I had a sudden desperate urge to run after him, to ask him, to beg him to show me her letters so that I could hear her voice once more. But my feet faltered. I saw him go into the White Hart, no doubt to wait for the London coach. I wondered if he would continue to attend the inquest, to its conclusion, or if we should never see him in Bromley again. I would not blame him if he never returned.
Tom Churcher was in the shadows of the alley beside his father’s shop, watching something. I followed the line of his gaze. In the Market Place stood the Verralls, conversing with Harriet’s mother and sister; or at least, Sarah Verrall was conversing with Mrs Monckton. The reverend stood back, impatient, the two fidgeting boys holding each of his hands, whilst his wife in her silk crinoline held the hand of Mrs Monckton and spoke to her earnestly. Ruth was next to her, her face a very picture of that beatific mask that they all wore – deepest sympathies – whilst she moved her weight from foot to foot, like one whose boots are pinching. I watched as Sarah Verrall took a lace-edged handkerchief from her pocket and passed it to Mrs Monckton.
Although even from this distance, I could see her eyes were dry.
Tom straightened as I approached, and took off his hat. ‘Miss Williams,’ he said. His hands were shaking.
‘You did well, Tom,’ I said, ‘bearing her to the church as you did. Harriet would have been proud of you.’
A muscle clenched in his jaw as he tried to smile. I turned to go, but he touched my arm.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said, hesitating over his words. ‘That night. I mean, the afternoon. Harriet was at the chapel. You sent her on an errand, and I was there putting away the music. She mentioned it, you remember, that evening.’
Reminded of it thus, I could call it immediately to mind: Harriet, laughing, saying that she had taken Tom by surprise, that the noise of the door opening had caused him to drop all his books on the floor.
‘What of it?’ I asked.
‘Just if people ask,’ he said, ‘if anyone should ask. I wouldn’t like people to know. That I was there with her, alone, on that last day. You know people like to talk. It’s not fair, the things they have been saying about her. She was a good girl. You know she was, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘So if they should ask you …’
‘I’ll say nothing about it, Tom. It’s nobody’s business.’
I thought, afterwards, that perhaps it was a foolish thing to promise. But, whatever had transpired between them in the chapel that afternoon, I had seen Harriet alive and well – more than that: happy – afterwards. So it clearly had nothing to do with her murder, and everything to do with her reputation, and that was something I would protect with all my heart.
Thomas Churcher
It was dark when I called at the Milsteads’. Joe answered the door and he looked at me strangely, like he was angry with me but he couldn’t remember why, and then he said, ‘What do you want?’ and I told him I wanted to see Emma. He said Emma was busy but a moment after that she came to the door and she already had her shawl and her bonnet and then she was out of the door and shutting it behind her.
Without saying anything we walked up to the High Street away from the Market Place. There were still people around but the town was not busy; the coach was about to depart from the White Hart so it must have been near six o’clock, and a few people had gathered to wave it off. We walked past it and up towards the workhouse for somewhere to go.
‘I thought you were asking me one thing but now I think you were asking me another,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You said, “Did you do it, Tom?”, and I thought you meant did I kill her? And it upset me, because you know me well enough to know that I couldn’t harm another person.’
She took hold of my hand. Nobody was there, then, the street was quiet and dark and nobody was there to see. ‘Of course I know that. I know you couldn’t hurt her, no matter how much she ruined you.’
I looked at her, but her face was shadowed by the bonnet. ‘She did not ruin me, Emma.’
‘Aye, she did. She fooled you good and proper, and you can’t even see it, but I’ll not go on about that now. The girl’s dead, for all of her sins. Talking about it won’t bring her back.’
‘You were asking something else, weren’t you?’
She didn’t answer for a while. I thought she was angry; she felt angry, stiff and hot.
‘I was asking if you’d done it with her,’ she said.
I didn’t like her being angry. ‘What if I had?’ I said.
She dropped my hand quickly, like I had burned her. ‘Did you?’
‘If I did or I didn’t, it’s no concern of yours,’ I said. ‘You and I weren’t promised. You said you needed time to think. You’re acting like I betrayed you by talking to Harriet but I did not. And then just last month I told you that whatever we had was finished. Remember? I told you that.’
She stopped walking and turned to look at me. We were out in the country by this time and the moon was waning and I could just see her knitted brows and her dark, angry eyes.
‘Weren’t any of your business,’ I said.
‘Why did you call for me, Tom?’ she asked. ‘Did you get me out of the house just so you could insult me all over again?’
I didn’t answer because I didn’t know. I hadn’t wanted to insult her, but she had insulted Harriet and I couldn’t take that, not yet. Harriet was dead and perhaps there might be a time when I would forget about her, or not mind if Emma wanted to talk badly of her, but she had only been gone just a very few days and only laid in the ground just a few hours, and I could still feel her in my heart, I could still hear her voice and her laugh and feel her mouth on mine and her breath on my cheek. I wanted to keep her close and safe and I hadn’t protected her the night she died but God knew I would protect her memory if I could, for as long as I could.
‘You’re crying,’ she said.
I pushed her hand away.
‘It wasn’t my baby,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know anything about it.’
‘Oh, Tom.’
Her voice had softened and she felt sorry for me, or something like it, and this time when she put her hand up to my face I let her do it. And then her arm around my shoulder and then the other one and I put my arms around her waist and held her close and for a moment it felt better.
‘I do love you, Tom Churcher,’ she said, ‘though I’ve tried so hard not to.’
I let her hold me, because it made me feel better. But all the time she did I was thinking about Harriet, my poor, dead Harriet, in the cold ground of the churchyard that wasn’t her home.
Friday, 17th November, 1843
Reverend George Verrall
According to the London Medical Gazette, the general opinion of the medical gentlemen is that, in suitably diluted quantities, prussic acid can be used medicinally with beneficial results on such conditions as phthisis and other coughs of a spasmodic nature, melancholia and acute mania, gastralgia, headache and nervous pain, and skin diseases of various types.
Perhaps most usefully, the correct dose of prussic acid is known to be fatal to roundworm.
that I never had but I believe the boys did
nasty little buggers
The problem is the dose: that the pharmacist making up the medicine must needs dilute the acid from a full-strength solution to one at a therapeutic level, a task fraught with danger. Esteemed physicians would complain that patients had most likely been dispatched by an incautious pharmacist, and as a result only used the acid as a medicine when they had mixed it themselves; others had patients who had taken it upon themselves to improve the dosage recommended to them, and thus had unintentionally brought their sufferings to a fatal conclusion.
The possibility remained, therefore, that the dose taken by Harriet had been unintentionally strong, or that it had been taken by her mistakenly, thinking perhaps that it was something else; or, at the very least, that she had taken it herself inten
ding to take her own life.
although you know well enough that none of those things happened, George
you are not looking for the truth
you are looking for an excuse
The bottle found by the sergeant in the night soil remained the most likely source of the substance she had taken, and, if there was even the remotest possibility that it might have contained prussic acid, then there could be no verdict of murder brought by the jury.
I spent many hours last night poring over the medical texts, and could find no mention of prussic acid being used as a constituent part in any smelling salts, but that did not mean it had never happened. Chemists mixed all manner of compounds these days – that was the very nature of their profession, to experiment and find new uses for things. Surely some chemist, somewhere, had prepared a new type of smelling salts, to revive the most desperate of hysterics, and it had contained a tiny part of prussic acid? Or Scheele’s Acid, to give it a proprietary name? Or, indeed, hydrocyanic acid, for that was the same substance. How the coroner should think to make sense of all this, and convey it to the jury, was really a matter of some concern.
that it did not happen is neither here nor there
it could have happened and that is all they need to know
The notable fact about the presence of prussic acid appeared to be the smell; all the physicians commented upon it. There would invariably be a strong, sweetish smell of almonds; during one of Mr Thomas’s experiments, in which he administered thirty drops of Scheele’s Acid to a parrot, the resulting smell was so powerful that three ladies were forced to run from the room, before they were overcome by it. Surely, then, the acid could be used effectively as a smelling salt?
I took up my pen and, writing in a slanted hand pleasingly dissimilar to my own, I wrote:
To Mr Carttar
Coroner for Kent
Sir,
You will I am sure excuse my recommending to you to direct the phial containing what is called (in the Times of the 16th Article Bromley Inquest) sal ammoniac to be carefully examined by some competent chemist using only half the quantity which may be contained in it. There are salts which under certain circumstances smell strongly of ammonia and which contain prussic acid but it would be very unwise to publish the particulars as they may be used for bad purposes.
Yours resp’y
Chemicus
I thought about the best way to address the letter, and decided that the best course of action would be to address it to the coroner, care of the Reverend Dr Scott, the magistrate. He should be able to pass it on, with no thought or interest concerning the origins of it.
I called into the kitchen to ask Mrs Burton for a stamp, but only Sarah was there. She, however, knew where Mrs Burton kept the postage.
‘What’s this?’ she asked, turning the letter over in her hands.
‘Insurance,’ I said to her.
Wednesday, 6th December, 1843
Thomas Churcher
My memories of her were blurring. I tried to hold on to them, but we had such a short time after that first kiss, just three weeks. Already a month had passed since she died. How would it be in a year, or two years? I wanted to remember her, I wanted to remember everything. And not just the tender kisses, and the smiles, but also the moments when she felt fragile, the moments when I thought I was too strong for her, too rough.
That particular late afternoon, I had called for Harriet at Miss Williams’s lodgings. The air was warm and still. We headed for the riverbank. There were still people out; Charles Davies the blacksmith, and his wife, passed us, and James Dow, who tipped his cap to Harriet. She was walking ahead of me, almost as if we were not together. I watched her neck, her shoulders, shadowy in what was left of the light, her skirts swishing against the bare earth.
And then all was quiet. Nobody else was in sight.
We talked, a little. Then she stopped suddenly, and lifted her hand to her eyes. The sun, setting in the west, was just at the horizon, and all was red and gold and darkness beneath it. Her face, turned to the sun, and her eyes closed. A tear spilled from beneath her eyelashes. Her lip was trembling.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
She shook her head, and brushed her tears away. ‘Nothing, nothing,’ she said.
I took her face in my hands. I wanted her to open her eyes but she did not. I thought she would pull away from me, but she did not do that, either. I kissed her hard, because she was not Emma and she did not shrink away, or cry out. She pushed her tongue against mine and her arm around my neck and I could feel the heat of her against me. I heard her make a sound, like a gasp.
I thought: What am I doing? What am I doing? It felt like something over which I had no control. It was happening anyway, whether I willed it or not. And the kiss was fierce, hard; it felt like I was biting her and she me; we devoured each other and I clutched at her and she grabbed her bonnet as it slipped. I turned her to the bank at the edge of the path and we half sat, half fell against it. I moved on top of her and pressed myself against her, pinning her there, hard, like prey.
But she bit back.
And then – after seconds, maybe, or minutes – I pulled back and we sat there close together, breathing hard and staring. Her eyes, feverish, almost angry. Mine, afraid. I had been too rough with her, too fierce. I remember thinking I had nearly forced myself upon her and, if I did that, I would surely lose her.
It was getting dark.
She hitched her skirts up. My hand moved under them until I found bare skin above her knee. She put her hand over mine and held it tightly. I stared at her, kissed her again. She made a sound and shook her head, and I stopped.
Then she pushed me away and got to her feet.
Without another word she began walking again. I followed her. I did not know what else to do. We walked on in silence until we got to the path at the end that leads to Farwig Lane. By then it was too dark to see anything clearly. She moved closer to me again and I felt her mouth against mine. A gentler kiss this time.
Then she turned and walked away.
I had spoken not a word to her since her tears. I had no knowledge or understanding of what had passed between us, only that my feelings for Emma were like water, like muddy water, and my feelings for Harriet were like dark blood, hot blood, flowing, pulsing. I felt like a man, properly, for the first time. My heart beat hard and fast in my chest.
I felt alive.
Frances Williams
The average attendance in the girls’ room for the month of November was the lowest since I took over, in fact I believe it is the lowest attendance since the girls’ room was first opened. Lizzie Finch has finally left to continue her education in London, and I have permission from Mr Campling to replace her with Alice Harvey. The girl is keen but lacks authority; she will need to learn to keep the attention of the younger girls, or she will not do. I shall put her on a one month trial, and examine her at the end to ensure her own learning does not suffer.
At the beginning of December many children were absent, some of them for want of boots. There was a further outbreak of scarlatina; two of the younger boys died and their siblings were absent for weeks. Today Annie Taylor was sent home by Mr Campling with a message that she was not to attend until she brought her pence. Her father came to the school within the hour and argued with Mr Campling in the yard. I thought it might descend into a brawl. The children left their desks and crowded about the windows to watch, despite my attempts to regain order. The boys’ room was in uproar, and when Mr Campling came back inside, red about the face, the door was slammed behind him. Minutes later we heard the swish of his cane and the yelp of some boy who suffered the consequences of their misbehaviour. The rest of that day was conducted in silence.
This morning I woke up from a dream about Harriet, poor Harriet, lost and looking for me. And I was there next to her, the whole time. I do not believe, as some do, in spirits; I do not believe in the afterlife, or heaven, but I sometimes wish I did. I can
see the benefits of it. When you lose someone you love, there is comfort to be had in the thought that they have just crossed from one path and on to another. Not dead. Not ascended. Just, perhaps, transformed into something we cannot quite see, cannot quite hear.
I lay in bed in the darkness thinking of her face. Every morning I did this, while I made tea and ate bread and butter, while I walked to the school. Every moment of the morning before I spoke to another soul I thought of her face, committed it to memory; her hair, her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled; the small brown mole at the side of her neck, under her ear.
Already she was fading. I wished I had an image of her. I wished I could draw, or paint, and I should perhaps have made one for myself. I could have done it while she slept.
The weather had broken, at last. So many days of grey, mild days, mixing in together one after the other. The day of Harriet’s funeral was the last of it. As if, perhaps, she had been sent away somewhere and now the sun could show his face and we were supposed to carry on.
The inquest met again on the 6th of December. I did not attend. I walked up to the workhouse at the end of school, and found myself next to George Verrall just as he turned away from a conversation with the high constable, Mr Joyce.
He raised his hat to me, unable to avoid acknowledging me as I was standing in front of him.
‘Miss Williams. You are well, I trust?’
‘Quite well, Mr Verrall.’ Then curiosity overcame me. ‘Has progress been made?’ I asked.
He looked down at me, clearly in a state of some agitation. ‘Alas not. The coroner has adjourned once again, pending further evidence being brought to light.’
‘What evidence?’
‘Nobody seems to know.’
‘But surely the purpose of an inquest is merely to ascertain a cause of death? Is that not already done?’
The Murder of Harriet Monckton Page 18