by Issy Brooke
Marianne gazed around. The room was in comfortable disarray, with books and leaflets and pamphlets and notebooks all over the place. Cushions were piled up on the chairs and couches. He had a set of reading glasses on every table, and though Mrs Crouch tried to keep his potions and medicines all in one place, he was inclined to pick up bottles and leave them lying around in places that they ought not to be. Marianne spotted one wide-necked brown bottle peeking out from behind a plaster bust of Aristotle on the mantelpiece. She picked it up and shook it. Empty, but it had once contained Calomel.
Mrs Crouch sniffed, and took the bottle from her. She bustled out of the room, collecting other poisonous detritus as she went.
Marianne had to admit that there were no obvious clues, and it was frustrating that no one could say how long he’d been absent. She wandered through to the shared laboratory, and ran her hands along the wooden bench. Unfortunately her skin snagged on something sticky and she recoiled, and ran to a basin to rinse the substance off. It didn’t smell but there was no telling what it was.
What experiments had her once-famous chemist father been performing lately? Sometimes he seemed to simply mix things together just to see if they exploded. In his heyday, he had been a model of precision and method. Now, it was as if he were challenging God, cooking up volatile substances, almost asking to be blown to smithereens.
There was no apparatus set up except her own little Voltaic pile where she’d been playing around with magnets. She paced up and down, and threw open a window to let in some fresher air. As she did so, she spotted a leather pouch amongst other clutter on the windowsill, resting on the top of a pile of books, and next to a top hat and a clockwork duck.
She picked it up and peered inside as she walked across the laboratory. Her father’s medicines came in an assortment of containers, depending on the materials they reacted with, and she was curious to discover what the pouch contained. It was a white powdery substance. She sniffed it carefully but it was completely odourless. She decided against tasting it, and instead put it down on the bench close to the door.
She left the laboratory by the door to the main corridor and heard rushing footsteps approaching from the central part of the house. She was relieved to see it was her father, and alarmed to see that he was running.
“Father! Slow down.”
“I need weapons!”
“What?” She tried to grab his arm but he was strong and pushed her against the wall. She screamed, hamming it up to appeal to his paternal sense, but he didn’t even seem to notice he’d just hurled his daughter into a solid object. He ran to his room and slammed the door behind him.
Her heart was hammering now. She shot after him and grabbed the door handle, but he had already locked it. She thumped her fists on the door. “Open up! Or I shall have the door broken down! What is wrong? Are you in danger? Are we in danger?”
He yelled back at her, and his voice sounded very close to the door. “I shall not open up, and you will have the decency to afford your poor, ailing father some privacy. Nothing is wrong. We are not in danger. Go away. Bring me coffee.”
“Why do you need weapons?”
“I ... need coffee,” he said. “That is all. I am helping you, you silly girl, so you ought to help me. Coffee. See to it, or do you have another use that I don’t know about?”
She stepped away from the door. Mrs Crouch had appeared and had folded her arms, with a sour expression on her face as if Marianne’s father’s vagaries were somehow the daughter’s fault.
“He would like some coffee,” Marianne said.
“So I heard,” Mrs Crouch replied. And she turned around and headed back for the day room.
Marianne sighed and went off to the kitchens, wondering if she was even going to be able to procure anything at all, now that the larders were under strict lock and key.
SUCH WAS THE LOT OF an unmarried and rapidly aging – well, mid-twenties – woman, Marianne thought, as she dealt with a dozen little issues and none of them were her own. She could not get coffee from Mrs Cogwell but Mr Barrington beckoned her into his own little cubbyhole and revealed a private stock in a small tin. She took some in exchange for promising to put in a good word about him to Mrs Davenport, who had not yet exercised her ruthless pruning of the staff. Instead, she seemed to be enjoying the game of pitting them all against one another. Certainly, the household was running like clockwork now, as they all desperately tried to prove their worth.
Marianne helped the children’s nurse carry some coals upstairs, as the youngest child, little Charlie, had developed a chill. Ann Davenport had the cause down as a result of bad air in the nursery but Marianne thought it was his bland diet of potatoes that probably didn’t help. There was a sulphurous smell all through the upper floors, as if someone had been purifying something, and the maids had opened all the windows to try to shift it.
Finally she was able to send her note to Inspector Gladstone, asking for the name of the hotel, and sent it away with the mid-afternoon post.
She was not able to come up with an acceptable excuse to release her from that evening’s meal. And to her horror, a few local people “of the right sort” had been invited around to take drinks and make conversation after the dinner, although they were not invited to partake in the food itself. Marianne dragged herself reluctantly into the drawing room and installed herself in a corner, hidden as much as possible by a large fern in a pot. Phoebe spotted her immediately and sidled over, bringing wine.
It was well watered-down. She was going to have to drink an awful lot of it for there to be any effect.
“So, these people are good enough to be entertained, but not quite good enough to be fed?” Marianne said in a low voice.
“It is my mother’s doing. Apparently it is a perfectly acceptable practice and she thinks her economy is being applauded all over town.”
“And is it?”
“No,” Phoebe said with a grim laugh. “We are now known as the haunt of misers, and I think people have only accepted tonight’s invitation so they might discover the depths to which we have sunk. She must go, Marianne. If you will not lightly poison her, I shall. Tell me what to us. And if you won’t tell me, I’ll go straight out tomorrow and buy arsenic fly papers. How many will I need?”
“She will only leave when she has thoroughly destroyed everything,” Marianne said.
“You mean, when she has married you off. Why not consider it? I have had the most marvellous idea, Marianne.” Phoebe’s eyes glittered and Marianne wondered if her cousin had turned to laudanum lately. “Why not marry Simeon? Just for a while.”
“You cannot marry someone temporarily.”
“Oh, divorce is easier now, as long as he will agree to it. Anyway, you don’t even need to divorce, if you have no intention of marrying properly. Just marry him, make her happy, she will leave and then we can carry on with our lives.”
“That is ridiculous,” Marianne said. “Oh, keep smiling. Someone is coming with a most determined air. Who is this?”
“One of your potential suitors. Think, Marianne. Look at his teeth! Could you bear to look at them every day of your life? Goodness me, they are almost looking back at us. If you cannot face that sight, consider my plan.”
The middle-aged man bore down on them, smiling with a mouthful of grey gravestones crowding his thin-lipped mouth. Phoebe made the introduction and left Marianne to converse about beef cattle for a very long fifteen minutes. By the end of it, she was seriously considering the merits of Phoebe’s suggestion. A little light poisoning would be easy enough.
And the night was yet young.
Twelve
The reply from Inspector Gladstone came to Marianne the next morning, and she headed out without seeing anyone, although as it was such a large household, she knew that she herself would have been seen. The servants were becoming more and more invisible as they sought to stay out of Mrs Davenport’s way. She wanted them to be efficient, but they were to do so in a completely anonymous manner. Sh
e only used their surnames, and hardly addressed any of them directly, unless she was criticising them.
For such a Christian woman, Marianne thought, she certainly didn’t see any spark of the Holy Spirit in anyone else. For Ann Davenport, the world was as it was due to God’s influence and nothing more. No one had any control over their station in life, and it was simply their duty to accept it. That morning, after breakfast, Mrs Davenport had cornered Marianne and told her, in detail, of her personal sorrow at being such an exalted woman – “For it puts me under such pressure to live up to the station into which I have been born, and yet, though it pains me, do I shirk it? No! I delight in the labour, as should you...” and so on.
It was a relief to Marianne to be in motion again, travelling by train and by foot, though the constant journeys were depleting her meagre funds even more. She’d be travelling third class, at this rate, soon. Then Mrs Davenport would never find a suitable husband for her.
She had the name of the hotel, but not the address. So much for the helpfulness of the London policeman. She should have been more explicit in her note. She found the hotel after asking three boys. The first two lied, and she was sent down random alleys, but the third was an honest sort who took her right to the door and was rewarded with a shiny coin that would be good for at least a loaf of bread.
It was a small, cheap and shabby place. That told Marianne that Mrs Newman really was lacking in funds. Well, she thought, there we have something in common. Perhaps we can bond over our shared poverty. She went over her plan in her head, and prepared herself for the line she was going to take. When she was ready, she asked the smartly-uniformed man in the front lobby where she might find Mrs Newman, and he shook his head sadly.
“She’s gone, madam.”
“When did she leave? How long did she stay for?”
“One night only, and she went before breakfast.”
“Do you know where she went?”
The man grinned ruefully, and nodded at a door that led to a small office. “We have no idea, but if you find out, do let us know, for she owes money for that night and my boss is hopping mad about it. She sounded like she could pay, you know. She sounded like a lady.”
“I don’t suppose she left anything in her room?”
He laughed. “Left? She arrived with nothing. I half think she might have left with more. We’ve not counted the silverware yet.”
“Ah – you probably should.”
“We don’t actually have any.”
She trudged out onto the street again. A chill wind was blowing. This was a quiet part of town, though the road was busy with through traffic heading into London with goods to sell. There were few shops or businesses. She walked the few streets back to Rosedene, and went up the driveway and around the cypress hedge. Now she was hidden from the street, and she stopped, staring up at the blank-faced house.
The curtains were all drawn across the windows, though she waited, expecting something to flutter and part and reveal a ghostly face. Of course, that didn’t happen. The ground floor windows had been partly boarded over. She wondered if that was Inspector Gladstone’s doing, or the work of the solicitors’ firm dealing with Miss Dorothea’s will. She tried the front door, but it was locked, as she had expected. She stepped back again, trying to see something, anything, which might give her a clue as to its secrets.
What would Louisa Newman do? She’d come back, of course, Marianne reasoned. She had left carrying nothing, so this place must still contain her clothes and personal effects. Marianne trudged around the house. There was a flagstone path that hugged the side of the house, slimy with moss, and she followed it, trying every window and door that she came across. The windows at the side and back had not been boarded over, but all were firmly locked. She remembered what Inspector Gladstone had said about the windows being old, with inefficient locks, and tried to prise some of them open, but she could not.
She was carrying her usual lock-picking equipment, and she decided to try her luck on the kitchen door. She knelt down, bunching up her skirts to pad her knees, and probed into the lock. This was an easy task on a simple internal door, but this one frustrated her. She sent a bent wire in, feeling for the wards that she could push up in the right sequence, but there were no satisfying clicks telling her she was on the right track.
It was a tumbler lock, with moving pins, quite modern and most infuriating. She would need to pass a number of bent wires in, and hold them in place as she worked. She gave up, and sat back, shoving her tools back into her bag in exasperation. She was out of practice.
She continued on, and found no obvious place that Mrs Newman could have gained entry to the house.
Her great plan to cunningly interview the woman and unravel the murder of Miss Dorothea was not going to work.
She walked to the train station, ignoring the stares of passers-by, who were curious about the large damp stain on the front of her skirts. Where would Louisa Newman go? Who else did she know in London, or indeed, Britain? She remembered that Mary had met her, but that had been in a public gathering.
Only Tobias could help her now.
She decided she would change her clothes, grab some food if possible, check on her father, and head out later to Simeon’s to talk to the boy. Her father’s recent antics had concerned her, and she wanted to reassure herself that he was all right.
As soon as she stepped into Woodfurlong, she was set upon by Ann Davenport, and all her plans fell into dust.
Again.
“MARIANNE! YOU MUST change at once. I shall send that girl de Souza to assist you,” Mrs Davenport announced, bearing down upon her. She stopped halfway down the flight of stairs and looked up at the balcony. “Yes, Phoebe, yes. Send your girl to Marianne.”
“I do not need any help, but thank you.”
“You do. You must be ready within the hour. Four distinguished gentlemen dine with us tonight, and I have invited them to make polite conversation in the parlour beforehand. Two will be arriving early. It is unusual but I wish you to make their acquaintance. They should see you in a natural light. Wear a pale blue, if you will. Anything else will seem coquettish.”
Phoebe leaned over the railing. “She has never been coquettish in her life. She could dress as a Parisian dancing girl and still seem as dull as a railway timetable.”
“Railway timetables are not dull,” Marianne shot back. “They are full of the promise of travel and adventure. Also, I do not think I have a blue dress.”
Mrs Davenport threw up her hands. “De Souza!”
Phoebe was still watching. She mouthed, from behind her mother’s back, “Please,” and there was a look of desperation in her eyes.
“Very well.” Marianne stamped off to her rooms, followed by Emilia de Souza, who was usually Phoebe’s lady’s maid. “Do you think she’ll let me wear green? That’s all I have. Look.”
“It is an unlucky colour,” Emilia commented. She was a quick-witted young woman, deft with her hands and discreet with her manner. “There is too much of a hint of the faeries about it.”
“I thought it was unlucky due to arsenic,” Marianne said.
“That too. But it was always a bad colour to wear. Why would they even make a dress like this?” Emilia sighed, and spread out the offending article on the bed. “But it is the only thing in a style that will please Mrs Davenport, so it will have to do.”
“How are you faring with Mrs Davenport? Has she threatened you at all?”
“She does not like my name.”
“She calls you by your surname, I noticed.”
“She thinks both my Christian name and family name are too high for a woman like myself. If she had her way, all the maids here would be called Mary. But do not fear. I am in no danger from her.”
Thirty minutes later, and Marianne said, “Emilia, you are a true treasure. A wonder of the world. I almost look presentable!”
Emilia stepped back and smiled wryly. “Mrs Davenport has requested that you are to be
made to look marriageable.”
“Oh. That might be a task too far, even for you.”
“I have done my best. Mrs Claverdon says that you are to choose one of the men tonight.”
“Did she say it in a commanding sort of way?”
“Despairing. She is not happy about the whole thing. But she has confided in me, and it may be the better option. For us all.”
“Do you know anything of the men that are being thrust upon me tonight?” Marianne asked.
“I have heard only of one of them. Mr William Thorne.”
“Can you tell me about him?”
Emilia raised one delicate eyebrow. “If I am only to speak well of people, then no, I cannot.”
“Oh, that does not sound promising. Ugh.” Marianne straightened up and smoothed down her dress. Someone knocked at the door.
“Yes, yes, I am on my way!” she said. “Thank you, Emilia. You may go.”
Emilia left and Mrs Crouch took the chance to come in.
“He’s gone again.”
Her fears flared up once more.
Thirteen
Unfortunately, there was nothing that Marianne could do about her father’s wanderings. She had never discovered where he had gone on the previous time he had escaped. He was a grown man and she could hardly call the police about it. Much as she wanted to go out in pursuit of him, she had no idea where to start. Nor did Mrs Crouch.
They held a hurried conference. In the end, the severe Mrs Crouch actually demonstrated some sympathy. “I am sorry, lass. But he came home before and he will come home again. He was lucid today, you know. I think he just chafes at being here. He calls me his jailor and then blames his outbursts on his medicines, which is not true.”
“He’s just running off to prove a point?”
“Grasping freedom, I think. A little bit of spite, too.”
Marianne wanted Mrs Crouch to give her a hug but the nurse just sighed, smoothed down her hair with a flick of her wrist, and said, “I will tidy up and go home. Unless there is anything else...?”