“What’s wrong?” Charles asked his sister, wiping the damp from his cheeks.
“I found another hole, and in this weather, the newsprint I stuff in doesn’t keep the cold out,” she explained, shaking out her skirt. “It gets damp and hurts my toes.”
“I’m sorry, dearest,” he said gently. “We all need new shoes. Not one of us has a pair free of holes.”
“I have to walk past Hampstead in my dancing pumps,” complained his brother Alfred, who was almost two years younger than Fred. “Carrying messages for Father.”
“Things will get better,” Charles insisted. “At least he has managed to stay out of debtor’s prison this time.”
“Time for the party,” his mother sang. “Fanny, and Boz, dear, please join us.”
His sister, older by a year, and his youngest brother, seven-year-old Augustus, known as Boz, emerged from a back room, already dressed in cloaks. Charles went to Fanny, who was not just his sister but a dear friend, and kissed her on the cheek. Her hair, lighter than his, fell naturally into the same ringlets, and tickled his lips where he had kissed her. His mother nodded her satisfaction, pleasure evident in having her brood together, and went to her hook to gather her own cloak.
“I miss Father,” Letitia said. “He’s ever so jolly. On a dreary day like this, I would love to hear one of his jokes.”
“How about a song?” Charles asked, pulling a comical face. “One of his old favorites?”
“None of that now,” his mother said. “The vicar won’t like us being late. His mother keeps a very strict schedule.”
Chapter 6
On Sunday afternoon, Miss Hogarth agreed with Charles’s suggestion to walk in the burial ground next to St. Luke’s after services. Trailed by her younger sister Mary, they walked, warmly bundled in coats and cloaks, hats and gloves, in the spaces between graves. He attempted to keep the conversation light and flirtatious but it was clear she had more serious thoughts on her mind.
“I have been wondering,” Miss Hogarth said, turning her rosy-cheeked face to his as they passed a weeping cherub protecting a child’s grave.
“What?” Charles asked, his heart thumping harder than before.
“I’ve wondered if that girl who died last year is slumbering right here.” She stopped on the gravel path and spread her arms. “Our maid said Miss Lugoson will be buried here sometime this week.”
“I don’t see any new graves being dug,” Miss Mary Hogarth said, catching up to them. A slyer creature than her older sister, Charles thought she’d be much more difficult to manage, though he enjoyed her impish humor. At fifteen, her character was still being formed, while Miss Hogarth had already proven herself to be a stout-hearted, self-sacrificing creature, in her unending care of Miss Lugoson in her final hours.
“There should be some record of the funeral,” Charles said. “This isn’t a slapdash parish. Why, the Duke of Wellington’s brother was the rector here.” He stared up at the Gothic tower, built of Bath stone and assuredly impressive.
“A few years ago, I’ve been told,” Miss Hogarth agreed. “We can speak to the curate or the verger. At least one of them is probably still here.”
They tramped through the burial ground with more purpose, making their way back toward the church. Charles nearly stepped on the tail of an enormous black tabby slinking around the edge of a tall, narrow gravestone, its engraving too weather-damaged to read.
“I’d believe in ghosts in a setting like this,” he muttered, staring at the spiky winter-stripped branches of trees around them, and all the lonely graves.
“There’s George Small,” Miss Mary Hogarth exclaimed, waving her arm.
“The curate,” Miss Hogarth explained, hooking her hand around Charles’s upper arm. “Let’s catch up with him.”
Charles felt a jolt of pleasure at her touch. Were they to be so friendly already? Of course, he had taken her arm in the mud, but that was for safety. He wasn’t sure how her parents would feel about her taking his arm, but they weren’t there to see.
George Small, a short, thin figure in a large gray overcoat, blended against the lower windows of the church.
“Your sister has excellent eyes,” Charles commented.
Miss Hogarth laughed and propelled him forward. “We’ve known Mr. Small since we moved to Brompton. Mother has made a pet of him.”
Miss Mary had already engaged the curate in spirited conversation by the time the others had reached them.
“Why Miss Hogarth,” the curate lisped. “Come to invite me to Sunday dinner?”
Charles watched, amused, at the mental calculations going on behind Miss Hogarth’s eyes. Could they stretch dinner far enough? Also, she’d dropped his arm as soon as they’d come in sight of the older man. Though he wasn’t so old as to hide the light of interest in his eyes when he looked at Miss Hogarth.
“Of course,” she said, just as Charles had opened his mouth.
He spoke over her, irritated by the thought of a rival suitor. “When is Miss Lugoson’s funeral?”
“Wednesday, I believe,” the curate returned, spittle dotting his lip as he reached the sibilant. “Were you acquainted?”
“Yes. Slightly, though I did speak to her brother. He isn’t at school,” Charles said, attempting to lead the curate to more information.
“No, they’ve just returned from France. The young lord is delicate, I believe.”
“Was the weather better in France?”
“It can be, in the south. I do not know very much about them, though they are one of the great families of the neighborhood.”
“Perhaps the rector ministers to them directly?”
“Yes, I suspect so,” Mr. Small sputtered. “They do not seem to know any bishops, but they were out of the country for some two years.”
Lady Lugoson had not been raised in an upper-class family, though he had no idea if anyone at St. Luke’s knew what he did about her. “I wonder if I might trouble you with one more question?”
“Of course,” Mr. Small said, leading the way through the edge of the burial ground to the street. Apparently, he’d determined he would be at dinner, no matter how tepid the offer.
“Do you remember a girl who died on Epiphany night in 1834?” Charles asked. “Or the next morning. Aged seventeen, I believe.”
“Yes,” the curate said. “I’d just arrived. My first funeral.”
“What was her name?” Miss Hogarth asked, the tremble in her voice betraying her excitement.
“Marie Rueff, she was,” Mr. Small told them. “And a fetching little thing she must have been in life, though I only saw her in her coffin.”
Charles and the Hogarth sisters exchanged horrified glances. Miss Mary put her hand over her mouth, to hide the laughter that bubbled up.
Charles cleared his throat. “You found her attractive, then?”
“Flaxen hair, still a child’s color,” Mr. Small said with enthusiasm. “A doll’s face, neat little body. They put her in her aunt’s wedding dress, as the aunt had already had twins twice and would never wear the dress again.”
“Goodness,” Miss Mary said. “Two sets of twins.”
“A blessing to the family,” the curate pronounced. “All those children to help the family through their pain.”
“Was there any question that the death was unnatural?” Charles asked.
The curate paused, seeming genuinely surprised by the question. “The body, the face, you understand, was peaceful. I do remember whispers about the suddenness of it. But I don’t know the family well.”
Charles took that to mean that the parish didn’t pander to the Rueff family as much as they might have to the Lugosons, given the opportunity. He gave Miss Hogarth a significant glance and she fell behind the curate and Miss Mary a few steps.
“No acquaintance with that bereaved family?” he said in a low voice.
“Indeed, I scarcely knew Miss Rueff,” Miss Hogarth said. “Only to see her at services. She was a quiet girl. But i
f they are still in the parish I’ll be able to find them. If there is any society or charitable organization I can join where there are Rueffs involved, I shall do so.”
“What a project we have embarked on,” Charles said. “It may still be revealed that the deaths were due to some normal cause.”
“Yet neither of us quite believe that,” replied Miss Hogarth.
“Yet Lady Lugoson has not contacted the authorities, as far as I know,” Charles said.
“She has not,” Miss Hogarth said decisively. “How could the police help, with no evidence of a crime?”
“True. I have a theory about the servants,” Charles admitted. “I’ve written to Lady Lugoson. Also, I thought I would call on Dr. Keville. He seemed very impressive, but young enough not to be pompous. I’m trying to discover if someone might have contaminated food.”
“I liked him best of all the doctors who attended Miss Lugoson,” Miss Hogarth agreed. “Yes, you should speak to him. I wish I could join you.”
Charles smiled at her. “I wish it as well, but it was so kind for your mother to invite me today. It gives me hope.”
Miss Hogarth colored and looked away. In that instant, Charles knew she’d manufactured the invitation somehow. He felt positively elated.
* * *
On Monday afternoon, between a parliamentary session and returning to his office to write up his articles, Charles walked to Marylebone, where Dr. John Keville had rooms on Harley Street. From conversation that fateful Epiphany night, he knew Dr. Keville had attended the late Lord Lugoson, and had been the family’s trusted physician for some fifteen years.
Indeed, he seemed to be a prosperous sort, having rooms in a building three deep in consulting offices. A pleasant woman in a clean white apron ushered Charles into a spotless study. An anatomical etching was framed on one wall, but otherwise it could have been any distinguished man’s sanctum, with its bookshelf and comfortable chairs. The woman brought tea, and then the doctor himself came into the room a couple of minutes later.
Charles rose to greet him, appreciating the signs of care in his tailored clothing, well-groomed fingers, and the mature hints of gray at the doctor’s temples. He looked vigorous and trustworthy.
“Mr. Dickens, what a pleasure to see you again,” Dr. Keville said, shaking his hand. “What can I do for you today? A minor complaint, I trust?”
“I am too busy to notice my own health,” Charles said, as they took their seats. “No, I was concerned enough to consult with you regarding Miss Lugoson. My employer is her near neighbor, you understand. Tell me, did you hear of any other illness attributed to Lady Lugoson’s party?”
Dr. Keville demurred. “Not in the digestive area, nothing more than the passing complaint of that evening. I have seen Lady Lugoson since, for other reasons.”
“She is suffering from grief?” suggested Charles.
The doctor exhaled. “Indeed. The loss of one’s only daughter is a crushing blow. But, Mr. Dickens, you are a reporter, are you not? I don’t wish to be a party to sensationalizing a girl’s death in the press.”
Charles tapped his fingers over his heart. “I report on Parliament in the main. Anything else I write is free of names. So then, to the best of your knowledge, Miss Lugoson was the only one taken ill that night?”
Dr. Keville nodded, pulling off his spectacles and wiping the lenses with a soft cloth.
Charles came to the point of his visit. “If I may be blunt, sir, I am very troubled by the girl’s death. What do you think was the cause?”
“It is impossible to know,” the man said, replacing his spectacles.
Charles checked off the symptoms on his fingers. “Nausea, sweating, vomiting, pain, chills.”
“Could be influenza, cholera, a reaction to bad food,” the doctor said.
“Poison?” Charles asked.
The doctor steepled his fingers under his chin. “Poison is possible. There is always a risk of ingesting something fatal, whether meat has turned, or someone thought they were gathering herbs when they were gathering something poisonous.”
“Such as?”
The doctor opened a desk drawer and pulled out an old journal, then referred to a page. “Early in my career, I treated an old woman, rather barmy anyway, who thought she had drunk comfrey tea, but had mistaken that plant for foxglove.”
“Did she survive?”
“No,” Dr. Keville said, warming to his topic. “Some girls have been known, foolishly, to take small amounts of foxglove to suppress appetite.”
Connections sparked to life in Charles’s brain. Now he could see a path forward. “Has anyone attempted to trace what Miss Lugoson ate or drank that day outside of the party?”
“Whatever happened, I must tell you, as a physician, that the kernel of her distress might have been contracted, or even digested, up to five days before her mortal pains began,” the doctor said.
“I understand,” Charles persisted, “but has anyone tried to retrace her last days?”
The doctor shook his head. “I do not know. Her mother has been prostrate with grief, her father is deceased, and her brother is a fifteen-year-old boy. Who is going to look into her last days, and why is it necessary?”
Charles leaned forward. “Does the name Marie Rueff mean anything to you?”
The doctor shook his head. “No.”
“She was a seventeen-year-old girl, of the same parish as Miss Lugoson, who died in similar fashion, on Epiphany night, one year ago.”
The doctor’s mouth widened as he broke into a chuckle. “Dear me, sir, you reporters have quite the imagination. Surely you don’t think some lunatic is out murdering seventeen-year-old girls each Epiphany?”
“It was so alike,” Charles said, irritated at the man’s humor. “Two blameless girls, dying so similarly.”
“Did they know each other?” the doctor asked. “There could be some habit of possible mortality, such as foxglove tea, passed on.”
Charles considered. “At this time I do not know if the girls knew each other.”
“The Lugoson family was in France this time last year.”
Charles nodded. “What about bad jam in an Epiphany tart? I would dearly like to know if any servants had switched households, or if they had a peddler in common, or a shop merchant.”
The doctor’s smile vanished. “Could be anything, given they lived in the same parish. The same merchants, for instance. Are there any medical records?”
“A colleague is attempting to find the reports from last year,” Charles explained.
“A habit of tisanes? An interest in plants?” The doctor smoothed his moustache. “If you cannot find a dietary issue, something like that in common between the girls might answer your question.”
“What should I look for at the start of my investigation?”
“Often digestive problems are set in motion by previous meals some hours or even days before,” the doctor commented.
“I had never met Miss Lugoson or any member of her family before,” Charles said. “Thank you for helping me to puzzle this out. One thing striking me is that Miss Lugoson was a very slender girl. Perhaps she did drink a preparation of foxglove.”
Dr. Keville pressed his lips together before speaking. “Unlikely, though I take the blame for mentioning it. She didn’t seem to hallucinate, or have vision problems, as would be expected. Often sufferers complain of yellow or green vision disturbances. May I ask something?”
“Of course,” Charles said.
“What is your goal in sorting this out?”
“I cannot help but think the cause is the same, whether it is the same bad food, or a tea, or if I must say the terrible thing, poison.” Charles paused. “My employer has young daughters. I would hate for whatever befell Miss Lugoson or Miss Rueff to happen to them.”
“I cannot imagine anyone wanting to murder Christiana Lugoson,” the doctor said. “A respectable family, a girl whose mother had yet to plan a come-out ball. Lady Lugoson was quite
troubled by that. She had intended for the ball to be next spring. Raved about it, in fact.”
“That must have been after I left.”
“Yes, a day or so later. I’m sure that if there is some exact cause, other than illness, it will be found to be an accident, in both cases.”
There was a knock on the door. When Dr. Keville said, “Enter,” the woman opened the door.
She smiled pleasantly. “Your next patient has arrived, Doctor.”
Charles stood immediately, smoothing his coat over his bottle-green waistcoat. “Thank you for your time, and I do appreciate you listening to my meanderings.”
Dr. Keville shook his hand. “I do not blame an intelligent man for making inquiries. I cannot deny the coincidences you have raised. Two girls, exactly a year apart. But I think it is just that, a coincidence.”
Charles nodded and forced a smile. “I sincerely hope you are right. It is probably just my reporter’s mind at work, seeing parallels and points of connection that do not exist.”
“Lady Lugoson is a reasonable woman, but I do not know that she would want you questioning her servants and such. She is private.”
“Of course she is, and I have no right to invade her home. Yet,” Charles said thoughtfully, “it was she who invited me into her daughter’s private chamber, and I must continue to offer my support as needed.”
“As your conscience dictates, of course.”
Charles took his leave and departed the building, full of notions of how to proceed. He needed to consult with William on one or two points as soon as possible.
Chapter 7
Charles called in at William’s bachelor lodgings that evening. He lived at Furnival’s Inn as well and had not been in the office that day since he’d been covering a meeting in Blackheath. Charles could smell the coal when William opened the door. His friend had a low fire going, his rooms always being chilly due to the direction the windows faced.
William pointed to his quill on a deal table near the fire. “I had just sent you a note to see if you would like to attend Lady Holland’s salon this evening.”
A Tale of Two Murders Page 5