The Coroner's Daughter

by Andrew Hughes

  The Coroner’s Daughter

  Andrew Hughes

  For Trish

  1 Rutland Square – 2 Blessington Street Basin – 3 Charlemont House –

  4 St George’s Church – 5 Abbey Street – 6 Pill Lane

  7 Royal College of Surgeons – 8 Fitzwilliam Square – 9 Trinity College –

  10 Hawkins Street – 11 Royal Irish Academy

  1

  For my eighteenth birthday, Father promised me the hand of a handsome young man, which he duly delivered mounted in a glass bell-jar. The gift-box had been waiting for me in the parlour, neatly tied with a single black ribbon. Firelight danced along the curve of the glass as I held it up. The bones, blackened at their joints, were closed over in a loose grip. The index finger and thumb curled upwards, like a figure pointing in some old Italian painting.

  Father said, ‘Can you believe they were going to throw that away from the storage room in York Street?’

  I tilted the jar so the forefinger moved ever so slightly, as if it wanted to tap against the glass. ‘How old is it?’

  ‘No one was sure, though I seem to remember it being there when I was a student.’

  ‘I thought you said that he was young and handsome.’

  ‘Ah, well, I can tell these things.’

  I glanced at him. ‘Is that so?’

  ‘It’s the ratio of the distal and middle phalanges,’ he said, flexing his own fingers. ‘A dead certainty.’

  I spent the morning finding it a home. Mrs Perrin wouldn’t allow it in the parlour, and the bookcases in the study were full, so I placed the jar on a shelf in my bedroom, nudging it between framed portraits of John Hunter and Edward Jenner. Both had been frontispiece etchings, which I’d removed with the aid of a ruler and one of Father’s scalpels. On my desk, a raven’s quill lay across an unsigned letter. I’d meant to show that to Father earlier, so I fetched my shawl, hoping to catch him before he became ensconced in his work. I glanced out of my window. Frost still lingered on the lawn, and his footprints were visible leading to the mews at the bottom of the garden.

  We called it Father’s little charnel house, but from the outside it looked quite cheery – almost a house in its own right, with grey slates and red bricks and ivy crowding the sash windows. The stables took up the ground floor. Newton and Boyle lifted their heads above the half-doors as I passed by the carriage and cadaver cart. The rooms upstairs had once been home for the coachman and his family, and even now whenever a new case arrived, Father liked to direct the pall-bearers up to ‘the living quarters’.

  Its front office was sparse, just a few desks and shuttered cabinets, and a long worktable in the middle of the room. Ewan was there, seated in the corner and writing in a ledger. His pen stilled. We both waited for the other to speak, then began to greet each other at once, then stopped and fell silent. I said, ‘I was just looking . . .’

  ‘He is in the dissecting room.’

  ‘Oh.’ The only room that I was not allowed to enter.

  Ewan noticed the letter in my hand. ‘But I can deliver that to him if you wish.’

  ‘Do you mind if I wait instead?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all.’ He seemed ready to find me a chair, but I hoisted myself up to sit on the edge of the examination table. Ewan cast his eyes over the work surface, before returning his attention to the ledger.

  Father’s assistant was a young man from the Scottish Lowlands who had come to Dublin to study medicine at Trinity. His second year would begin in the autumn, but for several months he had worked alongside Father for practical experience. Ewan was tall, a few inches taller than me, with slim fingers, a thicket of chestnut hair, and eyes with a downward, wistful slant. He would often work late into the evening, and from my room I’d see candlelight flickering in the windows at the foot of the garden.

  Father emerged from the dissecting room bearing a tray covered in white cloth. He smiled when he saw me, pushed the door closed with his heel and placed the tray on a side table.

  I slipped from the bench and held my letter out. ‘Can you sign this?’

  ‘What is it?’ he said, reaching for his spectacles.

  ‘A letter to the editor of the Royal Society.’

  ‘Your observations on the sunspots?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  Once the glasses were perched on his nose, he took the page and held it close to his face. Abigail, did I not forbid you from writing to the Royal Society?’ His lower lip protruded as he tilted the page towards the light. After last time.’

  ‘No, you only forbade me from forging your name.’

  ‘Oh, yes. That was it.’

  I went to the table where the covered tray had been set down. Ewan stood next to it, filling a glass bowl with water from a pewter jug.

  I said, ‘What’s this?’

  ‘I’m not sure I should—’

  ‘A very sad case. Came in yesterday.’ Father spoke while continuing to read, the corners of his mouth downturned. He frowned at the letter. Are you sure this figure is correct?’

  ‘I checked it twice. May I take a look?’

  Ewan gripped the side of the tray between his thumb and forefinger. ‘Really, I am not at all—’

  ‘You may.’

  The edge of the cloth was thick because of the double-fold of the hem. I waited for Ewan to remove his hand and then drew the fabric aside.

  Two small organs sat in the middle of the tray lying perpendicular to one another. They were squat with a slight tapering, appeared dry to the touch, and were coloured a strange blend of pallid brown and red, with tinges of green and blue.

  ‘Lungs,’ I said. ‘The lungs of an infant.’

  Father dipped a pen in ink and signed his name to the letter. A new-born boy.’

  ‘Brought from the Rotunda?’

  ‘No. There was an incident in the home of Mr Nesham in number forty-four.’

  I knew of the man – a middle-aged barrister who lived across the square with his young wife and toddler daughter. The family would take strolls together in the sheltered paths of Rutland Gardens, the girl swaddled against the unseasonable cold.

  I looked down at the tray. ‘Was this . . . his son?’

  ‘Oh no, no.’ Father paused and pursed his lips. ‘Well, I presume not.’

  He said that the child belonged to a young servant first employed by the Neshams as a nursemaid. ‘In the past few weeks, Mr Nesham came to suspect that the maid was in the family way, though the girl denied it. On Sunday she took to her bed complaining of sickness, with symptoms so severe that a doctor was called, and he found that she had given birth within the previous twenty-four hours.’

  Father placed his pen nib-first in its upright holder. ‘The girl said the child fell from her, early in the morning while she happened to be out of bed. He was already dead, or died when he struck the ground, and she was so distraught, and felt so forlorn, that she bundled him up and dropped him in the Blessington Street Basin.’

  The basin was a city reservoir not far from here. Father paused in his account and came to the table. ‘Mr Weir, put some more water into that beaker. Up to the gallon.’

  Ewan poured until the level reached a small marker etched in the glass.

  ‘Did they find the child in the reservoir?’ I said.

  ‘No, there is more to it.’ He straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. ‘But first, you may have noticed, Mr Weir, that the lungs are not displayed in their true position. They are back-to-front and top-to-bottom. So,’ he said, raising an index finger, ‘how can we tell the left from the right?’

  Ewan blinked twice, and bent lower to peer at the tray. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘the way to distinguish the lungs.’ He folded
his arms across his chest. ‘The distinct features of the left and right . . .’

  I began tapping my thumb against the corner of the table. ‘Where did they find the baby if not the reservoir?’

  ‘Come now, Ewan,’ said Father, eager for his pupil to get the answer. ‘We went over this just a few weeks ago.’

  After more of his humming, I pointed into the tray. ‘That one was on the left. It contains the cardiac notch and has no middle lobe.’

  ‘Abigail, the question was for Mr Weir.’

  ‘But I want to hear the rest of the Nesham story.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Well, before he asked the authorities to trawl the city basin, Mr Nesham decided it best to search the maid’s room. The child was discovered wrapped in a rug and concealed beneath the bed. As Mr Nesham unfolded the bundle, he said to the girl that he hoped she had done no violence to the child, and she replied, “Oh sir, you will soon see.” He found the boy with his throat cut, and a penknife lying on his breast.’

  I glanced again at the two tiny lungs, stark against the metal tray. ‘She murdered her own baby?’

  ‘That is the assumption. Though the maid insists the child was dead-born; that she had taken the blade to cut the navel string, and at that moment, when she saw the consequences of her sin and shame, such was her state of mind that she did not know her actions.’

  Ewan’s face was solemn. ‘That is hardly a credible claim.’

  ‘No,’ said my father. ‘But since it could spare her being charged with murder, it is one that deserves to be tested.’

  He drew the glass bowl towards him and placed an oil-lamp beside it. The water was a bit cloudy, with tiny particles swirling this way and that as if they’d been startled by the light.

  Father picked up each lung in turn and slipped them into the water, as Mrs Perrin would drop fillets of meat into a pan. The organs drifted down; tiny bubbles formed and clung to their sides. They slowed as they neared the bottom, bumped against the base of the bowl and each other, before beginning to climb again. They rotated upwards, breached the water’s surface and remained afloat, their tops bobbing and glistening in the lamplight.

  Ewan and I had leaned down to look closer so our heads almost touched. He said, ‘The lungs are buoyant.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The baby must have taken a breath.’

  Father prodded one so it submerged, and he watched it float to the surface again. ‘I would say several. In fact, he may have cried for a few moments. I am surprised that it did not alert the household.’

  There had been a hailstorm that night. I’d lain awake listening to the incessant tattoo – the strongest gusts had sounded like boots crunching through gravel.

  ‘She did murder him,’ I said.

  ‘Abigail, what have I told you about jumping to conclusions? This only confirms that the child was murdered.’ He picked up a large perforated spoon, like those used to remove poached eggs, and the lungs drained as he fished them out. ‘Though I admit she is by far the most likely culprit.’

  ‘Why would you doubt it?’

  Father handed the spoon to Ewan. ‘Mr Weir, will you return this to the kitchen, preferably without Mrs Perrin seeing you, then use the water on the orchids in the greenhouse?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I promised Nesham that I would visit his home in the afternoon to tell him what I had found. Then I have a lecture to give.’ Father began to look around his office while patting the sides of his pockets. ‘Abigail, we also have an appointment in town, so you’d best come with me.’

  I thought he’d forgotten – had hoped he’d forgotten. An afternoon undisturbed in the library had beckoned. ‘Perhaps we should postpone that. Your meeting with Mr Nesham is too important.’

  ‘We cannot. Mrs Meekins is our only remaining option. And when we speak to her, you are not to question her methods.’

  ‘Even if they make no sense?’

  ‘Especially if they make no sense.’

  Ewan had been watching our exchange, but when I glanced at him, he took up the spoon and withdrew. Father said, ‘You know your mother wished for you to develop pastimes that were more . . . typical for a young lady.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘So I want you to be good.’

  My letter remained on his desk, and I gently brushed a finger over his signature. The ink didn’t smudge, at least not very much, so I folded the sheet into my pocket and said, ‘Yes, Father.’

  My bedroom was on the second floor of our house in Rutland Square, bought by my father just before I was born, reflecting his intention then to have a large and sprawling family. But that was not to be. Since there was no shortage of space, I had been given my own room from an early age: a wide chamber with two tall windows and a high ceiling, which I grew into like a hand-me-down dress. I lay reading on my bed for much of the morning, though occasionally I had to leaf back a page or two when my mind would wander to the infant in Father’s workrooms.

  Clarissa called on me before noon and suggested we while away an hour at the art exhibition in Hawkins Street. By the time we set off, a fog had settled over the city, lending each shop window a candlelit glow. The mist drifted over the Liffey and swallowed up the masts moored outside the Customs House.

  Clarissa and I had been friends since childhood, ever since the day I whispered an answer in her ear as she floundered in Sunday school. We were the same age, give or take a few months, and though she was the daughter of our pastor, Rev Egan, Mrs Perrin was rather wary of her influence. Clarissa suffered from anaemia, and had been prescribed iron-rich stout by her physician. Early on, she began saving up the bottles in order to share them with me. She would smuggle the stout beneath bundles of cotton in her embroidery basket, and we would sip and chat and giggle at our boldness. At first I told her not to, since they were intended to make her feel better, but she said not to be silly; after all, she liked having a pale complexion.

  In the carriage, she sat huddled in her fur-lined pelisse, and looked at the sky with displeasure. ‘If the summer continues like this, Abby, I am resolved to move to East India, or the Carolinas.’

  ‘You would soon complain of the heat,’ I said.

  ‘Never.’

  I followed her gaze. Back in the spring, almost overnight, a dry fog had crept over the city, and had lingered ever since despite the buffeting of wind and rain. Electrical storms had become frequent, discharging so much forked lightning that people thought the skies must clear, that the atmosphere would be diffused and spent like the inside of a Leyden jar. But each time, we rose to discover the arid mist still in place, dimming and reddening the sun, and making the black dots scattered about its disc quite clear to the naked eye.

  I turned back to Clarissa. ‘What about all the suitors you would leave broken-hearted?’

  ‘I would be sure to remember them with great fondness.’

  The carriage slowed as we neared the Society of Arts, a handsome building on a narrow side street. A queue had formed at the entrance, but another group of people were standing nearby, men and women all dressed in black. The men wore coats fastened with metal hooks instead of buttons, and a white cravat tucked beneath the collar.

  Clarissa said, ‘The Brethren.’

  I had seen their members quite often of late, standing outside church railings, or handing out leaflets beneath Nelson’s Pillar. They were led by a preacher named Mr Darby, who had arrived in the city the year before, and as the weather became ever worse, their numbers seemed to grow. They conducted strange rites in public – dark processions that wound through the streets, and baptisms by immersion in the sea.

  Clarissa said, ‘My father has come to dislike these evangelicals. Though I think he is mostly saddened at losing members of his own congregation. The Bowens, the Neshams, the Walkers, they have all been seduced away.’

  ‘The Neshams?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They were among the first.’

  We alighted from the carriage and
joined the queue. The Brethren remained silent, casting cold stares in our direction until we paid for our tickets and entered the hall.

  The exhibition room was warm and brightly lit by tall, arched windows. Every inch of wall from floor to ceiling was covered in paintings, huge pastorals and battle scenes in gilded frames, small portraits of dogs and children, all fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle. Men and women wandered the floor, pausing beneath a particular canvas, or talking together on sofas in the middle of the room. Smaller galleries were attached to the main hall, dedicated to the sciences, geology and engineering. One contained pillars taken from the Giant’s Causeway, and a polished white opal enclosing a drop of water. Another displayed pieces of fossil, all neatly arranged and labelled, and antlers from a giant elk found in a Kilkenny bog.

  Clarissa preferred new paintings to old relics, and so we stayed in the main hall, pointing out pictures that caught our fancy. One showed a young woman reclining in a woodland. She wore nothing except for some diaphanous material that covered her legs, and she rested her head in the crook of her arm. Her skin was pale, and the trees in the background were dark and forbidding.

  We regarded it for a few moments, and I said, ‘She must be freezing.’

  Clarissa smiled and tilted her head. ‘I wonder what Mrs Hone would make of it.’

  When we were younger, we had attended drawing lessons together at a house in Merrion Square. An old master portraitist taught local boys in the use of oils, while his wife, Mrs Hone, gave lessons in watercolours to three girls: myself, Clarissa, and Edith Gould from Fitzwilliam Square. Mrs Hone referred to us as her Three Graces, and we spent many warm afternoons wandering the paths in Merrion Park picking flowers for our still lifes. Edith was by far the most talented, and we had remained friends for several years, but neither Clarissa nor I had spoken to her in months. The Goulds had been another family to join Mr Darby’s church, and now our paths rarely met.

  The final gallery was the hall of statuary, a semicircular room lined with busts and pieces of cast bronze, dominated by three life-size sculptures of Greek gods: Poseidon and Zeus, all twisting torsos and taut muscles, and Aphrodite, partially draped, her head downcast with blank, staring eyes. Each statue stood on its own plinth, and people walked between them. There was some commotion behind us, and I turned to see two members of the Brethren marching through the hall, an older man and a girl of no more than sixteen. They must have barged in without paying, for a curator followed behind them, remonstrating loudly.