A Murder at Rosamund's Gate (3 page)

Her cheeks burned, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. She thought he did look at her then, but he just said, “That’s too bad. I should have liked an egg at supper.”

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“Indeed. So am I.”

They did not speak again, each lost in thought, for the rest of the walk home. Back at the magistrate’s house, Adam disappeared. Lucy had barely had time to pass the shilling she had saved to Cook when Bessie pulled her aside. “Did you hear about the body?” she whispered, her whole face animated. “The woman who got herself murdered?”

2

Lucy leaned back against the larder, pushing aside several jars of dried fruits and spices, thinking about the true account she had just heard from Master Aubrey. “Well, I did hear tell of Anne Johnson, who did poison her husband, a candlemaker—”

“No, no, not a candlemaker. Not a monstrous tale!” Bessie interrupted. “I mean a real murder. Happened in these parts.”

“Truly?” Lucy asked, studying Bessie’s face. The girl was alight with excitement. “Who was it?”

“No one knows,” Bessie said. “The watchman found her body last night in the north fields. That’s why the constable was here. To bring the magistrate the news.”

Instinctively, Lucy made the sign of the cross over her heart. The old faith stayed with them all when confronted by ungodly acts. Bessie nodded at the gesture and continued. “Edna—you know, the Thompsons’ maid?—said she heard it was a woman, but no one could be sure if she was from around these parts.”

“But why say murder?” Lucy pressed, seeking to find sense in Bessie’s words. “Could it have been an accident?”

Certainly the field in that area was generally flat, but tall grasses often hid rocks and small hillocks that made any false step treacherous. She said as much to Bessie.

Bessie smirked, reveling in the best part of the story. “Unless she ran her own innards through with a knife, certainly ’twas no accident!”

“No!” Lucy’s hands flew to her mouth. “How awful!”

Bessie continued, happy with the effect of her words. “Yes! Edna said Tom said there was blood everywhere and”—her voice lowered significantly—“she was near naked! Clad only in a few bits of cloth!”

That did not suggest a virtuous woman. Still, Lucy felt a pang of sorrow for this luckless person who had met such a fate. No one deserved such a death.

“And the north fields are not so very far away,” Bessie whispered.

Lucy shivered. What if the murderer had come their way instead? Now that she knew what had happened, she was grateful that Adam had walked her to and from town earlier. There were many empty, desolate fields between here and there. Many fields where a stranger could wait. She shook her head, trying to clear the disturbing images from her mind.

The girls continued to speculate in hushed tones until they heard Cook’s footsteps by the pantry. “Plenty of time for your tongues to wag later, girls,” the older woman said, bustling about. “Supper is upon us, and we’re hardly ready for the master’s guests. The brawn is ready, but the cabbage is not done, and I’ve not even started the pancakes. And surely,” Cook looked hard at Bessie, “I didn’t see you press the mistress’s new India silk. Would you have her wrinkled before the Mistresses Larimer and Chalmers?”

Bessie bobbed her head, mindful of her charge. Despite her flippant ways, she took her duties as the mistress’s lady’s maid as seriously as she took anything. Her good intentions did not keep her on the path to their mistress’s chamber, however, when she encountered Lucas just returning home. Lucy could hear Bessie whispering fervently to him in the hallway, rather than collecting the mistress’s gown. Lucy could not see them, but she could imagine Lucas nodding, a slight smile on his face as he took in Bessie’s excitement.

Lucas was a friendly sort, a lively presence in the household. Although the red of his cheeks might have been more becoming on a lass, he was handsome enough, even if his slight plumpness kept him from cutting as fine a figure as Master Adam. Lucy knew the local gossips whispered about Lucas’s history—“Was he from the wrong side of the blanket?”—yet the truth was far more sad than sordid. Bessie had told her, in confidence, that Lucas’s mother, dying of pleurisy, had begged the magistrate to take her son as his ward. Apparently there was some distant relationship to the family. Having shown no inclination to be a soldier, Lucas had only one other option: to enter the clergy, a decision he accepted easily enough. “Treat me with respect,” he would tease the girls, “or when I deliver my sermons, I’ll have you cast from the Church.”

Laying out the pewter in the dining room, Lucy fought a small pang of disappointment. When the family did not have guests, the servants were allowed to join them for the evening meal and sit together afterward, provided the day’s chores were done. That was Lucy’s favorite part of the evening. Or at least it had been, before Adam had returned to the household. Before, the magistrate would read passages from the Bible and, more interestingly, from other texts. She didn’t always understand what he was reading, but she always attended to his words and on occasion ventured a question. She’d stunned everyone, including herself, the first time she’d spoken up during his reading. The magistrate had been talking about how a man freed from prison would be hard-pressed to regain his liberty. “Because no one would ever trust him again,” she had murmured. No one else had been listening—Sarah, Bessie, and Lucas had been playing jackstraws, Cook was dozing in the corner, and the mistress had already retired—but when she whispered these words, everyone had stared at her, causing her to flush painfully. The magistrate had paused and peered at her, his expression in the candlelight inscrutable, although his eyes were kind. “That’s right, Lucy.” Before long, the magistrate would regularly query her. The rest of the household had taken notice, amused at his interest in his chambermaid’s opinions. Still, as Sarah said, “At least Papa has someone to discuss those deadly dull texts with him.”

This all had changed when Adam had returned and real debates between son and father ensued. Lucy would usually take her little stool from the kitchen and sit by the women, positioned so that she could sew in the light of the hearth while she listened to them debate politics, religion, and the law. Shy before Adam’s superior words, Lucy stopped venturing her point of view. Only once did the magistrate ask her for her opinion straight out. “What say you, Lucy?” the master had asked. When father and son looked at her, she grew tongue-tied, staring at the mending in her lap. Adam and the magistrate were both surprised, Adam that his father was seeking the serving girl’s opinion, and the magistrate at Lucy’s silence. After that, Master Hargrave never pressed her again.

This evening, Lucy brought fruits and sweetmeats to the withdrawing room, lingering as much as she dared, hoping to hear some interesting conversation. Sarah and Lucas were playing draughts at a small table in the corner while Adam and the magistrate conversed quietly with their guests, Sir Herbert Larimer, an important physician from the Royal Academy, and Sir Walcott Chalmers, a barrister at the Inns of Court. Their wives sat with Mistress Hargrave in another corner, engaged in their own private conversation, which as far as Lucy could gather seemed to be something about a recent scandal involving one of the king’s mistresses.

Accepting a mug of beer from Lucy’s carefully polished tray, Sir Walcott turned to the bespectacled man sitting in an embroidered chair by the hearth. “Well, Larimer, what do you make of this recent business? Who was this lass found in the field?”

At the barrister’s words, the women abruptly stopped their own conversation. “A horrible business,” Mistress Hargrave sniffed. Lady Chalmers murmured agreement, but both women hung on the physician’s response. He was often called to serve as coroner for suspicious or important deaths and could offer some fascinating detail that did not make it to the printed account.

Lucy lit another candle and brought it over next to Adam. He nodded at the gesture but was intent on hearing what Dr. Larimer had to say.

Larimer leaned back in his chair, touching his pipe stem to his lips. “’Tis an odd thing, that is certain. The body is being brought around to my office tomorrow morn; I will conduct my investigation then.”

“A doxy, do you suppose?” Lucas asked from the corner, chewing on a date.

“Lucas!” both the master and mistress cried at once.

Master Hargrave jerked his head at his daughter. “We’ll have no such talk here!”

Catching Lucy’s eye, Sarah giggled behind her handkerchief. They’d certainly heard of women who sold their bodies for a bit of gold. Lord, didn’t the Reverend Marcus speak of whores and lust and temptation every Sunday? He had done as much to inform them of the wages of sin as any boys joking about could have done.

“I don’t mind telling you, Christopher, I don’t like it. Not one bit,” Larimer said, pulling at his beard. “Two young women in the last few months, taken nearly the same way. What monsters walk among us!” The physician frowned at Lucas. “And no, young man, not one of them a known lady of the evening.”

“Similar deaths, you say?” Adam asked, glancing at his father. “Could they be connected in some way?”

“Young man, I think it highly unlikely that two monsters met together to plan out these young girls’ deaths. Dashed near impossible, one might say.” Larimer took a drink. “I say, is this your Cambridge education showing? We Oxford men would not make such wild speculations.”

“But,” Adam persisted, “you would agree, perhaps, that one man may have seen the popular accounts of the first murder and then—”

“Copied the other?” Larimer stared at Adam. “How strange. I cannot presume to know the mind of a murderous criminal. Would one copy the heinous acts of an irrational man?”

“Or it was the work of one man,” Lucas suggested. “But I’m afraid I’ve neither Oxford nor Cambridge to blame for my irrational views.”

“One deranged man? Stalking the lasses of London?” Mistress Larimer shivered. “How singular.”

“And quite unlikely, my dear,” the physician reassured his wife. He turned back to the magistrate. “Have you heard what Sam Pepys had to say today?”

With that, the conversation turned to lighter topics, though a slightly bilious feeling remained in the room.

*   *   *

The next day, after wiping her brow, Lucy poured hot water into a great tub set out in the courtyard. As the day was bright and fine, Mistress Hargrave had declared it perfect for the monthly washing. Even Sarah had to pitch in for the day’s labors, although she would usually disappear once her mother had left.

It fell to Lucy to bring down pile after pile of shirts, shifts, and drawers from throughout the household. Thinking Adam was with his Cambridge mates, Lucy boldly pushed into his room to retrieve his linens, then drew back in dismay.

Adam was sitting at his small desk by the window, regarding a portrait that fit into the palm of his hand. Lucy could not see the image, but she supposed it was a young woman he fancied. Or even just her eye, as was sometimes the custom, if the woman was married or sought to conceal her identity.

His pen and ink jar were out, as if he had been writing. She could see a long sheet of notes in his careful, elegant script. Startled, Adam closed his hand over the miniature.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir. Pardon me! I didn’t know you were in here, I thought…” She trailed off. It was one thing to talk to the magistrate’s son in the drawing room, or even on a trip to the market, and quite another to be alone with him in his bedchamber.

“Yes?” he asked, trying to mask his annoyance. “Is there something you need?”

Unbidden, Lucy recalled how Miss Sarah’s nurse used to say,
A maiden who does not protect her virtue will soon see it lost.
Maybe that was just for gentry, but she thought her mother would agree.

She ducked her head. “’Tis washing day.”

Barely sparing her a glance, Adam stood up and thrust a pile of linens into her arms. As she backed from the room, she saw him slip the miniature into a box on his desk.

*   *   *

Once outside, Lucy tossed the linens onto the sticks that lay across the buck tub, placing the cleaner clothes on top, still thinking about Adam’s miniature. Together, Lucy and Bessie poured in the lye, their eyes stinging from the mixture of urine and ashes. Despite the chill in the air, the hard work and the fire kept them warm.

As they worked, Janey stopped by, holding a smudged penny piece out to Lucy. “Read it,” she demanded.

Lucy rolled her eyes but took the paper. “‘Jane Hardewick, a servant from a good house in Lincoln Fields but a trollop by any measure,’” Lucy read, “‘was found stabbed in the glen by her master’s household, that of the good family Elton.’”

“Jane Hardewick!” Bessie exclaimed, clutching her knotted skirts. She sat down on an overturned pail.

“Oh, no!” Lucy said. “Bessie, did you know this poor woman?”

Bessie frowned. “Yes, I did. She was no trollop, or at least, not as I’ve heard tell.”

John brought buckets of cold water then, dumping them into the tub. Lucy and Bessie, sweat trickling unpleasantly under their clothes, took turns vigorously pulling the staff as they stirred the garments together. Cook helped pull and twist the heavy linen, squeezing away the water. Even Lucas came out to help.

Janey watched, tapping her foot. “Read the rest!” she urged, her eyes gleaming. “Tell ’em about what she was wearing.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose but, seeing that everyone was waiting, continued. “‘Though last seen in a gray muslin dress and an embroidered red sash, the serving wench was
found only in her underskirts—
’” Lucy and Bessie looked at each other. The rumor they had heard seemed to be true. “‘She had no coin upon her person,’” Lucy continued, her voice dropping at the dramatic bits, “‘but upon closer inspection of the grounds, the constable did find a handkerchief embroidered with the letter
R
and a note—’”

“A note!” Bessie exclaimed. “How odd!”

“‘—a note addressed to the unfortunate girl,’” Lucy read. “‘This note implored her to meet the same-said R in that very field upon which she did encounter her most treacherous fate.’”