Theft of Life (26 page)

‘Miss Christopher, your father said he arrived in London some fourteen years ago. I think you are a little older than that.’

‘I am sixteen, ma’am,’ The girl murmured. She lowered her head so her curls fell over her face.

‘So you were born in Jamaica?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered.

‘Sally was born to my first wife,’ Christopher said slowly. ‘She was a fellow slave, Ebele Ngozi, Igbo like myself. We married on the plantation according to our own rites. She died a little more than a year after Sally was born.’ He reached out and pulled at one of the girl’s ringlets. ‘She wished to return to Africa and her people. Her exile had been too long, and too painful. She took the shorter route home.’

‘Mr Christopher, were there other white men on Mr Trimnell’s estate while you and your wife were enslaved there?’ Harriet looked only at the delicately painted patterns on the tea-cup as she spoke.

‘No.’ She heard him sigh and move in his chair. ‘Ebele was attacked by Trimnell. She, and many other of the women he owned. Do you think that makes me less Sally’s father? I married Grace eleven years ago and she has raised Sally since. Is she not Sally’s mother as much as Ebele?’

‘Yes, Mr Christopher,’ Harriet said, still staring at her cup. ‘I believe that absolutely. But would Mr Trimnell agree with us?’

Mr Christopher did not reply.

‘I knew he was my father,’ Sally said at last. ‘I have known since I was five years old.’

Harriet looked up at that. ‘Mr Christopher told you?’

She shook her head quickly. ‘There was no need to tell. Papa told me of my mother, told me enough of the estate. The rest I could work out in my own mind, and after Papa married again and my sister was born … We are just alike.’

Christopher laughed softly. ‘Not so alike. Your sister is far more obedient than you are, and not so wilful. You have your Mama Ebele’s fire. Your sister has never stormed at me to raise my fees, or to refuse some fine gentleman teaching until his bill is paid.’

His daughter smiled.

‘What did Trimnell know about Sally, Mr Christopher?’ Harriet asked.

‘He knew I took her with me when I ran, and when Trimnell came to me last week, he brought Sally’s manumission as well as mine, and asked, if she had lived. Then if he might see her. The manumission I took, but I would not let him look on my child.’ He was still looking at his daughter. ‘I always meant to tell him you were dead, but when the moment came, I could not say the words, even if they might protect you. I could not say them.’

Sally wiped at her eyes with the sort of vigour Harriet used herself when she wished to stop crying immediately. ‘Trimnell saw me looking from the window upstairs as he left,’ she confessed. ‘I stepped away as soon as he turned round, but it was too late.’

Harriet got to her feet and went to the window. Soho Square lay below them in the sunshine. A pair of young men who had just left the Academy were talking excitedly as they crossed towards Greek Street, still miming the thrusts and parries Christopher had been teaching them. ‘Did you wish to see him again, Miss Christopher?’

‘No. To see him that once was enough. He walked like a beggar.’ Harriet looked back into the room. Mrs Christopher had changed her seat so she might sit on Sally’s other side, not touching her, but as determined a guardian as her husband. ‘He must have been watching for me. He stopped me on Thursday afternoon as I came back from the butcher’s and held onto my basket: I could not run away for fear of losing it.’

‘Did he try and claim you?’ Harriet said. ‘Not as his property, but as his daughter?’

‘He said he wanted to
acknowledge
me.’ She said it with utter scorn. ‘He said he would take me into his home and his wife would be a mother to me. I told him I had a home, a father and a mother already – but it was as if he couldn’t understand. He was so thin and dirty, and he seemed to think that I should be
pleased
at the idea of leaving my home to live with him.’ Scorn became a baffled contempt.

Harriet put her hand on the glass pane and imagined it. Trimnell twisted with guilt, with hopes of redeeming himself but still unable to understand that a girl might prefer the black father who had raised her to the white man who had raped her mother. ‘Was he angry with you?’

The girl shook her head. ‘He just kept speaking more loudly and slowly as if he thought I was soft-brained. Why would he think I wanted
him
as a father when I have Papa? When I have this? He said he wanted to give me a present and put his silly watch into my basket. I did not want it! Cornforth the grocer came out of his shop and asked him what he was about and he let me go. I ran back home.’

So Trimnell had caused enough of a scene to make the grocer come out of his shop.

‘Miss Christopher, was anyone watching you while Trimnell spoke to you? Might someone have overheard?’

She thought for a moment. ‘I do not know. He was so close to me I could hardly see anything. And he talked and shouted so.’

Harriet left the window. ‘Thank you, Miss Christopher. And thank you for the tea, Mrs Christopher.’

The family stood. ‘My pleasure, Mrs Westerman,’ said her hostess.

Sally leaned against her father. ‘May we fetch Guadeloupe from Bridewell, Papa?’

‘At once, though you should never have given him the watch, Sally. You knew he would pawn it and drink the money away.’ She apologised quietly. ‘I am sure that explaining your actions to the city magistrate will be punishment enough. Now, Mrs Westerman, I shall see you out.’

F
RANCIS WOKE SLOWLY AND
later than he had intended, and rang for hot water. His landlady had complained in the first weeks after he’d taken this room that he called for more hot water than the rest of her tenants put together. They had agreed a little extra for the work, and went on now in a friendly fashion, though she called him eccentric for it. Particularly as his skin didn’t show the dirt, she said. It was one of the many mysteries of the English, how they decorated themselves, their homes and their palaces with such extravagance, yet were so careless in keeping clean. The maid brought up the can and his shirts clean and mended over her arm. He lifted the fabric to his face and breathed in the smell of starch and felt it comfort him. The girl grinned at him and asked after his wounds. He had almost forgotten them. The lotion from Berkeley Square must have done its work well.

Francis washed and dressed himself with care, took his breakfast of bread and cheese and small beer at the chandler’s on the corner, and made his way to the shop.

He found Constable Miller on the doorstep. The man was shifting from foot to foot and occasionally glancing over his shoulder at the books set out in the window, as if they might be planning a surprise attack. Francis smiled at him. ‘You may always wait for me inside, Mr Miller,’ he said as he opened the door. ‘Ferguson is always here at dawn.’

Miller took off his hat as he came in. ‘Books make me nervy, Mr Glass. I’m happy to sit in by the fire with you but I feel, standing in here, like they are all talking about me behind my back.’ Francis laughed softly. ‘I’ve had word from Bartholomew,’ Miller went on. ‘It was murder proved. Still no sight nor sound of Penny though.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And, there’s a lawyer in your parlour. Says he has Mrs Smith’s will. The fellows at her place told him you were charged with the business.’

Francis glanced over his shoulder towards the parlour. ‘Again, my thanks, Mr Miller. You are very kind.’

The constable scratched the back of his neck. ‘You’re making up for not thanking me the night I pulled you from the fire now, Mr Glass. No thanks needed. Just wish I had something more useful to do than flounder about in the stews asking for Penny. Half of them answer they’ll be Penny if I want ’em to be.’ He tutted. ‘Not one in three of them over fifteen neither.’

The lawyer was indeed waiting in the parlour. A small man who talked in a whisper, he explained the will and its terms to Francis with great care, as if instructing a small child. Francis was courteous and minded less than he would have done on other days. The loss of Elizabeth had made everything else in the world dull. What harm could be done to him now? The will was like her. Clear, loving, well thought out and showing great devotion to her church. All her personal effects she left to her brother to keep, sell or distribute as he thought fit – with one exception: a ring of her father’s that she wished to go to Francis. What wealth she left was, after her bills were paid, to be inherited by her brother with one sizeable bequest to St Mary Woolnoth.

The lawyer turned the page and pointed out an addition on the last page. Ten pounds each to her apprentice Joshua Stevenson and her maid Penny Rendell in thanks for their service. It hurt Francis to read it. The executors were named as George Smith, Eliza’s brother, and Dr Thomas Fischer of St Mary Woolnoth. ‘Perhaps you might consult with Dr Fischer,’ the lawyer murmured. ‘And one or other of you should present yourselves at Mrs Smith’s banking house with the relevant documents. Have you kept the letter giving you the right to act for Mr Smith in this matter?’ Francis only nodded. The lawyer beamed. ‘Well
done
, Mr Glass.’

The church was a fine one, part of the generation conjured into the air by Hawksmoor as the city scrambled to rebuild itself after the Great Fire. It had a barrel-vaulted ceiling and pale stone walls. Dr Fischer was not there, the verger told Francis, looking the bookseller up and down with a sneer, but could be found in his house a little further along the same street. It must be a good living, or Dr Fischer was earning very well from his pamphlets, collections of hymn tunes and bundles of sermons, Francis decided, for although the house was not large, it was big enough to entertain and impress.

A maid opened the door to him, and after asking him his business in an aggressive tone of voice, told him to wait in the hallway while she saw if her master could receive him. When she returned, she confessed rather reluctantly that Dr Fischer was willing, and guided him up to a good-sized room on the first floor.

The Reverend Fischer sat at his desk, dressed in the clothes of a prosperous gentleman rather than clerical garb. He was a tall man, vigorous-looking, and his cluttered desk suggested a prodigious workload. He was surrounded by papers and books in untidy piles, and was engaged in filling more sheets at a steady pace. He stood when Francis entered the room and put out his hand, apparently overjoyed to be called away from his work.

‘Mr Glass! I am delighted to meet you. I have been told of your heroism. Are you recovered as yet, sir?’

Francis offered his hand and the Reverend took it, though he rather cradled it than shook it. He frowned over the healing wounds. ‘Not quite, not quite! What can I do for you? When may we receive dear Mrs Smith’s body for burial?’

He was warm, genial. Francis could understand why Eliza had admired him.

‘I have brought you Mrs Smith’s will to examine, sir,’ he said. ‘You are named as an executor and Eliza left a bequest to your church. Her brother is away; I act for him in his absence.’ He passed the papers from the lawyer to Fischer, who sat sideways in his chair to read them, waving Francis to an armchair as he did so. The armchair was already occupied with a number of books – some left open with their spines cracking, Francis noticed with discomfort. He perched on its edge as well as he could while Fischer read. ‘As to the burial,’ he added, ‘I am afraid I cannot tell you when that will be. The inquest was adjourned, sir. Yesterday afternoon.’

The Reverend looked up and made a sweeping gesture towards the piles of paper on his desk. ‘Adjourned? How so?’

‘Mrs Smith was murdered before the fire began, sir.’

Fischer stared at him. ‘Good God.’

Francis was afraid he had been clumsy. ‘Forgive me, I have thought of nothing else and I forget this is still grave news to her friends.’

Dr Fischer’s face seemed to sag. ‘She had been a parishioner of mine for many years, Mr Glass. A better and more charitable woman never lived. Murdered? How cruel. Was there any sign of robbery?’

‘Her maid is missing, though there was some money left behind. We are making enquiries.’

‘Good, good. Oh, poor Mrs Smith. I fear her honour and her innocence were her undoing.’ He handed the will back to Francis. ‘As to the winding up of her estate, you must do whatever you think right, Mr Glass.’

‘I wish to sell the remaining stock as soon as I might – tomorrow, if possible. We have done what we can to protect what remains from the elements, but a thunderstorm would destroy all their worth.’

‘I thought the fire had destroyed everything.’

Francis shifted his position slightly. The movement almost caused an avalanche of papers. He steadied the stacks with his hand.

‘The fire consumed the upper part of the building, but the floor of the first storey held. The majority of Mrs Smith’s stock was held on the ground floor. Much has been damaged by water and smoke, but there will still be a market for what is whole if the items are not damaged any further. My hope is that one of the wholesale traders by London Bridge might take a gamble and buy the whole stock. Her private papers, those that survived, jewellery and so on, I have removed to Mr Hinckley’s shop to wait for her brother there, but most of her possessions were destroyed, being as they were kept in the upper rooms.’

‘She has been most generous to the church,’ Fischer said. ‘You think there will be money enough to cover the bequest?’

‘Her bankers must be visited, naturally. But judging from her account books, and after the sale, I imagine that not only can the bequests be covered, but she will leave a generous sum to her brother’s family.’

Fischer stood. ‘You are much pressed,’ he said. ‘I shall delay you no longer with my questions. My thanks, Mr Glass.’

Francis stood also, carefully nudging the books behind him into more stable piles. ‘Would you like to speak to her bankers yourself, Dr Fischer? As executor of the will …’

Fischer cut him off with a sad smile. ‘No, no. I place the same confidence in you as do the rest of the family, Mr Glass.’ He paused. ‘You are certain she died
before
the fire?’