‘And then you locked the gate behind you, when you left?’
Don’t lie Tom don’t lie do not lie …
‘I am not sure, sir. I believe I did.’
‘The gate is usually kept locked?’
‘Yes.’
‘And so the privy is not in use by passers-by?’
‘No, sir. The privy is not used except during service; there was no service or meeting at the chapel on Monday night.’
‘Thank you. Let us now turn to the events of Tuesday. When did you first learn of the deceased being missed from home?’
‘I heard of the deceased being absent on Tuesday morning and I, with Mr Sweeting, agreed to go in the evening in search of her.’
‘Yes, yes, but who was it told you that she was absent?’
‘I had seen Mr Verrall during that day and had talked with him about her absence. Mr Verrall said he was afraid she was in the Bishop’s Pond.’
‘And you resolved to search for her?’
‘After seeing the police about five o’clock who told us they had not succeeded in finding her, although they had searched all the ponds and woods about, Mr Sweeting and I left to make further enquiries of her friends. As we passed the chapel we tried the outer gate, which was shut to, but found it unlocked and we went in and round to the yard behind, where we found the deceased lying on the floor in the privy – dead. I did not touch her, but returned and called for the police and alarmed the neighbours. I returned with the police – the body was not disturbed until Mr Ilott came.’
‘When you were at the privy, either the first time with Mr Sweeting, or afterwards when you returned with Mr Ilott the surgeon, did you see any sort of bottle, or vessel, close to the body?’
‘No, sir. I saw no bottle.’
‘You may have heard, Mr Churcher, that the deceased was found to be somewhere around five months advanced in pregnancy. Were you aware of this, before her death?’
Nothing
No
Nothing
I cannot
I cannot speak
Breathe
What hell
What hell
‘Mr Churcher?’
Swallow
Breathe
Think, think, focus
‘Mr Churcher?’
Breathe
‘No, sir, I was not aware.’
‘She had not spoken to you of it.’
‘No.’
A consultation with the man beside him, and the crowd behind me and the jury to the left of me – I had forgotten them, they were still there, murmuring and the sound rising like the swell of a wave. My neck grew hot as if their collective breath was warming my skin. I could feel their eyes upon me, and those of the jurymen, and their judgement upon me.
‘Quiet please, gentlemen!’
Breathe
Breathe
Better
‘You said, Mr Churcher, that you visited Miss Williams on Monday night at about six o’clock. How long did you remain there?’
‘About three-quarters of an hour,’ I said.
‘And Miss Monckton was in good spirits, you say?’
‘Excellent spirits.’
‘You saw nothing in her demeanour to suggest that she might have been contemplating taking her own life?’
No
No
No
I saw nothing
Nothing like that
She was happy
Dear God she was smiling and laughing and lovely, lovely with her smile and her eyes on me
‘I saw nothing to suggest that.’
‘Thank you, Mr Churcher. Is there anything you wish to add, for the benefit of the jury?’
She had gone to post a letter
I waited outside the Beezleys’
And Miss Williams said she had gone to post a letter
And she would not let me wait
She was already
gone
I stared at the man and the other man and then the murmuring started, and I glanced across to the jury and even though there were men of the chapel seated there, staring, there were also men who did not attend chapel, and I thought of what they knew and what they could not know, and before I could stop them the words were out.
‘She was very intimate with Mr Verrall.’
And the room broke into uproar, like at Mr Baxter’s auction house that my father took me to once, when I was younger and sick with the crowds and the noise; and I ran out through the wrong door, the door I had used to enter the room, and I ran past Mr Verrall and down the stairs and out into the street, and I ran all the way home and pulled open the door and slammed it behind me.
Frances Williams
Twenty-eight girls in attendance today. The Harris boys are back, but the girls have been sent to Miss Lamb’s school, I hear. Alice Harvey wishes to be considered for pupil teacher, but there is not enough for her to do at present. Lizzie Finch is to be sent to complete her education at a school in London, as her uncle has offered to pay, but even so I cannot justify replacing her, with numbers being so depleted. At least the tide of girls leaving my charge has abated; if they were going to leave, they would surely have done so by now.
I wonder every day if I should resign. I feel the weight of suspicion on me very heavily, as if they know I am lying. By now you might think that the gossips would have found another source of amusement, but it seems they have not. Instead of hearing the whispers as I pass, now I hear them shouting after me, that I should have known. That I should be ashamed of myself. That I am as bad as she was.
I know not what source of inner strength I have found that has kept me going in the face of such vitriol; only, perhaps, that to leave Bromley would be to run away, and that should surely increase the suspicion levelled at me and not diminish it.
Curiosity took me to the workhouse when the school day was done.
I should have thought that the inquest must be over by now, that there could be nobody in the town with an opinion who had not already expressed it before the coroner and his assistant, and yet they were still at their business when I arrived late in the afternoon. James Older, the coachman, was being examined, and his testimony was a short one. He had not brought any parcels from London, or anywhere else, for Miss Monckton or anyone of that name. I asked Jane Cooper what the purpose of that enquiry had been, as I had missed the start of it. She told me they were trying to find the way in which the poison had got to Harriet.
James Older was quickly dismissed, and George Verrall called. He was dressed in a black coat and trousers, but without his hat or his silk gown that he was known to wear, perhaps to suggest a humility for which he was not generally known.
‘You know the deceased, Mr Verrall?’ asked the coroner.
‘Indeed, sir, I knew the deceased very well. I have been in the habit of seeing her frequently but from some cause or other she has seldom visited me much of late.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘At the evening service at the chapel on Sunday, the 5th of November.’
‘And did you speak to her?’
‘I did not. I saw her from the pulpit.’
‘What were your observations as to her temperament?’
‘I have observed nothing particular about her lately in her manner but she has frequently been subject to excitement. I have observed great excitability about her. She had formerly the management of a school at Hackney and she applied to the committee there for testimonials as to her character and conduct for the purpose of enabling her to obtain a similar appointment at St Albans. I saw the testimonials they sent – she showed them to me – they were very satisfactory in all respects excepting that at the conclusion it stated that there was a great want of humility and energy about her. This affected her very much and preyed on her mind – she often spoke to me about it.’
‘It has been said, Mr Verrall, that the deceased was regularly seen in your company; is that the case?’
‘Her visits ha
ve not been frequent to me of late.’
The coroner paused, then, and consulted with his colleague, who was noting everything carefully. Then he asked, ‘I understand that you have had cause to ask questions of the jury, Mr Verrall, by passing a note to my assistant, Mr Gregg. Is that true?’
‘I gave two questions on a piece of paper to one of the jurymen to ask the medical witness – Mr Ilott – whilst under examination. The first question was, whether she might not have taken the poison herself to procure abortion. The second was, whether from her position her death might not have been caused by suffocation.’
‘What provoked you to ask these questions, Mr Verrall?’
A small, tight smile fixed itself upon his lips, and he licked them before answering.
‘My own curiosity, sir, nothing more.’
‘You say you saw the deceased in chapel on the evening of the 5th of November, but you did not speak to her. When was the last time you spoke to her?’
‘Earlier on the very same day – Sunday. After the morning service, in the vestry room of my chapel. She came in to speak to me of her own accord.’
‘You were alone with her, on that occasion?’
‘I was. No other person was there at the time.’
‘What was the nature of your conversation?’
‘She conversed with me about the school she was going to at Arundel. She wished the school to be put off. She expressed a desire to postpone going at present, in fact not to enter upon her engagement until some time after the New Year. She asked me to apply to the committee for her and I told her I would write.’
‘And what was your action in regard to that request?’
‘I did not write the letter, although I promised that I would. I wished first to find the opportunity to counsel her to reconsider. It was my view that by postponing going she ran the risk of losing the appointment altogether.’
‘Did she give a reason for her request?’
‘She said she was desirous of going to stay with her friends in London before she went down there; that was her only reason to me.’
‘How long were you in your vestry together, discussing the matter?’
‘About seven or eight minutes.’
‘And did you see her after that?’
‘I did not see her again.’
‘How did you come to hear of her absence?’
‘I heard she was missing on Tuesday morning. I made enquiries of several people about her during the morning. In the afternoon I went to the police station and asked them what was best to be done.’
‘What did you surmise had happened to her?’
‘I said I feared she had destroyed herself. I said to them, search the Bishop’s Pond.’
‘And when did you hear that she was found?’
‘Between five and six o’clock I heard that she was found in the privy behind my chapel.’
‘She was a regular attendant at the chapel?’
‘She was indeed, and a consistent member of the Church under my care.’
‘Thank you, Mr Verrall.’
This last from the coroner was, most likely, intended to be a dismissal or a preface to that, but the reverend was not ready to step down. His head held high, he turned to the jury and addressed them directly.
‘I believe from what I have heard in evidence the deceased to have taken that which is said to have killed her with the object of procuring abortion.’
This roused the gossips and a buzz of excitement went around the room, so that the coroner had to raise his voice to say, once more, ‘Thank you, Mr Verrall. You are excused.’
He made a great show of bowing to the desk, and to the jury, and I half thought he should turn to the audience and bow to them, but he did not. Instead, he stepped down and walked towards the back of the room, to the door through which James Older had been dismissed. But, instead of leaving, he took a place amongst the crowd of onlookers, standing just to my right. I felt my skin prickle at the proximity of him.
I had thought the business of the day must surely be concluded, then, but one last witness was called: Elizabeth Hopperton, peevish at being made to wait for hours, out in the corridor. And her evidence was very brief: that she had seen Harriet walking towards the chapel at about eight o’clock on the night of her death. With that, she was dismissed, and the business of the day was concluded.
Only as I left the workhouse did I notice a man walking alone, back towards the town. There was something familiar about him, and yet I knew I had never seen him before; perhaps it was the cut of his coat, or the look of him, but I risked the embarrassment of being wrong, and caught up with him.
‘Sir, I beg your pardon.’
He stopped walking and turned to me, and smiled warmly. ‘Yes?’
‘Are you Richard Field?’ I asked.
‘I am indeed.’ He removed his hat and bowed slightly. ‘And you are …?’
‘My name is Williams. I was a friend of Harriet’s. As, I believe, were you yourself.’
I thought, perhaps, that he might have been weeping. In any case, his eyes were watery, his skin blotchy. We were none of us unchanged, I thought – all of us, those who loved her and those who did not. She had left none of us untouched by her presence among us.
‘Miss Williams,’ he said, ‘I wish we could meet under happier circumstances.’
I stared at him. He was of my height. We met, eye to eye.
‘Indeed.’
‘How do you do?’ he asked, and the look on his face was one of genuine concern. ‘Are you well?’
‘I am quite well,’ I replied, feeling a tightness in my throat, and remembering that Harriet might well have written to him of my illness, which had kept her in Bromley. ‘As well as can be expected. How is your wife?’
‘She is in reasonable health, thank you.’
‘And the child?’
Finally, he managed a smile. ‘My son … yes, he is very well.’
As we were walking in the same direction, we fell into step beside each other. My mind was itchy with it, the idea that this man, of all men, might be thought the one most likely to have taken Harriet’s life. Why had the police not arrested him? It seemed to me that he should have been questioned, at the very least. And yet, here he was, all tears and smiles, a very model of the dear, distant friend.
I asked him if he intended to remain in Bromley for long.
‘I believe the funeral is to take place tomorrow, now that the surgeon’s business is concluded,’ he said. ‘I should like to see the verdict, but I fear it might be some time yet.’
‘What makes you think so?’
‘The coroner is a very thorough man,’ he said, ‘and no satisfactory explanation has yet been reached.’
‘But surely,’ I said, ‘if there is no further evidence to be found, then the matter must be closed?’
Field looked up at the figure of the Reverend Verrall, who was striding ahead of us, head held high. ‘There is your trouble,’ he said.
‘The reverend?’
‘He gives the appearance of trying to help, to bring the inquest to a speedy end, and yet what he is doing is complicating the matter, and slowing it down. Forgive me for speaking frankly, Miss Williams, but I wonder if he really is as clever as he tries to appear.’
He tried to divert my attention and my suspicions to the reverend, but I do think Field is the one on whom suspicion must most likely fall. Mr Verrall is, for all his vehemence and silks, a respected member of the community here; his wife is universally loved for her good works. They will never convict him, no matter the gossips. If someone is to be made to pay for Harriet’s death, then it should be Field; for, from the things Harriet had said to me about her life in London, he was the one that had started it all.
Thursday, 16th November, 1843
Thomas Churcher
I was in the back bedroom with the curtains drawn when Father came in.
‘What are you doing down there, lad?’ was the first thing he asked me,
and that was because I was sitting on the floor in the space between the bed and the wall, the place I used to hide when I was a boy, only now I’m too big to hide there and there isn’t any point in doing it, but it was somehow the place that I ended up.
‘I don’t know,’ I said to him.
‘Come out and sit down,’ he said. ‘Or are you going to stay there the whole day, and miss the funeral?’
For a moment I stayed where I was because I did not want to talk to him. Despite my thoughtless words at the inquest the reverend had sent a note this morning to ask if I would bear the coffin with some of the other chapel members. He said he thought of me especially because I was Harriet’s friend.
I wanted my father to go away and leave me in peace, but he sat down on James’s bed and waited and I realised he was going to stay there forever unless I moved, so I got up from my hiding place and sat on my bed opposite him. I could see his knees almost touching mine. I did not want to look at his face. At last he reached out and put his hand on to my knee. His hand was old and gnarled like a tree root, calloused and lumpy. One day my hands would be like his.
‘Why did no one think to tell me?’ I asked.
He sighed. ‘I think, son, we did not realise you didn’t already know.’
‘I don’t listen to gossip,’ I said. ‘I don’t listen.’
‘No, Tom. That is very true. You’re a good lad, a kind lad.’
He patted my knee and withdrew his hand.
‘Now I have been made a fool of, again,’ I said.
He didn’t deny it. I noticed that, and I felt glad of it.
From the kitchen I heard the sounds of Clara singing as she worked. I could smell the food she was cooking for our breakfast and my stomach gurgled in spite of me.
‘You really did not know that Harriet was with child?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
‘You spent a lot of time with her, walking her home from chapel and so on.’
The Murder of Harriet Monckton Page 16