by Issy Brooke
“Geoffrey! Don’t eat the evidence!”
Chapter Forty-one
Cordelia woke unexpectedly early the next morning. She felt groggy and yet restless and she knew she would not be able to return to sleep. She crept out of bed, and left Ruby undisturbed.
She thought that she would find the kitchen empty, but Mrs Unsworth was already up. “My lady,” she said. “One moment and the water will be hot enough for some tea.”
“Thank you.”
“Go through; I will bring it along directly.”
“It is chilly in the sitting room. Allow me to sit by the range, if you will.”
Mrs Unsworth nodded slightly, and set about her business.
Something had changed in her cook.
Cordelia wondered if Dodson had spoken with her, or something else had happened.
“Mrs Unsworth, about your son, Jasper…”
Mrs Unsworth was facing away from Cordelia, and her back went rigid. “It’s perfectly all right, my lady.”
“You blame me for his incarceration, don’t you?”
She did not reply.
Cordelia said, “I did all I could to have his sentence commuted. You are lucky that he has lived.”
“Lucky? Is that a life, there, in that place?” She slammed the kettle back onto the top of the range, and gripped the metal rail, wrapping her fingers around the cloths that were hung there to dry. “But then, I have visited him, twice now, since we came here to London. And he tells me that I should thank you, after all.”
“I am sorry that I could not have done more.”
“So I am,” she replied with her usual note of bitterness. “Actually, my lady, if we are to deal in honesty today, I thought that he would have been better to have hanged for what he did. Instead you thought you were doing him a favour by prolonging his life. I did not.”
“Oh.”
“But he does not see it that way that I saw it, and I did not know until lately. Here, your tea. Do you want breakfast?”
The conversation was clearly over, and it was more than Cordelia had ever expected. “Some eggs, lightly done. Thank you.”
***
Septimus Gibbs was supposed to escort her to the Old Bailey so that she could witness the trial, but he was called away at the last minute, and sent his profuse apologies.
She sent a note to Ivy and her husband, but no reply came back. She paced the room and in desperation, Ruby went out and returned half an hour later with the last person she wanted to see.
“Mr Hawke.”
“Ha! When you want something from me, it’s Hugo. Now I am no longer needed, it’s back to Mr Hawke, is it? Yet you need me today. I understand a chaperone is required.”
“I am awaiting a reply from Ivy Delaney and Mr Delaney.”
“You’ll not get one in time. Come on. We can walk there and I can tell you all my news.”
“I have no interest in your news.”
“You should have,” he said, offering his arm, which she flatly refused to take. “It concerns you, in a way.”
She flared her nostrils but she called Ruby. “Do wait while I change for walking out,” she said.
***
They walked briskly. “Most of the trials there last but nine or ten minutes,” Hugo told her. “They bring them in and send them out, almost on a rotation.”
“I should imagine the Lord Brookfield’s trial will be somewhat longer,” she said.
“Why? He is guilty, and there is little to be said about it.”
“I hope they might call me as a witness,” she said.
He laughed. “As a scourge, perhaps.”
“You should be grateful to me.”
His tone did soften. “And I am grateful, but I shall only say this once, and then we shall never speak of it again.”
“He did arrange to have me kidnapped, you know,” she told him. “It was lucky for him that Stanley’s carriage was stolen as it gave him more time to conjure things. He claims he had nothing to do with the mugging of Stanley and Ruby, though. No one cares about that.”
“Why would they? It happens every hour, every day,” Hugo said. He looked at her sideways and caught her expression. “I am sorry. I do not mean to sound as if I think that’s acceptable. But it is the way of things.”
“I know. Now, regarding your matter. I assume you spoke with Mr Delaney? Is everything arranged to your satisfaction?”
“I think that everything is arranged as well as it could be,” he said. “It is not perfect, but your pet magistrate did indeed step in, and insist in some changes in the Holborn division. And no common magistrate he, but a real serjeant-at-law, you know.”
“I knew.”
“And it is well that he is so high. They have weeded out some of the less honest policemen there, and they have assured me my publican and my licence is quite safe. I must take care to remain within the boundaries of the law, at least outwardly.”
“And inwardly!”
“You know me, Cordelia,” he said with a grin. “Outward appearance is one thing; what lies beneath is quite another.”
“You make yourself sound as if you have greater depths than you really do,” she said.
“Hark at you! Ah, here we are. Do take my arm, Cordelia. For the look of the thing.”
“For outward appearances, then,” she said, and complied, but gripped it a little too tightly, for he deserved a bruise to remember her by.
***
He escorted her home again, and left her as soon as he could, for she was in a bad mood when she flounced back into Furnival’s Inn. Ivy was waiting, having received the note, and was taking tea in the sitting room. Ruby was flitting about, helping the rest of the staff to pack up for their return to Clarfields.
“My dear!” cried Ivy, getting to her feet and rushing to Cordelia. “What ails you? Was the courtroom quite dreadful? Oh — no, tell me that he was not acquitted!”
“He was not, at least,” Cordelia said, sulkily stripping off her gloves and letting them drop to the table. Ruby snatched them up with a sigh and took them to mend and clean.
“Then what happened?”
“It was very fast and very dull,” she said. “I could barely see, on account of the press of men, all from newspapers and magazines, standing up and shouting. The judge was most blasé. He told the Lord Brookfield he was guilty, ordered the jury to find him so, and was reaching for his black cap before the foreman and the jury had barely returned. I did not think that it would happen so!”
“It is a busy court,” Ivy said, taking her seat again. “But I do not understand why you can be so upset if he was found guilty! What of Socks?”
“Oh, guilty also. They are both to hang for it. No, the problem is, my dear Ivy, that I sat there and no one mentioned me! No one asked for my statements or my deductions. No one knew of me and my work at all!”
“And did you do this for fame?”
“No, of course not. I did it for my butler, Mr Fry. And I did it for justice, which is a fine thing.”
“Indeed it is,” said Ivy.
“But it would be nice to have a little recognition! I have lost my column and I really do not know what I ought to do next.”
“Go travelling,” Ivy said, and it reminded Cordelia of some of her earlier ruminations on the narrowness of her experiences.
“Perhaps I should,” she said. “I do have a fancy to see another country.”
“Japan!” said Ruby with excitement. “Or France! Or the Americas, what of them?”
“Well, I was actually thinking of Wales…”
***
“This will cheer you up.”
Cordelia had almost fallen asleep, in spite of the noise of the travelling chariot’s wheels on the rough road from the railway station to Clarfields. Neville Fry had gone on ahead with Stanley and Mrs Unsworth. Geoffrey drove the chariot and nestled within were only Cordelia and Ruby.
“What will?” Cordelia said, blinking awake.
Ruby
passed her the newspaper, folded back on itself for ease of handling.
“See there,” Ruby said. “The gossip column next to the advertisement for hygienic woollen undergarments.”
“How practical. Oh, yes, I have it.” Cordelia read the coded sentences, and then began to laugh. “Ah! Recognition at last, then?”
“Indeed so. I thought you would be pleased.”
One Brook brooks no opposition from another Brook. The lady prevails; and the lord hangs for it.
She re-read it. Just two sentences, and it meant that she was likely to be the talk of every salon and meeting and gathering in the city.
She pulled the curtain aside and peered out of the window. “We have some distance to go yet,” she complained. “I do hope the railways come closer to Clarfields.”
“I fully expect to wake up with a steam engine on the front lawn, the rate at which they are laying new track,” Ruby said.
Cordelia let the curtain fall and read the rest of the gossip column. Much of it was incomprehensible, or open to interpretation. She decided she would write to Ivy and stay in touch with London’s rumours and doings. She would return, she vowed. She’d finally begun to remake connections since her husband’s death, and these new friendships were on her own terms. It was exciting.
She flicked through the rest of the paper. Sir Robert Peel was still on shaky ground and many now were calling for his resignation. A policeman had been attacked and was sorely injured. A scandalous new play had opened, run two nights, and been closed down for immorality. There was more and more of that, these days. It was as if society was lacing itself up ever more tightly.
She gave the paper back to Ruby and stretched her legs out. Her feet kicked a box that was under the opposite seat. She couldn’t remember what was in it; most of the luggage was strapped to the top and back of the carriage. She leaned forward and pulled it out.
“Oh, yes,” Ruby said. “I forgot to tell you but Geoffrey went out on a bit of a mission before we left London.”
Cordelia opened the box and began to laugh. Stacked within was every kind of street food. Some, she saw, would not survive the journey much longer. There were jars of pickled periwinkles, and a sheep’s trotter wrapped in paper. There was a collection of unmarked pies, which she set aside for later dissection rather than consumption. There was a brace of saveloy, the cold sausages tied up together like they were to be hung in a game cellar. There was a pale box of thin wicker which contained a selection of cheeses which smelled worse than the dried fish which nestled next to the box.
“Do you know, they eat seaweed in Wales?” Cordelia said, pulling some bread free and sitting back to scatter crumbs like a child.
“Why? Have they nothing else?”
“It is a delicacy. I must try it.”
“You are set upon it, then?” Ruby asked.
“Of course.”
“What part? Some areas, I am told, are wild and they speak a strange language there.”
“I don’t know yet,” Cordelia said, “but I am sure there will be something useful I can do while I am there…”
“You’re hoping for a murder, aren’t you?”
Cordelia affected shock and disgust. “Ruby! I am ashamed of you. I would hope for no such thing.”
Cordelia turned her head away and hid her smile.
With a full belly, and a sense of satisfaction, she fell asleep again as she journeyed back to her home.
Historical notes
Inns of Court – Furnival’s Inn was as described in the text and Dickens rented rooms here from December 1834 until 1837. That building was demolished in 1878.
Harriet Martineau existed; she was a well-known political writer of the day.
Sir Robert Peel is a man of some local repute here in Lancashire. It is impossible to summarise his politics and policies in this note, but the hints in the book should be a start if you are interested. He probably knew his days in office were numbered and indeed he resigned in June 1846, not long after the setting of this story. He founded the modern police force, and repealed the hated Corn Laws. He is also noted for downplaying the terrible tragedy that was unfolding in Ireland.
Eating in London — I regret to say that I have taken liberties. The place that Cordelia and Socks meet, which I have called a dining room or eating house, is a bit of a far-fetched idea, if I’m honest. Women of a higher status had very little choice about where they ate. They would dine at home, and that was it. The lower classes, and men, had a wider choice, with cookshops and bakeshops and street vendors, coffee shops, taverns, chophouses, oyster rooms, and inns. Restaurants, as we know them, were not known of until the 1860s in England.
The best resource for Victorian London is a book by Judith Flanders called The Victorian City.
Do email me if you have any corrections, concerns or queries – [email protected] – or start a conversation on my facebook page.
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Look out for more adventures involving Cordelia and her retinue – coming throughout 2016.
Also available: contemporary light cozy mysteries set in Lincolnshire. The Some Very English Murders series is available here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019U21S7C