The Coroner's Daughter

by Andrew Hughes

  The maid bent low and listened as her mistress whispered in her ear. Sally suffered from strabismus – a squint – and one of her eyes lingered on me, though I knew she couldn’t help it. Mrs Perrin would have said that she’d been born in the middle of the week – looking both ways for Sunday. Off she went on her supposed errand, no doubt dispatched to quieten the argument.

  When the door clicked shut there was silence in the room once more. Edith had hardly said a word since her mother entered, though she’d not said much before that either. Rain continued to blur the windows, and the single candle did little to keep the gloom at bay.

  ‘Mrs Nesham seems to be a prominent member of your congregation,’ I said.

  Edith became still, eyes cast down at her clasped hands, but her mother was unperturbed at the mention of the name.

  ‘Naturally,’ she said. ‘Mr Darby is her brother.’

  ‘Mrs Nesham’s brother?’

  ‘Well, brother-in-law. I believe her sister, Mrs Darby, died a winter or two ago in Wicklow. Some say complications in childbirth.’ She pursed her lips. ‘One doesn’t like to pry.’

  Once again, Mrs Gould began to arrange her skirts, pinching the fabric between her thumb and forefinger as if she plucked at loose threads, but after a moment she glanced up at my lack of response.

  ‘How very sad,’ I said.

  A door banged shut in the floor above, and heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs. The drawing-room door was thrust open, causing the candle-flame to gutter. Robert Gould strode in and said, ‘Mother, I—’

  He stopped himself when he saw me, and tried to straighten the angry curl in his lip, but couldn’t manage it. The buttons of his brocade waistcoat were undone. He seemed ready to fasten them, but then he brought his hands behind his back and bowed his head. ‘Forgive this intrusion.’ He retreated from the room and shut the door again.

  Edith looked to her mother, and then at me, an accusation in her glance, as if my arrival had heralded this quarrel. Mrs Gould sat open-mouthed for a moment, but then she adopted a lighter air. ‘Do you have any brothers, Miss Lawless?’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Then you must relish living in a house of peace and quiet.’

  I said that perhaps this wasn’t the best time for a visit.

  ‘Not at all,’ she said, but then we heard the heavy sound of the front door shaking in its latch. There had been no let-up in the rain. ‘Where is Sally with the tea? And maybe we should light a second candle to better see the first.’

  ‘Really,’ I said. ‘My father will be expecting me, and I’m loath to leave Liam in weather like this.’ I stood up. ‘It was very pleasant seeing you, Edith. Feel free to call on me in Rutland Square.’ She rose alongside her mother, and I told them that I could see myself out.

  Liam edged the horses forward when he saw me. He alighted from his seat, rain falling over his oilskin coat and hat in small rivulets, and he ushered me into the shelter of the carriage. I pulled my cloak about me, and looked up at number five. Edith had returned to her window, perhaps to continue her drawing, or perhaps to watch my departure. In the floor above, I caught a glimpse of Judge Gould in his study, closing over the shutters.

  The labourers were taking shelter from the downpour, leaning on bars in the scaffolding or huddled beneath tattered awnings, looking out over the rain-swept square with glum, thoughtful faces, as if they’d been touched by the melancholy of the scene.

  We turned the corner into Baggot Street and soon passed Robert Gould, who was striding towards St Stephen’s Green. He walked with his head bent and hat tilted forward, hands folded beneath his arms, and he looked like a man sorry for the haste with which he’d left his house. He wore only a thin morning coat and flat leather shoes, and his grey trousers were already soaked through.

  I knocked on the ceiling and called for Liam to stop, then opened the carriage door and waited for Robert to come abreast. ‘Come into the carriage, Mr Gould, and Liam will take you where you wish to go.’

  His head lifted, and he squinted at me for a moment as if trying to place me. The brim of his hat had started to droop to one side. He seemed ready to walk on without a response, but some gentlemanly instinct must have flickered, for he straightened and called above the noise of the rain, ‘No, thank you. I’ve not far to go.’

  ‘I cannot leave you like this.’ I pushed the door open and shifted back in my seat, allowing room for him to enter. ‘I insist, Mr Gould.’

  He hesitated a moment longer, looked over his shoulder, and then climbed into the carriage. He sat opposite me and to the right, pulling the door closed and sliding the window shut. Once he’d settled, the only sound was the rain pattering on the roof. Robert picked at a sodden fold of fabric over his knee, in much the same way his mother had done, and then clasped his fingers together as if in prayer.

  ‘Were you going somewhere in particular?’

  Without glancing up, he said that he’d only been out for a stroll. ‘Please continue on, and I’ll depart once the rain eases.’

  ‘Would you like us to bring you home?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  Perhaps he thought his emphasis imprudent, for he turned his face to look out of the window. I tapped against the roof, and the carriage jolted as we set off once more.

  Robert’s presence seemed to make the air feel cooler. At close quarters he appeared youthful: gangly legs took up much of the space between the seats, his forehead was smooth beneath a fringe of dark curls, and his attempted sideburns were thin and wispy. His wet clothes smelled musty, like an old cloth at the edge of a washbasin, and I became mindful of our proximity, and the tightness of the enclosure.

  If Martha was correct, then here was Emilie’s seducer, and though he may not have foreseen her crime, he still bore some responsibility. He had threatened to take away Emilie’s livelihood, her reputation, and her child. She would have been cast out, her only prospects poverty and loneliness, while he could maintain his privileged life: an education and career, the possibility of a new family; and, half a century from now, while he looked upon his grandchildren playing in a walled garden, Emilie Casey would exist merely as a brief pang of his conscience.

  ‘I came to your home today because I’d hoped to see you,’ I said.

  He turned to face me, and his eyes narrowed in what seemed like calculation. ‘Yes?’

  I reached into my coat pocket, withdrew a wrinkled page and handed it to him. He regarded it for a moment, then unfolded it, and saw his own inscription on the title page of Miss Casey’s Bible – the one I’d found in her room – which read, My Dearest Emilie, To light the way . . .

  The carriage turned a corner, and I had to brace myself against the armrest. Robert swayed as he held the flimsy paper open in both hands. He stared at it unblinking, his knuckles whitened, and I expected him to tear the sheet apart. Instead he folded it again, and gently smoothed the crease. He closed his eyes, squeezing them for a moment as if he were committing a passage to memory, and then took a long breath. ‘May I keep this?’

  He spoke quietly, and I’m sure that if I had refused, he would have handed it back without comment. I nodded, and he tested an inside coat pocket to see if it was dry, then placed it there.

  ‘How did you get it?’ His tone wasn’t suspicious or accusing, merely curious.

  I said that I’d spoken with Emilie the day before she died. ‘She told me . . . many things.’

  His lips tightened in what may have been a smile. ‘Then you must think very little of me.’ Before I could respond, he said, ‘Though you’re not alone in that opinion.’

  The carriage slowed to a halt, and Liam yelled at a costermonger whose cart was blocking the road. One of its wheels was submerged in a muddy pothole, its axle bent. The street-trader was attempting to cover his goods with a stiff tarpaulin.

  Robert’s forehead almost touched the window, but he seemed oblivious to the scene. ‘She begged me not to tell them,’ he said. ‘She wanted us to run aw
ay, to some village on the coast; kept saying we could go at any time. But I was afraid of what I’d have to sacrifice.’ One of the deep buttons in the seat was loose, and he twisted it back and forth. ‘I think of it now; how I could have found a job as a scrivener or clerk, and a cottage that looked over the sea with a hearth where she could nurse our son.’ He glanced up at me. ‘How could a man willing to forgo such a life ever presume to find happiness again?’

  ‘You told your parents?’

  ‘My father. Perhaps Mother knows, but she pretends not to.’ He said that his father took the news well. He was understanding and thoughtful, and maybe some resolution could have been found. ‘But then he told Darby.’

  The button snapped from its thread. Robert just left it in the groove without a word of apology. ‘Father kept telling me that is what members of a church do: seek spiritual advice.’

  ‘Emilie must have known Mr Darby, if he is Mrs Nesham’s brother-in-law.’

  Robert nodded. ‘She hated him, said he prowled through the house in the small hours muttering to himself, that he treated everyone, except his sister, with utter disdain, even Mr Nesham.’

  ‘Did they suggest that you send Emilie those letters?’

  ‘They almost drafted them,’ he said. ‘Though I don’t mean to shirk responsibility. I signed the letters, and posted them.’

  ‘Did you not consider how painful they would be?’

  ‘I thought of little else. But the tone had to be severe – to convince her that our life together would be impossible.’

  ‘You threatened to put her baby with the foundlings.’

  A colour entered his cheeks, and he lowered his eyes. Outside, the costermonger had managed to shift his cart, and Liam inched the carriage forwards.

  ‘It wasn’t meant as a threat,’ Robert said. ‘I wanted her to know that the child would be cared for, that she didn’t have to raise him alone, with all the shame that would entail.’ He pushed his fingers over his brow, causing the skin to furrow at his temple. ‘She never replied. I didn’t know that each new letter was adding to her torment.’ He kept his palm over his eyes, and sat still for several seconds. The rain had eased, and a watery sunlight entered his side of the carriage, showing a gleam on a golden ring and a bald patch on the sleeve of his morning coat.

  He lowered his arm. ‘Do you know what happened to her?’ His weary tone made the question sound rhetorical, as if he were ready to tell me.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘After she died.’

  ‘There was an inquest,’ I said. ‘They found it to be felo de se.’

  ‘That’s what your father decided?’

  ‘That’s what the jury decided.’

  Robert held my gaze without blinking, but there was no malice in his eyes, or admonition, just a dulled sadness.

  I said, ‘Do you think they were mistaken in that finding?’

  He shook his head. ‘I meant after all that. Was she returned to her family?’

  ‘No. The verdict . . . they would have been denied a Christian burial.’

  ‘A small mercy.’

  ‘In all likelihood, she was given to the surgeons.’

  A comprehension came over him; he pursed his lips and swallowed, then turned his face to look at the passing streetscape, and I regretted my bluntness. I was too familiar with such procedures, not mindful enough of their ability to shock; especially someone like Robert – the thought that a girl with whom he’d been so intimate, so entwined in love and warmth, could be manhandled on a cold slab, unravelled and picked apart and quite literally eviscerated.

  The carriage crossed the river. Our progress became steady, and Robert remained silent until we neared the Pillar.

  ‘So there is no grave?’

  ‘None marked at least. I am sorry.’

  ‘She has vanished completely.’ He nodded to himself and looked skyward, as if only now noticing the improvement in the weather. ‘Some will be pleased.’ Robert removed his hat and shook drops from its brim, then donned it again. ‘My thanks, Miss Lawless, for the refuge of your carriage, but I’d best make my way home.’

  He raised his fist, ready to knock against the ceiling, but I said, ‘Wait, Mr Gould. There is something that I can show you.’

  The paths in St George’s Cemetery had turned muddy from the downpour, and beads of water clung to the evergreens drooping over the red-brick wall. I could still see beyond the gates to where Liam sat huddled on the carriage, Newton and Boyle standing patiently in front, their heads bowed and muzzles steaming. Robert and I counted the paths and turned left, following directions given to us by an old gravedigger. The tombstones were smaller and less elaborate the further we went. At the end of the path, in the most remote corner of the graveyard, a plot contained several rows of small, simple crosses. The side of the plot that we entered was as yet unused and appeared like a well-kept lawn, but I lightened my step, conscious that I trod on the graves of infants not yet conceived. The crosses were mostly uniform, some adorned with pendants on string: withered flowers, a few rag dolls and toy soldiers. Among the newest burials stood a cross bearing the name Morgan Casey. There were no keepsakes.

  Robert approached the marker slowly, then sat on his haunches and ran his fingers over the lettering.

  ‘We didn’t know to put your name,’ I said.

  ‘He’s better off without it.’

  I thought of the tiny body interred, and his various wounds: deep and ragged from his own mother’s knife; clean and clinical from my father’s scalpel.

  Footsteps sounded as the gravedigger passed by, a pickaxe propped against his shoulder. He tugged at his cap without looking towards us. Behind him, high overhead, a flock of sparrows migrating south reeled momentarily in a twisting, shifting wave, as if spooked by a predator. Robert was clearing cobwebs from the cross, and powdery dirt that had settled in the etched letters.

  I looked down at him and said, ‘You don’t believe that Emilie killed herself.’

  He paused in his tidying, and the tail of his coat stirred in the breeze, but then he resumed as if he hadn’t heard me, removing a weed where the cross was staked in the ground.

  Robert rose and stepped backwards, tossed the weed into an adjacent gully, and brushed the dirt from his hands. ‘On the day Morgan died, Father was the one who told me the news. He said that he was sorry, that no one could have foreseen what Emilie would do, but that perhaps it was all for the best.’ He shook his head and glanced at me. ‘Can you imagine? He spoke of his own grandson.’

  A wagtail alighted nearby and flitted from one cross to the next, inspecting the ground with sharp tilts of its head for worms disturbed by the shower.

  ‘He said that I would have to steel myself again. Emilie had been taken to hospital, but she would not endure long, and was lost to me as well. It was the way he said it – he didn’t mean she was at risk from infection, or even that she might be tried and hanged, or perish during a long sentence. He seemed to know that she would be gone within days.’ Robert noticed some earth stuck to the cuff of his shirt, and he flicked it off with his fingernail, leaving a dark smudge. ‘When word finally came, let’s just say I was not surprised.’

  ‘But that would mean—’

  ‘That my father knew of it in advance, and that your father failed to identify it in retrospect. I agree, it’s easier to believe such things impossible.’

  I remembered speaking with Mrs Longsworth, and what she had seen on the night that Emilie died. ‘Have you ever come across a man with a lazy eye or drooping eyelid? Is there a member of the Brethren like that?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Not that I’ve ever met. Why?’

  I was about to answer, but there were more steps on the path, and I turned to see Liam approaching, lantern held aloft against the gathering dusk. He stopped at the edge of the plot, looked between Robert and me, and said, ‘Getting on, miss.’

  ‘Yes, of course. But we’ll have to bring Mr Gould back to Fitzwilliam Square.�
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  ‘No,’ Robert said. ‘No, thank you. I’d prefer to stay a while longer.’ Before I could speak again, he said, ‘You cannot know how much I appreciate your taking me here, Miss Lawless,’ and he bowed stiffly from the waist, bringing the conversation to a close.

  I bid him good evening, and Liam led me towards the cemetery gates. Before we turned on the path, I glanced back to where Robert stood over Morgan’s grave. He had retrieved the page he had inscribed for Emilie from his pocket once more, and bent down towards the cross.

  7

  When I got home, I found Father in his study, reading a newspaper in the red glow of the fireplace and sipping from a glass of claret. A small pile of letters lay opened on his desk.

  ‘Responses to your piece in the Society journal about the weather,’ he said, looking at me over the rim of his glasses. ‘You have a knack for provoking the ire of the ill-informed.’

  There was a range of theories espoused, the most far-fetched delivered with unwarranted confidence. A schoolmaster from Sligo was convinced that the proliferation of lightning rods had served to stir up storm-fronts rather than protect against them. Another gentleman thought that seismic tremors had interrupted ‘the flow of electrical fluids’ circulating beneath the earth. One response at least was noteworthy. A retired admiral from Cobh said that for years the polar seas had been melting, with ice floes observed far to the south, so that a search for the Northwest Passage was likely to begin again. He said the thaw had led to ‘exhalations of vapour’, which had deflected the heat of the sun.

  At the bottom of the pile, there was a short note from Professor Reeves. He thanked my father again for his hospitality, and apologized for the abruptness of his departure from the Royal Academy. He invited us both to a gathering at his observatory the following month. I folded the letter so the two sides of its broken seal aligned. Its design showed a callipers, the points opened out like the Greek letter lambda.

  Father said, ‘Did you see the one about the lightning rods?’

  I nodded.