Theft of Life (14 page)

‘Susan, dear, what happened in that school?’

She continued to stare out into the gloom. Lights were being lit now and her face was in shadow. ‘It was such nonsense. No real lessons at all, just needlework and dancing – and all the curtseys! “This is how you speak to a servant, this is how you address a duke, this is how you pour tea for a baronet”.’

‘These things must be learned, Susan.’

‘Bah! You don’t believe that, Harriet, I’m sure you don’t.’

‘We must go out into the world, dear.’

‘I don’t want to go into that world. The girls were foul beasts. Whenever I did something wrong, they would whisper “shop-girl” to each other again and again. And they were all so stupid.’

Harriet sighed. ‘Dear, you have a large fortune and a high rank. If that brings certain restrictions it also brings great advantages. In a few years you will be married and have to entertain dukes and manage your servants. You must learn these skills somehow.’

The carriage turned into Berkeley Square and came to a gentle stop outside the house.

‘I do not want to be married!’ Susan said fiercely. ‘Why should I be? You don’t want to be married again, do you? I know we only went to see Mr Paxton so you wouldn’t have to be at home to Mr Babington’s sister.’

Philip came down the front steps to open the door for them. Susan swept out and into the house without looking at him. Harriet thanked him as she got out of the carriage and climbed the steps at a more sedate pace. She entered the hall. Graves and Mrs Martin were standing just outside his office. Susan was already halfway up the staircase.

‘Susan! Lady Susan!’ Graves called out. The girl stopped but did not turn round. Harriet saw the rage on Graves’s face. ‘When you come into this house, you will greet your guardian and the servants in a civil manner.’

She span round. ‘I do not
want
to be a lady – I told you so! The night before Father was murdered, he asked me if I wanted to be a lady and have a carriage and dresses and all this,’ she waved her hand at the mouldings, the paintings, the furniture and the people, ‘and I said
no
. I said no, and he said I didn’t have to be a lady if I didn’t want to, and now you have made me. You made me do it all anyway.’ She burst into tears and ran away up towards her room, still clutching the score to her narrow chest.

Graves stared after her for a moment, looking very pale, then he turned back into his office and slammed the door closed behind him.

The grocer’s wife, Mrs Perkins, took quiet good care of Francis and the boy, feeding the apprentice with soup and strong tea then plucking shards of glass from Francis’s shredded palms. It was long past midnight when her husband joined them and told them the fire was out.

‘Glad you got there when you did, Mr Glass,’ he said, taking his place in a wooden armchair by the fire. ‘A fair amount in the shop itself might be saved, and the flames didn’t spread to its neighbours, praise the Lord. All down that row they owe you their livelihoods. If you ask me, some of those timbers were rotted, or hurting under the weight of the press upstairs already. Why do you inky fellas put all the metalware up top?’ For a moment Francis thought he was referring to his colour, but Perkins looked only comfortable and interested and he realised it was his profession he meant.

‘For the light,’ he said, then winced as another sliver of glass was teased out of his hand.

‘Oh aye! Fair enough,’ he said, and pulled on his pipe until his wife finished washing and bandaging Francis’s hands. ‘You’re old friends with the Smith family, ain’t you?’

‘I am. Mr Smith was very kind to me and I’ve known Miss Eliza and her brother since we were children.’

The grocer rolled his shoulders. ‘Good people. Poor lady. Hope she didn’t suffer much. I am sorry for your grief, son. But know that everywhere it’s said you almost lost your own life trying to save her. Old Smith would have been proud of you. And grateful for your efforts.’ His voice became rather thick and he turned towards the fire, puffing hard at his pipe until he could control his feelings.

Francis felt his grief at the core of him. A stone that made it hard to swallow or breathe. He glanced at the apprentice in the corner of the room. He had fallen asleep as soon as he had finished feeding and slept still. ‘Miss Eliza was dead before I reached her,’ he said at last and slowly. ‘Cold. And there was a wound … her eye.’

Mrs Perkins crossed herself and her husband abandoned his pipe for a moment and frowned. ‘You’re certain, Mr Glass?’ Francis nodded. Perkins looked grave. ‘The cashbox hasn’t been found.’ He looked towards the child in the corner. ‘You don’t think …?’

Francis shook his head. ‘He’s hardly a boy yet. I can’t think it. Kill his mistress, set the fire then go down to the kitchen and wait to be saved?’ His chest stung and he began to cough. It felt as if the soot of Eliza’s burning home would never leave his lungs. Perkins filled his mug for him and waited until he had got it down.

‘It’s murky,’ the grocer said when Francis had recovered. ‘No sign of the maid, Penny. Suppose she tired of being virtuous, fought Mrs Smith and ran off back to the brothels with the takings?’

Francis did not speak. He had wondered the same thing.

‘Oh, these strays the Smith family were always spending their charity on. Had to come to bad in the end.’ Perkins came to an embarrassed halt. ‘Present company excepted, Mr Glass. Naturally. It was a good day when they took you in. The “on-dit” is she fell with her candle. Perhaps that’s all that needs to be said.’

Her duties as a nurse done, Mrs Perkins had taken up her sewing. She snipped her thread and spoke without looking up from her work. ‘Mr Glass saw it – Mr Glass has to say it. Her brother will be along in the morning. He can lend a hand there.’

‘God, Mr George,’ Francis said, his voice still thin and parched. ‘Who carries word to him?’

Perkins lifted a hand to calm him. ‘The marshal has George’s direction and they said they’ll have a constable travel off at first light.’

His wife was watching Francis carefully. ‘Enough talk now,’ she said, and gathered up Francis’s coat. ‘You’ll stay here tonight, Mr Glass, and don’t think to argue because we won’t hear you. Finish your beer while my girl and I make up a bed for you and the boy.’ She got up, resting her hand on his shoulder for a moment.

Francis wondered if he had even strength enough to stand. ‘I’ll not argue, ma’am, but I’d as lief sleep here in the kitchen as anywhere. There’s no need to disturb the lad then either.’

She hesitated. Francis was a man of some standing now, but she had known him many years, and in those times when he was well-used to a hard floor to sleep on. ‘If you wish it?’

‘I do.’

‘I’ll fetch something in to make you comfortable at least.’

The grocer finished his pipe and knocked out the embers, and when he and his wife had seen to it, Francis had all he needed and they left him to get what sleep he might. He curled up on the nest of blankets and thought of Eliza, adrift somewhere beyond grief. She was in his arms again, saying his brother’s name. She had never had the chance to learn his own.

W
ILLIAM HANDED MRS WESTERMAN
her gloves and was waiting for her to pull them straight over her wrists before he opened the door onto Berkeley Square. There was the sudden sound of a raised voice upstairs. They both flinched. Harriet finished smoothing on her gloves. ‘Not one of my children, I think.’

‘No, ma’am,’ William replied, managing not to smile.

‘You know where I am going this morning, William?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ He stared straight in front of him, serious again.

‘I found what you told me the other morning deeply distressing. I hate to believe that my husband ever owned a slave, or that he and our family ever profited by it. I hope very much that you are mistaken, that there may have been some misunderstanding – and that is why I have asked for various accounts from that period to be sent up from Caveley. I am sure you will have heard about this, and drawn your own conclusions. I do not wish you to think I believe you to be lying. As I say, I am only hoping there might have been some error. Do you understand?’

She looked up at him; his face remained impassive. ‘I understand, Mrs Westerman.’

‘Thank you.’ She nodded to him and he went to open the door.

The back chamber of the Swan was full when Harriet arrived. The coroner, Mr Bartholomew, sat at a table at the north of the room under a portrait of the King with the jurors seated to his right. Crowther was already giving his evidence. Most of the jurors seemed to be following him attentively. Harriet examined the faces of those seated nearest the jury. Mrs Trimnell was today dressed in black silk. Sir Charles was seated by her side, and from the careful glances she saw Mr Bartholomew casting at the front row, she assumed he was not the only one of the City Aldermen in attendance. The younger Jennings was not present, but the man with the monkey was. He seemed bored again. The older woman who had been at church with Sir Charles sat beside him, and Sawbridge, the hawk, was seated by his daughter.

When Crowther was done, he moved to take a chair on the right-hand side of the room. He noticed Harriet as he did so, and nodded. She smiled back at him ruefully.

Bartholomew thanked Crowther and asked for Mrs Trimnell. The widow stood and made her way to the chair where Crowther had sat to give his evidence. She really did have a beautiful figure. She sat down rather stiffly and folded her hands together in her lap. Her gloves were black, but fastened with large pearls like perfect tears at the wrists. She gave her name very softly. The jurors looked sympathetic. Mrs Trimnell explained that she had been at the theatre on Friday evening with Mrs Jennings, the elderly lady who sat with Sir Charles. She thought her husband intended to work in his study a while longer, then spend the evening with friends. She did not know which friends. ‘Perhaps he had it in mind to go to the Jamaica Coffee House,’ she said. ‘And was prevented.’ She turned her head away and lifted her handkerchief as she said this. The coroner enquired very gently, if Mrs Trimnell’s servants might have more exact information as to where Mr Trimnell had been going and at what time. Mrs Trimnell shook her head. ‘I had given my maid the evening off, and the house girl would not notice a thing.’

Harriet thought the woman did seem genuinely upset, but it was a rather elegant grief. Harriet had been capable of neither thought nor speech in the days immediately following her husband’s death, but then she knew there were many species of marriage. The coroner glanced at the front row of chairs and Harriet thought she saw the man in purple give a tiny nod. ‘Mrs Trimnell, do you have any particular reason to think that your husband might have intended to go to the Jamaica Coffee House at some point during the evening?’

She smiled sadly. ‘We did not speak of his plans, sir. But I thought he might be going there to show the gentlemen the mask.’

Harriet felt her back straighten and there were whisperings in the crowd. Not from those in the front of the room, however. They continued looking calmly ahead.

‘You refer to the mask in which Mr Trimnell was discovered, madam?’ Bartholomew asked. He said it rather too smoothly. This was obviously not the shock to him that it was to Harriet.

Mrs Trimnell nodded, then turned to the jury with a sweet sad smile. ‘It was his own design and it worked very well. The Negroes did not like it at all and were much better behaved after they had been made to wear it a while. Several of the other estates nearby copied the style.’ She said it as calmly as if she had been discussing a new trimming for a bonnet.

There was a general shuffling in the courtroom and some of the jury members who wore the dress of tradesmen and shopkeepers shot sidelong glances at each other. The rest only regarded Mrs Trimnell with continued sympathetic interest. Mr Bartholomew straightened his papers. ‘I understand such masks are occasionally used to prevent the workers damaging their internal organs by eating soil.’

Mrs Trimnell nodded. One of the jury members whispered to his neighbour, who raised his hand. ‘Yes?’ Bartholomew said.

‘Just was wondering, please, if Mr Trimnell carried a whip and pegs with him too?’

Mrs Trimnell answered at once. ‘Why on earth would he do that? There is nothing special about the design of a whip.’

The juror blushed and looked at his hands.

Harriet felt a touch on her arm which made her start, and she turned to find herself looking into the grey-green eyes of Mr Palmer of the Admiralty. She discovered after her first surprise that she was very pleased to see him and offered him her hand. He guided her to a couple of free chairs towards the back of the room. ‘I had begun to think you would not come,’ he said to her softly as they sat down.

‘I meant not to,’ she whispered back to him, ‘but I grew restless in Berkeley Square and found I had ordered the chaise brought round before I even knew what I was about. Crowther offered me a shilling to come, so that may have had something to do with it.’ He smiled at her. ‘What have I missed?’

‘A great deal of jargon from our coroner, a rather disjointed account of the finding of the body from the verger. The Aldermen have distributed handbills asking for information about Trimnell’s missing clothes and personal effects.’ He handed one to her as he spoke and she tucked it into her reticule.

‘What do you think the jury will say, Mr Palmer?’

He considered. ‘The foreman of the jury and Mr Bartholomew seem to be leading the rest a little. I suspect they will find that on his way to the coffee house, Mr Trimnell was set upon by footpads. They found the mask on him and made him wear it, then struck the blow that caused his heart to stop …’

‘… Then they panicked and fled with his clothes and valuables,’ she concluded thoughtfully. ‘It is not an unreasonable story. But you say
on his way
to the coffee house?’

‘No one saw him there that evening. Given they knew him there …’

She said thoughtfully, ‘I have not Crowther’s knowledge, but by the stiffness of his limbs when we examined him, he cannot have died before midnight.’