The Coroner's Daughter

by Andrew Hughes

  ‘Martha wanted to know who gave you the Bible that was in your room.’

  The red marks on her face became more vivid, but she remained silent.

  ‘She saw the inscription, Emilie.’

  ‘It wasn’t anyone she knew.’

  ‘Was it—’

  ‘She didn’t know him.’

  Emilie rolled on to her side and pulled at the blankets. Her manacle scraped along the bed frame.

  I spoke her name a few more times, but she didn’t stir. The other patient in the ward, Mrs Longsworth, had woken up. Strands of hair covered her face as she peered at me from her pillow. I stood and replaced the chair by the wall, taking care to lift it this time.

  To Emilie, I said, ‘I shall try to have Morgan’s grave marked. For his name to be put on the cross.’

  My bonnet had become loose, and I undid the string to tie it again. When I looked down, she had turned about to face me.

  ‘You can do that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  We regarded each other. Perhaps I should have said something more, but nothing seemed appropriate. In a matter of weeks, Miss Casey would be sent to gaol probably for the remainder of her life, or possibly to the gallows. I bent my head and began walking towards the door.

  ‘He was one of the congregation.’

  I paused in the middle of the ward. ‘Mr Darby’s congregation?’

  ‘Every week he would arrive early for their meetings, and we would speak when I brought him tea. No one like him had ever shown interest in me before.’

  I wanted to ask his name, but thought she would become quiet again. In the hallway, I could hear Ewan’s voice.

  ‘I would go to his home whenever he knew it would be empty. My cousin lived around the corner on Clare Street, so I pretended to be visiting her.’

  ‘Did Martha ever meet him?’

  Emilie didn’t seem to hear. She pulled against the manacle so the edge bit into her wrist. ‘At first he was happy when I told him. He said that he would talk to his father; arrange everything.’ She hadn’t blinked for some time, and her eyes had begun to glisten. ‘But then he wanted rid of it, and when I refused, he stopped speaking to me. He only sent letters, saying that I had tricked him, led him astray, that nothing grew in me except the consequence of sin and shame. I couldn’t even show the letters to anyone. All I could do was read them and burn them.’

  There were more voices in the hallway, Mr Gray’s among them.

  ‘He said that he was going to take the baby away, place him with the foundlings in Fleet Street.’ She wrapped her fingers around the chain, and began twisting her wrist in the cuff, causing the skin to chafe and tear. ‘He said he would not allow his child to be raised by someone like me.’

  ‘What was his name, Emilie?’

  ‘What does it matter?’

  I reached over to stop the maid from harming herself, but she roughly knocked my hand away.

  ‘How will you be able to mark Morgan’s grave?’ she said. ‘You’re just a girl.’

  ‘Because of my father.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He is the coroner.’

  Emilies eyes widened. ‘He sent you here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘He sent you to ask these questions.’ Her voice had become shrill, and she sat up in the bed. ‘You lied to me.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to.’

  ‘You’ve lied to me like the others.’

  She leaned over to pick up the water jug with her free hand, which she threw with a wide sweep of her arm. The water splashed over my face and the front of my dress, and the jug smashed against the wall, sending shards of lead glass across the room. She shouted, ‘You’re just like the others.’

  Two nurses and a male orderly ran into the ward, bumping against me as they passed. They advanced on Emilie, and the maid cried out as they clasped her arms and pushed her down. The orderly covered her face with his thick hand, but Emilie forced open her mouth and bit down on his fingers. He cursed, and struck her head with his fist, while the nurses pulled at her ears until she released her hold.

  I yelled for them to stop, but they didn’t listen. Ewan touched my elbow and spoke my name. I turned to see the clerk, Mr Gray, on the threshold of the ward. He stood beside another man who wore a light-blue frock coat. Though Emilie continued to struggle, with her legs exposed and thrashing about, and with a nurse attempting to cover her face with a laudanum-soaked rag, the men in the doorway looked only towards me.

  Mr Gray’s superior approached. I lowered my eyes and said, ‘Please, sir, get them to stop.’

  ‘It’s Miss Lawless, is it not?’

  I nodded. ‘I didn’t intend for—’

  ‘My name is Dr Labatt.’ Another orderly entered the ward carrying large leather straps to secure Emilie fully to the bed. Labatt said, ‘We have met before, Abigail.’

  I looked up and met his eye.

  ‘Though you were quite young.’ He surveyed the room again, scraping a fragment of glass over the tiled floor with the toe of his boot. ‘I think the time has come to have a word with your father.’

  It was a sombre procession back to the house. Dr Labatt and I walked in front, my hand in his elbow. He’d insisted I take it, in quite a gentlemanly manner, but I felt uncomfortable doing so, as in any situation where one hasn’t the option to refuse. Kathy stared when she opened the door to the three of us. Labatt asked her to fetch my father, and we waited for him in the parlour. I felt like a visitor to my own home. Ewan stood by the fire, his hands behind his back, his chin held upright as if braced by the high knot of his cravat. The doctor examined glazed figurines on the mantelpiece – a series of ladies with wide-brimmed hats and flowing skirts.

  ‘Was your mother a collector, Miss Lawless?’

  I said the figures belonged to our housekeeper, Mrs Perrin.

  ‘And she’s allowed to place them here?’

  The answer to that seemed self-evident, so I remained silent.

  My father entered the room carrying an oil-lamp, his brow already creased as if he could not believe the reason for his summons. He looked from me to Ewan, and then greeted Dr Labatt, inviting him to explain what had happened.

  The doctor did so, saying that he would have dismissed the affair as youthful high spirits, except there had been several grave breaches of medical and professional practice, not to mention distress caused to a vulnerable young woman. He gestured towards Ewan. ‘I can only assume that your assistant took it upon himself to question Emilie Casey, and that he used your daughter for that purpose.’

  His assumption was unjust to Ewan of course, but I was stung more by the personal slight. ‘That’s untrue.’

  Father said, ‘Abigail, please.’

  Ewan had been standing in the same position throughout. ‘Mr Lawless, I take full responsibility. There is no excuse. I can only apologize and consent to any punishment you deem—’

  ‘Father, I was the one who wished to speak with Miss Casey. Mr Weir made every effort to dissuade me.’

  The doctor said, ‘That is not how Mr Gray described it.’

  Father held up both hands to appeal for quiet, then closed them together with his fingers in a steeple. He looked at me and said that it didn’t matter who had instigated the affair; it had been up to Ewan to call a halt.

  I began to protest again, and when I saw his intention to speak over me, I said, ‘Do you think me incapable of taking responsibility?’

  The corners of his mouth turned down for a moment, and I knew his answer. For how could I be held accountable? What could be my punishment except some trifling and temporary loss of favour: denied access to the library, or a trip to the theatre, or a visit from Clarissa?

  ‘Why did you wish to talk to this girl, Abigail?’

  With all three men looking at me, my earlier resolve seemed feeble. ‘Because I couldn’t believe a mother would act with such cruelty to her new-born unless forced by another, and the only way to find that out was to ask he
r.’

  Dr Labatt’s legs were crossed at the shins, his hands perched on the head of his cane. He spoke in a tone so disdainful that I knew he couldn’t have had daughters. ‘Miss Lawless, if you only saw the babies that are brought to my care, those found in sewer pipes and animal pens and frozen ditches, you would know that women of a certain character are capable of anything.’

  But my father had been regarding me more closely. ‘Did Miss Casey answer your questions when you put them to her?’ He saw me pause and said, ‘Abigail, this is a moment to be completely frank.’

  ‘The baby’s father is one of the congregation that meet in the home of Mr Nesham.’

  ‘The Brethren?’

  ‘Yes. She told me that he threatened to—’

  ‘Impossible.’ Dr Labatt’s eyes had hardened, and he looked at me from beneath his brow. ‘The character of Mr Darby’s church is founded on the strictest principles of good conduct.’

  ‘That may be,’ Father said, ‘but every flock has its black sheep.’

  ‘Their name cannot be tainted because of rumour. Why, the nursemaid changes her story at every turn. She told her employer something quite different, and I suspect she may have no idea who the father was.’

  Ewan had been quiet for some time, but this suggestion of Emilie’s easy virtue made him raise his head. ‘Doctor, such speculation is hardly proper in this company.’

  ‘I shall not be guided on appropriate behaviour by you, Mr Weir. If Miss Lawless did not wish to hear such things discussed then she shouldn’t have interfered.’ He turned to my father. ‘I have found that Miss Casey has displayed several signs of furor uterinus.’

  He may have thought that I wouldn’t recognize the term; my father knew that I would, and he briefly closed his eyes. How anyone could be offended by a medical condition . . . Though I doubted whether Emilie could have presented such symptoms during the days of her confinement, especially following such trauma.

  ‘It is one thing for your daughter to sneak into my hospital and interfere with my patient. It is quite another for her to disseminate the girl’s lies.’

  Father’s face darkened, which always made him appear older. ‘I believe that is an unfair characterization.’

  A log shifted in the fire, and an ember rolled on to the hearthstone where it dwindled and died.

  ‘Dr Labatt.’ I waited for him to look at me. ‘I feel I have always been adept at spotting when someone is not telling the truth.’

  The doctor stood and clasped his cane beneath his arm. He said, ‘I have nothing more to add. The board of the hospital will consider this, and we shall decide if any other authority should be notified.’ Father rose as Labatt bid us all a curt good night. Kathy had lingered in the hallway, ready with Labatt’s hat and coat. We heard her open the front door and warn the doctor that a shower had made the steps slippery.

  Father remained standing by his chair for a moment. He lowered his head as if wearied, noticed the middle button of his waistcoat undone, but let it be. As he went to place a guard in front of the fire, his foot brushed the edge of the hearthrug, making the tasselled fringe dishevelled. ‘Mr Weir,’ he said, ‘will you join me in my study?’

  I was about to speak, but Father held up a hand. ‘Perhaps it’s best if you retire early, Abigail.’ He said that he would deal with me in the morning.

  I lay alone atop the covers of my bed like a monk in his beehive hut, or a felon in her cell, and listened for sounds of movement. Those tiptoed treads ascending the stairs belonged to Kathy going to her quarters in the loft. Mrs Perrin moved with a heavier step as she went from room to room, shutting doors and snuffing candles. I heard a scratching, and rose to let Kepler into my chamber. Our house-cat had a thick coat of black and grey with stripes forming an M on his forehead, as if he had eyebrows that were always arched. The tip of his tongue extruded because of an old injury – the result of an encounter with a love-rival, or possibly a love-interest. He padded over to the bed and curled up on the blanket, which was warm from where I had lain.

  The study door creaked open in the floor below. Ewan must have walked with particular care, for there was no other sound until the front door was pulled shut, making the lid of the letter box rattle. I opened one shutter and saw him set off towards Sackville Street. He paused in the dim glow of a lamp to look up and over his shoulder. I was about to step back from the window, but I waited, and when he continued to gaze upwards, I raised my hand in greeting. The single candle in my room would have made me a shadowy figure.

  But Ewan had only looked skywards because a cold rain had started to fall. He fastened the top button of his coat with one hand, pulled the brim of his hat lower and moved off into the darkened street. I closed the shutter and slipped the hooked latch into place, feeling tired and pensive and disappointed.

  The most convivial part of our home had always been the basement kitchen, a haven of warmth and hard work overseen by Mrs Perrin. We called her the housekeeper mainly so Father could pay her that level of salary, but she assumed many lesser duties. She cooked and cleaned and had been a lady’s maid for my mother. We were a small household, despite our large home, and so there was little need for a steward or more than one parlourmaid or hall boy. Mrs Perrin was approaching fifty. She was thin and wiry, with a strong constitution, and had been the wife of the previous coachman, Raymond. Two of their daughters still worked as maids in separate houses in the countryside. Ray Perrin had died of a punctured lung when he was kicked by a mare at the Smithfield market; the tragedy all the more cruel because it came during his wife’s final and no doubt unexpected pregnancy.

  Jimmy arrived so late that it almost killed both mother and child, but once they were out of danger, Father assured Mrs Perrin that she would have a home and job for life if she wished it, and that Jimmy could be raised here. He was a beautiful dark-haired infant and, for a seven-year-old girl, a delightful distraction and playmate. One of the first words he uttered was ‘Abby’, and he had called me that ever since, despite his mother’s half-hearted appeals for him to say ‘Miss Abigail’. As my own mother withdrew into herself and her chamber, I developed a closer relationship with Mrs Perrin and her son.

  I did chores alongside them as well. Father wished for me to be able to take care of myself; to know how to pump water, build a fire or cook a meal. This was partly due to principle. It was difficult, he said, to work with the dead on a daily basis and not develop some egalitarian beliefs. But it was also true that we lived in uncertain times. I had been born in the midst of rebellion at home, and there had been wars in Europe all my life. An uneasy mood persisted among our neighbours that at any moment the social order could be overturned, and all our fortunes reversed.

  I was just pleased to have an unaffected bond with everyone in the household; with Liam the coachman and the young maids who came and went. I could join in their discussions and occasionally sit with them for meals, though I noticed from an early age that conversations without me were more unguarded and the laughter brighter.

  When I came down the following morning, two unplucked pheasants lay on the kitchen table, their wrung necks lolling over the side. Mrs Perrin was kneading dough, the sleeves of her housedress rolled up and her forearms dusted with flour. She kept a close eye on Kepler in the corner. I bid her good morning, and she beckoned me to the table by cocking her head. She showed me her dough-covered hands, leaned her face towards me and said, ‘Can you scratch the front of my nose?’

  I did so with the tip of my index finger and she smiled back.

  She began kneading again in earnest. ‘What have you done now to vex your father?’

  ‘Why, what did he say?’

  ‘Nothing, but I can tell by him. He wants to see you in his study before breakfast.’

  Father was writing at his desk when I entered. I sat across from him without speaking. He sprinkled his sheet with a pounce-pot, set it aside, and then placed his glasses on the desk with the temples still raised.

  I’d i
ntended to let him speak first, but in the silence I said, ‘What did you decide for Mr Weir?’

  ‘We agreed that it might be best if he continue his studies at home for a week or two.’

  ‘I feared you had sent him away for good.’

  Father picked up another sheet of paper, its edges weighed down by a broken seal, and seemed ready to hand it to me, but then changed his mind. ‘A note came from the Rotunda before dawn,’ he said. ‘Emilie Casey killed herself in the small hours.’

  He folded the sheet again as if he’d been reciting from it. The pieces of the wax seal fitted together like a black horn button, made shiny and lacquered by the morning light.

  ‘How?’

  ‘She cut her wrist with a piece of broken glass.’

  It had only been twelve hours since I’d spoken with her, and I recalled her distress, the exhaustion that I’d roused into anguish. Had I thought to help by going to see her; to somehow uncover the truth? All I had done was add to her torment.

  Father looked at me directly, for how long I wasn’t sure, because I lowered my gaze. He spoke for several minutes. In gentle but firm tones, he said that medical and legal systems had been developed over generations to deal with cases like that of Miss Casey, precisely because rash and unthinking interference like mine could have such tragic consequences. He paused, perhaps expecting me to defend my actions, but I remained silent. He said that I had to understand that people were fragile things, not to be easily analysed or explained, especially in their capacity for pain.

  He picked up his spectacles and told me that I could go.

  When I was halfway to the door he said, ‘Abigail,’ and I looked back at him. ‘You asked me last night if I thought you were capable of taking responsibility.’ He held my eye for a moment. ‘That is something you will have to decide yourself.’