Keeper of Pleas

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Keeper of Pleas Page 9

by A. Wendeberg


  ‘I will try to remember your suggestion.’

  He stood and grabbed his cane, and they alighted.

  She bade him farewell with a mere quirk of her lips, and strolled across the street, mingling with the chaos of pedestrians, hansom cabs, and omnibuses.

  ❧

  ‘Rose,’ Mary called. ‘Quick, the water, there isn’t much time.’ She hurried into her room, kicked off her boots, and shed her coat, dress, and undergarments.

  She washed the dirt of the journey off. She was hungry, but supper would have to wait. Naked as she was, she opened the window, drew the curtains, and placed her hands on the reveal.

  The door opened. The rustle of a coat. The clink of a belt. Thick fingers curled around her neck.

  ‘Two weeks,’ he growled and rubbed his groin against her bare arse. ‘Two weeks you eluded me. For what? For another? Don’t speak. I don’t want to hear your excuses. What you need is a strong hand.’

  He grabbed her neck harder, drove his cock home, and slammed her head against the wall.

  —Sleeping Draught—

  Mary followed the scents of scorched onions and cooked meat. Down the stairs and into the kitchen. Her stomach was grumbling. The ladies were already assembled around the table, someone had placed a beeswax candle and a few pinecones onto its kinked surface. Claire distributed punch into six mugs, Rosalinda picked lice from Abby’s scalp, and Lily shoved blood pudding into her mouth.

  Old Ava hoisted the pot with steaming potatoes onto the table. ‘Merry Christmas, lassies! Eat up.’

  ‘Is that gravy in there or—’ Mary received a slap on her head as she approached the small pot, reaching with her spoon.

  ‘Be quiet and say your grace,’ Old Ava said.

  ‘My what?’

  ‘Thank you! Amen!’ screeched Rosalinda. She wiped her hands on her dress, and tucked in.

  ‘Use vinegar. Kills the buggers right off.’ Ava pointed the ladle at Abby, who scratched her head in response. Her red curls looked like a prickly shrub on fire.

  Claire impaled a small potato with her fork, held it up, nodded importantly, and said, ‘Did I ever tell you about this particular fella?’

  A collective groan echoed through the kitchen.

  ‘So he knocks on my door and I says, “Come on in,” and so in he comes. He’s awfully drenched with rain. And he has a cute little waistcoat on, checkered, with a gold chain dangling from the pocket. His right eye is pinched around a golden monocle that’s all fogged up. He’s half blind, mind, but doesn’t take the thing off. And then he says, “Madam!” he says, and bows as if I was the queen or something. So he says, “Madam, I must warn you.” And he fumbles on his trousers — doesn’t even take off his coat or anything, but goes straight to his trousers — and then he…’

  Claire scrambled up onto her chair, stepped onto the table, careful not to set her skirts on fire with the candle, and hollered, ‘“Madam, I must warn you. My tool may not fit.”’

  She yanked her skirts up to her ears and all she wore underneath were stockings and garters, and everyone could stare straight into her Garden of Eden.

  ‘Was it remarkable?’ Rosalind asked, only half-interested.

  ‘Och, no.’ Claire kept her skirts up, looked down at her audience, and moved her hips from side to side. ‘He wiggled it a bit and then it grew.’

  ‘Did you wash that before you put it on the table?’ Mary enquired, pointing her spoon at Claire’s pubes.

  Abby snorted. Bits of blood pudding landed on the table.

  Claire dropped her skirts and jumped back onto her chair. ‘It was the size of this wee thing.’ She held up the potato she had skewered with her fork. ‘But he was convinced he would hurt me if he put it inside me.’ She stuck the tuber into her mouth, bit down, and swallowed it in one gulp.

  ‘Did you do him the favour of screaming a bit?’ Abby asked.

  ‘You think I’m a cold-hearted monster? Begged him to spare me…oh, the torture…! He promised to return, the little rantallion. I thought him quite sweet. Is there more of that blood pudding, Old Ava?’

  ‘Where’s Rose?’ Mary asked.

  ‘I saw her with a bucket earlier. She’s probably scouring floorboards somewhere,’ Claire provided, as Old Ava noisily slopped another serving of blood pudding onto Claire’s plate.

  ‘But she must be hungry.’

  ‘She knows when it’s lunch time,’ Old Ava said.

  Mary climbed down the stairs to the basement, pushed at the heavy door, and entered to a loud creak. The room was as dark as a coal mine, and she regretted she hadn’t brought a candle. ‘Rose?’ she called.

  No answer.

  She listened in the dark and heard a small shuffling noise just beneath the short set of steps. She peeked through and saw a dim light. ‘What are you doing?’

  Still no answer. Mary grabbed the banister and carefully probed for the steps with her feet. She made it down without falling, but knocked her head on a ceiling beam as she turned.

  ‘Ouch!’

  ‘Mary?’

  ‘Rose? What are you doing here?’

  ‘Celebrating Christmas. Want to join?’

  ‘Oh! Yes. Thank you.’

  Mary approached the small light, careful not to stumble over the clutter that had accumulated over the years.

  Rose’s outline was barely visible. The closer she got and the more her eyes adapted to the darkness, the more she saw of the girl: the tip of her nose, her chin, wisps of hair sticking out of a shawl she’d tied around her head and shoulders to keep out the chill. Her hands held a thin stick with which she pushed something about in a tub. The girl smiled, mesmerised.

  ‘I made two. Want one?’ Rose asked.

  ‘One what?’

  ‘A boat.’

  Rose handed Mary a small wooden object. ‘Hold it still,’ she said, struck a match and brought it to Mary’s hand. It was the shell of a walnut, a tiny candle stuck into it. Rose lit the wick. ‘Put it in the water.’

  Mary did as she was told, wondering what could be so special about a walnut and an old, battered zinc tub. When her ship touched the water, she understood. ‘Oh!’ was all she could utter.

  ‘You are the captain of your ship.’ She handed Mary a thin stick. ‘And I am the captain of mine. We are explorers.’

  With their sticks, they began pushing their ships across the dangerous, wide waters. The small bubbles of light illuminated a magic underwater world, a new universe wherever they went: shiny black pebbles here, the house of a snail — yellow with black stripes — there. A handful of light-blue glass shards became a school of impossibly quick fish, the jagged neck of a green bottle became a treacherous sea monster. They explored the deep sea, fought through mighty waves, and wove about forgotten mangrove forests, all the while Rose softly sang a song she’d made up, a song of rough pirates, brave girls, and wild adventures.

  ❧

  Aside from the pockmarks the mining company had gnawed into Bedfordshire and the piles of Fuller’s Earth vomited out in the process, Woburn Sands could be described as an exemplar of picturesque. With its pretty homes and front yards that must all have won a gardening competition at one point or another, the hamlet sent chills down Sévère’s spine. He wanted to get back to Whitechapel as quickly as possible, where the ugliness of mankind was apparent and not hiding behind lace curtains and perfectly-trimmed rose bushes (never mind the temporary nakedness of the latter).

  He passed a bakery, a pub, a cobbler, a second-hand shop, and a school before he finally found the town council house. All of these were respectable red-brick buildings with elaborately carved, white-washed timber frameworks — masterpieces of traditional carpentry and masonry. Sévère rubbed the back of his tingling neck, and banged the knob of his cane on the door in front of him. It was opened by a thickset man in his fifties.

  ‘Gavriel Sévère, Coroner of Eastern Middlesex. I need to speak with the inspector of the Woburn Sands police office.’

  ‘That’ll b
e me.’ The man held out his hand. ‘Peter Fenwick’s the name. Come on in. You look like you need a hot tea. And biscuits, perhaps?’

  ‘Tea,’ Sévère managed to reply.

  They entered a small room on the ground floor, which contained one chair, one largely-empty desk, three shelves with yellow-backed novels, and an armchair with a lace antimacassar. An abundance of immaculate doilies covered the polished furniture, and two shiny, lace-curtained windows were adorned with a flowerpot in each sill.

  ‘Have a seat, please. I’ll get the tea.’

  Sévère pulled off his gloves and sat in the armchair, wondering if even Fenwick’s undergarments were made of lace. He shook himself and blinked the image away.

  When the inspector returned, Sévère said, ‘I see you are alone.’

  ‘I’m married, and father to five wonderful children.’

  ‘I was referring to the police station.’

  ‘Oh. Of course you were. Well, there isn’t much policing to be done here. But my people keep me busy. You see, I’m also the mayor.’

  Fenwick stirred sugar and milk into his tea, sipped noisily and, with a soft clink, set the cup onto the saucer. ‘How may I help you, Coroner?’

  ‘I was hoping you could provide me with information regarding a case I’m working on at present.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to help. What is the nature of the case? I haven’t heard of any unlawful killings in Bedfordshire.’

  ‘I’m investigating multiple counts of infanticides. I have reason to believe the perpetrator lives here.’

  Fenwick turned a pasty white. His hand gripped the saucer hard. The cup rattled. Droplets of tea spilt onto his trousers, unnoticed.

  ‘It would help greatly if I were granted insight into all case notes of infanticide, baby farming, rape, murder, manslaughter, adultery, concealed birth, and death by neglect in the past ten years.’

  ‘No such…’ Fenwick cleared his throat with difficulty. ‘There have been no such cases for ten, fifteen, probably twenty years. Not here or anywhere in Bedfordshire. Except…’ Frowning, he picked up his cup and took a sip. ‘A young shepherd was molested by a tramp who was never found. The boy was badly injured.’

  ‘What kind of injuries?’

  Fenwick coughed. ‘Castration. The surgeon couldn’t do much for him. But he found that the young man had been raped. Probably multiple times before his…his testicles were cut off. Happened in summer 1867. You must have read about it in the papers.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Wasn’t he found bound, unconscious, and with his testes stuffed into his mouth? An astonishing case.’

  ‘Astonishing? I wouldn’t call it—’

  ‘And that’s the only violent crime you know about?’

  ‘That’s one too many already, if you ask me.’

  ‘Are there any women offering foster care for infants in your district?’

  ‘Yes. Betsy Fouler. She’s a good woman.’

  ‘I need her address.’

  ‘Coroner, I greatly doubt—’

  ‘Until this case is solved, I have jurisdiction over the whole of Bedfordshire. Presently, I need to talk with Mrs Fouler.’

  ‘I’ll accompany you.’

  ‘I would much prefer if you could go through all your files and find—’

  ‘There’s no need for this.’ The inspector interrupted harshly. ‘Woburn Sands has three hundred and twenty-two inhabitants. I know every soul here. I know who was born, when and where, and who died, when and under what circumstances, for the past ten years, and I don’t need to consult my files to know this. In all my time as a policeman, precisely one crime has been reported, common brawls not included.’ He poked his index finger into the air. ‘A burglary which turned out to be a drunken neighbour trying the wrong door. I will accompany you to Mrs Fouler, Coroner Sévère.’

  With that, Fenwick stood, screwed his top hat onto his skull, buttoned his coat, and yanked open the front door.

  They walked down the main road, a gentle slope that allowed a view across woodlands. Upon Sévère’s enquiry as to the Fuller’s Earth deposits, Fenwick happily provided all relevant information, and much more:

  ‘At the southern end are most of the mining pits. The company has to dig twenty, twenty-five yards deep. There’s even a thin layer of sandstone they have to break through. We export to—’

  ‘Is there a shallow layer of Fuller’s Earth? A cledge?’

  ‘There is. Just beneath the sandstone. That would be…’ He looked up at the sky, thinking. ‘At twelve to eighteen yards depth. The major turning point for us was the Bedford-Bletchley Railway in 1846. The Duke of Bedford supported its development. Since then we’ve been exporting bricks and Fuller’s Earth around the whole of Britain.’

  ‘Hm,’ said Sévère.

  ‘Over there at Hogsty End and Aspley Hill…’

  Sévère didn’t listen. He scanned the houses and theorised as to what could possibly lay hidden behind the pretty facades.

  ‘…developed into a holiday destination for the Londoners. Ah, what am I saying. A health resort! We have a hotel, guest houses, refreshment rooms, souvenir shops—’

  ‘And despite all these strangers, one burglary, committed by a sot who couldn’t find his own home, is that all that has ever happened to the good people of Woburn Sands.’ Sévère’s voice was brittle with sarcasm.

  ‘Um…exactly. Ah. Here we are.’ Fenwick opened a small gate and stepped into the front yard. The evergreen bushes were shaved into perfect egg shapes, the brick walkway was polished and void of weeds and mosses of all kinds, and the flowerbeds seemed to have been drawn with a ruler.

  Fenwick knocked. The door was opened by a scrawny woman in her sixties. She wore a stiff, black dress and a spotless apron. She appeared altogether freshly laundered, starched, and pressed.

  ‘Oh hello, Peter. How are you doing? I see you’ve brought a visitor. How lovely!’

  ‘Gavriel Sévère, Coroner of Eastern Middlesex.’ Sévère tipped his hat. ‘I’m investigating a multiple infanticide.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she sighed and grabbed the door frame for support. ‘Am I being arrested?’

  ‘Should you be?’ Sévère asked.

  ‘Betsy, would you mind offering us a cup of tea?’

  ‘Oh, where are my manners?’ She bustled back into the house, forgetting to invite them in. Fenwick beckoned Sévère into the hall, and shut the door.

  The hallway was rather small. Nonetheless, Mrs Fouler had managed to cram in a lot of furniture. Of the wallpaper, not one patch showed below waist height. Above that, much of it was covered by paintings — mostly romantic landscapes.

  It took Sévère a moment or two to realise what was missing from the scene: noise. He dropped his hat onto a hat-stand and his coat onto a hook, and followed Fenwick through a corridor and into the drawing room.

  ‘How many charges do you have at present, Mrs Fouler?’ he asked when she had served the tea.

  ‘Eight lovely little angels.’

  He peeled back his lips. ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘It is nap time. They are sleeping upstairs.’

  ‘Would you tell me more about the services you offer? May I see your registration papers?’

  Her head swivelled toward Fenwick. ‘Peter, tell me the truth. Am I a suspect?’

  Fenwick leant forward and patted her freckled hand. ‘No, you are not. I can assure you. Am I correct, Mr Sévère?’

  ‘Quite so, Inspector.’

  Reassured for the moment, Mrs Fouler left and returned with her papers a few minutes later. Sévère inspected them and found them to be genuine. ‘Thank you, Mrs Fouler. How long have you been offering boarding for children and infants? I expect you keep infants, too?’

  ‘Oh, exclusively. I am getting a bit too old to manage little rascals of eight, nine, or ten years of age. The wee ones are much easier.’

  Sévère nodded. To him, all children were annoyingly difficult creatures.

  ‘After my husband die
d, may the Lord rest his soul, I opened my home to illegitimate children. You see, the mothers don’t know what to do with them. These young women have disgraced themselves. And their parents. Naturally, they give away their children soon after birth, and then they move to another town where no one knows them or their immoral history. They try to find work there, or even a husband.’

  ‘Do they ever come back for their children?’

  ‘Not before a child can earn its keep.’

  ‘At what age?’

  ‘Three years.’

  ‘Do all your children go back to their mothers?’

  ‘Well…no.’ She crumpled her apron between her hands. ‘Often, the mother never returns. Sometimes a child dies.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘Only two mothers have taken back their children.’

  ‘How are you paid?’

  ‘I’m paid twenty pounds for the first three years.’

  ‘How can an unwed mother afford to pay twenty pounds, and how is this amount enough to feed and clothe a child?’

  ‘It is enough. Just enough. It’s usually paid by the bastard’s father.’

  ‘To keep the mother quiet,’ Sévère mused. ‘How many children have died in your care?’

  She croaked something Sévère didn’t understand. He asked her to speak more clearly.

  ‘Six.’

  ‘Out of how many?’

  ‘Twenty-four.’

  One in four. Sévère rose. ‘Mrs Fouler, I wish to see your charges. Inspector Fenwick, the local practitioner will have files on the deaths of these children. I want you to fetch him for me. Including his files.’

  ‘Coroner, I can assure you that—’

  ‘You can assure me by delivering the practitioner and his files within the next quarter hour. Now, Mrs Fouler, if you please?’

 

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