How the Hangman Lost His Heart
Page 17
As for Ursula, she looked so becoming in the black she wore when pretending that Hew was dead that she never gave it up and when Lady Widdrington died, she made such an impression on the undertaker who organized the funeral that he married her himself. She became very much in demand as a professional mourner and earned a most respectable living. When she died, her husband was genuinely heartbroken and had a large memorial erected to her, giving her age as six years younger than it really was, for no other reason than that he knew it would have pleased her.
Major Slavering lived to a fat old age and suffered badly from gout. Most people said he didn’t suffer badly enough and when he died, his funeral was attended only by a couple of stray dogs.
Lord Chief Justice Peckersniff built his house and lived there neither happily nor sadly but in that boring space in between. It was better than his old house, but still not quite big enough to escape his wife. He died in his bed and was supposed to be buried with a handkerchief over his face, but the undertaker forgot, which was a pity.
And what of Uncle Frank’s head? In real life, for Uncle Frank did exist, after the head was stolen and brought home, it was not buried, at least not immediately. Since permission could not be got to open his tomb, his head remained in the hatbox and was, for many years, passed around after dinner with the port for everybody to chat to. When he became a little old for that, he was popped behind the paneling of the family chapel before, with the advent of central heating, being packed off to the bank for safekeeping. It was not until 1950 that his head was eventually reunited with his body and, when the tomb was opened in the mid-1970s to see how he was faring, the second head was discovered. Nobody knows to this day to whom the second head belonged. But I believe that if it belonged to anybody, it belonged to Captain Hew Ffrench, lately of Kingston’s Light Horse and, as Dan Skinslicer would surely agree, one of the luckiest men in England.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank all the children who, having heard me speak of the hapless head of Uncle Frank, encouraged me to write this story.
I would also like to apologize to Uncle Frank himself, for digging him up, as it were, yet again.
Sorry, Uncle Frank.
Also by K. M. Grant
THE DE GRANVILLE TRILOGY:
Blood Red Horse
BOOK ONE
Green Jasper
BOOK TWO
Blaze of Silver
BOOK THREE
Copyright © 2006 by K. M. Grant
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States of America in 2007 by Walker Publishing Company, Inc. Distributed to the trade by Holtzbrinck Publishers
First published in the U.K. in 2006 by the Penguin Group, Puffin Books
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This electronic edition published in July 2012
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grant, K. M. (Katie M.)
How the hangman lost his heart / K. M. Grant.
p. cm.
Story inspired by the author’s ancestor who was executed in the
1745 Jacobite Rebellion.
Summary: When her uncle Frank is executed for treason against England’s King
George in 1746 and his severed head is mounted on a pike for public viewing,
daring Alice tries to reclaim the head for a proper burial, finding an unlikely ally
in the soft-hearted executioner, while incurring the wrath of the royal guard.
1. Great Britain— History—George II, 1727–1760—Juvenile fiction. [1. Great Britain—
History—George II, 1727–1760—Fiction. 2. Executions and executioners—Fiction.
3. Fugitives from justice—Fiction. 4. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.G7667755Ho 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006053182
Book designed and typeset by Yelena Safronova
ISBN: 978-0802-7348-08 (e-book)