Those rather desperate days – I remember them well. I was feeling my age somewhat, having hosted a dinner party for some of the gentlemen students at the Hackney College; Harriet had only recently begun to lodge at my house, having taken up her position at the school. She was a shy girl, and yet once she felt comfortable with you she was able to engage in lively and intelligent conversation, such that you forgot quite quickly that she was still very young. Then, I think, she was just twenty-one years old.
I remember asking her by what manner of means her parents had sought to educate her, for they were not wealthy, although they were respectable. She said she had been fortunate enough to learn much at the village school she had attended – that she had had an inspirational lady teacher, who had encouraged her a great deal. From a young age her own earnest desire had been to pass on that spirit of encouragement to others, such that girls – in particular girls – should feel able to push themselves to learn, if they were capable of it, no matter how poor and humble had been their beginnings.
At that dinner, with young men of character and, in some cases, wealth, seated around our dining table, she chose to converse with me. Afterwards, as the men retired to the drawing room, she hesitated in the doorway, and wished us goodnight.
I had only been in the drawing room for a matter of minutes when I excused myself and went to find her. She was in the dining room, reading a book.
‘I thought you had gone to bed,’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘I find I am too excited to sleep just yet.’
I laughed at her. ‘Too excited? By all that male company?’
She had the grace to flush, just a little. ‘Perhaps. I find conversations very enlightening.’
‘As do I.’ I sat next to her at the table. ‘What are you reading?’
She showed me the book – a translation of the Greek trage dies. ‘I borrowed it from your library. I hope you don’t mind.’
‘Of course not,’ I said.
You have to remember, then, that she was twenty-one years old and I was a full thirty years older. I had been married, once, and had no intention of marrying again. I had indulged my desires with whores when the need pressed itself upon me, and I had on several occasions had love affairs with women, some of them younger, some of them older. But not for some time.
Harriet put down her book. ‘I fear you must think me very naïve,’ she said, quietly.
‘Naïve?’
‘In matters of the heart,’ she said.
And that was how it had begun.
I woke from my reverie to find the baby fidgeting and grumbling, so I lifted him and shushed him against my chest in the hope that he would not rouse himself to a full scream. All was quiet in the house. I took the child upstairs to the bedroom. The curtains were drawn and the room was dark, just the sound of Maria’s deep breathing. I was reluctant to disturb her, but the child’s mewling started her instantly into consciousness and she raised herself to a sitting position.
‘Richard.’
‘I’m sorry to wake you,’ I said, passing the baby to her.
‘Needs must,’ she answered. As she loosened her bedgown to accommodate the hungry child, I went to the curtains and drew them a little. The greyness of the day outside did nothing to brighten the room.
‘You’ve kept him very quiet,’ she said. ‘I thought you must have gone out somewhere with the perambulator.’
I laughed at the thought of it. ‘To the park? Like a nursemaid? That would make a fine spectacle. I should be laughed out of the neighbourhood.’
‘Annie will be back this evening,’ she said. ‘But thank you, for letting me sleep.’
Her mild tone made me feel able to broach the subject that had been troubling me since the letter had arrived on Friday.
‘I feel I should go to Bromley,’ I said.
She did not reply immediately. I turned back to the bed. Her head was bent over the child’s, watching him as he suckled. ‘When?’ she asked, her voice low.
‘Sooner the better, I fancy. I should pay our respects to Harriet’s mother; attend the funeral perhaps.’
‘If there’s to be an inquest, the funeral may be delayed. Or perhaps it has already taken place.’
‘If you don’t want me to go, I’ll …’
I did not finish my sentence. She had not interrupted me. I realised I did not want her to come up with a reason for me to stay, although there were plenty: the child was very young, my wife was unwell, we had limited help in the house; we had very little money to spare on a hotel and coach fares back and forth. Harriet was our friend but we lived far enough away for nobody to expect us to attend; in fact, for me to attend at all – a married man, who had counted an unmarried young female among his close friends, might be looked upon with some suspicion.
‘When?’ she asked, again.
‘Perhaps tomorrow, then,’ I replied. ‘I’ll ensure Annie is here and able to attend to you.’
There was another little pause. The air in the room felt heavy, scented with something foul that I could not name.
‘I should like a drink of water, Richard,’ she said quietly. ‘Perhaps you might fetch it for me.’
I left the room and closed the door quietly behind me. I fancied I heard her make some sound: I thought she was talking to the baby in the strange, high voice she uses when she lifts him and plays with him, but then I realised it was something else. A cry, perhaps.
Monday, 13th November, 1843
Frances Williams
Thirty-two girls in attendance today. The room felt so empty I was obliged to move some of the girls from the back of the room to the front, to fill in the space. Lizzie Finch now has just twelve younger ones in her group. If the numbers dwindle further, I shall have to send some of the older ones to her to even things out. There are so many absences it is hard to keep track of them all; I have sent notes home for many of them, but have had few replies.
Mr Campling spoke to me after school. He said he has had four letters today and another four last week, six of that number unsigned, suggesting that the parents are unhappy with me teaching their girls. I felt my heart sink at that news. This – my position being endangered – was a consequence of Harriet’s death that I had not foreseen. I felt foolish for not having considered it earlier. Perhaps, if I had known, I might have handled things differently.
After school I had intended to eat a supper of bread and cheese, but I had no stomach even for that. The room was not cold enough to light the fire, and inside my room it felt stuffy and too quiet. I could hear the Beezleys arguing. Shouts from the street. Laughter. In the end I took my shawl and the bottle Tom Churcher had brought the night Harriet disappeared, now empty, and walked across the Market Place with my head down in case someone should approach me. I could feel eyes upon me, sense the way people fell silent as I passed. I felt contaminated by it, by shame.
Clara opened the door, just a crack, and then wider when she saw it was me.
‘Forgive me for calling unannounced,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t stay at home.’
‘You know you are welcome at any time,’ she said, taking a cloth to move the kettle on to the stove. ‘How are you?’
‘Well, under the circumstances. And how are you – and Tom?’
‘Tom keeps to his bed, when he is not dragged to the shop. I don’t know what to do with him.’ She looked to the door that led to the back parlour.
‘He’ll come round,’ I said, not entirely sure if that was likely. Other women might call it a shame, for such a fine young man to not have the sharp wits to go with it, as though the face should reveal the character. I have never known that to be a universal truth. People can be beautiful, and deceitful; and ugly people can be the kindest of all. I am not prone to note the attractive features of the male, and yet even I can acknowledge that Tom is handsome. A man who wears his honesty on his face, who is no more capable of subterfuge than a child.
I say that, of course, but I have known children capa
ble of attempting the most elaborate of deceptions. What I mean is that I can always see through them.
The kettle boiled and Clara poured the water on to the tea leaves in the pot, setting out their china cups and saucers for us both. ‘Will you have some cake? Mrs Verrall brought it.’
‘Is that a good thing, or a bad thing?’
Clara laughed. ‘I am sure it must be very good. Although I doubt she made it herself, with those porcelain hands of hers.’ She cut a thick slice from the cake and halved it, offering a piece to me on a small china plate.
‘She has visited you, then?’ I asked.
‘Twice. She brought us this – and some bread. She gets her flour delivered direct from the mill, I believe.’
‘Very good of her, I’m sure.’
‘Oh, Frances, don’t take that tone. She is really very kind. She doesn’t make a song and dance of it, just comes and offers help, and prays for us. And she doesn’t need to; she could stay in her lovely house and because she is a lady nobody would think anything of it. Caroline Cooper told me Mrs Verrall brought her a bundle of herbs from her own garden to make a poultice for her grandmother’s leg, and said nothing about it to anyone in the town, or the chapel.’
I wanted to ask why Mrs Verrall was bringing cake and bread to the Churcher household, since they had not been bereaved, or fallen ill. Why had she not bothered to visit me? I knew the answer to that question, of course. I was a newcomer to the town. A stranger, still.
‘Emma Milstead has called for Tom,’ she said, ‘several times.’
‘Oh?’
‘He won’t talk to her.’
‘Why not?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps he thinks she will judge him harshly,’ I offered. ‘For his friendship with Harriet, I mean.’
‘It’s not just that. I think they all suspect him, everyone,’ she said, and to my surprise she let out a sudden sob, and clutched her hand to her mouth.
‘My dear,’ I said. ‘Nobody can seriously believe him capable of such a thing. Not Tom!’
‘Not you, perhaps,’ she wailed. ‘But the gossips! And, worst of all, the police, the coroner. They don’t know him. They just hear the rumours, that he was walking out with Harriet, and that’s why he and Emma broke off their engagement.’
‘It wasn’t a proper engagement; he hadn’t even spoken to her father,’ I said. Ever the pedant.
‘Nevertheless, Emma took it as such, and she took Harriet to be the interloper between them.’
‘In that case, perhaps Emma should be suspected, and not Tom. Why would he harm Harriet, if she was dear to him?’
Clara bit her lip, tears trembling on her lower lashes. ‘You know why. Because she was in the family way.’
‘But surely …’
‘I know, it’s hardly even possible, but that’s still what they will say. Perhaps one of the gossips has told the coroner that Tom was associating with Harriet from the moment she returned. Everyone knew he was always sweet on her, he couldn’t hide it. They will believe the worst of it. Our supposed friends. Our customers. The newspapers, even. People who don’t know Tom as we do. They will make out that he didn’t want the scandal; that she was demanding assistance from him.’
‘What does he say about it?’
‘Nothing. He won’t speak to any of us. If we go in there, he pretends to be asleep.’
‘Do you think the baby was his?’
My words were out before I had properly considered them, and now at last the tears spilled over and ran over her cheeks. She wiped them away with her handkerchief.
‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘I do not.’
I held my breath for a moment, then let it out in a sigh. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nor I.’
Clara smiled, then, and reached for my hand. ‘You are a good friend to me, Frances.’
I was no such thing, to be fair. I did not believe Harriet’s pregnancy was caused by Tom because I did not think her capable of consorting with a man who was less than her intellectual equal. But I could not admit as much to Clara.
And of course I had known Harriet was with child, perhaps long before anyone else did, possibly even before she knew it herself. I shared a bed with her, after all. I saw her in her chemise and sometimes not even that. I noticed because I noticed every little thing about her. I saw the way her hips rounded; I saw the shape of her belly, a gentle curve at first that I loved, that grew into a bump which in the end even her stays could not properly disguise. I saw how her breasts swelled, like ripening fruit; how her nipples darkened in colour. After a while there was nothing else that could explain the changes.
Besides, I knew that she was not a virgin. She had told me that, at least.
‘Who, then?’ Clara said.
I had been lost in thought, remembering Harriet. Irritated, almost, to be brought back here to the Churchers’ parlour and Mrs Verrall’s fruit cake and the cup of tea that was already growing cold, I snapped, ‘I have no idea.’
‘But surely … I mean, you knew her best of all. She must have had a secret lover. If we knew who that was, we should know the murderer.’
Let her think that, I thought. If she believed it, then perhaps everyone else would, too. That Harriet’s pregnancy was the motive for her murder, and the man responsible for the former logically must be responsible for the latter – well, it seemed highly probable. And, whilst they suspect that, they cannot suspect me.
Thomas Churcher
A knock, upon the door. I had been sleeping, and it startled me awake.
‘Tom?’ Clara’s voice, outside. ‘Tom, can you come out?’
I struggled to find some words. ‘What is it?’ My mouth felt dry, my tongue swollen.
‘Emma is here.’
I closed my eyes again.
Another knock, and then the door opened and closed again.
‘You can’t stay in here forever. Look at you!’
‘Leave me in peace.’
She sat on the edge of the bed. ‘You’re still dressed. Are you ill, or no?’
I breathed in and sat up, with difficulty because she was in the way. I rubbed my hand over my face, through my hair. And then finally I looked at my sister.
She put her hand on my arm. ‘I’ll tell Emma you will meet her at the pump. Yes?’
This time I did as I was bid; I could not avoid Emma forever. I would see her and something would happen; she would say everything was now concluded between us, that she no longer wished to have any association with me. She would look at me, and see, not the man she thought she loved, once, but rather someone broken.
She was waiting for me at the pump, as Clara said, and the smile when she saw me approach died on her face as I came closer. I felt exhausted, despite spending so much time in bed.
‘What happened to you?’ she asked. Fair hair, blue eyes. She looked as pretty as she always had. I had wanted her to love me, once, and I was the one who had pushed her away.
I shrugged, and that seemed to be enough.
We walked towards the chapel, then took the footpath into Cage Field. The land opened up to the north, the earth bare, spread wide. I had walked this way with Harriet. I had walked this way with Sweeting, just a few days before, looking for Harriet. Everywhere I looked, memories of her spun sticky webs in my head.
Now the path was wide enough for us to walk side by side. The trees and hedges edging the field were bare of leaves and the path was dry. I could not look at her, although I wanted to.
‘Are you well?’ I asked her.
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And your father and mother?’
‘Also well.’
She laughed, and tried to take my hand. At first I jumped as if she had burned me, but then I smiled at her and took it, and squeezed it. We had held hands before. Despite the season, I felt sweat upon my brow. I was not feverish in the body, but perhaps in the brain. Perhaps I really was ill. Perhaps I would die, and then all of these thoughts would die with me, and I coul
d be with Harriet again.
‘What is it, Tom?’ she said. ‘Why won’t you talk to me?’
I said, ‘Does things to you, finding a body. Of a murdered person.’
‘Was it … dreadful? Was she injured?’
The question took me back there. ‘I don’t like to talk about it,’ I said.
She looked sulky, then. ‘Don’t you like me any more, Tom?’
I stopped and turned to look at her. ‘Like you?’
She looked almost afraid.
‘Of course I like you. I’ll always like you, Emma, how can you ask me such a thing?’
She set her mouth. ‘You don’t like me as much as you liked her. You liked her even before she went away to London, before you even noticed I existed. Don’t deny it.’
‘It was different.’
She took a deep breath in. ‘Tom, I have to ask, I can’t bear it … did you?’
I looked at her for the first time. There were tears in her eyes. I tried to feel something, and my heart was like a lump of coal in my chest, dried and hard and still.
‘Did I what?’
‘Did you … do it?’
My breath caught and I turned away from her. I heard her steps on the bare earth, hurrying behind me.
‘If you can’t tell the truth, I can’t trust you,’ she said.
‘Don’t, then,’ I said, without looking back.
We parted in the Market Place without another word spoken between us. All the way back I had tried to think of something to say, to try and mend what was broken, but all I could think of was Harriet, and my heart cold and dry and hard, and my head full of her.
Emma said something as I left her, but I did not pay her any heed. A shout, from behind me – ‘Tom!’ – and a wail, like a shriek, like a bad-tempered child stamping its foot in the street. There were people standing at the stalls and in doorways and on the corners and I could feel their eyes on me, like a freak in one of the tents at the fair. Staring and whispering, loud enough for me to hear. I walked back home and all I could think was that I would go to the bedroom and shut the door and cover my head and hide from them all.
The Murder of Harriet Monckton Page 12
