A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (13 page)

*   *   *

Deciding to search Adam’s room was easy enough, yet when to do so was another matter. Tuesday passed, Wednesday passed, and the whole time curiosity gnawed at Lucy. What was Adam hiding? He seemed to spend much of his time at his studies, but at night he still went out, though he spoke little of his activities. There could be no good reason for a young serving girl to visit the room of the young master at night, so she knew it could only be in the morning, when she could at least pretend to be cleaning or collecting linens, or some such business. If she were caught poking about his room, though, she’d likely be discharged, as the master would not brook another thief in his household. Lucy knew she had to bide her time.

The day of Bessie’s funeral finally arrived, just under a week after her body had been discovered. Dr. Larimer had at last turned her body over to her distraught mother, deciding that he and his students from the physicians’ college had learned all they could about Bessie’s murder for the upcoming inquest. Graciously, the Hargraves had agreed to pay for the funeral at St. Peter’s, truly a fine farewell for a simple serving girl like Bessie. Ten quid, Lucy had heard. “She was a good lass, who served us well,” the magistrate had said. “A thief she may have been, but she did not deserve this end.”

The funeral drew a large crowd, neighbors and strangers who relished being close to “the true tale of a murder most foul.” Booksellers were already shouting their wares. “Murder will out!” came one customary call. Another declared triumphantly, “Learn how the lovely corpse pointed to her very murderer, even after death.”

“What do they mean by that?” Lucy whispered to John, who stood at her elbow.

He looked disgusted. “Some people are saying that when her body was moved, having lost the stiffness of death, her hand pointed to her murderer and her eyes fell open upon him.”

“What? How could that be?”

John shifted uncomfortably. “Someone who was there when Bes—the body, I mean, was being examined.”

Lucy thought about that for a moment. “You mean, examined in the field? Where she was found? That would mean the constable, or the bellman.”

John looked decidedly uncomfortable now. “I think it was after that. When she was being moved to the physician’s surgery. When her body was identified.”

“But that would mean—” She paused, thinking. “Well, yes, I guess the magistrate was probably there, and—” She looked sharply at John. “W-who do they say the murderer is?”

He put his finger to his lips. “Not now.”

The reverend had raised his hand for silence. The crowd stood beneath the bare trees swaying gently in the breeze. Though it was still a bit icy for early April, a few birds twittered above them. The reverend had begun his eulogy, and, as always, Lucy found her mind drifting from his words, fiery and angry as they were.

Lucy struggled with the finality of it all. Soon Bessie’s body would be lowered by ropes into the cold, hard ground. Lucy hoped her soul had been welcomed to heaven. Some of the old parishioners swore, though, that ghosts of the wronged and the damned still lingered by the old church, in the hopes of finding salvation.

“We’ve several crossroads before our home,” she whispered to John. Everyone knew that ghosts got confused by crossroads. Still, the thought of Bessie haunting them made her sad.

The servant patted her arm. “Bessie won’t be coming to us as a ghost. Never you fear.”

The reverend concluded his sermon. “This audacious act is a sure sign of the wages of her sin. But, as Rahab of Jericho was forgiven, so must this young sinner be.”

Lucy clenched her fist. Cook patted her cheek. “Don’t you listen, my sweet. Bessie was a good girl,” she whispered. “She’s in heaven now, singing with the angels and tossing those golden curls.”

Soon after, Bessie’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. As the diggers shoveled fresh earth on top, Lucy cast in a nosegay with the few pitiful blossoms that bloomed this time of year. “To my friend. My sister,” she murmured. “May you bring your joy and laughter to heaven.”

Straightening up, Lucy noticed two poorly dressed, haggard women weeping. One of them was clutching a baby. They must be Bessie’s mother and sister, she thought, who had made the long trek from Lambeth. Shyly, Lucy walked over to introduce herself and utter a few words of solace.

“Thank you,” the woman whispered. Lucy could barely hear her over the baby’s crying. “I’m Rebecca, Bessie’s elder sister.”

They stood silent for a moment. Then Lucy blurted out, unable to hold her tongue, “Can you tell me? Do you know? Where was Bessie going, you know, that night? Was she coming to see you?”

Rebecca’s shoulders slumped. “I wish I knew. She was not coming to see me, or at least I did not know it. Damn the man who killed her!” Her voice broke. “That bastard should swing, and Lord knows if he will ever be brought to justice.”

Without even stopping to think how her words would sound, Lucy asked, “Do you think it was a stranger that killed her, then? Not a lover? Someone she knew?”

Rebecca pulled her hand away angrily. “Our Bessie was a good girl. You’ve no right to say otherwise.”

“Oh, oh!” Lucy said, contrite. “I’m sorry to have offended you, missus. I’m just trying to make sense of this.”

Only somewhat mollified, Rebecca sniffed. “No sense to be had. She was killed in cold blood, by a monster, and there’s little else to say. That I know for certain.”

Rebecca stated to walk away. Lucy remembered something else. “Your baby. Daniel? Is he well now? I remember Bessie telling me he took awful sick this winter past.”

“Not too sick, God be praised. He’s a strong one.”

“Oh, but I thought she came to tend him when you took the sickness, too.” Lucy floundered a bit under Rebecca’s hard stare.

“I think you are misremembering. The babe’s not took sick all winter. A miracle, to be sure, when so many others had the sickness.”

“Oh.” Lucy swallowed. “Oh, well. I’m glad to hear he is in good health.”

*   *   *

The rest of the family a few steps ahead, Lucy walked soberly home from the funeral. Trudging along, her head down, she spied a scrap of paper in a patch of muddy grass. It was a broadside, no doubt having fallen, unbeknownst, from a bookseller’s bag or from the hands of one of the many onlookers who had come to watch the spectacle. Lucy picked it up.

The text was a ballad—“Murder Will Out!” set to the tune of “Three Men in a Tavern”—and the words were striking. The broadside described the story of a young maid who fell in love with a rich lord, who made promises to her that he had no plans to keep. He persuaded her to run off with him, only to rid her of her hard-kept virtue. Then, when he wanted to marry another woman, he lured his young mistress to a secluded spot and killed her.

“The cad!” Lucy muttered, but she kept perusing the ballad.

The story did not end with the young woman’s death but shortly after her body had been discovered. When they moved her body, her hand fell open, so that one finger ended up pointing to the young lord, wordlessly naming him as the murderer. Lucy started to crumple the penny piece but instead put it carefully into her pocket.

*   *   *

When Lucy arrived back at the Hargraves’ house, she found that Cook had tied a wreath laced with black ribbon on their door. She saw, too, that rushes had been laid in the streets to muffle the sounds of carts and the footsteps of tradesmen and gawking passersby. Cook had prepared a bit of stew for the family, but Lucy found it impossible to swallow. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, and no one spoke directly to her. For this, she was grateful.

As Lucy lit the candles at the hearth that evening, she thought about her conversation with Bessie’s sister. It was as she had feared—Bessie had no doubt been keeping company with some gent. She had not been to see her sister as she had said. Where had she been? Why had she lied? Then there was the matter of the dressing case that she had tried to keep out of Lucy’s sight. So many times she had covered for Bessie, so many mysterious absences. Was it this same gent who had done away with her?

“I’m going to find out,” she said, kicking the stone hearth. “You’ll see, Bessie! I’ll find justice for you yet!”

10

The idea of finding justice for Bessie soon felt like a needle threading in and out of Lucy’s mind, pricking her unexpectedly, painfully reminding her of her desperate promise. “How can I even begin?” she muttered to herself. “I’m just a chambermaid.”

Yet, after Bessie’s funeral, the magistrate informed her that he wished for her to assume Bessie’s former position as his wife’s lady’s maid.

For a moment, Lucy was speechless. I’ve not got Bessie’s skill with a needle, she wanted to cry out. I shall ruin the mistress’s fine silks!

Hearing his next words, however, she was glad she had held her tongue. “The mistress has taken Bessie’s death to heart, Lucy. As we all have. My wife needs a companion more than she needs to have her silks pressed.” He regarded her with his steady reassuring eyes. “Will you do that, Lucy? Be her companion?”

Lucy scarcely knew what she mumbled, yet found herself a short while later sitting silently beside her mistress, their sadness wrapped about them like a winding sheet. Listlessly, she unsnarled knots in several skeins of yarn, while Mistress Hargrave plucked impatiently at the happy cherubs she’d been embroidering for the last few weeks.

“Cherubs, bah! I’m starting a new piece,” the mistress said, casting aside the wooden embroidery frame. “This one will depict the people of Nineveh being stricken down by God.” She shrugged lightly. “Divine providence.”

Divine providence indeed, Lucy thought to herself. Bessie deserves real justice, no matter what it may do to this household.

*   *   *

Finally, Lucy found her chance to look for what Adam had been hiding. Taking her leave of the mistress the next morning, she paused in the second-floor corridor, holding a candle to light the darkening passage. Darting a quick glance up and down the hallway, she put her ear by Adam’s door. She couldn’t hear anything. He must still be downstairs, she thought, having a drink with his father. Now that she had been promoted to the mistress’s lady’s maid, she had no good reason to enter Adam’s room, as she might have done as a chambermaid. Knowing that what she was about to do was pure folly, she opened the door and slipped inside.

Unsure what she was looking for, she headed to Adam’s desk. It was neat, like the rest of his room. Beside a stack of four or five leather books were his pen and ink, pipe, and small pouch of tobacco. She could see he had been writing something, but she did not dare move the books to read his words.

With shaking hands, Lucy carefully eased open his desk drawer. Inside, there were more papers, a bit of vellum, and some knives for sharpening his pens. Otherwise, the drawer was empty. She looked around the room. She quickly checked the wardrobe and his trunk, but neither yielded much beyond his penchant for finely tailored clothes. Under the bed was his chamber pot, which she did not linger over, and a pitcher and basin were on a small table by the window.

Lucy frowned. She was about to leave when she spied the tobacco pouch, which she had earlier discounted. Crossing the room in three steps, she picked it up. “That’s not tobacco,” she muttered, and with trembling fingers she loosened the cords that kept the pouch closed.

Reaching in, Lucy pulled out two miniature portraits that could fit easily into the palm of her hand. Each frame held the image of a single left eye, with only a hint of a woman’s eyebrow and cheekbones revealed. One eye was a beautiful light ocher, and the other was green, the color of moss after rain. Each eye stared directly at her, in a manner that was both coy and knowing. Studying the portraits, she knew she did not recognize either face. Bessie had blue eyes, and for that matter, so did Judith Embry.

She could tell there was one more small object in the pouch. As she drew it out, Lucy stared at it in horror. It was a beautiful lacquered comb—a comb she had seen before, hidden in a box, tucked under Bessie’s petticoats, a comb she had never seen Bessie wear. This must have been what Adam found, she reasoned, at the site of Bessie’s murder. Why had he been looking for it? He had definitely been searching for something that day. Had he known something about it? Was there any connection to the miniatures?

Thoughtfully, she put everything back where she had found it, lest she’d be caught in his room. Her little quest had left her with far more questions than answers, and her curiosity was far from satisfied.

*   *   *

“I’d be pleased to go to market today,” Lucy called to Cook as she laid out the breakfast dishes the next morning. Last night, as she lay in her bed, staring at the crack in her shutters, she’d begun to realize that she needed to learn more details about Bessie’s murder.
Maybe there’s some truth to be found in the accounts of her death,
she had thought.
Something someone may have missed.

Lucy murmured a quick prayer that the rain would hold off till she was home. Though it was just noon, the sky was looking to break open with a quick April shower. It would not do to walk through the market with her hair and dress plastered to her body. Although, truth be told, her mind felt as slushy as the outside world, and right now it was an effort to care about her appearance.

Stepping quickly around the peddlers hawking their wares, Lucy hurried past a carpenter pounding nails into a row of coffins. The solemn nature of the simple wood boxes unnerved her and made her think of Bessie. Wincing from the memory, she moved past another shop with a sign that had only a man’s and a woman’s hands intertwined. At that shop, Lucy knew, marriages were performed for those too poor or too desperate to get married properly in a church. At last, she stood in front of the apothecary, watching the sign with a unicorn’s horn swaying with the hustle of the crowds.

At that moment, a young girl caught her attention. Lucy squinted, trying to figure out why the girl looked familiar. Dressed in a dirty frock, the lass was trying to sell ribbons as soiled as her cloak, looking like all the other ragamuffin children tearing about the streets. Yet there was something about her. “Ribbons for sale!” the girl called this way and that. Tired and wan, she had a thin voice that barely carried over the din. No one paid her any heed as she stumbled, falling into a pile of something steamy.