Miss Matilda Hayward and the Freak Show (Miss Matilda Hayward series Book 1)

by Helen Goltz

  ‘I’m guessing you’ll be asking her that?’ Daniel said.

  Mrs Tufton walked around the stage in a circle as the showman continued his speech. ‘Our giantess recently had a challenger from Victoria, but when both ladies presented themselves for weighing, our giantess was indeed the champion.’

  Mrs Tufton gave a small bow to more applause, as though being a giantess was a feat one aspired to.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the giantess is seeking two gentlemen from the audience… be warned, she intends to lift you!’ the showman announced.

  There were gasps, claps and nervous laughter from the audience, and several men raised their hands.

  Matilda looked at Daniel.

  ‘No,’ he said firmly.

  She smiled. ‘Fine then.’ Matilda glanced to his drawing notebook. ‘That’s very good. You really are talented, Daniel.’

  ‘Thank you. Thomas thinks he might be able to get me a position as one of the courtroom sketch artists. He knows someone through his position who owes him a favour. That should satisfy Father that I can make a living from my art.’

  ‘Oh, that would be brilliant. Why had you not told me this before?’ Matilda said, wincing as the giantess prepared to lift the two men simultaneously.

  Daniel didn’t answer as he hurriedly sketched the two men beside Mrs Tufton, ensuring to get the height perspective correct to accentuate her size. He drew her arms extended around the men, ready to lift and lift she did. The audience gasped and then applauded. Both men looked surprised and not at all embarrassed. The giantess placed them on the ground and soon her performance came to an end.

  Matilda and Daniel remained behind. Unfortunately, so did the showman though Matilda had hoped for a private interview.

  ‘Mrs Tufton, so good of you to speak with us,’ Matilda said after introductions and polite talk about her show.

  Matilda peppered her with a few questions and the giantess responded with the answers she had offered many times before, but sadly it was what people wanted to know.

  ‘I was a normal-sized child until I was about eight, and then I just grew, and I kept growing,’ the giantess said.

  It amazed Matilda how girlish Mrs Tufton’s voice was given her gigantic frame.

  ‘Luckily my parents owned a farm and so my strength was useful,’ she said, with a smile. ‘No, none of my siblings are big. I have four brothers and a sister who are quite normal of build. But being large did come in handy living with my four brothers. I suspect my sister did not fare as well.’

  Matilda laughed. ‘I have four brothers, no sister. I understand completely.’

  The giantess continued, ‘I’ve been able to travel all around Australia and next year, I am touring England. It’s an exciting opportunity.’

  Matilda tried to read her for sincerity. Having now what she needed to write her article; Matilda looked to Daniel who indicated he had finished his work.

  ‘Distract the showman,’ Matilda whispered to her brother. Daniel understood. He rose and slapped the man on the back, offering praise and encouragement to the showman on his work and skills at creating an exciting atmosphere.

  ‘Are you truly happy here, Mrs Tufton?’ Matilda asked in a low voice.

  Mrs Tufton, the giantess, shook her head, and with a glance to the showman, turned to Matilda and whispered, ‘Help me.’

  She put out her hand to shake Matilda’s, enveloping it completely, and pressed into Matilda’s palm a folded piece of paper.

  Matilda nodded, tucked it into her notebook and rose. On the way out she glanced back to see Anna Tufton take a deep breath, wipe a tear from her face and rise to prepare for her next appearance in the Freak Show.

  Chapter 2

  No one moved while the two detectives studied the room. Nearby, the coroner waited to instruct his staff to remove the body; a journalist hovered – a journalist who wasn’t Miss Matilda Hayward the detective was pleased to note – and eagle-eyed witnesses impatient to tell their story waited outside the door, peering in as best they could around the constable who blocked the doorway.

  Detective Thomas Ashdown hated the smell of blood first and foremost. Followed by – in no particular order – murderers who got away with it, wrongful hangings, warm beer, the disrepair of his current place of abode, and crying females. Three of those scenarios were currently playing out and he frowned at the wailing woman in the hallway. A young constable stepped in and led her away. Which made him think – he couldn’t remember the last time he saw Matilda cry. He cleared his mind of her; this was the last place in the world he wanted to be thinking about a lady, but it’s fair to say that he’d given Matilda and the list of things he despised some thought over the many hours he lay awake trying to work through a case.

  Daniel had started the ridiculous list discussion when they had been well imbibed and had restricted the list to five, but Thomas found that a challenge.

  Despite being the youngest detective at the city’s new Roma Street Police Barracks, Thomas seemed to attract more of the most gruesome cases. Perhaps his willingness to work late and having no wife to go home to made him a favourite of the inspector’s when it came to delegation. Maybe because he was partnered with an older, experienced detective who had a strong work ethic, they had become the first team to be called for duty. Or maybe his track record for solving cases might have had something to do with it as well. He had solved all but one case that had come over his desk in the last six months – a record unsurpassed amongst his peers. He hadn’t given up on that unsolved case either.

  Thomas recorded every detail of the room to memory before he turned his gaze to study the victim – another woman, dead. There had been a spate of assaults on women of late – up a third from the last year. After carefully studying the deceased young woman, Thomas glanced to the young constable who had returned and was standing in the doorway.

  ‘What do you have on the victim?’ he asked.

  ‘Sir, she was a prostitute,’ he said and stopped.

  Thomas sighed. ‘Aside from her line of work, Constable, what do we know of the victim?’

  The constable cleared his throat, noting the rebuke from his superior officer.

  ‘Mrs Florence Anderson, sir. She was thirty-and-two, five children, husband deserted some six months ago, but witnesses said they saw two men here this afternoon. One of them could have been the husband, as no one here knew what he looked like. Just before dusk, a gentleman who lived a few doors down the hallway heard screaming and when he opened his door to come and see, a man ran past him, and that’s when he found Mrs Anderson.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Thomas said. ‘Where are the children?’

  ‘A neighbour has taken them to St Vincent’s Orphanage, sir.’

  Thomas nodded. ‘I’ll leave you to get statements from the witnesses, Constable, and I’ll talk to the boarding house owner now,’ he said with a glance around.

  ‘He’s next door, sir, he owns that one too.’

  Thomas nodded and looked at his partner. ‘Harry?’

  ‘All done, Thom,’ the older detective agreed, and proceeded to the door.

  Thomas followed, not speaking until they arrived at street level. He breathed out through his nose with several large huffs, trying to clear away the smell, but it lingered.

  ‘Jeezus, that smell of death,’ Harry agreed. ‘I swear it seeps into my pores.’

  ‘I can handle the smell of death and decay, it’s the stench of blood that I can’t stand.’ Thomas grimaced.

  ‘Blood?’ Harry looked at his partner with raised eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before. You’ve got the best nose in the business. Ah well, let’s be grateful we don’t have to clean it up.’

  Thomas smiled at the older man. He liked the old cop – Harry Dart. He was street smart, old-fashioned, polite, and tired, so he was happy for Thomas to be the young gun. Harry’s ego didn’t want to compete, and that made for a happy partnering. There h
ad been the odd occasion that Thomas had to respect Harry’s judgement and accept that his brash confidence at six-and-twenty may have needed checking, but Harry did it in his customary relaxed manner.

  ‘Ah, that’s probably the boarding house owner, leave it to me,’ Harry said, identifying a man who appeared in possession of wealth alighting from the front entrance. He wandered off to speak with him.

  The street was full of shadows as Thomas stood looking at the exterior of the boarding house, his face lit by the street gaslights. With his hands in the pockets of his trousers, he rocked back and forth. He must have stayed that way for some time thinking as Harry returned and interrupted his thoughts.

  ‘Solved it yet?’ Harry stirred him, and Thomas laughed.

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ he scoffed. ‘You should head home for dinner. I’ll make a few notes and we’ll talk in the morning, yes?’

  ‘I can stay if need be,’ Harry said as they hailed a hansom cab.

  ‘No, she’s dead, we’re not saving any lives tonight,’ Thomas said, stepping into the vehicle after Harry and giving the cabman the police station destination. Besides, I won’t be working late. I’ve got a dinner invitation to the Haywards’ tonight.’

  ‘Ah, I saw those twin boys out the other night. They weren’t short of refreshments.’

  Thomas laughed at his partner’s tact.

  ‘It is time they settled down, I don’t want to be seeing them in our cells,’ Thomas agreed. ‘Elijah’s sensible enough, but Gideon will need a strong woman.’

  ‘I could say the same of you, son,’ Harry ribbed him. ‘Find yourself a nice girl who can keep you in line, someone to go home to after you see these awful scenes who’ll have a hot meal waiting for you and be dressed so pretty that your mind will forget the day and be rested for the night.’

  Thomas sighed. ‘That does sound good, but I can’t say I’ve found one yet that I want to go home to every night or talk with in the morning for that matter.’

  ‘I think there might be one just under your nose,’ Harry suggested, and gave Thomas a wink, as he alighted from the hansom cab that had stopped outside the station. ‘Perhaps that smell of blood won’t let you smell her pretty perfume.’

  Thomas offered his partner a wry look and Harry laughed.

  ‘In the morning then,’ Harry said and with a wave, he was gone, his home a brisk fifteen minutes’ walk from the station, and tonic for Harry to remove the day from his conscience.

  Thomas breathed out again, still trying to eliminate the smell and vision of poor Florence Anderson. He glanced at his timepiece – one hour until he was due at the Haywards’ home. His mind broke that into segments – twenty minutes to make some notes for work, fifteen minutes to get freshened up before Daniel collected him as he passed the station. He stopped and mused that maybe he needed more than fifteen minutes to dress so that Matilda did not smell the crimes of the day on him. She would want to discuss the matter in detail. He also allowed fifteen minutes to get there, and ten minutes up his sleeve for the unexpected. His host, Mr Hayward, didn’t care too much for punctuality but the cook did, and she was the best cook Thomas had ever encountered, so he would not get on her bad side.

  Chapter 3

  Matilda paced from one end of the drawing-room to the other – a considerable length in the Hayward family’s Highgate Hill home. From the front windows was a fine view across the growing city – the river with its busy trade and in the distance, on a clear day – and most Brisbane days were just that – the mountains could be seen. This evening, dinner was not served for another fifteen minutes and Daniel and his best friend, Thomas, were expected to dine – they were late; Matilda assumed that was Daniel’s fault. Her brothers, Elijah and Gideon, had made their excuses – they were spending way too much time at the club, and Matilda missed Elijah’s calming influence. She suspected her father wasn’t too worried about their absence as long as Elijah accompanied Gideon.

  But for now, she had more important matters than Gideon’s antics to think about. Mrs Tufton’s plea had distressed her. What to do next?

  I’m a writer with some formal training and certainly no investigative skills, she thought, but that would not stop her. This was a story, and it might soon be a national front-page article she would deliver. And it all began in the Women’s Journal.

  Her editor, Mrs Dora Lawson, would be thrilled and it would support Mrs Lawson’s personal crusade to assist women in distress because of a disagreeable marriage, living standards, or lifestyle.

  ‘Matilda, do stop pacing, dear. Either tell me what is on your mind, or pace elsewhere,’ her father said with a sigh. ‘While you up, perhaps you will refill my glass.’

  ‘Sorry Pa, of course.’ Matilda hastened to refill her father’s brandy glass and, with a glance his way, poured a drop for herself.

  ‘Do tell, my dear,’ her father encouraged her and put down his newspaper, peering at Matilda through his thin wire-framed glasses.

  ‘It’s my next article, Pa, there’s a complication and I have to do something above and beyond,’ Matilda said, and then she began to tell her father about the giantess and the interview.

  ‘What did the letter say?’ he asked.

  The door of the drawing-room swung open, and Daniel and Thomas barged in together.

  ‘Good evening, Pa, Matilda, I need a drink,’ Daniel proclaimed.

  ‘Sir,’ Thomas said, stopping and acknowledging Mr Hayward, who rose and extended his hand. The men shook.

  ‘So glad you could join us, Thomas, we don’t see you often enough these days, work commitments, I imagine,’ he said. ‘It’s a standing invitation any evening and we expect your attendance on Sunday.’

  ‘Thank you, sir, the invitation is always welcome.’

  ‘How are you, son?’ Mr Hayward asked of Daniel.

  ‘Pa, never better.’ He waved the bottle of scotch at Thomas, who nodded and turned to acknowledge the other guest in the room.

  ‘Matilda,’ he said with a small bow.

  ‘Thomas,’ she reciprocated with a smile that said she knew him, and his charm and good manners would not impress her. But she impressed him. Tonight, she looked beautiful. Her blonde hair was styled to expose her swan-like neck, a fitted blue dress highlighted her delicate figure, and her blue eyes, that looked far too clever for her sex, shone. Thomas’s partner, Harry, was right. She had a way of distracting him so that all sensible thoughts left his head. He wasn’t sure when this first began, as it was subtle and had crept up on him. It was once enough to compete against her, to be in her company and enjoy the teasing from Daniel’s little sister, but now it was more. Daniel cut his vision stepping in front and offering him a glass of scotch.

  ‘And you, Pa, everything okay?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘Well, Matilda was just about to fill me in on her latest story which has her most vexed,’ Mr Hayward said.

  ‘The giantess!’ Daniel exclaimed. ‘That was amazing today, you should have stayed and visited the other exhibits with me,’ he said to his sister.

  ‘You should not have, Matilda. I hope you didn’t?’ Thomas frowned at Daniel before turning his attention to Matilda.

  ‘You’re sounding like Amos now, Thomas. But no, I didn’t stay, it was too distressing,’ Matilda said. ‘People as curiosities just doesn’t feel right with me.’

  ‘Rightly so,’ Mr Hayward said. ‘And Thomas is right, you are a young lady… we’re prone to forget that in this manly household.’

  Daniel laughed and turned to Thomas. ‘I don’t remember you being worried about Matilda’s sensibilities when you threw a spider in her direction or tackled the ball from her to avoid Elijah’s team winning, or—’

  ‘We were very young.’ Thomas cut him off, uncomfortably hot at the thought of tackling Matilda now.

  ‘I’m still having nightmares about that spider,’ Matilda teased him. ‘I may never be the same.’

  ‘Hmm, I doubt that,’ Thomas said in
good humour. ‘But those freak shows are not a place for a lady. They can be quite alarming.’

  The housekeeper, Mrs Jarvis, made a clucking sound as she entered the room, indicating her agreement to the last comment spoken. She had earned herself an opinion, having been with the family long before Matilda was born. Widowed but five years ago, her security and comfort came from remaining within the welcoming breast of the Hayward family.

  ‘Dinner is served, Mr Hayward,’ she said, and on departure smiled at Thomas. She liked a young man with manners who enjoyed his food and she believed him to be a good influence on Daniel.

  Mr Hayward rose and led the way. ‘Come then, best we are not later for dinner; I for one don’t wish to feel the wrath of Cook.’ He offered his arm to Matilda, who slipped her hand through her father’s and allowed him to escort her to dinner. Daniel and Thomas, nursing their drinks, followed.

  The dining room was easily the loveliest room in the Hayward household with its pleasant fireplace, a cut-glass chandelier that had been lit earlier and the adorned plaster-of-Paris mouldings on the ceiling. Once seated and served, and praise given, Thomas addressed Matilda.

  ‘So, what is vexing you, Matilda? Do share,’ he said, in a voice that was part interest and part challenge. In truth, he was starving. He rarely ate during the working day, and as a bachelor with a pressing job, he never thought to have breakfast. Cook’s roast lamb and vegetables deserved his full attention.

  ‘Yes, my dear,’ Mr Hayward said. ‘As these two hooligans interrupted us when you were about to impart the contents of the letter, do continue,’ he said with a fond glance at the young men.

  Matilda finished a bite of her dinner and swallowed before starting.

  ‘I think a woman is being exploited by her husband at the Freak Show – Mrs Anna Tufton, the giantess.’

  Daniel scoffed. ‘I can’t believe she’s married. Seriously, the giantess is an enormous lady and not meaning to be crude, but would her husband’s interest be anything but financial?’