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My mother hardly left her chamber in the years before she died. On most days she would rise and dress and take her meals at a small table. The shutters remained closed, and though candlelit, the room was always gloomy. She relied on a few precious links to the outside world: conversations with my father and Mrs Perrin; her correspondence – though she always received far fewer letters than she sent; and the daily papers, which I would read with her each morning, perched at the foot of her bed. She would go through all the broadsheets no matter their politics or religious slant, and kept them stacked in leaning, dog-eared piles.
Once, when we’d settled down at the start of another morning, I heard her read aloud for a moment, under her breath. She recited the paper’s date, its title and motto, the price and page number, and I realized that Mother had a compulsion to read every word. I felt embarrassed, as if I’d overheard a delicate conversation. I considered telling my father, but he probably knew already.
It was difficult now to recall Mother as she was before. I could remember little things: flyaway strands of hair about her cap as she wrote a letter in slanting afternoon light; a plume on her headdress bent beneath the ceiling of the carriage; her wedding-band stark against her fingers, which had turned white because of her grip on a black iron railing. My clearest memory, the only one in which I could still see her face and remember how she spoke, was in Rutland Gardens when I was no more than four or five. We sat beneath a tree by the gate nearest the house, and she plucked a buttercup from the grass. The light glowed yellow against my chin, which meant, she said, that I was fond of butter. I protested that she’d known that already, and she smiled and touched the flower against my nose and said, ‘Well, this confirms it.’ Later on, I picked another buttercup in the back garden and ate some of the petals, thinking they would taste as good as the name suggested. The sap had stung my mouth, and made me ill, and Father sat me down to explain the poisons of common plants.
By the time I was old enough to notice, Mother no longer left our home. Occasionally she would dress herself to go out, don her gloves and coat, but she’d only make it to the front hall before deciding she could go no further. I remember my father trying to coax her through the door, doing his best to remain patient, but if ever his voice hardened, even for a moment, Mother would retreat up the stairs and that would be the end of it.
She began to skip meals, would avoid unshuttered windows in the parlour, and disliked it when the folding doors between the drawing rooms were left open. One day in the kitchen, I found her slumped on the flagstones before the cooking range, her skirts spread about in a circle. She was hunched and panting with her eyes closed tight, her hands over her shoulders trying to loosen the laces of her dress. I knelt beside her, asking what had happened, looking about the room for sign of danger. I took her hands, and kept repeating, ‘Mama,’ until she quietened and her breathing returned to normal. She didn’t get up. She just leaned her head against my shoulder and began to weep.
As the years passed, we talked less and less. She couldn’t understand the interest I had in natural philosophy and Father’s work – though she never discouraged me. And I didn’t know the people she spoke about in the society pages, or much care for their alliances and intrigues. I would often look with regret at Clarissa chatting or bickering with Mrs Egan, though it was hard to pine for something I had never possessed. A year after my own mother’s death, the saddest thing was that the house didn’t seem all that different without her.
Even now, Jimmy’s first task each morning was to fetch the early editions. I would take them to her cold, empty room and read at the foot of the bed, with all the other furniture covered in dust sheets. When finished, I left the papers on the kitchen table and they were picked off one by one: Father took the Morning Post; Liam the Freeman’s Journal; Mrs Perrin the Dublin Gazette.
All summer long, the lead articles had dealt with the curious weather, concentrating on the effects for farming and trade. But today, the Gazette told of a prophecy by an astronomer in Bologna who predicted the world’s end. The spots visible on the sun were the calderas of huge solar volcanoes, whose emissions would engulf the earth, by his calculations, in a fortnight’s time a little after lunch hour. The prediction had instilled dread in the minds of some. In Ghent, a storm happened to be blowing over the city when a regiment of cavalry had sounded their trumpets.
Suddenly cries, groans and lamentations were heard on every side. Three-fourths of the inhabitants rushed from their houses and threw themselves on their knees in the streets and public places, believing they had heard the Seventh Trumpet of the Last Judgement.
On another day I would have clipped that out to show Father over supper, so we could laugh at its silliness, but not today. Father had been at work all morning, summoning a jury, and accompanying them to the Rotunda so they could observe Miss Casey as she lay in her hospital bed. Father’s examination would come next, while the inquest itself would be held the following morning in the parish hall of St Thomas’s.
At around noon, Liam drove the cadaver cart through the back gate and into the wide entrance of the coach house. The bed of the cart had been covered in tarpaulin, hiding its cargo. Liam emerged soon after, and he closed the double doors. He must have left Emilie in the cart. Of course, Ewan wasn’t there to help him, and Father was away at the parish hall making arrangements for the hearing. Emilie would have to be taken to the dissection room later. Liam walked out into the stable lane, and he locked the gates behind him.
I hurried downstairs and through the kitchen, where Jimmy was cleaning a candelabra with a tin of polish, and out into the garden. The clouds had become low and heavy, and a sudden breeze whipped up the leaves on the path. There was no lock on the coach house, just a slide-bolt which I drew back, allowing me to slip inside.
Newton shuffled and nickered in his stall, but otherwise everything was still. Weak light filtered through the grubby, opaque windows, casting the clutter on the floor in a gloom. The carriage sat unhitched in the corner, and beside it the cadaver cart was propped on some wooden stocks so it stayed horizontal. I peeked beneath the tarpaulin. Emilie’s body lay beneath a white sheet that was tucked around the edges of a stretcher. I drew the tarpaulin aside, and gingerly pulled the sheet back to reveal her face.
Even in this light, she was ashen, her hair untied and lank. One of the eyelids had opened slightly, but all I could see was a sliver of dull white. It took me a moment to recognize her. When we had spoken, her expression had shifted between fear, suspicion and anger. Now it was blank and drawn. The sheet that covered her was spotless, but how her bedclothes must have been soaked and scarlet when they found her. I uncovered her left arm, steeling myself for how it would look, but the wrist was untouched and intact. I moved to the other side of the cart, plucked at the sheet and folded it back.
Two deep gashes had been carved on the inside of her right arm, one across the wrist, the other down the forearm to the heel of her hand, intersecting to form an upturned cross like that of St Peter. I reached out to touch her elbow, but couldn’t bring myself to do it, and had to turn away to take a breath. I waited for the constriction in my chest to ease, and then forced myself to look again.
The flesh was parted, bloodless and raw. Someone had cleaned her arm – not very thoroughly, and streaks of red remained. Where the cuts met, the four corners of skin were raised and puckered like the petals of a flower.
I tried to recall how she lay in the ward. This was the hand that had been restrained; I could see the broken skin and chafing from her manacle, and felt sure that she couldn’t have made these wounds if her wrist was bound in metal. Perhaps a nurse had removed the cuffs. But Emilie was a prisoner – she could not have been left unfettered for long. The cuts themselves were clinical, like incisions from a knife instead of a ragged shard of glass, no matter how razor-sharp it may have been.
I tried to picture her in the dead of night, hunched in the bed, scoring these marks into hersel
f. I ran my thumb over the sleeve of my dress. In what order had she done them? And after the first, would she have been able for the second?
Outside in the yard, Jimmy was calling my name. I hurriedly replaced the sheet and tarpaulin, and left the coach house before he could come in. He stopped on the path when he saw me, and said, ‘What were you doing?’
‘Looking for Kepler. I can’t find him anywhere.’
Jimmy pointed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘He’s in the parlour by the fire, like always.’
‘Oh.’
‘Mam asked me to fetch you for lunch.’
I felt my stomach turn. How did Father muster an appetite every day? I nodded and thanked him, and we both returned to the house.
When Father came back from the parish hall he went straight to his workrooms. All the shutters in the top floor of the coach house were opened – Father said that a body was best examined in natural light – but the clouds continued to gather, with odd flecks of yellow and brown, and when the rain began to fall, I could see the flicker of oil-lamps in the windows. I knew that he would see the peculiar features of Emilie’s wounds. He would decipher them as well. For my father, the dead rarely kept their secrets. I curled up on a chair as a chill draught entered the room, keeping a shawl closed with one hand, and my book open with the other.
Father remained at work for much of the day. He skipped supper to retire to his study, which wasn’t unusual on the eve of an inquest, for he could record his observations, prepare his remarks, and issue any final summonses.
It was late when the front doorbell rang. Darkness had fallen, and I stepped outside my room to where I could see down below. Kathy opened the door, and after an exchange of words four men passed into the hallway. They were dressed in the garb of the Brethren, jackets with hooks fastened up to the collar, the black cloth lost in the shadows. Kathy offered to take their coats, but one man flatly said, ‘No.’ As they filed into the parlour, the flicker of a candle shone its yellow light on the face of Mr Darby.
Kathy brought a message to my father, and he emerged from his study looking tired and irritated, spectacles still perched on his head. As he passed on the stairs, I said, ‘Why has Mr Darby come?’
It was the first I had spoken to him since that morning. ‘I do not know,’ he said, about to move on. Then he smiled briefly. ‘Perhaps they wish to convert me.’ He touched my forearm, continued on down the stairs and into the parlour.
Their meeting began without a call for refreshment, no request for Mrs Perrin to stoke the fire or trim the candles. I lingered in the hall, but could hear nothing of their discussion except a low murmur. One voice led the conversation, a soft drone that would be broken by quiet interludes. I placed my ear against the door frame. Father was speaking now, and I heard him say, ‘Gentlemen,’ in a terse, impatient tone. His armchair creaked, and footsteps strode across the wooden floor. I moved towards the basement stairs, pretending to be passing that way, just as the doorknob of the parlour twisted.
However, the door didn’t open. The knob remained turned for a few seconds, as if someone still held on to it, and then released slowly, small dents in the brass rotating in the candlelight. There was silence in the room. The voices resumed, soft and dull as before, and I went down to the kitchen.
Kathy and Jimmy waited for a while before going to bed. Mrs Perrin remained up, scouring plates in a washbasin. She told me that I should retire as well. ‘I’ll see the gentlemen out when they’re ready.’
‘I want to ask Father what they are speaking about.’
‘Perhaps it’s not meant for your ears,’ she said, letting murky water trickle from an upturned cup.
I bade her good night, and slipped through the darkened house again, pausing at the bottom of the stairs. The conversation continued. I listened for a moment longer, then knocked on the parlour door and entered.
Father sat in his usual place by the fire, both hands on the armrests. The flames had become low and red, and did little to dispel the cold. Three of the Brethren men stood in the middle of the room, all facing Father and looking down on him. They were known to me: Mr Nesham from across the square, Dr Labatt, and Judge Gould, who was the father of Edith, my former friend. Mr Darby stood separately by one of the bookcases, a volume opened in his hand, its ribbon dangling from the top of the spine.
Judge Gould was tall and stout, his Brethren coat well tailored. I could tell by his expression that he was the one who had been speaking. With a furrowed brow, he made his way to the window, hands held behind his back, and he gazed outside, though all he could see in the inky blackness was a pale reflection of the room.
Father shifted forward in his seat. ‘Was there something you wanted, Abigail?’ he said, a slight rasp in his voice.
‘Just to tell you that I am retiring for the night.’
Darby had not looked up since I’d entered. He touched his middle finger to the tip of his tongue, leaving it there for a second or two, before sweeping over a page of the book.
Father said, ‘Very well. I shall see you in the morning.’
He was ill at ease, meeting my eye only briefly. It could not have been through talk of religion. Father would have looked upon attempts to proselytize him with amusement; the more zealous the argument, the easier it would be to bat away.
None of the men said a word to me, as if my presence were an intrusion, when in fact the opposite was true.
‘Good evening, Judge Gould,’ I said. ‘I hope that Edith is well.’
He looked over his shoulder, his eyes cast down on the floor as though my friendship with his daughter belonged to a different time, or a different life. Darby lifted his head at the mention of Edith’s name. He took the ribbon to mark the page, and slipped the book back onto its shelf. ‘You must excuse us, Miss Lawless,’ he said. I thought he was apologizing for their aloofness, but rather he was asking me to leave. ‘We are not yet finished with your father.’
I looked towards Father in his chair, his shoulders sloping down. He nodded to me once, and I backed out of the parlour. Mr Darby’s eyes were upon me as I drew the door shut.
I waited ten or twenty minutes in my room before they departed and the front door rattled shut. Not long after, Mrs Perrin’s bright voice wished my father good night. I lay for another hour in the dark, waiting to hear him trudge to his chamber in the floor above. But he did not stir. A half-moon shone in my window, wispy and beige in the static haze. I watched it creep towards the window frame, and then rose to go downstairs.
The door to the parlour was ajar, and the only light inside came from a low candle. Father was still in his chair. At first I thought his head had dipped in slumber, but he was looking at something in his hands: a golden locket on a simple chain, which held a tress of my mother’s auburn hair curled up in a spiral. He rubbed his thumb over the oval disc, and placed it back into his fob pocket.
‘It’s late, Father,’ I said.
He looked up, and roused himself slightly in the chair. ‘I must have dozed off.’
He remained seated, and I moved towards him to kneel by the armrest. ‘What did those gentlemen want?’
Father patted his waistcoat to ensure the chain was secure. ‘It was as I feared,’ he said, forcing some humour into his voice. ‘They bored me to death with their canons and dogmas.’ He smiled at me, but it was half-hearted.
‘Was it because of what I did in the Rotunda?’
He reached out to take my hand. ‘No, Abigail. There is nothing for you to concern yourself with.’
Before I could speak again, he said, ‘I really must get to bed. There is work to be done in the morning.’ He seemed weary as he rose to place the guard before a fire that was spent and cold. He cupped his hand behind the candle, and blew it out.
When Father returned from St Thomas’s the following afternoon, I asked him about the inquest. He said that it had gone as expected. The jury found that Miss Casey’s son had been born alive and murdered by his mother, while her own death w
as declared suicide, or rather felo de se: a crime against herself.
I wanted to ask him about the wounds on Emilie’s arm, but he would no longer speak of the subject. Besides, how could I admit to knowing about them if I had not sneaked into the coach house, and I feared he would consider that a transgression too far. I told myself that it was the jury that came to the decision. They saw all the evidence, and I could only assume their verdict was deliberate and correct.
Father and I began to take our meals together again. For a week, we tried to avoid mention of Ewan’s absence, or the death of Miss Casey, but there had been one thing that I could not put off. I approached him in his study, and when I mentioned the nursemaid’s name he placed his pen flat on the desk. I handed him a thin length of wood, planed and varnished. Letters had been etched and painted black, spelling out the name ‘Morgan Casey’. Liam had fashioned it using his tools in the coach house.
‘In the Rotunda,’ I said, ‘I promised Emilie that I would mark her son’s grave. But I don’t know where it is.’
Father frowned at the nameplate, but when he looked at me his eyes softened. ‘He is in the still-born plot of St George’s,’ he said. ‘I shall make the arrangements.’
It had been a forlorn few days, so I was pleased when Clarissa sent a note saying she could accompany Mrs Perrin and me to the oyster sheds in Clontarf. We left on an overcast afternoon, the carriage rather crowded since Jimmy came as well. He sat beside his mother, reading from an alphabet chapbook: woodcut pictures of objects with their names printed and first letters underlined. The C was a crown; the H a harp; the W a whip. Clarissa sat beside me, resting her head on the window frame as the streets became narrow and the houses low. When we turned into Summer Hill, she had to lift her head as the carriage rattled over the uneven cobbles.
There was plenty to talk about. Gossip surrounding events in the Nesham household had turned the tragedy into a scandal. The tale of the fallen servant in a pious family spread quickly, and many people, even the irreligious, had become aware of the Brethren and its leader, Mr Darby. It was said that he was unmarried, and had been living with the Neshams for several months, at least as long as Emilie had been pregnant, but any direct suggestion of impropriety was left unspoken. Emilie’s story of the Gorey fisherman had been the one told at inquest, but that did not stop the speculation.
The Coroner's Daughter Page 5