The Murder of Harriet Monckton

by Elizabeth Haynes

  I am so very tired: I shall try to sleep.

  Thursday, 7th September

  Maria is safely delivered of a son. I received the letter this morning. I was waiting to hear from Richard with news of the school, so when I opened his letter and saw that it contained nothing at all of Arundel, and only news of Maria, I confess I was rather disappointed.

  And then I came to my senses and read the letter again, and learned that mother and child were both well, and the boy was bonny, and is to be named Richard, after his father. He actually wrote those words, ‘after his father’, lest I had somehow forgotten his name.

  I showed the letter to Mary Ann and to mother, and then this afternoon I showed Frances.

  ‘How do you feel about it?’ she asked me, and to my very great surprise I was overcome with emotion and found myself weeping, and once I began I could not stop.

  She held my hand and wiped my face, and stroked my cheek as I wept, and when I was finally still she made tea for us both. I apologised and she told me I had no need, that such feelings were best expressed, rather than left to fester. I said that they were best expressed in private, and she said that I was such a dear friend, I should have no concerns that she would tell anyone of it, or indeed of anything that I told her of myself and my feelings.

  ‘Of all things,’ I told her, with a laugh, ‘I am most disappointed that the poor child is forced to live with his father’s name!’

  She laughed too. ‘What would you have him called?’

  ‘I don’t know – something unusual, and noble. Ebenezer, perhaps, or Ephraim.’

  ‘You have strange fancies, Harriet!’

  I felt a little better for having wept, and for our conversation. We ate supper and Frances continued to suggest names for Richard’s child – Elias, or Abraham, or Methuselah: fine Biblical names every one, and yet hardly seen today. We talked of children in the Bromley school and in the Hackney school, and those names we liked and those we didn’t. Frances said that she had never had a child called Charlotte who was not also ill-behaved; I said I had taught three Charlottes and they had always been most troublesome. And Emilys were always sweet; Susans were often sly, but funny.

  When Frances retired this evening I wrote a reply to Richard, congratulating them both on their joyous news, and wishing a long and happy life to Master Richard James Field, and hoping that I shall see them all soon, the very happy Field family. I shall pray for them, and give thanks for Maria’s health.

  Monday, 11th September

  I believe I am in shock.

  I attended chapel this evening for the prayer meeting and found but limited company there; Benjamin Beezley was the sole deacon in attendance, and Jane Humphrey, Joseph and Mary Milstead, and Jane Cooper, and just the reverend besides. It was possible to see his disappointment and displeasure at this unexpected drop in attendance, and his first prayer was for the ‘ungodly’ who chose to indulge their vices in the town rather than worshipping the Lord their Saviour and praying for their immortal souls.

  One by one, the gathered company voiced their own prayers. Finally the reverend spoke again, and prayed for the Queen, and the wisdom of her ministers, and for those who were suffering in the world from hunger and want, and then he said an amen, and we all said amen, and then we wished each other goodnight. I do not know what it was that caused me to tarry, but I did. He invited me into the vestry. I should have said no; I should have told him that Jane was waiting for me in the lane, but I did neither of these things. I followed him into the vestry. He lit the lamp but made no attempt to light the stove.

  He told me we should pray for forgiveness, and ask the Spirit to come into us and lead us closer to God. I said nothing. He bade me on to my knees and I was expecting him to pray but instead he tucked his gown behind him and unfastened his breeches and put his hand under my chin and squeezed my cheeks to force my jaws to open, much as you might do to a dog to force it to let go of something it has seized.

  I believe I said no, or made some sound of protest, and he hesitated, and then pushed himself into my mouth anyway.

  I could have bitten him. I could, probably, have pushed him back and away from me, and got to my feet and run. I could have screamed and shouted and called him a devil. But I did not. Instead I watched myself from a distance, as if the real Harriet were crouching in the corner of the room and the Harriet there on her knees, eyes tight shut, gagging, before the man who should be righteous and pure and instead was ugly and soiled, were some type of shadow, or spirit.

  I opened my eyes and looked up to see him looking down on me with an expression of rapture; the same expression I had seen on his face during the most vehement of his sermons. If it was true, that he received the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit from such transgressive behaviour, then he was certainly receiving it right at that moment. I closed my eyes and stayed very still, made of stone, made of ice, until he had finished.

  This time, he did not turn away and finish into his hand. He held my mouth closed with his fingers under my chin so that I could not deny him this final, ecstatic assault.

  At last he withdrew and stepped back, and I dropped to my hands and knees and coughed and spat and tried not to vomit. By the time I had got to my feet and brushed off my skirts he had adjusted his garments and sat behind the desk. I wiped my mouth with my handkerchief.

  I waited for a moment, thinking that perhaps he would say something. Instead he took up his pen and began to write. I supposed he was composing a sermon.

  I walked across the fields in the dark, scarcely thinking of what had transpired between us. Thinking of it was too difficult. When I got home I changed my dress and went straight out again, telling my mother I should stay the night with Miss Williams. I gave her no further explanation, nor did she ask me for one. Mary Ann was already asleep.

  Tuesday, 12th September

  A damp, miserable day. I stayed with Frances last night and I have not gone home, because there are bruises upon my face, fingermarks where the reverend gripped me. Frances has noticed, and asked, and I told her that I had done them myself, when overcome with a sneezing fit. She deserves a better lie than that, but the question was unexpected and I had no quicker response. Only when I was alone again did I look at my face in the glass and see the marks. They are small ones, and if I had some powder or chalk I could cover them well enough, but Mary Ann would notice them, and she would not accept a lie as easily as Frances has done.

  Frances knows I have my secrets, as she has hers; we allow each other that. It is part of the reason I love her.

  Thursday, 14th September

  I was reading in the parlour here when I heard the reverend’s voice downstairs, talking to Mr Beezley. I heard him remark upon something and then, ‘praise God for it’ and ‘translated into Glory’. He never stops. I heard Beezley say, ‘Miss Williams is at school, but I believe she is within,’ and then his tread upon the stairs, and the knock upon the door.

  What should I have done? Left the door locked, and told him that I was unwell? I opened the door. He asked to come in. I told him it was not my house to invite him over the threshold, and he asked what it was I expected him to do.

  I was conscious of the Beezleys, and that they must surely hear us, and I said quietly to him that he should be overheard, and he responded, ‘We must be very quiet, then,’ and put his hand upon the door and pushed it open.

  I told him he had bruised my face. He put his hand under my chin and tilted it towards the window so that he might see, and then said he was sorry for it. ‘I should not have caused you any pain.’ But he said that he had experienced such intense excitement from my ‘Holy prayers’ that he had seen a vision of Heaven itself. He said he had written late into the night, and had written four sermons of such poetic beauty and Glory that they could only have come directly from the Holy Spirit.

  ‘Don’t do that again,’ I told him. ‘It leaves a mark. Someone will notice.’

  He said he would not.

  I ask
ed if four sermons should not suffice, for now, as I had felt very sick afterwards and was still not fully recovered.

  He was perspiring. He took out a handkerchief and patted it across his brow, then he removed his gown and hung it on the hook on the door, and sat carefully on the chair.

  ‘Take off your dress,’ he said.

  ‘I prefer to remain clothed,’ I said.

  He looked at me, his face devoid of expression. I looked at him. I was perfectly calm. I would not do as he asked, not this time.

  But then, ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

  I thought perhaps he meant some sort of payment, and I was about to tell him to choke himself with it, but instead he drew from his jacket pocket a letter, which he held aloft. From my position, I could see it bore Richard’s handwriting upon the envelope. I felt a jolt of fear, thinking perhaps that he had somehow entered into correspondence with Richard and they had been discussing me.

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked, pretending calm.

  ‘I called at your mother’s house before coming here,’ he said. ‘She told me you had stayed with Miss Williams, and bade me bring you a letter that arrived this morning.’

  I held out my hand for it. He did not move, or offer it to me.

  ‘Take off your dress,’ he said again.

  ‘If I refuse?’

  He nodded slowly. ‘You might, of course. But you are a kind girl, Harriet. A good girl. You would not wish to deny the Lord your God, I am sure.’

  ‘Someone might see you,’ I said.

  He got to his feet. ‘Then we must be careful,’ he said. ‘Now, take off your dress, and your stays, and your boots, and your stockings.’

  He allowed me to keep my chemise. His hands grasped at my breasts and squeezed them hard. He told me to kneel on the bed, at the very edge, and he mounted me from behind, like an animal. It was very painful at the end, and the act itself brought me no joy or pleasure but the word in my head, brutality, chanting in my head, over and over again like a psalm. I thought of the noise of him breathing, the noise of the bed shifting on the floorboards, and thought of the Beezleys downstairs, and willed someone to come and make it stop, no matter how disgusting would be the sight that greeted my rescuer and what it would do to my reputation. I thought of shouting out, calling for help, or of taking hold of the lamp beside the bed, or the poker, and hitting him with it. In that moment when he grunted and held himself tense I thought of Richard and his baby son, that should have been named Ebenezer and instead was named Richard, a thought out of the air like a quiet voice calling to me, my son, my son, and it made me want to weep.

  Afterwards he dressed, and told me I was a sweet girl, for indulging him so.

  I said that I did not care for these indulgences, and I should perhaps tell someone of them.

  He was not angry at me, so much as very cold, and hard, and he said that whoever I told would not believe me for why should they? I was just a girl, and a proud, excitable girl at that; and he was a minister with a large, respectable congregation, who did many good deeds in the town, to save its people.

  I told him I should tell his wife, and she would believe me.

  Then he said that his wife was kind and good and blameless in all of this, and to think of hurting her thus was a very wicked sin indeed; and besides, it would serve only to damage irreparably my own reputation, and what would my mother and my sister do then? I should be cast out, and friendless. Not even Miss Williams would be seen with me after that, he said, for she had her own position and reputation to consider.

  He was right, of course. About all of it.

  I said nothing else and when he was properly attired once more he left me alone, and I lay on the bed in my chemise until my skin dimpled with the chill of the afternoon. I got up and used the pot. There was a little blood. I found the tin basin and stood in it in the cold and scrubbed myself all over, and dressed, the clothes clinging to my damp skin. My stays would not fasten because my hand was shaking; I left them open at the bottom to allow myself to breathe. I found I was doing all of these things without thinking. Only when I had finished, and thought I should make tea, something with which to fortify myself to continue, did I see that he had left Richard’s letter, unopened, upon the table.

  The Arundel school are willing to accept me. They require an additional character, to be sent by return of post, addressed to the superintendent of the board.

  The relief of it was immediate; I will be free of this, in Arundel! And then, afterwards, the very great fear came upon me once again. For how shall I manage?

  Friday, 15th September

  Frances, my rock, my salvation, my Warrior, has pretended to be pleased about Arundel. I told her I cannot ask Verrall for a character and asked her if she might write one; she said she would, and did, but after she had retired I had another idea, and I copied out the letter that Verrall wrote for the school at St Albans. That was good enough, and his word as a minister will hold more weight than that of a fellow schoolmistress. It should not be thus, but unfortunately it is. It is unlikely that the school will call into question the authorship of the letter, but if they should ask him if he wrote it I think he will not deny it. He owes me that, at least.

  I sent the letter immediately. I find my spirits lifted so very much by the prospect of a new beginning! Just a few weeks ago I was so desperate to return to Bromley, and now I find myself even more desperate to quit it once more.

  Tuesday, 19th September

  I have not written in here for three days. I am with Frances; she is asleep.

  I can hardly bear to write the words, but I must. For to write them is to make them true, and this is the truth, that I can no longer deny.

  I believe I must be with child.

  I am so full of fear and wonder and horror at it, I scarcely know where to begin. For a long time I think I suspected, but hoped that it could not be true, and every day the suspicion grew and grew and did not diminish. Every morning I woke hoping that my visitor would return on that day, and it has not. Now I have had to loosen my laces at the bottom, as I still cannot fasten them; I have been sick, and feeling sick so regularly that it has become quite expected; and the weariness that Maria spoke of; and now, just in the last days, I have felt a sensation so curious in my belly that the only way to describe it is as if a butterfly or some other tiny, featherlight creature is trapped inside me and trying to escape.

  Frances sleeps so peacefully. I have been sitting here at her table with the lamp turned low, watching her. She knows something is the matter with me, but I cannot tell her; I cannot tell anyone. I am writing this to get the words out of myself, to pull them from my head like a conjurer pulling handkerchiefs from a magical hat.

  Oh, I am so afraid! What is to become of me?

  My first thought was that I should go to London. I should see Richard, and tell him, and he would fold me into an embrace and reassure me. But no matter how many times I thought about it, I could not imagine what he would say. Would he leave Maria, and the baby? Of course not. But perhaps he would find me somewhere to live, nearby, but away from the school and the people who knew us. I could style myself as a widow, my husband lost at sea, perhaps, and Richard as my uncle or my guardian or some such.

  And then I remembered the reverend.

  I tried to think of how long it had been since I had last had my monthly visitor, but I could not. I had had some bleeding in Bromley, not long after I arrived, but it had taken me by surprise and had lasted but a day. Around that time was the first time the reverend had taken advantage of me in the vestry. Was it possible, then, that the child could be his?

  Verrall, or Richard?

  The more I think of it, the more confused I become and the easier it is to convince myself that it was one of them, or the other. I have been seduced by not one man, but two. And one of them has put a child inside me.

  What am I to do? Whatever am I going to do?

  Wednesday, 20th September

  I slept in th
is morning and Frances had left for school when I finally woke. She left me a note, saying that I was sleeping so peacefully she had not wanted to disturb me. I think the rest has done me good, for I have woken with renewed spirit. I said my prayers, and asked the Lord for wisdom to deal with my troubles in such a way that will bring Glory and Honour to Him, and I admitted that I trusted Him and knew that he would not forsake me, for this he promised in Jesus’ name. My words, whispered into the chill morning air, disappeared like vapour.

  I washed and dressed, and ate some gruel that was left by Frances, and sat at the table to write a letter to Richard. I believe it is more likely that the child is his; and, of the two, I believe he is the one who will be more inclined to kindness. I have written it and rewritten it several times, but I think finally I have something that I can bring myself to send. I copy it here, for when it is sent I might misremember my words, or perhaps he might deny them, and so I will have the proof of it.

  Dear Richard,

  I trust this letter finds you, and Maria, and the baby, all well. I write with news of my own: I can no longer ignore the signs, and I am afraid I must inform you that I am expecting a child. I do not know when, but I can only assume that I am some months advanced already. I have told no one of my condition, and other than some sickness and exhaustion, which may otherwise be explained by my anxiety at being so long out of a situation, I am quite healthy. I do feel most terribly afraid of what might become of me, and the child, as I am sure you can understand; and I ask you most urgently to write to me with words of advice, for surely you are the only person I can turn to in my troubles. I beg you to write immediately, dear Richard, and be assured that I am, always,