The Murder of Patience Brooke (9 page)

‘I do – he has said nothing against the Home, and he is a benevolent man who believes, as we do, that these girls can be restored to a better life, and he welcomes them to his church. They do not all come at once for we do not wish the congregation to speculate overmuch as to the nature of the Home. He has visited us, and given instruction to some of them, but he is a gentle man and not young, so I protect him from some of the more outspoken ones. Our Isabella would devour him, and that piece of tattered finery, Sesina, might well offer herself to him for sixpence, so they are brought by Mrs Morson with two of the younger, quieter ones, sometimes to matins, and sometimes to evensong. Mrs Morson says her heart is in her mouth, and she prays only for a speedy deliverance from the pew before riot breaks out!’

The superintendent laughed, having heard from Dickens about Isabella and her cohorts. ‘I take it that young Mr Fidge has not been left to their tender mercies!’

‘Heavens, no! If you had heard them this morning, you would keep them locked up and throw away the key. But he has come to the Home with Goodchild, and no doubt that is where he made the acquaintance of Patience about which we want to know.’

They went into the church where they saw to their satisfaction that Francis Fidge was alone there, kneeling before the altar in prayer. They went out again and waited in the shelter of the lychgate.

‘Let us watch and wait,’ said Sam. ‘I should like to observe him when he thinks he is unobserved.’

‘We will tell him she is missing, not dead?’

‘We have to lie. If he is the murderer, our lie will confuse him, for if he knows she is dead he will have his story right and we want to surprise him. You can cross your fingers if you don’t like lying to a man of God.’

‘I shall not care if he is the murderer, and if he is not, then the lie will spare him – for the time being. Lizzie Dagg and the other girls were convinced that he had feelings for her so we must find out whether those feelings provoked murder.’

It was ten minutes at least before Francis Fidge emerged. ‘A long time apraying,’ Dickens murmured, ‘guilty conscience?’

‘Let us hope his sins are small ones. See, here he comes.’

Francis Fidge looked up at the white sky as he came out. He was small, and as Lizzie Dagg had so pertinently observed, he was not much to look at. He was not much above five feet, noted Dickens, and he was thin to the point of emaciation in his black suit, and he did limp, dragging his left leg a little behind him. He wandered to the graves nearest the church, and stood contemplating the inscriptions, his lips moving, though whether in prayer, they could not tell. Then he turned as if to go towards a little side gate.

The superintendent moved swiftly. ‘Mr Fidge,’ he called.

Francis Fidge looked towards them. He came nearer, and Dickens could see his thin, white face and feverish eyes. He looked ill. He was clearly startled but recovered himself. ‘How may I help you?’

‘I am Superintendent Jones of the police, and you know Mr Charles Dickens who has charge of the Home in Lime Grove. The girls come to church here.’

‘Mr Dickens, I am very glad to meet you. I have read your books. Of all of them, I love your story of Nicholas Nickleby and Smike, that poor neglected soul, and Superintendent Jones, I am glad to meet you, too, though I do not know what brings you here to our churchyard on a winter’s afternoon.’

It was quite a long speech; perhaps he was giving himself time to steady himself. It was difficult to tell, thought Dickens.

‘Patience Brooke is missing,’ said the superintendent briskly. ‘We wondered if you could tell us anything about her.’

It was painful to see how his white face with two burning spots like fever was suddenly suffused with ugly red, and how his eyes filled with sudden tears. Dickens saw how his face betrayed him. But what was written there – guilt, grief, horror?

‘You knew her well,’ Sam Jones was making a statement not asking a question.

The hectic colour faded briefly from Fidge’s cheeks and then came back. ‘You think that my attentions were so repugnant to her that she has run away.’ He was not mocking nor was this the arrogance of a man who could not believe a woman might reject him – he spoke the truth. He believed what he said, that she might find him repugnant. Dickens wondered whether she had shown it. And pitied him.

‘I cannot say until you tell me what those attentions were.’ The superintendent was merciless. Dickens, who knew his kindness, marvelled here at his coldness.

‘I am not afraid to tell you. I loved her, and she knew it. When we talked, about books and poetry – we shared a love of Mr Tennyson – I thought that there might be a chance for even one such as I. I know what I am, superintendent. I am not a man with whom a beautiful girl would fall in love. Your girls’ laughter tells me that, Mr Dickens. But I hoped. How could I not? When she was so good, so gentle, so –’ He broke off, the tears pooling in his eyes. ‘We must all have hope, and I am ashamed to say that my love for my Lord was not enough. In any case, he has deserted me, or, rather, I have deserted Him.’

Dickens wondered. Had this slight, intense young man committed some terrible act when his hope was gone, and his faith, too?

‘There came a time when I knew that I could hope no more. Patience told me that she could not love me. She was gentle, but there was a firmness in her which I knew to be unmoveable. She said that she could not love again. And I accepted it. I did not pursue her, superintendent. I did not want to distress her.’

‘But you sent her a note. Why?’

‘For the reason I have given. But, I wanted to give her something. I sent her a note to tell her that I had left a copy of Tennyson’s poems for her in the porch. I did not want to keep it, and I thought she would, at least, remember me with kindness not pain. I am sorry, Mr Dickens, I should not have involved Lizzie Dagg. And if Patience has left, I hope it is not because of me.’

Dickens, who had listened intently, asked a question. ‘You said she used the word “again”. Did she tell you about a former love?’

‘No, I am afraid I thought only of myself and my own misery. Are all lovers so selfish, Mr Dickens? I did not think of her enough, of what hurt lay behind her quietness.’

‘You know nothing, then, of her former life?’ This was Sam, kinder now.

‘Nothing. We knew nothing of each other, only that there was refuge in our reading. We walked sometimes, here, in the churchyard, and beyond, into the lanes. She would come to meet me on Sunday afternoon when she had some free time. For only an hour or so.’

‘I am sorry to have distressed you, Mr Fidge, but we are concerned about her, and I wanted to be sure –’

‘You thought I might have driven her away?’

‘Something like that.’

‘What will you do now?’ asked Dickens. ‘Will you stay here?’

‘I will not. I am no use here. I am no use to your girls, Mr Dickens. I applaud your work, and I wanted to help, but they do not like me. Perhaps a young man is not suitable. Lizzie Dagg, I think, mistook my intentions. And I hate Isabella Gordon and Sesina –’ The hectic burned in his face again then subsided. ‘I am sorry; they are too much for me. I must go elsewhere.’

‘Perhaps I can help,’ said Dickens. ‘I am acquainted with men of the Church who might do something.’

‘That is most kind, Mr Dickens, but, as I told you, I have deserted my Lord, and I must make my own way. May I go now? Reverend Goodchild will be waiting for me.’

‘Yes, and may God protect you,’ said the superintendent.

‘I hope he may.’ Francis Fidge walked away, a forlorn figure, to whatever future he might fashion for himself.

‘There is death on that man,’ said Dickens. ‘He will not live to beyond the summer.’

‘You are right. I do believe that one may die of a broken heart,’ said Sam gravely.

‘And of tuberculosis. The hectic in his cheeks was not just his emotion.’

They watched for a moment in the quiet churchyard where, as Dickens foretold, Francis Fidge would lie in his cold grave under the summer sun, mourned only by the Reverend Goodchild who was coming through the little gate and who, they saw, placed a comforting arm on the little man’s shoulder. Francis Fidge would not die alone nor forsaken by his Lord.

They stood for a while gazing down at the silent graves, each preoccupied by what they had heard and seen. Dickens looked upon one greenish-stained tablet where most of the inscriptions had been worn away by time, but he could make out
and Georgiana, wife of the above
. Who, he thought, was
the above
and when had she joined him in that eternal marriage, and was that all she was, wife of? He thought of Georgiana, widow of James Morson dead in a remote land. His wife would not lie with him again. The thought of her troubled him. He looked at his friend and saw in that countenance an unwonted sorrow, and he thought about the lost girl, Edith, and of another, Mary Hogarth, his sister-in-law, dead these twelve years and whose ring he still wore. She was only seventeen at her death, but she had died in his arms, not in terror at the hands of a murderer. As if reading his thoughts, Sam spoke.

‘Is Francis Fidge a murderer?’

‘I am not sure now,’ said Charles. ‘Part way through our interview, I wondered – when he said he had deserted his Lord – whether he had killed her and that was why, but then I felt the truth of his love for her – his words were so simple when he said that he accepted it, and when he talked of their few hours together. But –’

‘Yes?’

‘There was that remark he made about Isabella and Sesina – the word “hate” was unexpected but he meant it. I had not thought he was a man who could hate, and his face at that moment revealed it – the blood gave him away. But men are made of many parts, and still I pitied him.’

‘I, too. I do not think he murdered her, but we cannot dismiss him entirely. For now, we will leave him with a question mark. If we find out more – perhaps you can question the Reverend Goodchild – find out if Francis Fidge was out on Friday night. He may not know, of course. If Fidge vanishes in the next few days, then we will know. If he stays, then I think we can believe that he is not our man. Now, we must visit your friend, Mr Godsmark, in his chapel.’

They left the churchyard and walked back towards the Home and north to the village of Shepherd’s Bush, and in a little alley, dank and narrow as a tomb, appropriately named Sepulchre Lane, they came upon the Primitive Methodist Chapel. It was a gloomy little building with a stern, blackened wall in which there was a door partly opened. It could hardly hold more than fifty. They went in to find a plain whitewashed interior with pitch-pine pews facing a pulpit where the Reverend Obadiah Godsmark stood contemplating the ceiling. A haggard-looking woman in black was distributing hymnals on the pews. They waited at the door. Godsmark saw them but he began to speak from his pulpit, looking at them directly.

‘For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

‘My Brethren, hark unto the word of the Lord. Some of ye are the righteous. Yet shall ye be saved? Only by doing His works. Ye must be sober, subject to your masters, and ye wives, be in subjection to your husbands, ye must be patient, and above all, abstain from the lusts of the flesh. The sinners and the ungodly, they shall be damned for they are unrighteous; the sinner does evil and the ungodly thinks evil. None of these can be saved. For they shall burn in the pit of hell.’

The voice was high and grating like a hinge needing oil, the words ‘damned’, and ‘pit’ and ‘hell’ flew up into the beams and swooped down again, no doubt intended to fall upon the sinners’ heads like live coals. Godsmark came down from his pulpit and waited. They were, it seemed, to creep as supplicants to him. He was, in every way, the opposite of the skeletal Francis Fidge; he had a rosy face, puffed up with good eating, and round from the same cause.

‘The lusts of the flesh?’ murmured Dickens as they approached him.

Sam kept a straight face, whispering back mischievously, ‘Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant.’

‘I am Godsmark, you are welcome to my church – if ye seek salvation, this is the place. I am marked by God. I was his chosen at birth – witness my name.’ His plump, pink mouth seemed to give a welcome but his little eyes in their folds of flesh were calculating. He made a steeple of his smooth white hands as if to pray for them already.

‘We seek information not salvation,’ said the superintendent with some asperity.

‘We must all seek salvation whatever our business.’

‘I am Superintendent Jones of –’

‘My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments.’

‘Of Bow Street.’ Sam articulated the words clearly and firmly. ‘I am here to investigate –’

‘Aye the path of the just is as a shining light.’

‘We are hoping you might shed some light,’ Sam said, then wished he hadn’t.

‘For the commandment is a lamp and the law is light.’

It was like trying to catch an eel which kept slipping out of the hands, twisting and turning its own way. Dickens suppressed a smile as he saw Sam’s lips tighten in irritation.

‘Mr Godsmark, I appreciate your sentiments. They do you credit but I should be glad if you would listen for a moment. This is my colleague, Mr Charles Dickens.’

‘The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.’

A hit, thought Dickens, again suppressing the urge to laugh, a very palpable hit.

The superintendent tried again to catch his eel. ‘Mr Dickens is concerned about a young woman.’

‘I beheld a young man, void of understanding. Passing through the street, and he went the way to her house. In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, there met him a woman with the attire of an harlot.’ The last word brought spittle to the plump lips, and Dickens remembered his dream. Desperate, he thought of seizing one of the black bibles to beat the man round his fat head to shut him up. Sam Jones took a deep breath and spoke loudly and slowly as if to a deaf man, which, indeed, Godsmark was.