Accidents of Providence

by Stacia M. Brown

  Bartwain considered this. “What did you see while she was outside?”

  “Her bedclothes all in a heap on the floor, and blood staining them, though it looked as if she had attempted to clean them.”

  “Did you confront her?”

  “I tried.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Only that she was in her monthly time, and that was where the stains came from. She said she was feeling faint.”

  “And what was her appearance?”

  “Unseemly and pale. And leaner than she had been the previous weeks.”

  I guess she would be, Bartwain thought.

  “She didn’t eat all day,” Mary went on with some feeling, “even though we were having her favorite, ham and apple bake.”

  I’d like some of that now, he said to himself. Where was White with his breakfast? “Why did you decide to go to the slaughterhouse?”

  “I was following her.”

  “The same night you heard the sounds?”

  “No, sir, the next night. I heard her moving around in her chambers again, and I was curious. So I followed her out the door. She crept out in the middle of the night.”

  “What did you see?”

  “She was carrying something small and close to her chest. She walked fast all the way to the Smithfield market. She buried the bundle by moonlight near the trees, and then I suppose she ran away.”

  “So you stayed behind to uncover what she had buried?”

  “No, sir. I went home. Rachel returned home too, later that night, very ill and in a fit, it seemed, so I helped her to bed. She would not speak a word. I returned to the market the next morning.”

  “Why did you wait until the next day to go back?”

  “Because those woods are not safe at night.”

  “Ah. You think those woods are haunted.”

  Mary reddened.

  “I wonder what your late husband would think of your superstitions.”

  “That isn’t fair,” she told him.

  “Nothing is fair.” Bartwain’s lungs were threatening to spasm. He coughed into his handkerchief, discreetly checked the contents.

  From research he had learned that Mary’s Huguenot parents had died by fire for their faith when their daughter was ten; a man named Johannes du Gard had taken Mary under his care in the days following. The same man married her three years later, for her protection, he said, and then went off to war against the Holy Roman Empire. He was gone off and on for twelve years, from what Bartwain could gather. When he returned, he found both his business and his place of worship destroyed, so he crossed the British Sea, wife in tow, to open a glove shop and die for Oliver Cromwell, who believed in the same God he did. Mary never had any children.

  White knocked on the door. “Your next witness is here.”

  “You may go,” Bartwain said to Mary. “But be prepared to testify if there is a trial. And I think there will be.” She excused herself and left, and he rose from his desk, wheezing, to find his pipe.

  The investigator appreciated, at least in theory, why a woman might not want to come forward if she’d given birth to a living bastard. But why would a woman stay silent if she’d given birth to a child that died? Where dead illegitimates were concerned, the law turned on concealment. Bartwain lit his pipe, pondering. The reasonable thing for a woman to do in such situations was to come forward and confess she had delivered an illegitimate, explain it had died while she was in labor or shortly thereafter, and present it to the authorities for inspection. But time and again he’d seen women who acted contrary to common sense, women who insisted on disposing of the infants in their own secret way and who then tried to deny any wrongdoing when they were discovered. They failed to grasp that the 1624 Act to Prevent the Destroying and Murdering of Bastard Children declined to distinguish between murder and concealment. The law did not care about such details any more than it cared about the identity of the father. It kept things simple. Any unmarried woman who concealed her child’s death could be declared guilty of its murder—why else would she need to hide it? If the death was hidden and the woman unmarried, she could be charged, tried, and executed. Accordingly, all Bartwain needed to indict Rachel Lockyer for the crime of infant murder was proof she’d tried to hide a bastard’s death and a reasonable assumption the child was hers. Whether or not she meant to harm it was not important; at least, not in the eyes of the law.

  He could hear someone banging around in the hallway. “White!” he called out. “Where’s my breakfast?”

  His secretary appeared with a platter of duck eggs. Bartwain reached for two and shook them to test for doneness; they were hard-boiled, which made him unhappy, as he preferred his yolks runny. But he was ravenous, so he ate them all anyway, not troubling to remove the shells, stuffing the eggs one after the other into his mouth. “Bring my next interview in,” he said between bites. “I will get to the bottom of this case today or I am not Thomas Bartwain.” White inclined his head, though his subservience was unconvincing; he went into the corridor to fetch the next witness.

  Preparing for his depositions had led Bartwain to investigate the background of each of his interview subjects. Concerning the next woman on his list, however, he knew more about the husband. Everyone knew about Elizabeth Lilburne’s husband. They called him Freeborn John, and when he was not earning a meager living as a soap maker, he was working alongside William Walwyn—that W.W. whose full name appeared farther down on Bartwain’s list—to organize a group of fiery apprentices, soldiers, and agitators in and around London and the Parliamentary army. Their enemies had given this group its name, accusing John and his friends of trying to “level” men’s estates and share all things in common. The Levelers had supported the Good Old Cause, the dream of a free republic, when civil war first broke out in 1642, and they had continued to support it in succeeding years as Parliament’s army warred against the king, or against royal tyranny, as some men—never Bartwain—described it. When Charles I was beheaded in January of 1649, some people blamed the Levelers and called them regicides. But Bartwain knew they did not have it in them to do anything so decisive or matter-of-fact. Since the Parliamentarians’ victory, the Leveler crusade had begun to lose momentum—no one could quite tell which side the group was on, Bartwain thought.

  He glanced down at his notes. Several years ago, when John Lilburne had spent time in Newgate Prison for harassing the Speaker of the House of Commons, his wife, Elizabeth, had joined him there. As a prisoner of the state, John had received the royal treatment. Elizabeth had received a toothless midwife, ordered down from the women’s ward, to assist her as she birthed their daughter on the sticking straw. Bartwain shook his head; that was the sort of thing Leveler women did, stay with their husbands in prison. This past summer, he read on, Elizabeth had lost her two sons to smallpox.

  He was picking the last of the eggshells from his teeth when his witness burst into the chambers, her yellow curls angry and springing. Before he could say a word, Elizabeth Lilburne supplied her name, place of birth, and current residence, then sat down on the witness stool. He barely had time to wipe his mouth, pick up his quill, and dunk it in the inkwell before she started attacking.

  “You are in bed with the devil,” she told him. “You report to the Council of State, which is an illegitimate government. You find women who are poor and vulnerable and accuse them of this and that, and then once you have convicted them you wash your hands and accept your payment. You are the devil’s handyman.”

  “Good morning to you as well,” he answered.

  She delivered a blistering stare. From the pockmarks pitting her cheek, Bartwain guessed she had contracted the same illness that had taken her young sons. Apart from the scars, she was a handsome woman, he thought.

  “You support the work of men who fear the truth. You—”

  “I am not here to suppress the truth,” he said wearily. “I am here to solicit it. I would be grateful if you would do me the courtesy of allow
ing me to carry out the work I have been commissioned to do. I am not here to listen to speeches.”

  “You are a hired dog.”

  “Please be careful what you say.”

  “Why, what would you have me say? The justices of the peace have already made up their minds about this case. I know how the courts of London work. They place the burden of proof on the defendant. I am the wife of John Lilburne. I know things.”

  “Tell me how you became acquainted with the case at hand.”

  “I have no relation to the case at hand.”

  “You just said this case was unfair, so clearly you know something about it. You are not a good liar. Your face is blooming red.”

  “Then you already know how I am acquainted with it, else you would not have called me in here.” Elizabeth tapped her heel against the leg of the stool. He noticed her black boot, with its high arch and tarnished buckle.

  “You are friends with the woman under investigation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me what you know, please.”

  “I have nothing to say.”

  He waited. He did not think she was the kind of woman who could stay quiet long.

  “This is an illegal investigation,” she flung at him, confirming Bartwain’s hypothesis, “and you are working for an illegal government. The Council of State is a government of the sword, not of the people. So I have no words for you today, Investigator.”

  “You will have to stop talking for me to believe that.”

  “You treat me like a fool.”

  “Be careful, or I will hold you in contempt.”

  “You already do.”

  They went back and forth, Bartwain making little headway. Elizabeth Lilburne was as belligerent as her husband. Finally he badgered her into admitting it was possible her friend Rachel Lockyer had been with child, and it was possible she had tried to hide this pregnancy from others, but he could not provoke her into saying anything definite. When he asked if Rachel could have laid a hand on her infant, Elizabeth’s face darkened. Only a savage monster could harm its own young, she said. When he asked if Rachel had confided in her, perhaps confessing to some kind of mishap in childbirth, she retorted, “Why would you care? The law still holds a woman responsible.” She went silent, holding the investigator’s gaze.

  If he could not wrangle information out of her directly, he would have to do so indirectly. “Would you say Rachel Lockyer went into a fit of grief after her brother’s execution this past spring?” he asked, trying not to sound suspicious.

  “You mean his murder.”

  “Call it what you will. Would you say she went into a fit of grief?”

  Elizabeth was not falling for the question. “I would not. For then you would use my words to paint her as a madwoman, capable of anything, even strangling her child.”

  “So you admit the child was hers.”

  “I was speaking hypothetically.”

  “That is some sleight of hand,” he observed. “You have spent too much time in your husband’s company. I hear he can make a cunning argument masquerade as a plain one.”

  “He speaks the truth,” she snapped. But her strained expression made Bartwain wonder if Elizabeth Lilburne defended her famous husband more vigorously to others than she did to herself.

  “I have read your Leveler pamphlets, with all their prattle about the rights and privileges and freedoms of the people. Did Rachel Lockyer believe those teachings?”

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “I never knew any woman to harm her child without pleading some doctrine or justification to excuse herself,” he told her. “‘The child made me ill,’ she will say. ‘The child made me poor and wretched.’ It is the same principle you rebels and libertines rallied behind as you dragged this country into war. ‘The king makes us slaves,’ you said. ‘The king makes us pay taxes.’ Both of these—”

  “The Levelers did not kill the king.”

  Bartwain groaned. By nature he was not a political man. He did not think anyone could claim victory in the aftermath of civil war. How it was possible for a dead king to be the only one left standing at the end of a conflict, he didn’t know. But it had happened. He waved Elizabeth’s words away. “You’re missing my point. Both of these arguments are rooted in self-preservation. Both insist that what matters most is my life, my survival, even at the expense of others. Even at the expense of a child.” He should not have been discussing intellectual matters with a woman. When faced with a moral problem, with a case of conscience, as the casuists called it, women tried to solve their dilemmas by referring to examples and stories. They refused to think abstractly, to seek universal principles of reason.

  “You think a woman such as Rachel Lockyer has the leisure to sit around and consider what law or doctrine she will use to justify her behavior?” Elizabeth tossed back. “You think she asks such questions while she is sweeping the walk or rolling out the dough before dawn—while she is up to her elbows in flour?”

  “If a woman has no time to think on such things, then why did you and Rachel Lockyer spend so many nights with the Levelers at the Whalebone tavern?” He was genuinely curious. “What could you possibly have wanted that would make you leave the house?”

  “We wanted a drink,” she said.

  The investigator burst into laughter, which metamorphosed into a walloping cough. Spluttering, he called for White, who whisked into the chambers with a pitcher of water; White was used to this.

  When Bartwain’s cough subsided he dabbed his eyes with a handkerchief. “You are not half bad, Mrs. Lilburne.” Then, taking a breath, he returned to his investigation. “Isn’t there anything at all you can tell me about these events? You might be called to testify if there is a trial. In the courtroom you will not have so much room to dodge and trim and equivocate.”

  “I’m not equivocating.”

  “You are,” he said, “but I admire your effort and your talent.” He rose from his desk, his stomach tipping it forward as he did. A stack of parchments slid to the floor. Elizabeth did not pause to help him retrieve them. She stepped over the papers with a queenly resolution and bade him good morning as she glided out of the chambers. He watched her leave the courthouse on her high-arched boots, saw her tightening the strings of her hat and shoving her blond curls under the brim.

  Two

  BY THE START of his third interview, Bartwain’s head was throbbing. He placed his head in his hands and pressed his fingers against his temples. He did not glance up when the Leveler William Walwyn entered his chambers.

  “Name for the record,” Bartwain said into his papers.

  “William Walwyn.”

  “Title, living, lodgings.”

  “Merchant. Former merchant. Formerly of the Merchant Adventurers Company. My home lies at the eastern end of Moorfields, just north of London.”

  “Former?”

  “Yes. I resigned.”

  Bartwain raised his head. On first glance he was not impressed. His witness was silver-haired and lean from nine months in the Tower of London, with a restive, almost refractory stare. But then Walwyn turned to the side and Bartwain reconsidered his opinion. William Walwyn was one of those men who looked markedly different in profile. Viewed directly, his face tended toward the flat and pallid; he would strike you as the kind of man who rarely apologizes. From the front he looked quarrelsome, abrupt, and his full forty-nine years. In profile, everything changed. If you were to assess him from the side, as Bartwain was doing, he became a lean and graceful man, a thinking man, a philosopher whose only fear was ignorance.

  “I heard you broke your oath to the Merchant Adventurers, that you are now their Judas. Sit down.” Bartwain relit his pipe, which on long days gave him solace. “I also hear you are trying your hand at medicine—at physic.”

  Walwyn remained standing. “Why does my profession concern you? I have no idea why I’m here; your secretary never bothered to tell me. Is this about John Lilburne’s latest pamphlet?
I don’t know how many times I have to explain to you people I had no part in it. That last one was entirely John’s.”

  “I’m not interested in you Levelers and your seditious scribbling. I have brought you here on a serious subject. This is a murder investigation, Mr. Walwyn.”

  “Murder?”

  “Yes. There is always a murder when I am on the case.”

  “Who has been murdered?”

  “We’ll get to that.”

  “Mr. Bartwain,” Walwyn said, leaning forward, leaning all the way across the desk—rudely, the investigator thought—“I have been under wrongful imprisonment in the Tower for the past nine months. I was released just a few days ago, and since obtaining my freedom I have been busy with household obligations. I have no knowledge of whatever hideous crime you are investigating.” He sat back.

  “You Levelers are all the same.” Bartwain fought off a paroxysm of coughing. “All of you talk about how busy you are. Too busy to think about doctrines, says one. Too busy to engage in king killing, says another. It’s a wonder you have time to do anything. Yet here you are, a prolific writer. You know which one of your works is my favorite? I liked The Power of Love. I wonder why you wrote that one. It’s not very political, is it?”

  Walwyn looked at him.

  “Now you see where we are heading? Now will you tell me about Rachel Lockyer?” He picked up his quill.

  Walwyn leaned forward again. He laid both hands on Bartwain’s desk. If the two men had been playing fox and geese, they would have been well-matched opponents. “Rachel Lockyer is a good woman, an excellent woman, a hard-working woman. What has she to do with any murder?”

  “Tell me how you came to be acquainted with her.”

  “Why in God’s name should it matter?”

  “Tread carefully, Mr. Walwyn.” He is confused, Bartwain thought. He has not spoken to her since his release. He has no idea about the child.

  “I met Rachel Lockyer three years ago at the Whalebone.”

  “Do you still frequent that tavern?”