A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  How many pairs of men were there, in London, in which one man limped and one had a French accent? There must have been hundreds in the city who fit those descriptions.

  She and Fidelity had an early supper. Emmeline told her companion that Woodforde had offered to take her to the All Saints service that evening, and that she had acquiesced. Gillies would be accompanying her, so there would be no scandalous time alone in a dark carriage. She was sorry to lie to Fidelity about her true intentions, but her companion would have been in agony all evening if she knew where Emmeline intended they should go.

  Josephs stabled Woodforde’s curricle and horses and had the St. Germaine carriage prepared, ready to take them to church, as Birk understood it, with Gillies as companion for the evening.

  “I cannot believe I allowed you to talk me into this,” Woodforde said, his voice filled with tension after she more fully explained what her plan was. “If Samuel knew what I was allowing, he would challenge me, and I would let him shoot me through the heart as I deserve.”

  “Then you’d be a fool. Samuel is a very good sort, as clergymen go,” Emmeline said. “But his charity extends only so far as his parish borders. My parish, if I can call it that, is the female half of humankind.”

  “You are never cowed by the enormity of a task, are you?” Woodforde said, and she couldn’t tell if his words were admiring or admonishing. “Aren’t Samuel’s benevolent efforts more practical?”

  “I don’t for a moment imagine I will wholly succeed, Woodforde, but I must try.” Emmeline pondered her family. “At least Samuel has a conscience. He does his best for his people, and they love him for it. Leo doesn’t give a fig about anyone.”

  “You judge harshly.”

  “I know my family, I would hope. I don’t think Sam worse than other parish priests beholden to their benefactors, and he is considerably more principled than many. I don’t envy him the narrow path he must forge between his wishes for his parish and what he must do to placate our brother. Leo cares for nothing but St. Germaine family pride. On the other hand, Thomas cares for nothing but … well, nothing. Except for gambling and drink.” She sighed. “It’s a difficult world at times, Woodforde, and men, who hold all the control, often abuse their power and freedom.”

  “I’m well aware of it.”

  “Do people never fall short of your expectations?”

  “Perhaps I am more realistic than you,” he said.

  Gillies chuckled under her breath, and Emmeline sent her a sharp look. Her maid disapproved of their current jaunt and had stated it vociferously as she readied her mistress, so Gillies was not in her mistress’s favor at the moment.

  Emmeline didn’t respond to Woodforde. She simply felt the motion of the carriage and inhaled the smells: Gillies’s camphor-soaked kerchief—she had a bit of a cold in her head, and swore it helped; Woodforde’s scent, which was wool and something citrusy; and the carriage, well-oiled leather and the ineffable scent of horse. It was familiar and homely, even if their undertaking that night was not. She supposed she should be giving others latitude since she so often fell short of her family’s expectations, and yet her family was, for the most part, kind to her. Especially Samuel, who was a true gentleman, and Thomas, high-spirited and lovable.

  “Have I become hard since Maria’s death?” she asked. “Tell me true, Woodforde.”

  His face was almost invisible in the shadows. “You’ve not become hard, Emmie, you’ve become … I can only describe it in medical terms; always the doctor, as it turns out. Your emotions are like the nerves throughout your body which, for the most part, you are not even aware of. But then trauma happens, and of a sudden the pain of those raw nerves is excruciating. This dulls over time, but any little bump or injury revives the pain. Losing your mother young, then Emily, who was almost a second mother to you, and then Maria so soon after … it has made you sensitive.”

  “I’ve never thought of that, but I suppose Emily was like another mother in a way. She was so very intelligent and yet gentle, compassionate … far too good for Leopold.”

  “You’re too hard on Leo.”

  “You don’t have to live by his rules and accept his admonishment,” Emmeline replied swiftly, her tone low but brittle. “When you do, then you can speak of him with intimate knowledge. No man on earth knows what it is like for a woman, how it feels to be chastened, reprimanded, to always bite our tongue and mind our manners, curbing ourselves, changing every natural mannerism in case it offends the men who have us in their thrall. Even men who must obey a master … at least in their own home they exert their will and have the final say.”

  “I think perhaps you have not seen some of the men I have, who are meek in the face of their wives’ belligerence.”

  “Your exception proves the rule, Woodforde. The very fact that those meek men overruled by their wives stand out to you in your memory shows that in the great majority of cases, men’s rule is considered not only the standard, but the right way of things.”

  “Do you think men don’t do the same, stifle an urge to be blunt so as to avoid offending our patrons, our family, our patients … ad infinitum? How many times have I had to bite my tongue rather than tell a patient if he would just stop drinking so much and get out for exercise he would improve vastly?”

  “It’s not the same, and you must see it. When I bite my tongue it is because to be honest would be to forfeit all respect in society, or even to be sent into exile. You would be blamed for being blunt; I would be damned as insane.”

  “I think we must agree to disagree on this point, Emmeline. I see no difference.”

  “At least your mind and intellect are valued, Woodforde, where having the same is seen as an unnecessary encumbrance for a woman.”

  “I will not argue philosophy with you, Emmeline.”

  “It’s not philosophy, Woodforde, it’s society,” she retorted, angered by his typical withdrawal. “What I state is simply the result of my study of our culture and its standards. Men, even when they are stupid, ill-informed, immoral, or otherwise unsuitable, hold absolute control over women and children.”

  “And other men,” he said.

  She didn’t reply. He was being deliberately obtuse and she was weary of the argument. She could remind him how unfair it was that a woman could suffer her husband’s beatings, belittlement, and abuse, but if she left, her children must remain with her husband. She had no right to the babies she bore because they were their father’s chattel, as was she. The unfairness burned, but … it was not Woodforde’s doing, after all.

  The pace of the carriage slowed. Gillies was being dropped off at Sir Jacob’s house to visit with her friend Morag the cook. As Josephs rolled to a stop by the alley leading to the back entrance, the maid said, “D’ye think the two of you will nigh kill each other afore you return for me?”

  “No, Mrs. Gillies,” Woodforde said. “I am no danger, and I assume Emmeline has no weapon?”

  Gillies chuckled and clambered down. “Her words are all that sting, sir. Be careful with her, Doctor. For all her faults, she’s a rare fine lady.”

  “I know that, Gillies. She has indeed been a ‘rare fine lady’ since she was a little girl and I had to pull her out of the stew pond.”

  His kindness took all the indignation out of Emmeline at being spoken of as if she weren’t there. As the carriage trundled on, to travel the short distance from Sir Jacob’s home to the theater district, she pondered their relationship. Woodforde was only ever kind to her. Perhaps it was true that he had a tender regard for her. He must have affection for her or he would not take part in such a potentially disastrous late-night journey. This was foolish; she knew that. And he was not foolish, not in any sense. Ergo, he must care for her beyond the friendship she had always known subsisted.

  What was wrong with her, then, that she could not return the tender feelings of so worthy and upright a m
an as Doctor Giles Woodforde? He was handsome, kind, and eminently suitable in every way. Her family desired the match. His would welcome her. And yet … there was something that kept her from the womanly and tender feelings her female friends and relations succumbed to.

  The carriage slowed again. That meant they were close to Haymarket.

  “I think we’re here,” he said softly. “Now what?”

  Morag was finishing her chores in the kitchen of Sir Jacob’s home and had brewed a strong pot of tea. It was an oddly run home in that it did not have a housekeeper. Miss St. Germaine had told Gillies that her uncle had a prejudice against the breed of women who became housekeepers, calling them busybodies who poked their noses in everywhere. It was a curious departure from the normal run of things. Sir Jacob was well-known to have kept a string of mistresses, mostly dancers and actresses, but no housekeeper would gossip about such a thing if she wished to keep her position.

  As a result, the duties of a housekeeper, which were multitudinous, were broken up among the other staff. The butler did much, even down to the inspection of the linen and overseeing when it was sent out to a laundress. Sir Jacob himself took upon himself some of the tasks, such as ordering the wine and food—Morag gave him a list each week—and hiring staff. He always said that as a judge he was a suspicious sort and liked to know for himself who was working in his home. In Morag’s estimation, Sir Jacob was far too inclined to hire a saucebox as a chambermaid, but if the master didn’t mind, she didn’t care, and with the turnover in servants being the way it was, she would outlast the saucy minx.

  Regardless, the household seemed to run perfectly fine for a bachelor, given that the gentleman was a bon vivant who ate often at his club, and although he entertained frequently, it was often in an informal spur-of-the-moment style, as the nut-crack party had been. Morag once confessed that when the last housekeeper had departed a few years prior, she had been happy, since the woman wished to interfere in every aspect of her kitchen and questioned every purchase. Sir Jacob did not.

  Polly, the little kitchen maid, sat at the end of the table engaged in some chores Morag had set her, such as pounding sugar and grinding spices for use in the next day’s pudding. Gillies eyed the child as she and Morag chatted by the fire, the rhythmic pounding to break the sugar into fine granules the usual and familiar beat of life in a kitchen. The little girl appeared weary; the beat was slow. “Let the lass go up to bed, Morag. She’s fagged beyond belief. Can ye no’ tell?”

  “Aye, but she’ll no’ go unless I see her to her bed. She’s afeared o’ the dark, or the dragons that lurk under her cot.” Morag spoke more loudly, saying, “Polly, will ye no’ go up to your bed, lass?”

  “Must I? I’m not done with this yet, ma’am, an’ I wanna learn to cook, like you.” Her weary face was drawn and pale, but she set to her work more diligently, with a determined line to her pretty mouth. “I’ll wait and go up with you, missus.”

  “That’s all right then, child. Go on wi’ your task.”

  “Puir wee child,” Gillies murmured. “She’s taken to you like a mum, Morag.”

  “Aye, an’ if I’d ever had a bairn, I’da liked a wee lass like Polly.”

  “She’s a pretty lassie, God’s truth.”

  Emmeline pushed aside the velvet curtains and surveyed the street. “I know you think I’m mad, Woodforde. I’ve seen these children lingering about the theaters, and at one time, when I was younger and naïve, I didn’t know why.” Haymarket was a notorious neighborhood for prostitutes; there was even an annual printed guide to the women, she had heard, listing their attributes and talents.

  “At St. Barts, I’ve seen far too many little girls—and some boys—afflicted with diseases common among the fallen, their bodies corroded from the effects of abuse in ways unimaginable to most of society. They fall into it so easily, but like quicksand is the climb out …’tis not so simple.”

  “I wish I understood. Why do men go to children to satisfy their lusts? Am I mad? Is it not wrong for it to be so?”

  “If I had answers, I would know how to stop it,” Woodforde said, his tone filled with exasperation and something else, a deep sadness.

  “It seems to me that there is a wink and a nudge whenever prostitutes of whatever age are mentioned, however obliquely. How can we change a thing we do not acknowledge?”

  “Not everyone who is silent or calm or doesn’t rant in the face of injustice goes along with it. We don’t all feel the need to voice our objections so loudly.”

  Irritated by his subtle criticism, she pushed aside the curtains and slid the window down. Damp night air swept through, carrying the scent of coal fires and horses and the sound of voices in the distance. If Woodforde had seen poor little Molly being molested by that demon, Sir Henry, he would be as angry as she, but Emmeline could never explain to him her feelings, nor could she tell him what she had seen.

  “Emmie, there … do you see those two girls by the corner, where that dark alley is?”

  The theater district was well lit compared to other parts of London. There were women strolling the area, making clear what their profession was, but Woodforde was pointing out two slight girls who stood by a lamppost, both in similar attitudes, one hand on a jutted hip. They were gowned in adult garb but from what she could see, Emmeline surmised they were probably eleven or twelve. “When I was their age I was chasing butterflies in the garden at Malincourt,” she said softly, her voice breaking. “These children … these girls …”

  A gentleman came along just then, swinging his walking stick jauntily. One girl darted out to him and took his hand, touching his face and leaning against him. He shoved her away roughly and she rejoined her friend by the lamppost to await a more willing fellow while the gentleman walked away with a woman who accosted him in a similar manner.

  In a soft but carrying voice, Emmeline said out the window, “Josephs, over there, those two girls … can you take us close?”

  “Emmie, you cannot mean to approach them!” Woodforde said. “I thought you meant to observe, not interfere.”

  “Then you thought wrong,” she said. “I wish to speak to them.”

  Josephs walked the carriage close to the girls and both darted forward; this was not the first time a coach had pulled close to their corner. Emmeline opened the carriage door. The girls, similar pale faces and garbed in cut-down gowns of tattered silk and stained velvet, looked up at her in some confusion.

  “May I pay you for a half hour of your time?” she said to them.

  Twenty-Four

  She couldn’t sleep that night. Though Woodforde couldn’t understand the two girls because of their jargon-filled speech, specific to their profession and their life on the streets, Emmeline could, for the most part, thanks to her conversations with Tommy. What she understood of it was wrenching; their life selling their bodies was horrifying to her. Even worse, they seemed numb to it after only a few months in one case, a year in the other, and assumed an air of insouciance that was heartbreaking. They were sisters, aged thirteen and fourteen now, and were fortunate, they thought, because they had a protector. He was some kind of relation, an uncle or perhaps their mother’s bully. Emmeline saw him lurking in the shadows, ready to intervene if there was trouble. Some girls, they said, had no one.

  If Emmeline could have helped them she would have, but one couldn’t abduct two girls from the street even if one’s intentions were good. The two were chary of her offers of help, and given their world, they were wise to be suspicious. Gillies said, of their caution, that perhaps in their case it was “better the devil you know than the one you don’t.” In the end, all she could do was listen and give them money, after which they retreated to their “protector” and handed over the shillings. The two girls would never see that money, in all likelihood.

  Woodforde had been grim and silent on the way back to her home, and he left with little more than a bow a
nd solemn “good night.” If he’d had any feeling for her before, it was no doubt dead now, given the world into which she had dragged him, but Emmeline frankly didn’t care. She’d never get over what she had seen and heard. There was a rot at the core of her nation, but it was sprayed with scent so the fastidious could ignore it. She must sharpen her focus on finding out who killed Sir Henry and exposing the company of men who traded in the innocence of children, while protecting herself, her Crones, and The Prattler. She needed to do something about the sickening trade in children that was tarnishing a nation with so much promise. Emmeline knew she couldn’t cure all of society’s ills, but she and her allies could make a start.

  Awake through the long night, she spent much of it in thought and reflection. Gleaning every bit of information she could from newspapers, then adding it to what she herself knew while separating what was fiction from fact, she sat at her dressing table with a pencil and paper and constructed a timeline, hoping it might expose some truths.

  Gillies came in with her morning tea tray and to open the curtains. She took one look at the litter of papers and grimaced. “I’ll just tidy these—”

  “Not now, please, Gillies … just let me be.”

  “Aye, miss,” she said softly, and left her mistress alone.

  When she’d escaped with Molly around eight o’clock on the evening of the twenty-fourth, Emmeline had assumed it would take Sir Henry time to recover his equanimity and call for the magistrate. But she hadn’t yet known the whole infamous story; she hadn’t known he was part of a group of men importing girls from orphanages to use and abuse. It seemed he had swiftly concluded that someone among that group had betrayed him, and her visit was the result.

  So rather than summon the magistrate, as one would have expected, Sir Henry sent notes by the potboy to summon Ratter and the two other men, whom he appeared to suspect were the betrayers. That had taken some time, of course, but all had arrived shortly after eleven, if the journalists and her own information proved correct. He first met with Ratter and accused him of betraying him, or of accidentally letting information escape. Ratter denied it and presumably went away, though Emmeline wasn’t sure that was so. He may have lingered.