When maidens mourn ssm-7

by C. S. Harris

  `That's a bit queer too. Some think it's excitin', but there's others see it as a sacra sacra...' Tom struggled with the word.

  `A sacrilege?'

  `Aye, that's it.'

  `Interesting.'

  Sebastian guided the chestnuts through the park's massive new gateway, then dropped his hands; the horses leapt forward to eat up the miles back to London. He could see the heat haze roiling up from the hard-packed road, feel the sun blazing down hot on his shoulders. He was intensely aware of the fierce green of the chestnut trees shading a nearby brook, of the clear-noted poignancy of a lark's song floating on the warm breeze. And he found himself unable to stop thinking of the vibrant, intelligent young woman whose pallid corpse awaited him on Paul Gibson's cold granite slab, and to whom all the beauties of that morning or any other morning were forever lost.

  By the time Sebastian drew up before Paul Gibson's surgery on Tower Hill, the chestnuts coats were wet and dark with sweat.

  `Take 'em home and baby 'em,' he said, handing Tom the reins.

  `Aye, go' nor.' Tom scrambled into the seat as Sebastian hopped down to the narrow footpath. `You want I should come back with the grays?'

  Sebastian shook his head. `I'll send for you if I need you.'

  He stood for a moment, watching the lad expertly wind his way westward through the press of carts and coal wagons. Near the base of the hill, a ragged boy with a drum tapped a steady beat to attract customers to the street seller who stood beside him hawking fried fish. Nearby, a woman with a cart peddled eel jelly, while a thin man in a buff-colored coat watered a nondescript roan at an old fountain built against the wall of the corner house. Then, realizing he was only delaying the inevitable, Sebastian turned to cut through the noisome, high-walled passage that led to the unkempt yard behind Gibson's surgery.

  At the base of the yard lay a small stone outbuilding used by the surgeon both for his official postmortems and for a series of surreptitious dissections performed on cadavers snatched from the city's graveyards under the cover of darkness by stealthy, dangerous men. As Sebastian neared the open door of the building, he could see the remains of a woman lying on the cold, hard granite slab in the center of the single, high-windowed room.

  Even in death, Miss Gabrielle Tennyson was a handsome woman, her features gracefully molded, her mouth generous, her upper lip short and gently cleft, her chestnut hair thick and luxuriously wavy. He paused in the doorway, his gaze on her face.

  `Ah, there you are,' said Gibson, looking up. He set aside his scalpel with a clatter and reached for a rag to wipe his hands. `I thought I might be seeing you.'

  A slim man of medium height in his early thirties, Paul Gibson had dark hair and green eyes bright with an irrepressible glint of mischief that almost but not quite hid the dull ache of chronic pain lurking in their nuanced depths. Irish by birth, he had honed his craft on the battlefields of Europe, learning the secrets of life and death from an endless parade of bodies slashed open and torn asunder. Then a French cannonball had shattered his own lower left leg, leaving him with a painful stump and a weakness for the sweet relief to be found in an elixir of poppies. He now divided his time between teaching anatomy to the medical students at St. Thomas's Hospital and consulting with patients at his own private surgery here in the shadows of the Tower of London.

  `Can you tell me anything yet?' asked Sebastian, looking pointedly away from what Gibson had been doing to the cadaver. Like Gibson, Sebastian had worn the King's colors, fighting for God and country from Italy to the West Indies to the Peninsula. But he had never become inured to the sight or smell of death.

  `Not much, I'm afraid, although I'm only just getting started. I might have more for you in a wee bit.' Gibson limped from behind the table, his peg leg tap-tapping on the uneven flagged flooring. He pointed to a jagged purple slit that marred the milky flesh of the body's left breast. `You can see where she was stabbed. The blade was perhaps eight or ten inches long and an inch wide. Either her killer knew what he was doing or he got lucky. He hit her heart with just one thrust.'

  `She died right away?'

  `Almost instantly.'

  Sebastian dropped his gaze to the long, tapered fingers that lay curled beside the body's hips. The nails were carefully manicured and unbroken.

  `No sign of a struggle?'

  `None that I've found.'

  `So she may have known her attacker?'

  `Perhaps.' Gibson tossed the rag aside. `Lovejoy's constable said she was found drifting in a dinghy outside London?'

  Sebastian nodded. `On an old moat near Enfield. Any idea how long she's been dead?'

  `Roughly twenty-four hours, I'd say, perhaps a few hours more or a little less. But beyond that it's difficult to determine.'

  Sebastian studied the reddish purple discoloration along the visible portions of the body's flanks and back. He knew from his own experience on the battlefield that blood tended to pool in the lower portions of a cadaver. `Any chance she could have been killed someplace else and then put in that boat?'

  `I haven't found anything to suggest it, no. The livor mortis is consistent with the position in which I'm told she was found.'

  Sebastian's gaze shifted to the half boots of peach-colored suede, the delicate stockings, the froth of white muslin neatly folded on a nearby shelf. `These are hers?'

  `Yes.'

  He reached out to finger the dark reddish brown stain that stiffened the delicate lace edging of the bodice. Suddenly the dank, death-tinged air of the place seemed to reach out and wrap itself around him, smothering him. He dropped his hand to his side and went to stand outside in the yard, the buzz of insects loud in the rank grass of the neglected garden as he drew in a deep breath of fresh air.

  He was aware of his friend coming to stand beside him. Gibson said, `Lovejoy tells me Miss Jar... I mean, Lady Devlin was acquainted with the victim.'

  `They were quite close, yes.'

  Sebastian stared up at the hot, brittle blue sky overhead. When the messenger from Bow Street arrived in Brook Street that morning, Sebastian thought he had never seen Hero more devastated. Yet she hadn't wept, and she had turned down his suggestion that she drive up to Camlet Moat with him. He did not understand why. But then, how much did he really know about the woman he had married?

  Hero and this dead woman had shared so much in common, an enthusiasm for scholarship and research, a willingness to challenge societal expectations and prejudices, and a rejection of marriage and motherhood as the only acceptable choice for a woman. He could understand Hero's grief and anger at the loss of her friend. But he couldn't shake the uncomfortable sense that something else was going on with her, something he couldn't even begin to guess at.

  Gibson said, `This must be difficult for her. Any leads yet on the two lads?'

  Sebastian glanced over at him, not understanding. `What lads?'

  `The two boys Miss Tennyson had spending the summer with her.' Gibson must have read the confusion in Sebastian's face, because he added, `You mean to say you haven't heard?'

  Sebastian could feel his heart beating in his ears like a thrumming of dread. `Heard what?

  `The news has been all over town this past hour or more. The children have vanished. No one's seen them since yesterday morning.'

  Chapter 8

  The Adelphi Terrace or Royal Terrace, as it was sometimes called stretched along the bank of the Thames overlooking the vast Adelphi Wharves. A long block of elegant neoclassical town houses built by the Adams brothers late in the previous century, the address was popular with the city's rising gentry class, particularly with Harley Street physicians and successful barristers such as Gabrielle Tennyson's brother. As Sebastian rounded the corner from Adams Street, he found Sir Henry Lovejoy exiting the Tennysons' front door.

  `You've heard about the missing children?' asked Sir Henry, his homely face troubled as he waited for Sebastian to come up to him.

  `Just now, from Gibson.'

  Sir Henry blew out a lo
ng, painful breath. `I needn't scruple to tell you this adds a very troubling dimension to the case. A very troubling dimension indeed.'

  `You've found no trace of them?'

  `Nothing. Nothing at all. Right now, we're hoping the children witnessed the murder and ran away to hide in the woods in fright. The alternative is... Well, it's not something I'm looking forward to dealing with.'

  They turned to walk along the terrace fronting onto the wharves below. The fierce midday sun glinted off the broad surface of the river beside them and the air filled with the rough shouts of bargemen working the river and the rattle of carts on the coal wharf.

  `We've had constables knocking on doors up and down the street,' said Sir Henry, `in the hopes someone might be able to tell us what time Miss Tennyson and the children left the house, or perhaps even with whom. Unfortunately, the heat has driven most of the residents into the country, and of those who remain, no one recalls having seen anything.'

  `Any chance the children could have been snatched for ransom?'

  `It's a possibility, I suppose, although I must confess I find it unlikely. I'm told the children's father is a simple, impoverished clergyman up in the wilds of Lincolnshire. And while the victim's brother, Mr. Hildeyard Tennyson, is a moderately successful barrister, he is not excessively wealthy.' Sir Henry rubbed the bridge of his nose between one thumb and finger. `The elder boy, George, is just nine years old, while the younger, Alfred, is turning three. They were here with Miss Tennyson when the servants left yesterday morning, but as far as we've been able to tell, that's the last time any of them were seen.' He hesitated, then added reluctantly, `Alive.'

  `And the servants never thought to raise the alarm when neither Miss Tennyson nor the children returned home last night?'

  `They thought it not their place to presume to know their mistress's intentions.'

  `Yes, I can see that,' said Sebastian. `And now they're so frightened of being blamed for the delay in launching a search that it's difficult to get much of anything out of them?'

  `Exactly.' Lovejoy sighed. `Although they may prove more willing to open up to you than to Bow Street.' The warm breeze blowing off the water brought them the smell of brine and spawning fish and the freshness of the wide-open seas. His features pinched, Lovejoy paused to stare out across the barges and wherries filling the river. `I'm heading back up to Enfield now, to organize some men to drag the moat.'

  Sebastian said, `Any possibility the children could have been the killer's intended targets and Miss Tennyson simply got in the way?'

  `Merciful heavens. Why would anyone want to kill two innocent children?' Lovejoy was silent a moment, his gaze still on the sun-spangled water, a bead of sweat rolling down one cheek.

  `But you re right; it is obviously a possibility. Dear God, what is the world coming to?' He narrowed his eyes against the glare coming off the water and said it again. `What is the world coming to?'

  The Tennysons' housekeeper was a small, plump woman named Mrs. O'Donnell. She had full cheeks and graying hair worn tucked neatly beneath a starched white cap, and she struck Sebastian as the type of woman who in happier times sported rosy cheeks and bustled about with brisk good cheer and a ready laugh. Now she sat crumpled beside the empty hearth in the servants hall, a damp handkerchief clutched forlornly in one fist, her eyes red and swollen with tears, her cheeks ashen.

  `If only the master had been home,' she kept saying over and over again. `None of this would have happened.'

  `How long has Mr. Tennyson been gone?' asked Sebastian, settling onto a hard wooden bench opposite her.

  `A fortnight, come Tuesday. He wanted Miss Tennyson and the lads to go into the country with him, get away from all the heat and dirt of the city. But she wouldn't leave that project of hers.' Mrs. O'Donnell's nose wrinkled when she uttered the word project, as if she spoke of something nasty and improper. It was obvious that for all her geniality, the housekeeper did not approve of Miss Tennyson's unorthodox interests.

  Sebastian said, `I take it you're referring to the excavations up at Camlet Moat?'

  Mrs. O'Donnell nodded and touched her handkerchief to the corner of one eye. `I know it's not my place to say such things, but, well It's not right, if you ask me. Women belong in the home. And now look what's come of it! Her dead, and those poor lads gone missing. Such bright little fellows, they were. Quick-tempered and full of mischief, to be sure, but charming and winsome for all of that. Why, just yesterday morning before they left for church, Master George gave me a little poem he wrote all by himself.' She pushed up from her seat and went to rummage amongst the litter of recipes and invoices, letters and broadsheets, that covered a nearby table. `It's here somewhere.'

  `That's the last time you saw them?' asked Sebastian. `Yesterday morning, when they were on their way to church?'

  `It was, yes,' she said, distracted by her search.

  `Which church do they normally attend?'

  `St. Martin's, usually.'

  `You think that's where they went yesterday?'

  `I don't see why not, my lord.'

  `I'm told Miss Tennyson liked to take the boys on various outings several times a week, particularly on Sunday afternoons.'

  `Oh, yes. She was enjoying their visit ever so much. It was lovely to see her with them. Her face would light up and she'd laugh like she was a carefree girl again herself.' A ghost of a smile animated the housekeeper's features, only to fade away into pinched sorrow. `Course, then there were the times I'd catch her watching them, and she'd go all still and quiet-like, and this look would come over her that was something painful to see.'

  `What sort of a look?'

  `It was like a... like a yearning, if you know what I mean?'

  `You think she regretted not having children of her own?'

  `If she did, it was her choice, wasn't it? I mean, it's not like she didn't have plenty of offers. Turned them all down, she did.' The housekeeper straightened, a tattered paper clenched in one hand. `Ah, here it is!' She thrust the page toward him.

  Sebastian found himself staring at a single stanza of poetry written in a schoolboy's best copperplate. He read aloud:

  `Somewhere the sea, somewhere the sun

  Whisper of pain and love untold;

  Something that's done and more undone,

  Are only the dead so bold?'

  He looked up. `George Tennyson wrote this?'

  `He did. Oh, it's all great nonsense, to be sure. But it's still fine, wouldn't you say? And he but a boy of nine!'

  `Do you mind if I keep it for a day or so? I'll see it's returned to you,' he added when she looked hesitant.

  `To be sure you may keep it, my lord. Only, I won't deny I would like to have it back.'

  `I understand.' Sebastian tucked the boy's poem into his pocket. `Do you have any idea how Miss Tennyson and the children planned to spend yesterday afternoon?'

  She looked thoughtful for a moment, then shook her head. `No, my lord; I don't know as I ever heard her mention it. We always lay out a cold collation for the family in the dining room, you see, before we leave for our half day. They eat when they come home from church, before they go out again. We left a lovely spread, with a side of beef and salmon in aspic and a chilled asparagus soup.'

  `And did Miss Tennyson and the children eat the meal you left for them on Sunday?'

  `Oh, yes, my lord. In fact, the plate with Mrs. Reagan's oatmeal cookies was completely empty except for a few crumbs.' She plopped back down in her chair, her hands wringing together so hard the fingers turned white. `Oh, if only Mr. Tennyson had been here!' she cried. `Then we'd have known for certain something was amiss when they didn't come home last night.'

  `What time did the servants return to the house?'

  `The others were back by seven, although I'm afraid I myself wasn't in until nearly eight. I spent the day with my sister in Kent Town, you see; her husband's ever so sick, and Miss Tennyson told me not to worry if I was a bit late. She was that way, you know, so ki
nd and generous. And now...' Her voice cracked and she turned her face away, her throat working silently.

  Sebastian said, `Were you concerned when you arrived back and realized Miss Tennyson and the children hadn't returned themselves?'

  `Well, of course I was! We all were. Margaret Campbell, she's the boys nurse, you know, was all for going to the public office at once. She was convinced something must have happened to them. But we had no way of knowing that for certain, and who could ever have imagined that something like this had occurred? I mean, what if Miss Tennyson had simply decided to spend the night with some friends and forgot to tell us? Or she could have received bad news from the boys parents and set off with the children for Lincolnshire. To tell the truth, I thought she might even have reconsidered staying in London and decided to join her brother in the country after all. I can tell you, she would not have thanked us if we'd raised a ruckus for naught.'

  Sebastian watched her twist her handkerchief around her fist.

  `Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to do either Miss Tennyson or the boys harm?'

  Her puffy face crumpled. `No,' she cried. `None of this makes any sense. Why would anyone want to harm either her or those poor, poor lads? Why?'

  Sebastian rested his hand on her shoulder. It was a useless, awkward gesture of comfort, but she looked up at him with pleading eyes, her plump, matronly form shuddering with need for a measure of understanding and reassurance he could not give.

  Chapter 9

  Leaving the servants hall, Sebastian climbed the stairs to the nursery at the top of the Tennyson house.

  It was a cheerful place, its walls newly covered in brightly sprigged paper and flooded with light from the rows of long windows overlooking the broad, sun-dappled expanse of the river. The two little boys might have only been visiting for the summer, but it was obvious that Gabrielle Tennyson had prepared for her young cousins stay with loving care.

  Pausing at the entrance to the schoolroom, Sebastian let his gaze drift over the armies of tin soldiers that marched in neat formations across the scrubbed floorboards. Cockhorses and drums and wooden boats littered the room; shelves of books beckoned with promises of endless hours spent vicariously adventuring in faraway lands. On the edge of a big, sturdy table near the door lay a cluster of small, disparate objects: a broken clay pipe bowl, a glowing brown chestnut, a blue and white ceramic bead as if a boy had hurriedly emptied his pockets of their treasures and then never come back for them.