”

  “I don’t believe he is,” I said. No, I was convinced that his victims were carefully chosen, and although I could see how one might interpret Colin’s messages as threats against the king, I wasn’t wholly convinced. Blame my intuition, perhaps, but I felt certain we were missing something of critical importance.

  “Find me something that proves a connection,” Colin said, his face grim. Then he turned to Jeremy. “And you, Bainbridge, help her however you can. I’m afraid I’ll be at Marlborough House most of the time, but you can reach me there should the need arise. Let me make myself very clear about one thing: whatever you do, under no circumstances are you to teach her to drive that motorcar.”

  * * *

  I made no comment on Colin’s directive to Jeremy. My poor husband felt harassed enough between the murders and trying to keep the king safe, and the irony of the situation was not lost on me. Colin and Bertie had never got along. It would be near impossible to find two men more different. Where Colin was honorable and dignified, the perfect English gentleman, Bertie had been profligate and reckless. I had heard story after story of his scandalous behavior. His stable of mistresses included some of England’s most noble women as well as some far more notorious. Rumor said he had forced his wife to attend the performance of one of his lovers in Paris. I believe she was a singer of some sort. But his crimes—if I may call them that—were not limited to the ladies. Bertie’s friends were not safe from his excesses. Once, he had poured a bottle of brandy over the head of one of his closest mates while the man chanted, “As Your Royal Highness pleases.” His own mother railed against his bad character, even going so far as to keep him from participating in matters of state when he was Prince of Wales.

  I could not help but wonder, though, how much of this resulted from a chicken and egg sort of situation. There was no doubt that his mother had blamed him—at least initially—for his father’s death. There was some dalliance with a girl in Oxford, and the Prince Consort had marched off to the scene to lecture his wayward son. His stern words, delivered outside in a cold rain, led Albert to catch a chill that brought on the fever that took his life. My mother insisted that the queen never forgave Bertie.

  For a man whose sole purpose in life was to be king, it had to be difficult having spent decade after decade after decade doing next to nothing. Cut out of most official business, what was the Prince of Wales to do? A stronger man might have focused on his education, charitable works, or something of equal merit and value, but that was not Bertie’s way. Edward the Caresser, as one of our always-creative papers referred to him, had other interests.

  Yet, one could not claim him to be all bad. By all accounts, he was kind to his mistresses, even after he had left them, and his loyalty was lauded by all who knew him. Betray him, though, and his wrath could be brutal. It was almost as if he were two different people—one affable and charismatic, the other vindictive and unforgiving.

  Not the sort of man my husband would befriend. His role as agent of the Crown put him in a difficult position, working for and protecting a man he did not respect. He would never reveal to the king even a hint of his private feelings, but that would take a toll. He would defend crown and country at any cost. I could only hope the cost would not be too high. And one never knew; after the case at hand was put to bed, the king might no longer require Colin’s services. Would he, after all, want to keep on one of his mother’s favorites?

  After Colin left us to return to Marlborough House, I asked Jeremy to take me back to the East End. Not to the Black Swan, but to the place between St. Clement Danes and Holy Trinity in Lincoln’s Inn Fields so that we might inquire about Lizzie Hopman and her mother.

  St. Clement’s was a gorgeous confection of Sir Christopher Wren’s, and Lincoln’s Inn had once been a fashionable place, home to the wealthy and powerful. The latter is now the site of the offices of many respectable solicitors and barristers, but the broader area between Holy Trinity and St. Clement’s housed some of London’s most destitute citizens. I had thought that I might find something out about Lizzie’s mother in either of the churches—she might, after all, have been a parishioner—but neither vicar knew her, nor had any record of her death.

  Jeremy, who had once again paid a motley-looking boy to keep an eye on his motorcar, kept a tight grip on my arm as we knocked on door after door, looking for anyone who knew the Hopmans. The slum, depressing and dank, was as awful a place as I’d ever been. Ramshackle buildings in a state of appalling disrepair housed scores more people than they could comfortably hold. Most families could only afford a single room, and even that rent was often too steep for them to afford. It took hours before we came across an elderly woman, Mrs. Bagstock, living in a ground-floor room in a dark and dingy building on Clare Street, who identified herself—her tone rife with irony—as Lizzie’s governess.

  “The girl needed some education, you see,” she said. “Her mother did her best, God rest her soul, but she had nothing, did she? What was she to do? Couldn’t find honest work, so did what the desperate among us must. Took in whatever piecework she could—putting together matchboxes, making flowers to decorate the grand gowns and hats your sort of lady wears—but it was never enough even to pay the rent. So she turned to the only other job she could. She left Lizzie with me whenever she was out. Bright little thing, that one. I taught her how to read and thought she might be able to make a go at finding a place in service. But fancy folks like you don’t hire girls who can’t provide a character, do you?”

  “I cannot argue with your tone of judgment,” I said. “It is a scandal what happens to the young people of these neighborhoods. Something must be done to give them better opportunities.”

  “Lizzie tried, you know. She had grand friends. Well, not grand perhaps, but the little Atherton girl, whose parents owned a shop … oh, I can’t remember where it was exactly … she was a clever one, quiet and studious. She and Lizzie were thick as thieves. You couldn’t keep them apart.”

  “Did they remain friends?” I asked.

  “What do you think, madam? A shopkeeper’s daughter and a common whore?”

  The coarseness of her language shocked me, as I suspect she intended. I felt Jeremy tense next to me. “My understanding is that Lizzie had no choice in her profession. I’ve been told her mother forced her into it,” I said.

  A look of profound sadness clouded Mrs. Bagstock’s wrinkled face. “Her mother had many debts and no way to pay them but one. When she got sick … what else could Lizzie do? See her mother thrown out of her home?”

  “Where did she live?” Jeremy asked.

  “Right upstairs. Most of her colleagues, if you can call them that, lived at the Black Swan, but she had Lizzie, so she had to have a place of her own, didn’t she? She died on the settee the two of you are sitting on now. Couldn’t take care of herself anymore, so I took her in. Horrible, her last days was. Horrible.”

  I looked around the squalid little room, despairing at the thought of the poor woman having so little comfort in her final days, and tried not to shudder at finding myself sitting on the very spot where she had died. “Did you see Lizzie after that?” I asked.

  “No. She never came back here again. Ha
ted the place, I think, and hated me, because I reminded her of the time when she thought she could have a better life.” The old woman crossed to a battered cupboard that hung from the wall and opened the door. She pulled out a book and handed it to me. “This was my Lizzie’s. Her favorite book. Don’t know where she got it, but I can’t help thinking it poisoned her a bit, making her believe things could be better than they were. Still, I wouldn’t have wanted to take any bit of hope away from her. Most of the time that’s all we have here.”

  I recognized the volume, John Law’s In Darkest London (rumors said John Law was the pseudonym for a lady writer of radical background; I wish I could confirm this). It told the story of a captain in the Salvation Army and his work in London’s East End. I opened the cover and saw written in a girlish hand This book belongs to Elizabeth Anne Hopman, who someday won’t live in the East End. Tears smarted in my eyes.

  Jeremy cleared his throat. “Mrs. Bagstock, I am dreadfully sorry to have to ask this question, as I fear it may bring you pain, but have you had any recent news of Lizzie?”

  “No, sir, I have not. Why, have you heard something?”

  He crossed to her, and crouched down next to the rocking chair in which she sat. “I’m afraid she has passed away, Mrs. Bagstock.”

  “Oh, dear, how very sad. Are you quite sure? I don’t believe she was ill?”

  “She wasn’t. The man she was working for…” His voice cracked and trailed.

  “Say no more, your grace,” Mrs. Bagstock said. “I always knew that Casby fellow was trouble. Have the police got him at least?”

  “He was found murdered yesterday.”

  “He deserved no better,” she said. “So why have you two really come here? Not only to bring me this sad news.”

  “We are seeking justice,” I said. “Justice for Lizzie. The more we know about her, the more likely we can achieve it.”

  Mrs. Bagstock shook her head. “I’ll tell you anything you’d like, but you should know that in these parts, there’s no such thing as justice.”

  1415

  14

  Cecily spent the better part of the next day in the chapel, praying for guidance. She feared for Adeline and the dangerous path the lady was on, but she had no idea how to dissuade her from it. By the time the bells chimed six o’clock, her knees were aching and she had no more clarity than when she’d entered its arched doorway that morning for mass. She struggled to her feet and turned to leave, surprised to see that she wasn’t alone.

  A young priest she did not recognize was standing against the back wall, near the entrance. Cecily felt suddenly self-conscious and wished she could exit without passing him, but the warm smile on his face eased her concerns.

  “Your husband told me of your piety, but I assumed he exaggerated, as new bridegrooms have a tendency to do,” the man said. “I am Father Simon Dunsford. William’s father and mine were best friends, so he and I all but grew up together.”

  “Yet chose very different courses in life.” Cecily regretted the words the instant she had spoken them, but Father Simon only laughed.

  “Indeed, we did. I’m the younger son and was always destined for the church, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be twice the man-at-arms he is if I’d gone a different way. When he returns from France, ask him how many times I bettered him with a sword.”

  “I’m not sure such a query would endear me to him.”

  Cecily’s sweet smile charmed Father Simon. Truly, his friend was lucky in his choice of wife. “William has always enjoyed good-natured teasing. You will discover that soon enough.”

  “I shall give your advice serious consideration,” she said. The bottom of his black cassock showed evidence of dust from the road; he must have only just arrived at the estate. “What brings you to Sussex?”

  “You,” he replied. “William asked me to call in during his absence and see if you were in need of anything, be it spiritual consolation or something more mundane.”

  “Baron Esterby and Adeline have been most kind to take me into their household. I am fortunate to have such generous friends.” She was not about to air her problems to a stranger.

  Father Simon looked into her eyes and stood quiet for some time. “Yet you look troubled.”

  “It is only that I did not sleep well last night and am worried about William. They are fighting at Harfleur.”

  “Yes, I know.” He was still staring directly at her. His eyes, a soft cornflower blue, could have coaxed a confidence from nearly anyone if he let them, but coaxing was not his goal. “The baroness tells me you have been at prayer since morning.”

  “Is it unnatural to fear for one’s husband when he is at war?” Cecily asked.

  “Not at all,” Father Simon replied, his clear tenor soothing. “Nor is it unnatural to have concerns, fears, and anxiety separate from those fears, even in times of war. I am here at William’s request to be your friend, Cecily, and your confessor, should you wish.”

  “You don’t assume the baron’s priest has already filled the role?” Cecily asked, laughter creeping into her voice as she considered the baron’s stern priest.

  “You’re a better person than I if he doesn’t terrify you,” Father Simon said, smiling. “I look forward to seeing you at supper tonight.”

  * * *

  How long he kept fighting, William did not know. He pressed forward, on and on, ignoring the arrow still in his cheek. He had broken the shaft as close to the skin as he could so that it would not deter him. The bodkins dipped in pitch and set aflame, which the English archers had fired at the start of the day’s fighting, had done their work, and thick smoke still hung over the enemy’s defenses. As more and more men-at-arms attacked, the French fell back, until King Henry’s army had forced them once again inside the city walls. As darkness fell and the fighting stopped, the driving energy that had kept William upright slowed, and it felt as if his blood had grown thick. He staggered back to camp, where he collapsed, unconscious, not six feet in front of the king, who, still in armor covered with blood and dirt, was walking with his brothers.

  “Someone attend to this man,” Henry shouted, kneeling beside the soldier. The arrow in the man’s cheek had struck in nearly the same place that Henry had been wounded years ago at Shrewsbury, when he was Prince of Wales.

  The Duke of Gloucester, who had been standing behind his brother the king, stepped forward. “He is Sir William Hargrave, one of my bravest and most skilled men-at-arms. I saw him take that arrow in the morning. He never stopped fighting, despite the wound.”

  “I know the pain—and danger—that comes with such an injury,” Henry said. “Call for my physician. He shall perform the necessary surgery.”

  1901

  15

  Jeremy and I were both subdued on the drive back to Park Lane, Mrs. Bagstock’s story of Lizzie’s life sitting heavy with both of us. He refused my invitation to come inside for a cup of tea and drove off with a profound look of sadness about him. I went up the steps to the house craving the quiet comfort of my library and a pot of Earl Grey, but the moment Davis opened the door I knew it was not to be.

  Henry’s voice accosted me from above the instant I crossed the threshold. He was whooping in the manner of a Red Indian and had flung his leg over the bannister, ready to slide down, despite Nanny’s admonitions that he stop. Richard and Tom were hanging back, as if waiting to see what their brother would do next. Ailouros, our cat, whom I had adopted after finding him in Nice while catching a particularly vile murderess and named for his ancient Greek ancestors, was seated at the top of the steps, a look of disdain on his face.

  “Mama!” Henry shoved back and careened down the bannister. Davis, without blinking, caught him at the bottom and placed him gently on the floor. The little boy flung his arms around my knees. I bent over and kissed his head, mussing his golden hair.

  Nanny took the other boys by the hands and led them down the stairs, where they each greeted me with a bow and a kiss.

&nbs
p; “That, Henry, is how little gentlemen behave.” I had a hard time being stern in the face of his unbridled enthusiasm.

  “I’m not a little gentleman,” my wayward son replied. “I’m a Red Indian here to kidnap you and take you to my fort. Where’s Papa? He’ll help me, I’m sure.” This explained the smudges of paint on his cheeks and the deplorable state of his clothes. Henry seemed to attract dirt the way a magnet pulls in shavings of iron.

  “You’re not to trouble your mother,” Nanny said. She looked even older than when I’d left Anglemore Park for the queen’s funeral less than a week ago, and I had no doubt Henry was the cause. Nonetheless, I knew her to be more than capable of managing the boys. She would have lectured me if I suggested she might require even the slightest assistance, and as she had raised Colin and his brother, William, with spectacular results, I saw no reason to doubt her on any count.

  “It’s perfectly fine, Nanny,” I said. “Why don’t I take them into the library for tea and jam sandwiches while you have a rest? You must be tired from the journey.”

  “I am never tired, Lady Emily,” she said. “But I could use the time to get the boys’ things in order in the nursery.” She turned to Henry. “Do not think, young man, I will forget that you disobeyed me. We shall discuss it after you have your tea.”

  Henry squirmed, but his face was expressionless. I did not envy him the conversation he would have with Nanny; she could be very fierce. That said, he deserved whatever scolding he got. I knew how naughty he was.

  Davis disappeared downstairs to direct Cook to prepare our tea and I took the boys to the library. Richard immediately went to his father’s desk, sat down (looking very small in the chair), and opened the book Colin had left on top. All the boys had started to read at a shockingly early age, but Richard took the most pleasure in it. The tome he perused was a history of medieval England I knew to be written in a dry, academic style. I did not expect he would find much to recommend it. Tom came over to me quietly and took my hand.