by Issy Brooke
“He did,” said Hetty, at his shoulder. “He came … and you sent him away.” Her face was very pale. “And why did you do that, Don?”
“He … I … it was unconnected,” he stammered.
“No,” Cordelia said sadly. “I am sorry to have to do this, and I will be succinct if I may. Due to certain events in your past, doctor, you had reason to think that Thomas had come to try to blackmail you. He was not talking directly, I imagine, and nor did you. It is our way, is it not, to edge around the truth and never say a direct thing if it is a disagreeable thing? And I know that I am doing the same thing now; alluding most vaguely to hidden matters. But it is not my revelation to make. Suffice it to say that you believed Thomas was talking to you about your past mistakes … and he was not.”
The doctor’s face crumpled and he grabbed Hetty, dragging her close to his side. “Oh no.”
“Can it be true?” the sheriff demanded.
“What she says – about me, and Thomas. Yes. It is true. I sent him away. I misunderstood. Oh, had I listened! I am a fool. He might be yet alive.”
Indeed he might, Cordelia thought, but saw no reason to fuel his misery. Kindly, she said, “There were other things at play. Indeed, when Ewatt went to Mrs Hurrell’s that fateful morning, he did not, I believe, intend to kill. He sent a note to get Mrs Hurrell out of the house. All he wanted was what he believed that she kept in her sideboard. She had told him she had evidence – of his bank’s collapse, of his involvement in scandals in London, all manner of things. They knew one another in London. He helped her to set up a new home here, and that was foolish of him. He had more to lose than her, you see. And he realised he could not risk it when she began to threaten to expose him.” And why didn’t she? The papers were no evidence, Cordelia thought. She could not do more than make an accusation that all would laugh off.
But I am a gentlewoman, and people must listen.
She continued. “So he went to retrieve this evidence. He thought that Thomas was working at the manor, as usual.”
“But he wasn’t,” the doctor breathed.
“No; once again he had argued with Ralph Goody over the theft of vegetables and meat. Ralph runs a profitable side-line in selling pilfered goods. So Thomas was out of work, and lying on his bed in the back room when Ewatt entered.”
Ewatt had let go of her arm and he started to back away. Suddenly there were two constables at his back. These were town watchmen, and used to using their brawn in pub fights and street altercations. Ewatt was stuck.
Cordelia made brief eye contact with the sheriff and he nodded. She continued. “Thomas had decided to confront Ewatt about his business. He knew that once Ewatt had siphoned off as much money as he could, by the matter of raising loans against his non-existent capital and his fake stocks, he was going to disappear. It would not be the first time a regional bank had done this. He was planning to go abroad – I know this from conversations with the post master and also his wife. But Thomas could not let that happen. He could not keep his mouth shut. He’d heard the threats and arguments between Mrs Hurrell and Ewatt, and he knew Ewatt was up to no good. The doctor had spurned him. So it was left to Thomas, that rash impulsive man, in the spur of the moment, to come into Mrs Hurrell’s room and confront Ewatt.”
By now, everyone was hanging on her every word. She paused and dropped her voice.
“The result was sadly inevitable. An argument, possibly a scuffle; Ewatt could not let Thomas go, and Thomas was too impulsive to stop, think and walk away. What then happened, only Ewatt can tell us. But certainly a punch was thrown, a left-handed blow, and Thomas hit his head, and died.”
She stopped. That was it; all her conjecture and all her suppositions, laid out for the sheriff to assess. Some of it had taken leaps of imagination. Some of it was guesswork. She looked to her side.
And her intuition was rewarded.
Ewatt was white in the face, and his eyes bulged. Even as he began to protest, saying, “No, no, arrest this mad woman for slander!” the constables were at either side of him. He began to flail his arms, and they restrained him, pulling his arms back to snap some large, heavy cuffs on his wrists.
“An innocent man would not fight,” the sheriff remarked drily, stepping up close to Ewatt and peering at him. “Certainly I am interested, in the first instance, to examine your banking affairs a little more closely.”
“You cannot! I forbid it!” Ewatt said. “I am innocent, innocent, caught in these lies by an unhinged woman!”
“All the women you deal with seem to end up unhinged,” Cordelia said. “Mrs Hurrell was right to flee when she could.”
“You–”
His curses and blasphemy were loud and violent, and even the sheriff winced. He nodded at his constables who began to haul Ewatt away, still protesting.
“My lady,” he said, turning back to Cordelia. “I cannot say what will come of this. You have given us much to ponder on, and I am afraid that man does not help his case with his reaction. And now I see you are without an escort. Do allow me.” He offered his arm, and she accepted, with relief flooding through her like a wave.
“Thank you,” she said.
They moved off, and the crowd followed. From between the heads, she saw the coroner, John Barron.
He smiled.
Suddenly, everyone wanted to talk to Cordelia again. She was a part of things once more.
And Clarfields was hers.
Chapter Thirty-five
“Another afternoon visit; another dramatic reconstruction of the events that occurred at Wallerton Manor,” Cordelia said as Ruby helped her attend to her dress.
“You love it, my lady,” Ruby said cheekily. “There’s Mrs Collins out there, and the reverend’s wife also. You cannot wait to scandalise them with your recount.”
“I? Oh, Ruby, all I wanted was for justice to prevail.”
“Your justice,” Ruby said. “And to keep this place yours. Clarfields. There, now. Your hair is just right. Oh, I should tell you that Geoffrey has argued with Mr Fry again.”
Would the feud between the butler and the coachman never end? Cordelia rolled her eyes to heaven and sighed. “And Mrs Unsworth? She seemed a little happier to be back in her own kitchen when I went to talk about this week’s menu.”
“Mrs Unsworth? Who can say what goes on in that old stick’s heart and mind. I, for one, don’t care to find out.”
“You ought to be kinder to her,” Cordelia said.
“Why?”
But Cordelia could not explain. It was not her story to tell. She straightened her skirts and threw back her head, and sallied out to meet another group of callers.
* * *
In truth, everything had felt ever so slightly different since they had returned home. Cordelia had slept like a baby in the carriage, and barely remembered being helped into bed. The servants slipped back into their dedicated duties, but everything was shifted one step to the right, or set on a diagonal. Her previous lady’s maid had but briefly returned from her holiday. She had packed her things, muttered something about a man, and departed. So Ruby stepped into the position on a permanent basis.
Geoffrey and Stanley melted back into the coach house and she barely saw them. Mrs Unsworth was once more queen of her own kitchens and the respite the maids of the house had enjoyed was now broken. But her surly manner remained. Cordelia could not bring herself to correct it.
And scandal had followed, as scandal does, but with the accolades and praise of the sheriff and the press to counteract her unwomanly doings, it all seemed to even out. Some snooty types would not speak to her. She was glad of it. Those that were worth anything, still came to see her.
“My lady? My lady? Mrs Collins, ring the bell–”
“No, no, I am sorry. I was far away.” Cordelia blinked and shook herself, and felt herself redden slightly. She hoped she had not actually fallen asleep but the reverend’s wife’s homilies had an opiate effect on a person.
The reveren
d’s wife, Lottie Melshaw, patted her hand. “We were asking about the murderer’s poor mad wife.”
“Ah.” In truth, Cordelia thought that Freda was not mad at all. Perhaps silly, perhaps easily influenced, certainly too focused on material things and the help she could find in a bottle of laudanum. “The children were taken by the doctor and his wife, and I cannot think of a better pair to bring up healthy offspring. As for Freda herself … there was talk of holding her to account but under the law, no way forward could be seen. And she solved the problem herself by running away with a passing businessman. I say businessman; he was a young man with a certain inherited fortune who was off to the Americas to make something of himself. She always wanted to travel. So she has not been pursued.”
“She should be tried for her neglect of her children,” Mrs Collins said stoutly.
“She will, at the gates of heaven,” Mrs Melshaw said, and Cordelia gave her a wide and grateful smile. For all Freda’s faults, Cordelia blamed much of it on her husband.
It was strange how a man could turn his wife into a criminal, she thought, and bile rose into her mouth as the memories came back. She must have blanched, for Mrs Melshaw reached forward to pat her hand once more. Her touch was warm and comforting.
“You’ve had such a trying time, dear. I imagine you’ll be quite content to stay at home for the rest of your life!”
How perfectly dreadful. The memories receded. Cordelia sat up defiantly. “Oh no,” she said. “In a few months’ time I shall be heading north to see my aunt, Maude Stanbury.”
“North?” both matriarchs gasped in horror.
“Far north,” Cordelia said, enjoying their reaction immensely. “Yorkshire. But do not worry. My aunt lives the quiet life of an elderly spinster, in a beautiful rural area, I am told. It is all rolling moors and babbling brooks.”
“In November?” Mrs Collins asked.
“Well, perhaps they are cold rolling moors and iced-over brooks. But what could possibly be more relaxing than a few weeks in a large country house on the moors…”
The End
Thanks for reading! I’m an independent author. If you have the time, please do leave a review on Amazon. It makes a very real difference to an author’s livelihood. Do note this book has been written in British English, which is just like American English but we like to use more vowels.
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Look out for more adventures involving Cordelia and her retinue – coming throughout 2016.
Also available: contemporary light cozy mysteries set in Lincolnshire. The Some Very English Murders series is available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019U21S7C
Historical Note
I have striven to be as historically accurate as possible. But I am fallible. I welcome feedback - if I’ve messed up, please do email me on [email protected] or join in the discussion on my website here: http://www.issybrooke.com. I will amend future editions.
I would ask that you point me in the direction of your sources for any corrections. The interesting thing about history is that we all tend to come at it through the lens of modern cultural interpretations. But you can’t trust what you see on television; often it’s a dumbed-down version that we are fed, and take as “true.”
Some of the books that I have consulted are:
How To Be A Victorian by Ruth Goodman
Liberty’s Dawn: A People’s History of the Industrial Revolution
Children of the Mill by David Hanson
The Victorian City by Judith Flanders
WhatThe Victorians Did For Us by Adam Hart-Davis
A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley
The Great British Bobby by Clive Emsley
The Victorian Kitchen by Jennifer Davies
The Victorian Kitchen Garden Companion by Harry Dodson
Crime and Criminals of Victorian England by Adrian Gray
Tales of a Victorian Detective by Jerome Caminada - a most excellent primary source and available cheaply on kindle
I chose 1845 because it was the very cusp of change in that century. The railways were expanding and this made travel easier but people were still using coaches and carriages. The Penny Post had just come in; the first commercial electric telegraph had begun in 1837 (and for a wonderfully gripping true tale of crime and telegraphy, read The Peculiar Case of the Electric Constable by Carol Baxter).
Regarding the system of policing at that time, again it was a time of flux. Many counties had started their own new police forces, following the lead of the Metropolitan Police in London, but some areas were resistant, especially where they feared that taxes would be raised to pay for the new constabularies. I deliberately set this book in Cambridgeshire, which in 1845 did not have its own county police force – yet. That arrived in 1851.
Cordelia is a lady but not a Lady. Ah, the details of English etiquette. She is never referred to as Lady Cordelia Cornbrook - that would mark her as one of the nobility - a lady with her own title. But as she is the wife (or, rather, widow) of a knight, Sir Cornbrook, she is called Cordelia, Lady Cornbrook or simply Lady Cornbrook, and The Dowager Lady Cornbrook. She is gentility but not nobility. Die-hard history buffs will know I’ve taken some liberties with Cordelia’s behaviour and her interaction with her staff. Still, the fact she has money and status does give her a little leeway with regards to social conventions. There were always rebels. Interested parties should consult Debretts online.
The system of inheritance is a complex and tangled one, and things got worse for women after The Dower Act of 1834. Women tended not to inherit property.
Can you climb a six-foot wall while wearing a corset and crin-au-lin (the early incarnation of the crinoline, the large steel cages which became fashionable after 1856)? I think so. Tight-lacing was discouraged by doctors, and anyway, if you’ve worn such a garment all your life, you get used to moving in it. The problem would be the raising of the arms. Do check out Ruth Goodman’s book, How To Be A Victorian, for detailed analysis of the effects of a woman’s clothing on her everyday life. You’ll be surprised - I was.
Thanks for reading!
Issy
Table of Contents
Start
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Historical Note
