Theft of Life

by Imogen Robertson

  She was peering past him into the street. ‘Oh, he’s not my brother, he’s my uncle. Ha! Eustache, I told you, no one follows. No more studying improving volumes while they prose on about female education over their tea. Liberty! Now we may run up to Barbican and see the balloon after all.’

  Francis raised an eyebrow. He knew now exactly where they had fled from. Eliza Smith’s shop was a minute’s walk away. There she sold any number of volumes on the proper way to educate children, both boys and girls. Her shelves groaned under the weight of moral tales adapted for the improvement of young minds, as well as dictionaries and books on geography, mathematics and music. Her walls were decorated with prints, created in her house, of children personifying Christian virtue, and her rooms were always full of well-dressed and enthusiastic mothers with slightly downcast children following in their wake.

  ‘You have abandoned your guardian at Mrs Smith’s establishment, I understand.’

  The girl’s face fell. It was difficult not to smile, so sudden and complete was the transformation from exaltation to despair, but Francis remained impassive. ‘How did you know? Oh, do not carry tales, sir! I’ve had nothing but lectures all morning and I just wanted a moment to breathe. Mrs Smith is very nice, but she looked so disappointed at me, then led Mrs Service away upstairs to “discuss my behaviour”. Then Mrs Smith’s maid said she hoped I was not a bad girl and gave me such a look, and she made us sit in a corner with a prayer book while we waited. And I could not.’

  Francis knew Mrs Smith’s maid, Penny, and knew how the girl had made her money before Mrs Smith had taken her in. He felt a little burst of sympathy for the young woman in front of him.

  The boy did not seem to completely share her delight in his freedom. ‘I don’t want to see the balloon. If you didn’t want to be lectured and looked at, you shouldn’t have got sent home from Miss Eliot’s, Susan.’

  ‘I’d like to see you or Jonathan or Stephen stand half an hour in that place, Eustache,’ she replied. ‘Those stupid girls! I did very well not to tear all their hair out on the first afternoon.’ She looked up at Francis with wide blue eyes like a cat begging for scraps. ‘I tried, sir! But Miss Eliot was shocked, shocked at everything from morning till night. “A lady should never say this, a lady should never do that …”’ The girl had transformed herself in a moment into a female three times her age, rigid with disapproval. Francis could not help enjoying the performance, though he was careful not to show it. ‘Seems to me Miss Eliot thinks a lady should not do any damn thing at all.’

  ‘Susan!’ the uncle said. ‘You must not swear.’

  ‘Bah! I’m sure this gentleman doesn’t mind.’ She looked up with absolute confidence into Francis’s face, but obviously did not find the confirmation she expected. Her voice faltered. ‘Oh! You do mind.’

  He nodded. ‘I do not like bad language, that is true. I think words are too important to be used carelessly.’

  She recovered herself well enough, though Francis was glad to see she had the decency to blush. ‘Then, my apologies.’ She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin in a very passable impression of a grand lady speaking to her inferiors. ‘Do you sell music here, sir? I would be very happy to see your selection if you have any before I leave.’

  ‘We do, and you are free to examine it,’ Francis said, ‘but I shall not pass over this “slipping of your leash” so quickly, so stop giving yourself airs.’ The uncle snorted and the girl pouted. ‘Who have you left worrying for you at Mrs Smith’s? Come, tell me and be quick about it if you wish us to be friends, miss.’

  A deep, weary sigh. ‘Mrs Service. She has charge of us today and I do love her, but she has been so cross with me all morning. And yesterday. And the day before. I wanted to go to the balloon-raising but am not allowed to do anything until I apologise, and I won’t! It was a stupid school. I don’t know what the Duke was thinking, because he is usually quite a nice and sensible man.’

  Francis decided he did not need to understand completely everything the young lady said at this moment and turned towards the boy. ‘And you, sir? What harm did Mrs Service do to you that you should abandon the poor lady so?’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘I couldn’t just let Susan run off on her own.’

  ‘It would have been better not to let her run off at all.’

  The boy became indignant. ‘That’s not fair! If I keep quiet, then Graves and Verity and Mrs Service all lecture me, and if I don’t, then Susan and Jonathan say I am a tattle-tale. I wish everyone would just leave me alone.’ He looked very angry and the girl saw it.

  ‘Crybaby,’ she muttered. Francis held up his hand.

  ‘That is an unpleasant thing to say, miss, after he followed you.’ He spoke sharply enough to shock her, and the boy looked surprised and pleased. Francis spoke on while the girl was still at a disadvantage. ‘I suppose matters could be worse. I am certainly glad you didn’t tumble into Mrs Humphrey’s gallery across the way.’ The girl’s face lit with sudden curiosity and she tried to look past him into the street. He raised his eyebrows and she gazed down at her hands, a model of polite submission. ‘I am afraid I cannot allow you to leave unaccompanied. There are scoundrels enough to eat children like you alive between here and there.’ He looked over his shoulder. The engraver was grinning at him. ‘Walter, would you be so kind as to go to Mrs Smith’s and tell Mrs Service that Miss …’ He looked back at the girl.

  ‘Thornleigh,’ the girl mumbled.

  ‘… Thornleigh has just stepped in to see what music we have, and she and her uncle will wait for her here.’ The girl looked as if she would cry now. Francis smiled at her. ‘We have a clavichord under the window, Miss Thornleigh. No balloons, but it is better than prayer books, is it not?’ She nodded.

  The man behind the desk wrinkled his nose, however. ‘I’d do anything to oblige you, Mr Glass, but I still owe Mrs Smith work. Daren’t show my face there. Every time I try and draw one of her examples of angelic children, they go cross-eyed.’ The girl giggled damply and Walter winked at her. Francis sighed and retreated behind the counter again to fetch his coat.

  ‘I’ll remember this,’ he murmured to Walter, who only grinned, then he said to the children, ‘I’ll return in a little while.’

  In truth Francis did not greatly mind having an excuse to leave the shop for a moment. It made a pleasant change from the bills, appeals for credit, advances against copyright and negotiations with ink- and papermakers that made for the bulk of his life as a printer and seller of books. He touched his hat to his neighbours and received their greetings in turn. Respectable people going about their respectable business in a respectable corner of town, and he, by good luck and hard work, was one of them. His employer, whose name was inscribed above the door of the bookshop, had spent thirty years in the London booktrade and had prospered. Francis had been his lieutenant for the last five, and while Mr Hinckley now lived in quiet retirement in Hampstead, giving good dinners to his favourite and most impoverished authors, Francis managed his business with great success. He commissioned works, he supervised their printing, placed adverts in the papers and cultivated friendly relationships with the reviewers and gentlemen of letters. When he read something he liked, he suggested that Mr Hinckley ask the author to dine. The authors always accepted and came back bursting with that gentleman’s praises. Francis suspected they would have felt a little differently if they knew they had been invited on the recommendation of Mr Hinckley’s African clerk, but there was no need to mention the fact.

  He turned the corner at the end of Ivy Lane into Paternoster Row. The maid, Penny, who served in the shop when needed, was standing on the doorstep looking up and down the street. Francis made her a shallow bow. ‘Miss Weeks, if you are looking for a young lady and gentleman who just dashed out of here, they have taken refuge at Mr Hinckley’s. I have come to inform their guardian.’

  The girl puffed out her cheeks, relieved. ‘Little devils. I only turned my back a moment to serve Mrs Rule.�
� She looked at Francis for a long moment then stepped aside to allow him into the shop. ‘Mrs Smith is upstairs with Mrs Service in her private parlour. You know where that is, of course.’ She winked and Francis passed her with the barest nod and climbed the stairs to the first floor two at a time.

  Mrs Smith was serving tea and bread and butter to a far older lady. Mrs Smith rose as soon as he entered and took his hand. She was a good-looking woman of not more than thirty, plumper than most Englishwomen, and with a pale, heart-shaped face. She was soberly dressed and her chestnut hair, as always, a little untidy. She smiled a great deal and there was something in her walk that suggested she might be about to start dancing at any moment. She was in truth a spinster, but like other ladies who went into business, she took the title ‘Mrs’ as a sign of her independence. Her guest was a thin, gentle-looking female with a friendly smile. The introductions were made, and when Francis explained his mission, Mrs Service looked more sorrowful than angry and put down her cup.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Glass, for coming to fetch me. I am very sorry that the young people have been a trouble to you.’

  He bowed, enjoying the sound of her neat clipped vowels and the evenness of tone. ‘Not at all, madam. Their company is … enlivening. And please do not cut your visit to Mrs Smith short on my account. I am happy to keep watch over the young people until you are ready to collect them.’ Mrs Service looked uncertain, then grateful and gave him her thanks. He was ready to leave again with the satisfaction of a Good Samaritan, but in the doorway Mrs Smith stopped him.

  ‘Francis, dear …’ She was blushing furiously, spots of red showing through the thin pale weave of her skin in a way Francis thought charming. ‘I have something here I wish you to read. It was given to me by an acquaintance and is not at all in my usual line, but I would be most grateful to have the authority of your opinion.’

  Francis gave her a slightly weary look. ‘Eliza …’

  ‘Please, Francis! I hardly ever ask you …’

  He lowered his voice. ‘Eliza Smith, you know that is not true. What of that novel of Mrs Bentley’s you gave me? You told her you thought it very good, though again more in my line than yours, when you knew very well that it was terrible.’

  She blushed again, but her eyes sparkled. ‘Oh, Francis, that was at least a year ago!’

  ‘And she has only just stopped calling on me every week.’

  ‘Oh dear, and I can imagine how polite you were to her every time she visited! I know it was a little naughty of me, but she is one of my best customers. And such a good charitable lady. I couldn’t risk offending her, poor dear. And this is quite a different matter.’ She became more serious. ‘Quite different. I wasn’t sure whether I could ask you to read it, but God sent you to me today, Francis.’

  ‘Eliza, we see each other three times a week.’ He spoke even more quietly, looking up quickly to be certain Mrs Service could not hear him. ‘And it was not God, but a pair of rather ill-behaved children.’

  ‘He moves in mysterious ways!’ She smiled then looked at him with a sort of silent pleading that had never failed in all the years they had known each other.

  ‘Very well.’

  Mrs Smith wrinkled her nose at him, and he waited as she went to her desk and returned with a manuscript gathered together in a dark brown leather portfolio. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘Will you come tomorrow after you have seen Mr Hinckley as usual?’

  ‘You know I shall.’

  She shook her head. ‘I wish I could persuade you to come to church instead.’

  ‘I am in the shop six days a week; the last I divide between Mr Hinckley and yourself. I am certain God approves of my plan.’

  She tried not to smile back at him, but patted the sleeve of his coat and he felt his skin glow there with her touch.

  Francis tucked the manuscript under his arm, bowed to Mrs Service and returned to the shop. The boy was reading and the girl was playing through various sheets of music on the little clavichord. As far as Francis could judge, she was doing so with taste and accuracy. Walter was making her laugh. Francis put the manuscript on the pile of other such documents in his office and returned to his work.

  I.7

  THE BODY WAS REMOVED to a cramped outhouse before Crowther was allowed to start his examination. The gentlemen of the cloth knew enough of dissection to realise the work would leave unpleasant traces. They formed a little funeral procession for the executed planter. One of the vergers took the lead, a lantern in his hand and clutching a bundle of moulded candles which had been made to light the Cathedral itself, scurrying ahead to fill the shabby little building to the side of the Chapter House with light. The corpse of Mr Trimnell, shrouded in fresh white linen from the household store, rested on a plank, carried by two of the servants. Crowther came behind them carrying a leather case which Harriet knew contained the scalpels and saws, scissors and tweezers, all neatly packed in velvet, which he used for his work. He must have collected it from his own house in Grosvenor Street on the way to St Paul’s. Harriet followed him, walking slowly at the coroner’s side like a mourner.

  The body was set down on a long oak dining table too ancient and crooked for the clergy to eat off and now used – it seemed by the tools and wood-shavings around the place – as a work-bench. The candles and lantern were placed at Crowther’s direction and the servants left to fetch water and spare linens. The coroner, a Mr Bartholomew, remained in the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking out half the light, and shifted his weight from side to side. Feeling in the way, he made the decision to leave and turned away, but Crowther called him back.

  ‘One moment, Mr Bartholomew,’ he said, carefully folding the linen back from the body and setting it aside. Harriet watched as the man was uncovered once more. Someone had folded his hands across his chest, and the ropes William had mentioned around his wrists had been removed. Mr Trimnell looked like a divine who had died peacefully in his bed, dreaming of salvation. The skin showing round the open neck of his shift was livid. Harriet knew enough now about the process of death to know this was probably the result of the blood beginning to settle in his tissues as he lay prone in the churchyard. There was no obvious sign of violence.

  Crowther bent over the corpse and sniffed, then looked up at Bartholomew. ‘The body has been washed,’ he said.

  Mr Bartholomew looked down at the earth floor. ‘Ah.’

  Crowther felt the fabric of the shift between his hands. ‘And I very much doubt this is his shift. It seems to have been plucked from the washing line an hour ago.’ He turned to Mrs Westerman. ‘Madam, if I am unfortunate enough to suffer a violent death, will you kindly make certain the clergy of St Paul’s do not conspire to destroy all the evidence before some competent individual appears to examine it?’

  ‘I shall, Crowther,’ she said sweetly.

  ‘I apologise, Mr Crowther,’ Bartholomew said. ‘The ignorance of the population in general has made my work difficult on many occasions. I understand you are to publish a book?’ Crowther nodded. ‘I am glad. It will be of great use to me and men like me. We are mostly lawyers, you know, and the medical evidence offered to us is often imperfect.’

  Crowther turned aside and picked up his knife and Bartholomew started but Crowther merely turned the blade and slit the thin material of the shift from neck to hem. He then folded it back to show the naked body below.

  There were some bruises around Trimnell’s belly – they looked to Harriet as if they had been delivered with a fist. The body was thin almost to emaciation. It seemed impossible to believe such a fragile-looking creature could have been walking and talking yesterday, taking his coffee with his West Indian cronies.

  ‘Mr Bartholomew,’ Harriet said, ‘the owner of the coffee house mentioned that this man lived on Cheapside. That is an unusual address for a rich man, is it not?’

  The coroner looked surprised. ‘From what I’ve heard, Trimnell was not a particularly rich man, Mrs Westerman. Not everyone who lives in Jamaica mak
es his fortune. The wars, the exhaustion of the soil … Many of our friends in the West Indies are suffering a great deal.’

  She looked into his face for some sign of irony, but there was nothing but well-mannered concern.

  ‘Do you know anything else of the man?’

  Bartholomew ran his hand over his chin. ‘I have heard of him, and met his wife. She was at a gathering at the home of Sir Charles Jennings in Portman Square two evenings ago. A private concert.’

  ‘Mrs Westerman?’ Crowther had no interest in Mr Bartholomew and his social connections. She approached the body and watched carefully as Crowther turned the wrists and hands. Mr Trimnell had long fingers and hands which showed no sign of injury, nor the calluses of physical labour. His ankles, like his wrists, were unmarked. Strange. Crowther ran his fingers across the man’s scalp, then gently pulled open the jaw and felt inside the mouth for any hidden injury. He caught Harriet’s eye and shook his head.

  ‘I wish to turn the body. Your assistance please, Mr Bartholomew,’ he said, wiping his fingers on a corner of Mr Trimnell’s shroud.

  The coroner stepped forward and between them the two turned the corpse onto its front. Crowther pulled the shift free from Trimnell’s shoulders and threw it into the corner of the room. Harriet felt a hiss on her lips; across Trimnell’s back, from the top of the right shoulder-blade and reaching diagonally down to the spine, was a single raw wound. The skin was not torn away completely, but its path was clear by the areas that were scourged and bloody.

  ‘A whip-strike,’ she said. ‘But not a nine-tails – a single strap and narrow.’

  ‘They tied him up like an animal and whipped him,’ Bartholomew said in a whisper.

  ‘Like a slave,’ Harriet said, her voice neutral. ‘Or a vagrant. How many whippings are ordered every day in this city?’

  ‘Enough,’ Bartholomew said after a pause. His tone remained polite. ‘But not in a churchyard, not in darkness, and only after due process of law.’ Harriet nodded, conceding the point.