A Gentlewoman's Guide to Murder

by Victoria Hamilton

  Sir Jacob was in no state to respond; he was very ill, still unconscious. His cook had left for another position, and his valet was, of course, under arrest with Mr. Wilkins. His butler was keeping the home going, and his doctor was staying to care for him. Emmeline wondered how Miss Gottschalk was doing; she longed to call on her, but their acquaintance was so slight, and her uncle’s notoriety was growing. It was better if she stayed out of the public eye for now. She received a note from Woodforde; Sir Jacob, he said, was likely not going to live.

  I have spoken to your friend, Lady Sherringdon, and she introduced me to Lady Clara Langdon, who, as I understand, is the patroness of another orphanage, one that does the work they are supposed to do.

  Interesting that neither lady had told her about this when she saw them earlier, Emmeline thought. Woodforde must have been swift, and spoken to them that very morning. However …

  Lady Clara is a remarkable young lady and was happy to help; a few days ago she visited the Pentonville establishment and has even found a place for one of the little girls there who claimed an acquaintance with you, Sarah, I believe her name is. With her mother’s blessing the child has gone to live in the country on Lady Clara’s family’s home farm, where she will be trained up to be a dairy maid. Also, I have joined with Mrs. Miller, the wardress at Lady Clara’s orphanage, and found a way to get rid of Dunstable and install someone in the Pentonville orphanage under the auspices of her management.

  So Woodforde was, as she suspected, the unnamed gentleman from Simeon’s Prattler article who had put an end to the terrible doings at the Pentonville orphanage. Also, he had been haunted, he wrote, by the impression left on him by the young prostitute sisters, and so had partnered with Lady Sherringdon to remove as many of them from the streets as was possible. Parents had been compensated, and Mrs. Miller was offering invaluable advice on how to deal with girls who had been through so much in their young lives. They could not save them all, not even that many, he said, but every one they could was a small step forward.

  It warmed her to know the work Woodforde was doing. Mrs. Sherringdon had made no mention of it to Emmeline, in typical Addy fashion.

  Woodforde finished the letter with this:

  I wish you would trust me, Emmie; I still call you that, the fond name of your childhood, because I feel we have a lifelong, close, and as enduring a friendship as there can be between a lady and gentleman. I may wish it were more, but you will guide that. I feel there is more to your mystery than you have so far said. Please know … if you need my help in any matter, you can trust me. I may occasionally step over the boundaries you set out, but when I do it is out of a deep affection and concern for your wellbeing. I will not apologize for that.

  Samuel had been right after all; Woodforde cared for her. Emmeline didn’t know what to do with that news. For the moment, there was too much in her mind and heart to think of the strictly personal. A profound depression settled over her as she wrote to her nieces. How would she ever know if they had been safe from her uncle’s predation, given how much time Sir Jacob spent at Malincourt? He had probably confined his ruinous advances to scullery maids there too, more cautious in his older years, knowing it left less chance to be caught, but how could she know for sure?

  The day darkened and Fidelity slept on, as she had all the previous day. Gillies went about her business. When she had first learned about the confrontation Emmeline had had with the ladies at the Claybourne house, she had been outraged, then doubtful. She had a finely tuned sense of justice, and the idea that Wilkins and LaLoux should be hanged for a crime they did not commit disturbed her. “Where is the line then, miss?” she asked, twisting her sewing in her hands and looking worried. “If we will bend the law to save ourselves, where is the line over which we willnae step?”

  “I don’t know, Gillies, but I feel helpless to affect this outcome. Does it matter if they are punished for the wrong crime, when it is equal to the one they did commit?”

  Looking very serious, the maid said, “Aye, I do think it matters, miss.”

  Emmeline wrote more letters, including a very long one to Simeon. Late in the afternoon, she heard a commotion downstairs and rose, pulled her shawl around her shoulders, and descended. A voice roared in displeasure and Emmeline stiffened.

  Leopold. Her brother had arrived in London, and, given his hatred of the city and that his wife was heavy with child, that could only mean one thing. He had heard all about the scandal and was come to deal with it. Fortunately he was in a hurry to see their uncle, and only gave her a stern look and said, “We’ll talk when I get back” before leaving again.

  It was late. After checking on Fidelity, Emmeline retreated to her bedroom but did not undress. When Leopold arrived back home she descended, unwilling to wait to see him until morning. She found him at the desk in the sitting room with his head in his hands.

  “Leo?” she said uncertainly.

  He looked up. His eyes were red and his face gray, double chins scruffed with graying beard coming in, his broad shoulders slumped. “He’s dead, Emmie,” he said. “Our uncle is dead. Gone to heaven to be with Mama and Maria.”

  She bit her tongue. Now was not the time to say their uncle would never see their mother where he was going, if one believed in that sort of thing. She crossed the room, pulling her shawl more closely around her shoulders. Arbor, roused from her slumber, stumbled in sleepily, lit the fire, and left the room. “How are you, brother?”

  “Saddened. He was my favorite uncle.”

  She sat down in a chair near the writing table. There was a curious intimacy in the dark night, the pale light of one candle and the glow of the fire the only illumination. She examined his drawn face. He looked older, as if the weight of the world had settled on his shoulders. “I’m not sad he’s gone, Leo. I know you have heard what he did so you needn’t prevaricate with me. He had done great evil.”

  Leo glared at her. “You killed him, Emmeline. And you were his favorite of us all!”

  All sympathy was swept away by anger. “Don’t you care what he did to Maria, our beloved little sister? He claims—claimed—he did nothing wrong, but she was afraid of him, and I know he abused her. I’ll never weep for his death. I’m glad he’s gone. No more little girls will suffer from his exploitation.”

  “You’re out of line, Emmie,” Leopold growled. “I didn’t want to talk about this tonight, but before he fell ill I got a letter from our uncle about your behavior. You have been gallivanting about talking to Jews and Catholics and doing other things. He would not say what; he wanted to tell me in person. He implored me to come to London, but I’m too late! Your lies and accusations broke his heart. You killed him!”

  Emmeline stiffened. “I am not lying; ask Fidelity what he did in secret, if you don’t believe me, and then defend our uncle. What am I doing? Such terrible things! I have joined with a group of ladies and we do good work, good Christian work, saving orphans from a life on the street. Isn’t that what a spinster of my class is supposed to do?”

  Her brother’s jowls sagged, his whiskers, growing in after a long day, graying and his hair receding. He looked old and tired. “Why are you so bitter, Emmie?”

  Of course, she thought; if he couldn’t win the argument, he’d change it to another one. She rose from her seat, trembling. “I won’t let you avoid the truth. You learn that our uncle was having sexual relations with little girls his whole life, and even abused our beloved, sweet sister, who died from starving herself to death for some unknown reason, and your response is to ask why I am bitter?”

  Leo rose too. “Calm yourself, Emmeline! I will not be shrieked at by a hysterical female in my own house. It is time you were married. A husband and children will cure you.”

  Gillies, her cap askew, entered the room and approached. “Miss, the Comtesse is awake and askin’ for you.”

  “Not now, Gillies. Leo, whether you choose to
believe it or not doesn’t alter the truth; our uncle was a member of a disgusting troupe of child abusers. Yet I’m accused of being hysterical when you won’t acknowledge the truth?” Gillies tugged on her sleeve, but Emmeline shook her off. Her maid was trying to stave off a quarrel, but it was too late for that.

  Leopold, whose St. Germaine temper was slower to burn but quick to erupt once it had, was turning quite, quite red. “Enough!” he roared. “Enough of your filthy mouth!” He strode to the door. “Birk! Birk, get in here!” he shrieked.

  The butler, quivering and carrying a candle, his nightcap slipping sideways, arrived in the sitting room. “Yes, sir?”

  “Order my carriage hitched. I am heading back to Malincourt tonight.”

  The butler hastened away.

  Leopold turned to Emmeline. She had gone too far, and now would pay the consequences. Belatedly, she wished she’d heeded Gillies, who stood off to the side wringing her hands.

  “You have disgraced this family,” Leo said, his red face streaked with tears. “It is clear to me that you have been doing much that you shouldn’t, and even more that could irreparably harm our family name. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were the one who told the newspapers about our uncle, but even you would not stoop so low.

  “In the spring my eldest two daughters will be coming to London for their coming out, and I will not have their aunt be a scandalous byword among society, shamed at every pass, never able to show your face in London again. You, young lady,” he said, shaking his finger in her face, “will behave. For now you will go away somewhere quiet, an institution, because your health has clearly broken down. You will retreat, we will put it about that you are delicate and in shock from our uncle’s disgrace, and you will behave. Then you will come back to London and marry someone suitable. I’m finished with you otherwise. You’re lucky I don’t wash my hands of you and send you to Bedlam.”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do, Addy,” she said the next day, hugging the one-eyed Tom. “He can make me do this.”

  “Leopold has much on his plate currently, with Rose expecting. He’s easily distracted, correct? Perhaps if you stay quiet for a while he will reconsider.”

  “I wish I thought that possible.”

  Lady Sherringdon’s maid showed a visitor into the room, an older lady who swept across the room and enveloped Addy in a hug as Hugo the pug danced and barked. “You must help me, Adelaide, you simply must! My daughter’s life is at stake.”

  Adelaide made the introductions. The woman, clearly troubled, was Dame Smytheson, an old friend of Lady Sherringdon’s. “Tell me what is wrong. You can speak in front of my friend. She’s a very intelligent young lady and may offer advice.”

  The woman, almost weeping with worry, told them both about her daughter, Mrs. Barbara Pendrake. “She has been sadly unable to bear a child, or at least, one that is alive. Until five months ago! She had a precious daughter, and … and we were all so happy! But the babe died in her crib.” She broke down into tears, and they comforted her as best they could until she recovered. “Barbara was distraught and took too much laudanum. She almost died.”

  “The poor woman,” Emmeline murmured.

  “And now her husband has sent her to an asylum. They won’t let me in to see her! I don’t trust that … that beast she is married to. He has a mistress, everyone knows it. He wants Barbara out of the way so he can move the woman into their home. I don’t trust him, and I don’t trust where he has sent her, some place called the Coleman Institute.”

  “I know the place,” Emmeline said slowly. “It’s near my family home. In fact, my sister was treated there. It’s where she died.”

  “Dr. Coleman has some miracle cure for hysterical females.” Dame Smytheson broke down into tears again. “She’s in danger; I know it,” she cried, her voice thick with tears. “Women go there and never come out. I can’t lose my daughter, Addy!”

  Emmeline felt a jolt under her rib cage. Women go there and never come out. Like Maria. The solution to her own dilemma had dropped into her lap along with the answer to Dame Smytheson’s troubles. She had been suspicious of the institute’s methods because they had done Maria no good at all. She had wasted away to nothing, fading from existence.

  “I think we can help,” she said. “In fact … I know we can.” She turned to Adelaide. “This is the answer to my problem, too, Addy. Leopold wants me to take a rest cure? I’ll do that. I’ll go to the Coleman Institute.” She turned to Dame Smytheson. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’ll find out what they are doing to your daughter, what their methods are, and I will free her. I know a doctor who will refer me to the Coleman Institute. My brother will be so happy.”

  The End

  About the Author

  As Victoria Hamilton, Donna Lea Simpson is the national bestselling author of the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, including White Colander Crime and No Mallets Intended, as well as the Merry Muffin Mysteries, including Much Ado About Muffin and Death of an English Muffin. She is also a collector of vintage cookware and recipes.