The Coroner's Daughter

by Andrew Hughes

  His shoulders were slumped, and his head bowed a little. He began rubbing his fingers together, as if feeling the cold in the room, then he turned to look at me.

  ‘I should have told you at the time, but I thought that it would be less painful.’

  I was upset with him, though I knew the secret would have caused him nothing but heartache. Most of all I felt sorrow for my mother, for what she had gone through. The words we had used to describe her illness – her fixations, and phobias, and manias – they were so inadequate. How frightened she must have been, how deeply unhappy. When I sat with her each morning, speaking lightly of the day ahead, did she smile despite the darkness that surrounded her; or did it really ebb for those few moments? And if so, could I have stayed longer, lain beside her, told her that I would not leave until she felt safe and happy and well? I had convinced myself that she was content to be alone. When she would quail at the front door, reject my father’s attempts to bring her outside, and sometimes lash out at him, I was frustrated with her. She wasn’t trying hard enough. She didn’t want to be well. When attending salons with Clarissa, I became tired of answering questions about her health. There were only so many times I could say that she was indisposed, or visiting relatives, and I was relieved when people stopped asking. It all seemed so selfish now, so petty.

  I moved closer to Father, and leaned against his arm.

  ‘I didn’t want you to worry,’ he said. About her reputation, or what people would say. I didn’t want you to fear what may have happened to her soul.’

  ‘I do not believe God would have her suffer any more.’ The shadow of the treetops continued to play against the bedcovers, fading with a passing cloud. ‘I refuse to believe that.’

  We stayed still for some time. The sun took the chill from the room, bathing the dust sheets in white light, and revealing a slow drift of motes against the window frame. Eventually, Father said that he would have to return to court. His petition had not yet been heard.

  ‘Do you think it will be granted?’

  ‘I am certain of it. The inquest will resume tomorrow.’

  I remained lying on my mother’s bed for some time, then roused myself and went back down to the garden. The light snow had melted at this stage, except for some patches on the north-facing steps. I walked among the shrubbery, picked a nosegay of pale yellow primroses, and then made my way towards St George’s. A small graveyard was situated behind the church, bounded by brick walls that ran at odd angles because of the surrounding houses. The gate in the black iron railing was unlocked, and I wandered along the short paths to the corner where Mother was buried.

  When I leaned down to place the flowers by the headstone, I saw a round stump of wood barely peeking above the level of the earth. A thick stake, like those used to mark plot outlines, had been driven into my mother’s grave, the fibres of wood at the top flattened from the hammer blows. I began scooping the dirt from around its edge, but I couldn’t get a grip in the cold, wet mud. I knelt down and began digging further, dragging earth over the hem of my dress, and scratching my finger on a rock. About six inches of the pole was now exposed, but it wouldn’t budge, no matter how I grasped it. The earth sucked at the wood, and I feared it had been driven deep enough to achieve its purpose. I would have to fetch help, but I couldn’t bear leaving if Mother’s coffin was broken, and her body pierced. With a final heave there was movement, a tiny release more felt than seen. It was enough for me to keep working, and bit by bit the pole inched upwards. My coat was ruined, but I continued regardless. I could feel it give way, and the rest came free in one go. It was only three or four feet long, too short to have caused any damage, but I knew what it symbolized: the pierced hearts of suicides buried at crossroads. I had left an untidy mess on the bed of the grave, and I knelt down beside the headstone, exhausted. On the path beside me the primroses lay strewn. One rolled over in the breeze.

  Several people glanced at me as I made my way home, my hands and clothes covered in mud. When I turned the corner for home, I could see them, a group of Brethren, four men and a woman, standing at the bottom of our steps, handing out newspapers to the passers-by. The woman saw my approach. She looked me up and down, and a smile came to her lips.

  I stood before them, and said, ‘Get away from my home,’ forcing myself to be quiet.

  The men ignored me, and continued to hand out papers.

  ‘We do not want you here,’ I said. ‘Leave us be.’

  The woman still looked at me. Her serene smile never wavered.

  ‘Why do you smirk like that?’

  She leaned closer, as if to tell me a secret, and held my eye. ‘Because I know that your mother abides in agony.’

  I reached for the newspapers draped over her arm and ripped them away so that they fell and scattered in the gutter. The woman took a step back, but she did not appear to be alarmed. Her smile became an ugly leer, and she yelled out, ‘We are being assaulted.’ People in the street turned to view the commotion. I heard the front door open, and Mrs Perrin called out, ‘Abigail!’ She hurried down the steps, and put her arm about me to take me back to the house.

  One of the men said, ‘The girl is wild. She cannot control herself,’ but Mrs Perrin hissed at him to be gone. She led me up the steps, and I leaned my head against her shoulder as she closed the door behind us.

  12

  It was getting too late to read. The house had fallen dark and silent, and the air in my chamber was so still that the candle-flame hardly wavered. Everyone else was asleep, and the only noise came from outside: the clip-clop of a passing horseman on some midnight errand, and the tuneless singing of a drunk. I recognized his song: ‘Bonny Farday’, about a man who killed two women because they spurned him, before he realized they were his lost sisters. The drunk sang, ‘He asked one sister would she wife, He robbed her of her own sweet life.’

  The singing faltered when the high-pitched laugh of a woman rang out. I opened one shutter by a crack to look down. Lamps on the gates of Rutland Gardens cast a dim light, but otherwise the roadway was dark. I thought of girls my age and younger abroad in the night, huddled on cold corners, subject to the whims of coarse and dangerous men. But perhaps they’d look upon my concern with scorn, while I peeked from behind lace curtains.

  The fire had dwindled some hours before, and the room was cold again. I held my hands cupped over the small candle-flame. The lines between my fingers glowed red, and I wondered at how the light was able to burrow through my skin. I took the candle into the hallway and towards the landing on the stairs, where a window looked down over the back yard. No lights shone from my father’s workrooms.

  In the kitchen, I lifted the lantern off its hook above the sink, and removed a loose brick at the side of the chimney stack where Father kept his keys hidden. Before I picked them up, I noted how they lay, so I could put them back as I found them. I crept through the basement, past Mrs Perrin’s quarters and the small room adjacent to the pantry where Jimmy slept.

  The garden was long and narrow, with high walls on both sides, and a straight path that skirted past shrubbery and vegetable patches towards the mews. I held the lantern aloft by its wire handle, though the light only fell a short distance, which made the darkness beyond seem all the deeper. The breeze picked up, causing the leaves to whisper overhead, but once I reached the coach house everything had fallen silent.

  Inside, the ground was bare except for the usual clutter by the wall: buckets, forks and sweeping brushes, and the hulking form of the carriage unhitched at the back. I could hear the horses shuffle in their stalls as I went towards the stairs. The new lock to the workrooms was heavy and stiff, and only turned after much effort, and with a loud clunk.

  Strange shadows fell on Ewan’s desk from the pen-holder, paper-stamp and stacked files. I ensured the window shutters were closed tight, so no glimmer of light could betray me, then I unlocked the dissection room. The doorknob squeaked as I turned it, but the hinges were oiled, and the door swung inwar
ds with a gentle nudge.

  Even from the doorway, I could make out Edith on the examination table, the white sheet pulled up to her shoulders, and her long tresses hanging towards the floor. The room was stark, with dark floorboards and whitewashed walls, and a hearth with no mantelpiece. Cabinets and benches lined the walls, and wooden shelves held large glass jars, all clean and empty. A white porcelain sink sat in the corner, the space beneath filled with metal pails, folded white sheets and towels. All was spotless, despite the work that Father and Ewan had done in the last few days.

  The lantern-light fell on Edith’s face with a yellow hue. Her head rested on the raised lip that went around the table, causing her chin to dip slightly. Her shoulders were white and bare, which made the black threads of the slanting suture scars running beneath her collarbones all the more vivid. They met at her sternum, and another line going beneath the sheet would have formed a Y over her abdomen.

  She had been pulled apart and put together again, and despite the smell of potash-soap clinging to the surfaces, there was still a tang in the air, like the inside of a victualler’s shop.

  I placed the lantern on a small side table and stared at Edith’s face. She didn’t look like herself, and not just because of her pallor. A sagging and waning of the skin had begun, straightening her lips and eyelids, and making her cheeks gaunt and sunken. When was the last time I’d seen her? It was in Charlemont House beside one of the fireplaces. Mr Darby had asked her to dance, and her face, already flushed from the warmth of the room, became pinker still. Heads had turned to watch him lead her to the centre of the ballroom.

  I lifted the sheet at the side enough to bring Edith’s hand out. Her flesh was as cold as the table. I let go and rubbed my palm against my dress. How did Father and Ewan bear it? Did one ever become accustomed to handling the dead? Her fingers were pliable, and I opened them to look closer. Father once told me that external examinations had to be carried out in daylight, since some wounds would not show up in artificial light, but I had to make do. There was no sign of washerwoman’s hand – the wrinkled, sodden appearance in flesh that came from submersion in water. She may have been in the water for less than a few hours before they found her; or perhaps that appearance only lasted in drowning victims for a certain amount of time. I’d have to look it up, or ask Ewan.

  I thought back to how she lay in the reservoir, to ensure this was the hand that had clasped the hook. It was no longer there of course, but I remembered testing the strength of the hook on Robert Gould’s coat. Even my half-hearted effort had hurt my hand and left a small indentation in my palm. Edith would have been frantic, grasping at anything that came within reach, struggling in the dark. I drew the lamp closer and held her palm towards it like a fortune-teller. But for the normal lines and bumps of her hand, there were no other marks, no signs of injury. Maybe she managed to grasp it flat. Or perhaps the hook was loose and came off easily.

  A noise came from the office outside, a knock on a desk like someone putting down a cup. I let go of Edith’s hand, which fell flat on to the table. There was another sound: a swish of paper, perhaps the opening of a folder. No light came from the door. Whoever was out there must have seen the glow from my lantern; perhaps they assumed it had been left behind by accident.

  My light showed the space between the worktables and the surface of Ewan’s desk, but the corners of the room were cast in shadow. I listened for any movement downstairs. The horses hadn’t been disturbed.

  On Ewan’s desk, an inkpot lay on its side. I held the lantern higher; it swayed on its handle and cast shifting shadows on to the wall. Though the ink bottle was well fastened, I righted it in case it started to leak. I glanced back into the dissection room, and towards Edith on her table, one arm uncovered and exposed.

  I said, ‘Is anyone there?’

  There was the slightest pattering of footsteps on the floorboards, and then Kepler leaped on to the desk. I had to grip the lamp so as not to drop it. If it had fallen and smashed and left me in the dark, I’m not sure what I’d have done, but after a moment I caught my breath and calmed myself.

  Kepler stood amid Ewan’s things. He regarded me for a moment, then mewed.

  ‘You did that on purpose,’ I said, and scooped him up to put him out.

  I returned to Edith, replaced her hand beneath the sheet and smoothed the linen down. Whatever else my father and Ewan had learned would be presented at the inquest, and I would hear of it there. A cabinet beside the sink contained several items: the dress Edith had worn was hanging up, still stained with mud from the reservoir bed. The hook that was in her hand was sitting alone on a shelf, its small flap of fabric torn and ragged. There was a letter on the shelf below, folded and unsealed – no mark suggested it ever had been sealed. It was addressed to Mr Darby in forty-four Rutland Square:

  My dear Sir,

  I know that you asked me to think long about your offer before giving my answer, but from the first moment of its reception, I determined on which course to pursue.

  You are aware that I have many reasons to feel grateful to you for the solace and counsel you have brought to my family. Do not therefore doubt my motives when I say that my answer to your proposal must be no. I feel convinced that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to form the happiness of a man like you.

  Believe me,

  I am yours truly,

  E Gould.

  I read the letter twice, and then looked at Edith. Had her cheeks flushed at Charlemont House that night from discomfort rather than pleasure? Perhaps she had been loath to encourage the attentions of an unwanted suitor, and in so public a setting. In fact, the last time I’d seen Edith had not been with Mr Darby. She was with James Caulfeild, in hushed conversation in a deserted hallway, a conversation that Mr Darby had observed.

  The letter was undated and unsent, unless hand-delivered by Edith herself or someone in whom she had the utmost confidence. Had Mr Darby even seen it? And if he had, how had it come to be in Father’s possession? It could not have been on Edith’s person when she drowned, for the paper was firm and intact, and the ink hadn’t bled.

  I returned the letter to the cabinet, then looked around the room to ensure that I’d left no item in the wrong position. I was ready to leave, but before doing so I paused at the table, placed my hand on Edith’s over the sheet and stayed beside her for a moment. Then I locked the dissecting-room door and slipped back to the house.

  *

  I slept little for the rest of the night, and watched the grey dawn creep along a gap in the drapes. By the time morning came, the house was already busy. In the hallway, I saw Kathy bring coffee to my father’s study. He was hunched over some documents, still making annotations, his spectacles perched on his head. In the back yard, Liam was preparing the cart to transport Edith to St Thomas’s Hall, where the inquest would take place. The kitchen was its usual bustle of morning chores. Only the dining room was quiet. Ewan was alone at the table, a cup of tea and buttered roll before him. He stood and bid me good morning, then swept some crumbs from the tablecloth with his little finger and put them on his plate.

  ‘Father will be late for breakfast,’ I said, taking the seat opposite. It was my usual place, though it seemed oddly formal with just the two of us. ‘You must have a busy day ahead.’

  ‘Your father does, certainly. I assist only with the medical examinations, so have no part to play this morning.’

  ‘But you’ll attend the inquest?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Then we can take the carriage together.’

  Ewan placed a silver strainer in his cup and began to pour. ‘Are you sure you wish to go? These proceedings are often lengthy and uneventful.’

  I told him that I couldn’t miss it. Besides, I’d been to several before, and knew what they involved. I was thirteen when I first accompanied Father to an inquest. He had been reluctant to allow it, but it had been a principle of his, as far as practicable, not to deny a request from his
daughter that he would have granted to a son. Initially, he only brought me to cases where the details weren’t overly distressing: a man killed by a carriage when the horses were spooked, or an old lady who had mistaken crystals of oxalic acid for Epsom salts. The first case that I heard declared ‘wilful murder’ was a strange one. A labourer had tossed a misshapen brick from the roof of a house on to the street below without calling a warning. The brick hit a young girl on the temple and she died in hospital a few days later. Though the man hadn’t chosen his victim, the jury said his negligence had shown ‘a malice against all mankind’, as if he had coolly discharged a gun into a multitude. It was the first time I’d heard that expression, but it had stuck with me: that such a sentiment could exist in the world.

  Ewan placed a lump of sugar in his tea, but he didn’t stir it. Perhaps he liked the last mouthful to be the sweetest.

  He said, ‘Did you discover anything of interest in the dissection room?’

  I felt a colour rise in my cheeks. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Someone was there during the night. When I laid out Miss Gould’s body, I put her hand like this.’ He placed his palm flat on the table, then after a moment turned it over so it faced upwards. ‘Not like this.’

  When disturbed by Kepler, I’d pushed Edith’s arm under the sheet not minding how it lay. It seemed leaving a room without trace was more difficult than I supposed. I was annoyed with myself, but in a way the thought was encouraging.

  ‘How did Father come across the letter that Edith wrote?’

  Ewan didn’t answer at once. He might have scolded me that once again my actions were inappropriate, but there were only so many times you could say that to a person. If anything, he seemed relieved that I had not tried to deny it.

  ‘Robert Gould came here a few days ago and gave it to him,’ he said. ‘He found it in her bedroom.’

  ‘After she died?’

  ‘Presumably, unless he made a habit of going through her belongings.’