Victorian Maiden

by Gary Dolman

  There, he had explained about her mama.

  “Where will your mama be now, do you suppose, Lizzie?” he had asked.

  “She’ll be in Heaven, Uncle Alfie, with the Lord Jesus and the angels, and – and with my dear papa.”

  “Will she, now?”

  Her uncle’s voice had changed and it made her start. It was loud and coarse, and it hinted at bitterness and doubt.

  The hooves of the horses counted out the seconds.

  “Your mama was a very beautiful woman, Lizzie. Do you realise that?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Yes, Uncle Alfie.”

  “She used to have a particular effect on many – very many – of the men around her. Can you imagine what that effect might have been, Lizzie?”

  “No, Uncle Alfie.”

  “She used to arouse them.”

  He smiled briefly at her look of puzzlement and a flash of ravenous hunger glinted in his eyes.

  “She used to arouse them physically as men, Lizzie, and she even, I will admit, on occasion used to arouse me.

  Lizzie, there was an Italian writer who lived hundreds of years ago called Dante – Dante Alighieri. Now Dante Alighieri wrote a celebrated poem in which he described what he called the Inferno. Dante’s Inferno is what you and I would call Hell. He wrote that it was composed of nine circles, each circle being full of worse sinners than the last. Now the eighth of these nine circles contained, amongst others, seducers and seductresses. And just as seductresses used the passion – the arousal – of others to entrap them, and to draw them into sinfulness too, so they themselves are whipped and driven by demons for all eternity; for eternity or until they have been punished sufficiently to purify their souls and be allowed entrance into Heaven.

  I’m very much afraid that your mama is in the Eighth Circle of Hell right now, being whipped by demons to purify her soul. I’m very much afraid that the sound of the bell ringing as she was lowered into her grave might well have been the demons disturbing the cord as they came to claim her soul and drag it away down to Hell.”

  His smile was sinister as he paused again, delighting in the effect that his words were having.

  “You are growing to be a very beautiful young woman yourself, Lizzie. You arouse the men around you. You arouse me on occasion, just as your mama once did. So as your loving uncle, I am going to help you to avoid your mother’s fate. I am going to keep you out of the Eighth Circle of Hell by driving the wickedness out of you whilst you are still a young woman. I am going to undertake nothing less than the purification of your soul.

  Tell me, are you familiar with the Beatitudes, Lizzie?”

  She shook her head.

  “They’re verses in the Holy Scriptures, in the fifth chapter of the gospel of Saint Matthew. You may look them up yourself if you wish. Verse ten, for example, says: ‘Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

  He paused again to allow the words time to soak through her grief and her newly born terror.

  “So you see, if you want to see your mama again in the Kingdom of Heaven, I must, as St Matthew commanded, persecute you. Do you see that, Lizzie? You’re a wicked little girl. You deserved for your mama to die and you deserve, for righteousness’ sake, to be punished. Those are

  St Matthew’s words, not my own.”

  Elizabeth nodded once more, her expression a death mask.

  “Then, Deus misereatur; May God have mercy.”

  Chapter 35

  Atticus Fox is deeply absorbed in a game of chess.

  Sometimes, when his mind tends towards chaos and disorder and his thoughts begin to collide and intrude on one another, he seeks the silence and the solitude of night. It is then, when all is quiet and still, when the Ailing sleep and when the bandstands cease to fill the air with noisy distraction, that he can at last properly retreat into the sanctuary of his mind and set about examining the patterns and the paradoxes, the symmetries and the coincidences with which his profession on occasion, torments him.

  He finds that it helps these musings and the flights of conjecture they release if he plays himself at chess. It also ensures that his mind remains wholly dispassionate and objective, since each and every move he considers requires that his viewpoint and allegiances must shift in full between the black, ebony and the white, ivory chessmen.

  Was Elizabeth Wilson guilty of the brutal and frenzied murder of Alfred Roberts, celebrated philanthropist and benefactor of Harrogate?

  The great weight of evidence points to the conclusion that yes, she must certainly have killed him. Whether in her mental state she could be considered guilty, as such, was an entirely different matter. She almost certainly could not.

  Atticus particularly values his wife’s opinion much more highly than the magistrate’s in this. And yet something else is worrying at his mind about the death of Alfred Roberts, and about Elizabeth’s part in it… something that will not be stilled. That is why he needs to seek the night of quiet contemplation.

  The Assize sessions are only two days away now. Every time he looks in his diary, each time he makes an appointment, each time a date is mentioned no matter how innocent the context, he is reminded sharply of how Elizabeth will soon be forced to endure perhaps the greatest of all her life’s many trials.

  They have decided already that Elizabeth is unlikely to hang. Much more likely is incarceration in a prison or more probably still, in an insane asylum.

  ‘Asylum’: He takes a moment out from his cogitations to consider the word carefully.

  Tormented continually in her purgatory of thoughts, any restraint of Elizabeth there could hardly be considered as asylum.

  She has failed the McNaughton tests, and the magistrate has declared her sane.

  Will her inevitable incomprehension on the witness stand be construed as deliberate obstinacy by his lordship, and therefore as her contempt for his court? And will that presumed contempt possibly then irritate the learned judge sufficiently for him to send her, in spite of everything, to the gallows?

  There will be a defence, of course. And as so often also in the game of chess, the best defence will likely be attack. But that attack would inevitably be an attack on the reputations and the good names of some of the stoutest pillars of Harrogate society. It would be an attack on society itself.

  He slides the chess board around once again, and opens his mind fully to the cause of the white, ivory chessmen.

  So, once again: Had Elizabeth Wilson, guilty or not of malice aforethought, committed the brutal and frenzied killing of Alfred Roberts?

  Once again he is forced to conclude that yes, she had. But how can that possibly be? Yes, he had died by her hand, under her knife, but she hadn’t the strength of either body or of mind to have carried out the deed herself. Surely it would have needed a different mind and strength far greater than hers to have murdered the man?

  Stalemate.

  He picks up a white knight from his board and holds it for a moment in his fingers, staring at it as he wrestles with the paradox. The knight is his very favourite chessman: powerful, chivalrous, romantic, the proverbial righter of wrongs.

  And then all at once he sees it; he sees it all from the perspective of that little, white knight.

  Checkmate.

  The riddle is solved; the game is over at last. But for all that, his mind is not eased in the least. His is a brain that works much better in games of black and white, with rules and ordered squares of rank and file. But what he has seen could not be judged comfortably by order or by rules, and it is far from being black or white. He needs someone who understands the shades of grey between. Atticus glances at the little onyx-cased clock to the side of his desk. It will be two, long and agonising hours before Lucie will stir and wake from her bed.

  Too long.

  Chapter 36

  “It’s good to see you of course, Atticus and Mrs Fox,” Dr Roberts exclaimed as he entered the library of
Sessrum House.

  He was holding one of their calling cards between his fingers with the folded corner marked ‘affaires’ facing upwards.

  “But I wasn’t expecting a call today. Is it regarding your account? I’m so sorry that I haven’t had an opportunity to settle it yet, what with Aunt Elizabeth’s trial beginning tomorrow and all.”

  “No, Dr Roberts,” Atticus replied, “It’s nothing whatsoever to do with our account. I’m afraid that it has more to do with your grandfather’s death.”

  “In that case, we’d better go up to the Annexe. You’ve just missed my lawyer. He’s kindly charged me five guineas to tell me that he thinks the case is hopeless and that we need to throw ourselves on the mercy of the judge.”

  “Perhaps on the mercy of God,” Atticus observed, and Roberts bit his lip.

  “Mary has been administering chloral hydrate to my aunt,” Roberts continued hurriedly. “She’s been very distressed and we’ve needed to increase the dose substantially.”

  “Is that safe?” Lucie asked. “Perhaps I ought to see her?”

  Roberts shrugged.

  “Perhaps that might be for the best.”

  Elizabeth looked serene, sleeping and dressed as she was in a pretty, new silk nightgown. She was propped up on deep white pillows, with a Bible laid across her lap and a tiny silver cross hanging from her fingers on a delicate chain. The Bible was open at her favourite passage of scripture; the twenty-first chapter of Revelation, where they knew that she always found the promise of no more pain, no more tears and no more sorrow, a great comfort.

  On one side of her, a large bottle marked ‘Chloral Hydrate’ stood in an enamelled dish, and on the other, Mary Lovell sat perched on her bedside. Mary’s eyes were red, and her lips were pursed resolutely.

  “How is she, Mary?” Lucie whispered.

  At the sound of Lucie’s voice, Elizabeth’s eyes, as if in slow motion, seemed to drag themselves open.

  “How are you, Elizabeth?” Lucie repeated.

  The eyes slid towards her.

  “She’s at peace, Mrs Fox. I don’t believe she’s been better since before her mama died,” Mary replied.

  “That’s good.”

  “She won’t be able to cope with a trial, you know,” Mary added. “Or with whatever comes after.”

  Atticus wielded the blow.

  “But should she be standing trial at all?” he asked. “Did Elizabeth Wilson actually kill Alfred Roberts?”

  Mary Lovell and Dr Roberts stared at each other with identical, stunned expressions.

  “Of course she did,” Roberts spluttered at last, “You both agreed that she did, and so did the police.”

  “I have to tell you, Dr Roberts,” Atticus said, with a glance to his wife, “That one or two things have perplexed us right from the beginning of this whole sorry business.”

  “Indeed, Atticus?”

  “Indeed, Dr Roberts. For example, throughout the entire ordeal, you have spoken very protectively of a woman – notwithstanding the fact that she is your aunt – whom you had just met, whom you had just had brought here, and who, from the evidence, had just violently murdered your grandfather.”

  “I…”

  Atticus’ raised his finger to silence the doctor’s protests.

  “You didn’t – you don’t – even want her locked away. You only ever wanted her to live here, in your Annexe, with Miss Lovell taking care of her.”

  “That would be the only natural justice, Fox, as I’ve said many times,” Roberts replied.

  “Secondly,” Atticus continued, “When you first told us of the murder and you described your grandfather’s injuries, you mentioned in particular the blow that penetrated his brain through his eye socket. You said then that his ‘death was instantaneous.’”

  “It was, damn it.”

  “We don’t doubt it.”

  Lucie’s softer tone replaced Atticus’.

  “But you said, ‘death was instantaneous,’ not, ‘would have been instantaneous.’ You spoke as if you were actually present at the time that he was killed. And then there is the bloody palm print I noticed on the back of Miss Elizabeth’s hand. You said that it was likely your grandfather’s, or that it might have been left by Miss Lovell as she brought Miss Elizabeth in from the bedroom. But there is a question there too.”

  As she spoke, Atticus took a neatly folded pocket handkerchief from his pocket and let it fall open. In the centre was a large, vivid handprint, dark now with the passing of the days.

  “I took this impression at the time, you will recall. As you can see, it is a large handprint, much more likely to belong to a man than a lady. Your grandfather had no bloodstains on his hands, so, should we ask you and Miss Lovell to place your hands against the print to compare them? Do we need to do that?”

  Roberts licked his lips.

  “No, Mrs Fox, you do not. I admit that it is mine. But it proves nothing; it proves nothing whatever. I must have led Aunt Elizabeth at some point, that’s all.”

  “It proves that you’ve been less than honest with us, Doctor,” Atticus retorted.

  “There is also the vexing fact that the print was on the outside of her hand and not on her palm, as we might have expected if she had been led anywhere. We also have to question whether or not such a violent assault could have been inflicted by a lady who can barely stand. So please, before she stands trial tomorrow, tell us what really happened.”

  There was a long, unbearable silence, a silence that seemed to compound with the oppressive air of the Annexe, and grow louder and louder and louder. Then, mercifully, Mary spoke and the tension was broken.

  “Elizabeth and I fleeing from Sessrum House didn’t mark the end of the Friday Club, Mr and Mrs Fox. Oh no. Long after we had left, any child, female… or male; stranger… or kin, who happened to stray within Mr Alfred’s reach, was still in great danger from him and his loathsome friends.”

  Lucie gasped.

  “Long after – any child, female or male, stranger or kin – surely you don’t mean that Dr Roberts’ father…?”

  “Yes, Mrs Fox, even my father, even his own son; even, as it happens, his own grandson.”

  Roberts’ expression crumpled in pain, pain that was resurrected instantly into anger.

  “There are three people here in this Annexe whose lives have been destroyed by that man: Mary’s, my aunt’s, and mine. My father took his own life when I was just a child. Who is to say that it wasn’t as a direct result of what my grandfather and his damned Friday Club did to him? I don’t know. I never had a chance to ask him.

  We all wished Grandpapa dead. Of course we did. We wished him dead with every waking breath. I had never met my Aunt Elizabeth. Her name was hardly mentioned in the household, except of course in whispered conversations among the servants. I knew that she had been condemned to live here, in this Annexe, for over two years, and so I guessed that the rumours had to be true.

  I tracked her down. I tracked her down to the Union Workhouse in Knaresborough where the good people of Harrogate send those individuals that the grand visitors to the town might be offended to look upon. I befriended the Medical Officer there and learned about my aunt’s condition – about the way in which she had been forced to live her life, and how finally her mind had fallen prey to dementia. But I also learned that Mary Lovell was there too, and that she had devoted her own life to her care.

  And so a plan evolved. Mary and I became acquainted and we saw how we could restore Aunt Elizabeth to a modicum of comfort and at the same time ensure that justice was served. Not Her Majesty’s justice, perhaps, but true, natural justice nonetheless.

  I had already incarcerated my grandfather here, in this Annexe. Not because he was old, or frail, or anything of that you understand. No, again it was simply in order to serve up plain, natural justice. You see, he had imprisoned countless children in the Annexe over the years, mostly in a big dormitory room below us on the ground floor. For a time, he had me imprisoned in
there too, guarded by Mr Otter, the club steward.”

  He took a handkerchief from his pocket with a trembling hand and wiped it across his mouth.

  “I beg your pardons, Mrs Fox and Mary, but my Grandpapa Alfred also used to sodomise me; he and another of his monstrous companions called Mr James. They would bugger me and they would make me do other things to them too vile even to mention.”

  He shuddered suddenly, violently.

  “After my father shot himself, I began to tell people what had really been happening in the Annexe. I no longer cared what they thought, I suppose.

  So he had me locked up. Grandpapa had some doctor, a friend of his called Wright I believe, who was up to his neck in league with the Club to say that my papa’s suicide had unhinged me and driven me insane. He used it as a reason to keep me imprisoned downstairs, and worse, to discredit my word. Of course, they continued to use me as they wished, and that, together with the loss of my father, almost did drive me to insanity.

  Then, one day, my grandmama died.”

  “Mr Alfred’s wife,” Lucie exclaimed, “The one who was addicted to absinthe?”

  Roberts nodded.

  “My poor Grandmama Agnes. Later on, my grandfather would try to blame her for what he’d done. He would say that if she had been a proper wife and if she had paid him his due attention, then he would never have had to resort to buying little girls off the street. Utter nonsense, all of it; she was as she was only because he was as he was. She knew what he did, and absinthe was the only way she had to escape the horrible truth of it. No, Mrs Fox, he enjoyed what they did to those children, to Aunt Lizzie, to Mary, and to me. He enjoyed the power it gave him over us, and he enjoyed the excitement. I hope he is tormented forever