Bruce Alexander - [Sir John Fielding 01]

by Alexander, Bruce

  There were other notations, but most of them were in the form of questions: “Mr. Donnelly—poison?” and “A tunnel? That place in the mews?” This was followed later by an account of my discovery, with Ebenezer Tepper, of that clandestine egress into the library. And so on. So I had kept a general record on paper and a more specific one in my head. There were two questions not yet entered in my notes: The first had to do with our visit to Newgate that dav. What information did Sir John seek from Dick Dillon that he valued so highly that he was willing to do what he indicated in his speech from the bench that he would not do?—to recommend leniency for one who had struck a potentially murderous blow at an officer of the law. And why had Dick Dillon not grasped at the offer Sir John had made him? What had he to fear, or further to negotiate?

  As for my second question, it had to do with the errand I had just undertaken for Sir John. And here, reader, I blush to confess that sitting on that bench outside the magistrate’s chambers, I did unobserved what I would never have done before a witness. I took out the letter from Sir John to Mrs. Deemey from my pocket and, the seal having already been broken, read its contents. The letter dealt with questions of fact concerning that very same widow’s dress I had helped Lucy Kilbourne into the night before: When had Mistress Kilbourne ordered it and been fitted for it? When had it been delivered? Across the bottom of the page Mrs. Deemey had scrawled: “Said dress ordered and delivered a year ago in the winter. I recall it well, for it was cut and sewed in a great rush due to her father’s sudden death. Parts of it was still pinned and tacked when she attended his funeral.” Her signature, barely legible as “M. Deemey,” followed last of all.

  I understood this a bit better than the questions pertaining to Dick Dillon. For after all, it was evident even to me that had Mistress Kilbourne ordered her modish weeds recently, though somewhat preceding the death of Lord Goodhope, this would have indicated prior knowledge on her part. Since murder was the verdict, this knowledge would surely have made her party to it. Mrs. Deemey’s response, however, put such a theory in extreme doubt. Yet that response had been penned in the presence of Lucy Kilbourne— perhaps, with all that earnest whispering, dictated by her.

  As she entered as a factor in my reasoning, she came also as a picture to my mind. How could a woman of such remarkable beauty be thus involved in matters so base? I dwelt on that picture a bit, remembering not only her face and the pert, mischievous set of her fine features, but also (I allow) her naked shoulders and the demure gesture with which she covered them. Ah, woman! What contradictions that sex provides! And what food for contemplation!

  Occupied as I was with my fantasies, I did not at first see Mr. Donnelly when he appeared. He had evidently walked the length of the hall without my notice and now stood before me, clearing his throat to claim my attention.

  I jumped to my feet and sought to greet him properly: “Mr. Donnelly! Good day! Forgive me, for I had not …”

  He gave a wave of his hand, dismissing my concern. “Dreaming in the daytime? We all do it from time to time. I fear we Irish are more dedicated to the practice than most.”

  “Can I be of some help, sir?”

  “Yes, you can, Jeremy.” He lifted a sealed document from the pocket of his coat. It was much like the one I had delivered to Mrs. Deemey, except thicker, of two or perhaps three pages. “What I have here,” said he, “is a report on Lady Goodhope’s view of the corpus. She has made a positive identification. I set forth this finding in her person, and she has signed it; I have witnessed it. This should certainly satisfy Sir John. In addition, I have included certain of my own final observations on the condition of the corpus as an addendum to my earlier report—all this in the interest of thoroughness.” He offered the document to me, and I took it. “I entrust this to you for delivery direct into the hands of Sir John,” said he with suitable seriousness.

  “It will be done just so,” said I.

  “I’m sure it will be,” said he. But then he lingered, perhaps reluctant to get on to his next destination, or so starved for companionship in this great city that he was willing, for a few minutes at least, to share company and conversation with a thirteen-year-old boy.

  “It was,” said he to me, “something of an ordeal for Lady Goodhope.”

  “Oh, indeed,” said I. “The face, when I vewed it, was in fierce condition. But no doubt it was much improved by the embalmer’s art.”

  “They did not do as much as they promised. They managed to get the eye closed, but the nose was still a shapeless mass, and the face was still a bit blackened from the discharge of powder. No, they could have done better; I’m sure of it. With my years as ship’s surgeon, I have become inured to such sights. She—Lady Good-hope, that is—had never looked upon the like; then to be told—so to speak, actually I asked—that this Christmas pudding of a face is your husband’s! Well, no wonder she was tearful!”

  “I noticed,” said I, “that she was shortsighted. Did that make for greater difficulty?”

  “Very observant of you, Jeremy. Yes, it did make for hardship. Once I explained to her the necessity for the identification, she was quite diligent in her duty. She put her face quite close and studied as long as she was able.”

  “As long as she was able?”

  “Yes.” He sighed. “You see, he’s beginning to stink a bit. No telling how he’ll smell when they get him to Lancashire. In any case, not a pleasant experience for her.”

  “Indeed not.”

  “What do you think of her?”

  “Sir?”

  “What do you think of Lady Goodhope?”

  It struck me then as a strange question to ask. As I write this today, it seems quite an outlandish question to put to a boy of my age, one who had so little experience of the world. I count it to that sense of isolation he seems to have felt there in the city. Had I not found a temporary home with Sir John, I would then probably also have felt it even more keenly than he.

  Nevertheless, I fumbled for an answer: “Well, she … she seems a strong woman. She has borne up well under great difficulties. But Sir John …”

  “Yes, what does he say?”

  “He thinks her willful.”

  At that Mr. Donnelly laughed most heartily. “Yes,” said he, still laughing, “that might be said. Indeed it might!” But then he calmed and added seriously: “At the same time, though, like many women of her rank—or so I have heard—she is quite helpless in practical matters. It is not because she is unable but because she is uninterested. What she is not interested in seems not to exist for her. At this meeting which I am attending in her stead, I shall be discussing her very future in pounds and pence with Mr. Martinez and the solicitor, Blythe. Yet she could not be bothered to attend. Or perhaps I misread her in this. It may be a kind of fear of looking badly that keeps her away.”

  Thus musing, he paused a moment and pulled out his timepiece from his breeches, consulting it with a nod. “Just as I thought,” said he. “It’s time I left for the solicitor’s office.” He gave me a nod and a manly squeeze on the shoulder. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you, Jeremy. I look forward to our next occasion.”

  He turned and headed quickly down the hall. He had a swift, important step. I knew from past experience that it was difficult to keep up with him when he was in full flight.

  I reflected as I returned to my seat on the bench that in truth he had done most of the talking. Yet he had addressed me from first to last as he might a grown man. That was what pleased me so.

  Some time later, Sir John appeared. He came leisurely down the long hall, at first in the company of Mr. Marsden, the clerk, then exchanging words with Mr. Baker of the Runners, and on at last to his chambers. He sensed my presence before I announced myself.

  “Who is there?” he called out.

  “It is I, Jeremy.”

  “Ah yes,” said he, “of course—Mrs. Deemey’s answer. Come along inside, and you may read it to me.”

  He tapped the door to his c
hambers, found the door handle after a brief fumble, and led me inside. Seating himself in the chair behind his desk, he leaned forward in anticipation.

  “So,” said he, “tell me. What had Mrs. Deemey to say?”

  “You wish me to read it aloud?” said I.

  “Of course.”

  “Your letter to her, as well?”

  “No, no, I know what I said in it.”

  And so I read her response, verbatim, just as I earlier quoted it, immediately noting the change in his face to disappointment, barely disguised.

  “Ah, well,” said he, “perhaps another avenue will take us where we wish to go.”

  “But, Sir John,” said I, “I believe it would be wrong to put much faith in what she says here.”

  “Oh? Tell me why.”

  And so I did, sketching out for him the scene at the dressmaker’s, and the intense whispering that followed. He listened to it all with keen interest.

  “And you say that when she returned, she had her reply written?”

  “Just so,” said I.

  “Did you give her my warning about prevarication or delay?”

  “I did, sir, yet not until after she had delivered her reply. There was not time earlier.”

  “Ran off on you, did she?”

  “Yes, when Mistress Kilbourne demanded it.”

  “A demand, you say, and not a request?” I thought about that a moment. “I should say the demand was in her tone of voice.”

  His reply to that was a sort of grunt and then a sustained silence. He considered the matter and perhaps others as well, as I stood before him, waiting to be dismissed. It was then that I remembered the sealed documents that Mr. Donnelly had given me.

  “Sir John,” said I, breaking the silence, “I also have two documents given me by Mr. Donnelly to be delivered direct to your hand.”

  “Don’t concern yourself with my hand, boy. Give them to my ear. Read them to me, please.”

  I broke the seal and proceeded to do so. There was, as Mr. Donnelly had described, a rather short and direct statement which he had headed “Certificate of Identification.” I read it out so and had barely begun on the body of the work, only a paragraph in length, when I was distracted by a disturbance outside the door, a loud sound of voices in quarrel.

  “Madam, you may not enter!”

  “I shall, by God, I shall!”

  “You must make an appointment to see the magistrate.” That voice belonged unmistakably to Mr. Marsden, the court clerk.

  I had broken off my reading and then attempted to begin again, but the disagreement continued; a demand that Mr. Marsden step aside; a threat by him to call a constable. At last Sir John waved me to silence.

  “Jeremy,” said he, “do see what that row is all about, will you?”

  I went to the door and opened it cautiously. At first I saw nothing but Mr. Marsden’s back as he sought to block the doorway with his entire body. Then, over his shoulder, the face of Mrs. Deemey, ruddy with agitation, popped into view. She spied me.

  “He know me! The boy knows me!” she bellowed loudly. “He knows why I’m here.”

  I shut the door quickly.

  “What is it, Jeremy?” asked Sir John. “Who is it?”

  “It is that woman, the dressmaker, Mrs. Deemey.”

  “Ah, is it now, is it so? Well, open the door. Let her in.” A smile of anticipation spread across his face.

  I flung the door open, and Sir John called to Mr. Marsden that he was to let her pass. With a confused and unhappy look cast over his shoulder at me, Mr. Marsden stepped reluctantly aside, and Mary Deemey flew past us both into the middle of the room.

  Her skirts had barely settled when she began her address to the magistrate: “Begging your pardon for this intrusion, Sir John, sir, but I am Mary Deemey, and I have come to make right my reply to your kind letter.”

  “Sit down, Mrs. Deemey, please.”

  “Thank you,” said she, somewhat out of breath. “But first I must offer my apology to this young sir you sent to my establishment. I was rude to him, but it was only because I was upset at what I’d been made to do, as I shall explain.”

  “Jeremy, do you accept her apology?”

  “Oh, I do—certainly.”

  “Well and good,” said he. “Now, come here and put those documents from Mr. Donnelly on my desk, if you will.”

  I did as he directed.

  “That will be all, Jeremy.”

  “But … Sir John, I thought I might—”

  “That will be all. Thank you, and please close the door after you.”

  How shameful it seemed to be treated as a thirteen-year-old boy.

  Chapter Nine

  In which a pirate makes his report

  That evening, for the first time since I had arrived in his household, Sir John took his meal alone in the small dining room next the kitchen. Aside from the snack of late-night mutton we had shared but a few nights past, I had seen him eat nothing but his breakfast bread and butter. Still, his girth had not shrunk; he was portly as ever; and when sure of his ground, he moved with a step no younger man could match—save, perhaps, for Mr. Donnelly. Nor had his fasting slowed his brain, as will be seen.

  Mrs. Gredge made of it an occasion, cooking up two good-sized chops of beef, which she served him with batter and dripping. She bustled back and forth, providing claret as it was called for, and then at meal’s end bringing a bottle of port, which she thought might aid his digestion.

  He seemed to seek solitude, and it had been so since his return from his talk with Mary Deemey. All he had told me of it was that I had put some fear into her. Since this was offered in the mode of congratulation, I took it with thanks and waited to hear more. In vain, as it had proved, for nothing more regarding Mary Deemey was said that evening. He voiced his wish to dine alone to Mrs. Gredge and went immediately to the dining room. There he sat in the dark, which was all the same to him, until Mrs. Gredge brought in a candle to aid her in her serving. After that, I caught glimpses of him from my station at the kitchen table as Mrs. Gredge passed in and out, bearing one thing and another.

  All this was possible because Lady Fielding slept. I knew not when Mrs. Gredge had administered the last dose of Mr. Donnelly’s potion, but it must have been a powerful one, for there had not been a sound from the bedroom since Sir John had arrived, nor indeed since I had, nearly an hour before him. Each time I glimpsed him in the dining room he seemed quite lost in thought. Whether the subject he studied so was his wife’s mortal illness. Lord Good-hope’s death, or some other matter, I could not then say, nor can I now. I only know that he concentrated upon it powerfully and wanted no interruption from me.

  However, when it came, he welcomed the interruption of Benjamin Bailey—though Mrs. Gredge did not. The captain of the Bow Street Runners came up the back stairs and to the kitchen door, as was his habit. His tread fell heavy upon the stairs, and so we heard him coming well before his loud knock came upon the door. Mrs. Gredge cast a suspicious glance at me, as though I was the one caused the disturbance. But then she scampered to the door and called through it, demanding to know who was there.

  ” ‘Tis I, Benjamin Bailey,” came the voice from beyond, “and I’ll thank you to open up.”

  Reluctantly, she did it, though just enough to reveal him. He seemed much the worse for wear.

  “I have a report for Sir John,” he declared.

  “He’ll not hear it from you tonight,” she squawked as loudly as ever before. “You’re drunk, so you are. Been down on Gin Lane, I’ll wager.”

  “Not a drop of gin have I had,” said he.

  ”No?” Mrs. Gredge sounded most dubious, as indeed she might have been.

  “No,” said he. “Rum. I’d forgotten the taste of it, as well as its power.”

  Sir John appeared at the door to the dining room.

  “Let him in,” said he to Mrs. Gredge, “for be he drunk or sober, I’ll hear his report.”

  “Thank you, Sir
John,” said Mr. Bailey. “There’s them need some convincing, but I’m glad to see you ain’t one.”

  He sought to make a dignified entrance but staggered so that the effect was not at all what he intended. Even so, as he passed me, he bobbed his head and said, “Master Jeremy.”

  With which I remembered my manners, jumped to my feet, and gave him a proper greeting.

  “Let us go up above,” said Sir John to him, “to my study, if you will, Mr. Bailey. I must ask you, though, to tread a bit lighter as you pass the door at the top of the stairs, for my wife sleeps behind it.”

  Mr. Bailey said nothing but put a finger to his lips in agreement, as if Sir John could see him so. Yet he planted his foot falsely on the second step and managed to fall loudly against the rest. Nevertheless, with Sir John leading, they made their way up and disappeared a moment later.

  Mrs. Gredge looked at me severely. “I do not like that man Bailey,” said she to me.

  “But why not?” said I, quite bewildered. He seemed to me the most likable of men.

  “Because he reminds me of my late husband,” said she.

  And at that we parted, she to the dining room to clear Sir John’s table and straighten up, and I to washing up the pots, pans, and various utensils as had been used in the preparation of the meal. I had been appointed by Mrs. Gredge her kitchen slavey. My labors seemed to satisfy her: What I lacked in skill I made up with energy.

  Therefore I gave no thought to the time spent by Mr. Bailey and Sir John together. I had plenty to occupy my hands; and as for my brain, I confess I had not much curiosity about Mr. Bailey’s report. Except for the confirmation of the master of the Island Princess that Mr. Clairmont had left the ship at the time he had said, I had no idea of what sort of information was to be gained down at the docks, nor how it might fit in with the bits of the puzzle I knew.

  And so, about half an hour later, when Mr. Bailey departed, I gave him a friendly goodbye but little more. Mrs. Gredge gave him not even that, for he was still a bit unsteady on his feet. Sir John remained above. There were slight sounds an hour or so later from the bedroom; the door to the room had been left ajar so that Lady Fielding might be heard. Immediately Mrs. Gredgejumped up from the kitchen table and started for the stairs, but then Sir John’s footsteps sounded from above. The door creaked, and a minute or two later his voice sounded, calling for Mrs. Gredge to begin the preparation of Mr. Donnelly’s potion. She sent me a despairing look, then went about her task.