A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  “Not like that, though, you idiot,” the woman said irritably. “You are far too well-dressed to be my companion. Your gown alone is worth more than one year’s wages for Dorcas. Fortunately, I’m clever and brought one of her cloaks. It will cover you adequately, and since we are only staying for a brief visit, if we get in at all, you can keep it on over your unsuitably costly garb.” She paused a moment. “Hide your gloves and shoes as well as possible. You are unconscionably fine, too much so for a companion.”

  Moments later, feeling weighed down by the heavy, plain cloak she now wore over her clothes, Emmeline climbed down from the coach as the driver, a strapping, tall, and handsome young man, reached in past her. To her surprise, he lifted Miss Honeychurch out of the carriage and carried her up the walk to number seventy-three, then up the steps to the door, where he employed the knocker even though it had been muffled in deference to Sir Henry’s death. He then banged on the door.

  A maid answered and backed away when she saw the coachman with the frail lady in his arms. He pushed in past her as the woman shouted, “Miss Philberta Honeychurch to visit Lady Claybourne. Announce me!”

  The girl babbled about not having visitors, but that moment a stout middle-aged woman came into the entry hall.

  “What is going on here?”

  “Set me down, Roberts. Return for me in exactly one hour.”

  The driver set the elderly woman on her feet and exited, the stunned maid looking after him as he turned, winked at her over his shoulder, and departed.

  “What is the meaning of this?” the woman, presumably Lady Claybourne, demanded.

  “Dorcas, your arm!” Miss Honeychurch hollered. “Dorcas! ”

  Emmeline, not accustomed to responding to the name, lurched into action, taking the woman’s arm before she could topple over.

  “Into the drawing room … there,” Miss Honeychurch muttered, indicating the room from which the lady of the house had emerged. “I must sit!” she said more loudly. As she toddled forward stiffly on Emmeline’s arm, she shouted over her shoulder, “How are you, Elaine? Haven’t seen you since your wedding. What was it … thirty years ago?”

  As they moved into the sitting room, Emmeline reflected that there were distinct benefits to being old. When she was Miss Honeychurch’s age, she would be just so; do whatever she wanted and expect others to go along with her. She helped the woman settle, and then Miss Honeychurch shouted questions and Lady Claybourne responded with evasive phrases. Ten minutes of inconsequential chatter followed, during which Emmeline was able to study Lady Claybourne.

  She was a heavy woman, deep of bosom and stout, with a florid complexion, weedy eyebrows set low over eyes folded into wrinkles, and an unhappy mouth. She was dressed in black, of course, but it was not a new dress. Sally had implied the woman was a laudanum addict, but if so, the need for it had disappeared with the death of her distasteful husband, because today her gaze was sharp and her manner precise. She had gray eyes, pale lashes, and graying hair, piled untidily under a lace cap.

  The room was dusty but neat, a narrow chamber at the front of the building, the walls covered in yellow figured wallpaper. It was light enough at the front, by the windows, but it stretched into gloom near the back, even the bright paper failing to illuminate the dusk. Emmeline thought, from a quick glance at a writing table by the window, that the lady had been penning letters, the sheet hastily covered with blank papers. They were sitting in ornate chairs opposite a gilt settee, the furnishing fashionable thirty years prior, by a fireplace unlit even on this late October day, either because the lady did not expect to be there long or because she was habitually over-warm, as some women were at her stage of life. Men would have it that women became mad at a certain age, but Emmeline had always thought they wearied of the tedious interference of men. By the age of fifty or so, most had been made irritated and captious by a lifetime of male irrationality.

  Perhaps that explained Sir Henry Claybourne’s murder; his wife had become tired of him. It was at this point in her ruminations, during which she had allowed Miss Honeychurch to lead the conversation—as a good companion would—that Emmeline realized her “employer” was finally getting to the point of the visit.

  “Henry was killed in the middle of the night, the papers say. What the devil was he doing in the alley?”

  Lady Claybourne shrugged.

  “Didn’t you hear anything, Elaine? He should have made a fuss, I would imagine, being stuck like a porker.”

  Emmeline gasped, and Lady Claybourne stiffened. Even her age did not excuse Miss Honeychurch’s offensiveness.

  “You always were blunt,” their hostess said. She crossed to the writing table, picked up a bell and rang it, and ordered tea for three from the maid. Returning to her seat, she said, “I normally partake this time of day. You are here for another three quarters of an hour, judging by what you said to your coachman, so you shall take tea with me.”

  “Very good. None for Dorcas. She doesn’t drink it.”

  “I should be grateful of some tea, ma’am,” Emmeline said, contradicting Miss Honeychurch.

  “Of course,” Lady Claybourne said, sharing a commiserating look with her.

  “I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am,” Emmeline said softly, building on the rapport they had established over Miss Honeychurch’s discourtesy. “The papers are filled with such shocking news. I can’t believe they have everything right about the affair. Are you not afraid, in case the murderer is still watching you?”

  “I don’t quite know what to think, or believe.”

  “Has the magistrate not done anything yet? You could all be murdered in your beds by that madwoman who raided your home,” Miss Honeychurch said with a malicious cackle. “D’you think she did it, killed Henry?”

  “I don’t know,” Lady Claybourne said. “I can’t imagine that would be so. But it may be that the woman had a confederate.”

  “Maybe someone in your own staff let her in.”

  Emmeline felt a chill down her back; Miss Honeychurch was sailing too close to the truth. What was she doing?”

  Lady Claybourne appeared startled. But a moment later she said, “Impossible! Why would they?”

  “How else did the woman get in?”

  Consternation flooded Lady Claybourne’s eyes. Emmeline’s breath caught in her throat; Miss Honeychurch was stirring up the pond quite thoroughly, like a little girl with a stick, jamming it into the muck that silted on the bottom. Would her efforts reveal anything, or merely cause trouble for the cook or housekeeper who had tried to help little Molly?

  “I don’t know,” Lady Claybourne finally said, with a helpless shrug.

  “Did your husband come up and tell you what happened?”

  “I was indisposed that evening. I was abed, and had been for … for hours.”

  And they no doubt had separate chambers, anyway.

  “Who breaks into a house and takes a scullery maid, Elaine?”

  “How would I know?” she said coldly.

  “Did you hire the child?”

  “I have been ill lately. Henry took care of things. Told me not to worry about it.”

  “You look well enough to me.”

  “I am recovering.”

  “What do your servants say? Or do they say nothing?” Miss Honeychurch snorted. “Could be a plot; I’d sack the lot of them.”

  “Why do you care so profoundly?” the knight’s widow said at last. “You always were a nosy woman, even thirty years ago. Is this a visit of condolence, or were you sent by the magistrate to ask more impertinent questions?”

  So the magistrate had been around, and Lady Claybourne had been upset by it. Emmeline watched the woman’s face, trying to see the emotion behind the words. There was perturbation there, and a deep weariness underlying it. But was she frightened, as she should be, given that someone had killed her husban
d outside her back door and the killer was still free. She didn’t appear to be worried so much as exasperated, and there was no one guarding the home, nor had Emmeline sighted a male servant.

  “I have nothing to do with magistrate, Elaine,” Miss Honeychurch said to her. “You’re upset by my questions, but I can’t say you look sorry that Henry is dead. Not that I would be in your place. But why are my questions so shocking?”

  “I didn’t say shocking, I said rude. I suppose everyone is entitled to uncouth curiosity from time to time,” Lady Claybourne replied. “I don’t remember you being so thoroughly vulgar. You were quite the moralizing proser, if I recall. At my wedding, you tried to persuade me that I should run away.”

  “I believe I told you that, yes,” the old lady said. Her eyes betrayed no emotion. “I wonder what you would be now if you’d listened to me? You were quite beautiful then, and with a sweet nature.”

  The insult was clear, but the widow appeared not to note it. Tears welling in her eyes, Lady Claybourne stated, “I’m grateful I did not listen to your counsel.”

  “Oh?”

  Emmeline narrowed her eyes and regarded the woman closely.

  “Henry may have been many things, but he was a good and kind husband to me.”

  Lady Claybourne’s speech defied common sense, given what Emmeline knew about Sir Henry. But perhaps willful blindness was the answer, or a resolve not to share her misery.

  Miss Honeychurch snorted. “I ought to say how sorry I am he’s gone, say he didn’t deserve such a fate, eh? But I’m no hypocrite. The world is better for him being dead.”

  The woman stiffened at the scathing tone of her guest. “You have no right to be so mocking.” Her voice trembled and she raised a handkerchief to her lips, her hand shaking. “You were always bitter. Bitter that his family ejected you from their house after being so kind as to give you a home for years. Bitter that accusations you made were exposed as false and defamatory. He warned me that you were liable to make trouble for him.”

  If she hadn’t known from her own witnessing what kind of foul animal Sir Henry was, Emmeline may have doubted the spinster’s veracity too. Her boorish lack of social grace condemned her as bitter, as much as Lady Claybourne said and more.

  “My warning to you was meant as a kindness, Elaine. I’m surprised that even thirty years later you remain willfully blind, but then, you never seemed terribly bright.” Miss Honeychurch’s tone dripped with malice, thick as treacle, dark as molasses.

  Who knew what Lady Claybourne would have said if the tea hadn’t been delivered that moment? Mrs. Young, the housekeeper, brought it in, surprising and alarming Emmeline. She kept her eyes downcast, afraid their expression would trigger a memory in the woman.

  “Milady, I hesitate to say,” Mrs. Young said, “but we have a little problem.”

  Lady Claybourne regained her composure. “What is it, Mrs. Young?”

  “This lady’s driver is causing a stir. He came ’round to the back o’ the house and is in the kitchen flirtin’ most improperly with Sybil.”

  Miss Honeychurch chuckled. “Rascal,” she muttered.

  “Why do you come to me? You’re well equipped to deal with an impertinent servant,” Lady Claybourne said to her housekeeper.

  “Aye, milady … long as I have your permission. I was wary, lest we offend your guest.”

  “Don’t concern yourself over that, Mrs. Young,” Lady Claybourne said acidly. “Miss Honeychurch has given more offense than she has ever taken. Now that I know he is arrived, these ladies can take their tea and be gone.”

  Emmeline felt defeated. No information had been gained. She had had such high hopes about getting inside the house, but she hadn’t factored in Miss Honeychurch’s obstreperous personality. She had always been sure that Dorcas exaggerated the difficulties of dealing with her aunt and employer, but if anything, her fellow Crone had put too mild a face on a very rude woman. While Emmeline thought of herself as dangerously forthright, she knew when to retreat.

  A truce of sorts had been silently declared. Lady Claybourne poured tea into cups from one of the newer manufacturers, patterned in rich blues and reds and decorated in gold, what was called an Imari pattern. She poured first for Miss Honeychurch. Emmeline, as “Dorcas the companion,” took it, not sure how to fix it, something she should know. She took a chance and set it in front of her employer. The woman nodded.

  She accepted her own cup and took a long sip of the restorative brew. “I’m sorry for your pain, my lady,” she dared to say.

  After the astringent Miss Honeychurch, her tone must have seemed a honeyed balm. Lady Claybourne smiled through a veil of tears that welled in her eyes. “I know he wasn’t perfect, but he was a good husband to me. I’m at a loss, now, for I have no children and don’t quite know what to do. I’ve been trying to write letters to his business partners, but I’m not even sure how to go on.”

  “Here, Elaine, I’ve been far too hard on you,” Miss Honeychurch said. “You mustn’t mind me. I’ve gotten worse-tempered in my old age, I have been told. Pain and suffering will do that. This one here writes a lovely letter. I’d lend her to you if I thought it would be any help.”

  “No, that is quite all right,” Lady Claybourne hastily said. “I’ll manage.”

  “My lady, I would be pleased to help you,” Emmeline said, gazing steadily at the woman, then glancing at Miss Honeychurch.

  “No, ’tis all right. My late husband’s solicitor, Mr. Wilkins, has offered his help in business matters, and I believe I’ll take him up on his offer.”

  Nineteen

  Emmeline was shocked to the core to hear that Wilkins was Sir Henry’s man of business, too, as well as her uncle’s. So many threads leading to each other: Dorcas to Miss Honeychurch, Miss Honeychurch to Lady Claybourne, Lady Claybourne to Mr. Wilkins. She tried to think of a way to question the woman further, but Lady Claybourne, now that she knew her elderly guest’s driver was at the house, gulped down her tea and commanded her housekeeper to have Miss Honeychurch’s coachman bring the carriage around to the front.

  Miss Honeychurch made a fuss in the entry, complaining of being rushed, fiddling with her gloves, and stumbling into a large urn and requiring Emmeline’s help to steady her until Roberts leaped up the front steps to transport her to the carriage. During the turmoil she winked at Emmeline, to her surprise. Roberts carried his mistress down the steps and to the vehicle, set the frail woman in the carriage, helped Emmeline aboard, and then resumed his seat and slapped the reins.

  They pulled around the corner and creaked to a halt. “What was all that fuss in the vestibule about, Miss Honeychurch?” Emmeline asked.

  “Stupid girl. Thought you were more clever than Dorcas.” Miss Honeychurch moved around, trying to get comfortable and giving up with a sigh. “What did we learn?”

  “Not much,” Emmeline said, not divulging what she did learn, about the connection to Mr. Wilkins.

  “So you will need to go back.”

  Emmeline eyed her, wondering if she had lost her wits; how could she go back to the Claybourne residence?

  “Dullard. Since Elaine wasn’t having you as her secretary, I made sure you had a reason to go back. I need my lace mittens. I believe I may have dropped them into that hideous vase of dried reeds in the entrance. I suggest you retrieve them soon, or that sour-faced housekeeper will discover them and send them to me by post.”

  Emmeline regarded her with growing respect.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” she groused, her small dark eyes almost disappearing. “I have nothing to do in life but scheme and order people about.”

  Dorcas, stuffed full of buns and Lapsang souchong from a local tea shop, tapped and was allowed into the carriage as Emmeline climbed down, carrying the borrowed cloak over one arm, as she would need to wear it on her return to the Claybourne residence. Josephs took it, holding
it away from him with two fingers, and stowed it in the back as she paused to speak with Roberts.

  “How did your conversation in the kitchen go, Roberts?”

  “Well enough, miss.” He frowned down at her from his perch, holding the reins of two tired-looking carriage horses. “But that is an odd household. Not a single man employed except the coachman, who lives in rooms at the livery stable away from the ’ouse.”

  Though apparently coached by his employer, he had learned little more. The cook had looked like she wanted to talk, but the housekeeper had kept a grim watch on them both. While he was there, though, the maid from the Farnsworth residence next door, young Biddy, had come over and whispered in the corner with Sybil. Emmeline decided she would return later that afternoon and claim that her eccentric lady mistress had sent her on foot, which would hopefully give her a reason to sit in the kitchen for a moment herself, to catch her breath. It was a risk, as before, for what if the cook or housekeeper recognized her as Molly’s rescuer? But desperate times called for desperate measures.

  Camden Town, in the parish of St. Pancras, was a newer residential area a couple of miles north of the center of London, northwest of Clerkenwell and slightly south of the older community of Kentish Town. Lord Camden had, in 1791, laid out a plan for fourteen hundred new houses, and so had begun a thriving community. The distance gave Emmeline time to reflect on what she had seen and heard. Lady Claybourne claimed to miss and grieve her husband sincerely, despite what Emmeline knew of his disgusting habits and personal lack of charm. More significant perhaps, though she couldn’t be sure, was that her uncle’s solicitor, Mr. Wilkins, was involved with the Claybourne estate. She’d have to ponder that information.

  Once they got to Camden Town, Josephs stopped and asked for directions to the orphan asylum. It turned out to be housed in a newer brick building on a short dead-end street. He didn’t turn down the street, as there would be no way to turn the carriage around if he did. He stayed where he was as Emmeline explored the narrow road, strolling along the shadowed length. St. Pancras Children’s House had no signs, but the sound and sight of children playing, a group of boys using sticks to bat a cobble around in the narrow alley, told her she had arrived. She pulled a bell rope by the plain plank door.