Death at Dawn

by Caro Peacock

  Daniel looked across at me.

  ‘He kept that promise,’ he said.

  I think it was in his mind, like mine, that my father might have lived if he’d broken it. She nodded.

  ‘I thought he would. I did as he told me and stayed where I was. The place wasn’t much better than a brothel, but he wasn’t to know that, and anyway I kept to my room. The morning after next, just as he’d promised, he called for me. He’d taken a couple of seats for us on the stage. There was no sign of the fat devil or his people, though I kept looking around me and I wasn’t even half easy in my mind until we were well out of Paris. To be honest with you, I knew I shouldn’t be really easy till I was my own side of the Channel again. It took us the best part of three days to get to Calais. He took two rooms for us at an inn just on the outside of town and went to book tickets on the steam packet. Only it was full up that day so we had to wait until the day after. Couldn’t we go on one of the sailing boats instead, I asked him. But he liked the steam packet better, and who was I to argue? Only I wish now that I’d tried to persuade him, because if I had he might have been alive still.’

  I got up and walked to the window, trying to keep control of my feelings and not interrupt her story. Of course my father, ever curious for new things, would prefer steam. If he’d been a less modern-minded man, none of it would have happened. He’d have stepped off some sailing boat in Dover, picked up my letter and come running to find me.

  ‘So what happened then?’ I said, looking out at two pigeons on the window sill.

  ‘He said he was going for a stroll round the town and that was the last I saw of him. I was feeling ill, from something I’d eaten on the journey, so I went to lie down. He didn’t come back that evening and I thought he might have met some friends and was staying out, like gentlemen do. In the morning, I knocked on his door and there was no answer. A serving man at the inn who spoke a bit of English said he hadn’t come back at all. So I thought maybe I’d misunderstood and he meant me to meet him by the steam packet. I was still feeling ill, but I dragged myself all the way to the harbour and there were crowds of people, but no sign of him. I was in a fair ferment by then, not knowing whether to go on board or not, but I didn’t have a ticket, so I thought better not and went all the way back to the inn. Well, what with the worry and the disappointment, I was running a fever. For the next few days – I don’t know how many, so it’s no use asking me – I was lying there thinking I’d die and that would be an end to my troubles. Then one morning I woke up, mortally weak but the fever gone, knowing I wasn’t going to die this time after all. So I decided I’d better get myself down to the docks and try and find somebody else who’d have the Christian charity to pay for my ticket over. Only when I went downstairs with my bag, the owner of the place took hold of my arm and started jabbering away in French. Your father had gone without paying the bill, you see.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  Ridiculous, of course, but she was almost crying with the memory of her distress. Counting back, I realised that while Maudie Martley was lying weak with fever in her inn, I was probably no more than a mile away, inquiring for my father around the hotels of Calais. If he hadn’t chosen an inn on the outskirts, I might have found her nearly a month ago.

  ‘Then I heard this voice in English asking what was going on. It was a rough sort of voice, but I was glad of it at first, until I turned round. God help me, it was one of the fat devil’s servants, grinning like an ape. “Well,” he says, “you have given us some trouble. We’ve been looking all over the bloody place for you.” And he says to the Frenchman who had my arm, “You keep hold of her – she’s wanted,” and goes running off. Half an hour later, a carriage draws up outside and it’s the fat devil himself.’

  I remembered how the fat man had asked me, Where’s the woman? He must have been searching Calais for her and, by sheer mischance, he’d found her at last, probably quite soon after they’d tried to kidnap me.

  ‘Did you ask him about my father?’ I said.

  ‘I was too terrified to ask him anything. His servants dragged me into his carriage, then we drove off. “Well,” he said to me, “you’ve got yourself in serious trouble now. Trying to defraud an innkeeper, not to mention the money you stole from me when you ran off …” I told him, God’s truth, I hadn’t. I’d never touched a penny of his, but he kept on as if I hadn’t spoken, about how he’d offered me a respectable position and I’d deceived and robbed him, and if he told the French police I’d go to prison for a very long time, perhaps even to the guillotine.’

  Even the memory of it scared her. Her hand went to her neck.

  ‘They couldn’t have done that,’ Daniel said.

  ‘He said he was a lawyer, and I heard people calling him milord. Who’d have believed me against him? I was nearly mad with fear and he could see it. In the end he said he wouldn’t report me, only I’d have to do exactly what he said. He took me to his hotel and wrote down a long statement that he made me sign. He called in another man to witness it and then he stamped a big seal on it in red wax. He told me that if I ever tried to go back on my word and say I hadn’t said it, that would be perjury and I’d be in even worse trouble. I had to promise to go back to England with him and not try to run away again. So I promised. What else could I do?’

  She looked at Daniel imploringly.

  ‘I dare say in your place anybody would have done the same,’ he said. ‘So he never mentioned Mr Lane?’

  She looked down at her hands, clenched together in her lap.

  ‘Not as such, not to me. No.’

  ‘To somebody else?’

  ‘I think so, yes. It must have been him they were talking about.’

  ‘They? Who?’

  ‘The fat devil and another gentleman. But I was under the floorboards, you see.’

  ‘Floorboards?’

  ‘Yes, of the coach. The fat devil said I must go back to England with him, but I’d better make sure nobody saw me or I’d be arrested. There were some gaps between the floorboards, just enough to let air in and I could see up into the carriage, but only a very little, mostly his boots and his fat belly.’

  ‘And somebody else was in there with him?’

  ‘Not on the journey over, no. It was when we were off the boat on the other side at Dover. It sounded as if we were getting ready to drive away, then I felt the carriage tilt the way it does when somebody gets in. This new man’s first words were about me. He said to the fat devil, “I still can’t find the Martley woman. There’s no trace of her this side of the Channel or the other ” The fat devil said he could give up troubling himself because they’d found me without his help. The other one said they might have told him, then he asked, “Where is she?” The fat devil gave a thump with his boot, just above my head and I think he must have pointed downwards because the other gentleman said, “You mean she’s dead too?” in a quavery sort of voice. And the fat devil said, “No. One’s more than enough. What in the world possessed you, shooting poor Lane?”’

  Daniel leaned forward.

  ‘He said that? “Shooting poor Lane”?’

  ‘Yes. And the other one said, sounding very hangdog, “It wasn’t my fault. When you sent me that message from Paris, you said we had to find him and her at any cost.” The fat devil said, quite sharp, “I didn’t tell you to kill anybody,” and the other one said, “I didn’t mean to. I was just threatening him, trying to get him to tell us what he’d done with her. Then he went and made a grab for my pistol and it went off.” And the fat man said, “I’ve heard half a dozen men attempt that defence in court and I attended the hangings of all six of them.” The other one made a sort of gulping sound, then the fat devil said it was more than he deserved, but he’d managed to make it look as if Lane had died in a duel, and a lot of money and trouble it had cost him. “So you won’t hang this time,” he said, “only you’d better get out because I’d rather not be seen with you after what’s happened.” Then the coach rocked again an
d soon after that we were on our way.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The world had gone black. I turned my head away, not looking at Maudie Martley any more, hardly even hearing her through the rushing in my ears. I thought anger would blow my head apart. Daniel was asking her a question. He sounded shaken too, but his voice was still gentle.

  ‘This other man, did you see him?’

  ‘Not properly. Only a slice of him, through the gap in the boards.’

  ‘Was he young, old, dark, fair?’

  ‘Not old, from his voice. Dark, I think, quite dark. I was so scared, you see, this talk about people being shot and people hanging – I thought it would be me next.’

  ‘A servant or a gentleman?’

  ‘A gentleman.’

  ‘Would you know him if you saw him again?’

  ‘I think I might.’

  ‘Would you recognise his voice?’

  ‘Yes, his voice more.’

  ‘And the other one, the one you call the fat devil …’

  ‘You’ll have seen him for yourself, sir. He’s in the house here. He’s the one who brought me here.’

  ‘Under the floorboards of his coach again,’ I said, turning round.

  ‘Yes. How did you know that?’ she said.

  Daniel looked surprised as well.

  ‘His name’s Kilkeel,’ I said. ‘Lord Kilkeel. Did you never hear him called that?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And he brought you here and kept you shut up in his dressing room?’

  ‘Yes. He told me to stay under the floor down in the coach house till the dead of night, then sent his man down to fetch me. He made me sleep in his dressing room, with his man on a chair by the door. I kept my clothes on, every stitch, except for my shoes.’

  ‘Why did he want you here?’ Daniel said.

  ‘I was to talk to some gentlemen. I was to tell them in my own voice what he’d worried out of me in the statement he took in France, not a word different or he’d have me for perjury and I’d be in prison for life.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No, because before that the old woman had found me. She just walked into his dressing room yesterday as if she owned the place and told the man watching me to get out. Then she said she knew very well what was happening, but it was dangerous and treasonable and she wouldn’t allow it. She took me and hid me here. Only I was scared, you see. I’ve been scared so much and for so long that I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t or imagine a time when I won’t be.’

  There was pity in Daniel’s eyes. I couldn’t feel it yet. I was still too angry. Even though it wasn’t her fault, her story had killed my father.

  ‘There will be a time when you are not scared,’ he said to her. ‘My friend tried to protect you. For his sake, I’ll do all that I can.’

  She nodded, her eyes fixed on him as if he were a rock in a rough sea. Knowing how much he disliked conflict and unpleasantness, I was surprised by the firmness of his voice.

  ‘Do you feel strong enough to answer some more questions?’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Like how you came to be in Paris with that man.’

  ‘From trickery, sir. I’m a midwife by profession, to ladies of quality. Some ladies I’ve helped into the world call me back twenty years on, when they’re brought to bed with their own children. Ask anyone in London society, sir, and nobody will have a bad word to say of Maudie Martley.’

  ‘I’m sure of it. But Paris?’

  ‘A message came for me one day, to go to a certain address in Burlington Gardens and meet a gentleman. I went to the address, a very respectable-looking house. The man who spoke to me there wasn’t quite a gentleman – more of a gentleman’s steward, I should say – but quite polite and agreeable. He said there was an English lady expecting her confinement in Paris who particularly wanted my services. I asked him her name – wondering if it was one of my ladies – and he said it was not in his power to give it. But if I agreed I was to have ten guineas in my hand in advance, all the travelling arranged and paid for, and a further twenty-five guineas when the lady was safely delivered.’

  ‘Were you not suspicious at the secrecy?’ Daniel asked.

  ‘It happens sometimes, sir. A lady – for one reason or another – may not wish to have her condition known in London. Usually it will be a matter of going down to some house in the country, but sometimes ladies do go abroad.’

  ‘Had you been to Paris on other occasions?’

  ‘Twice, sir.’

  ‘So the circumstances did not alarm you?’

  ‘No, sir. Only the money offered was higher than usual. Still, that was no reason to refuse.’

  ‘So you accepted?’

  ‘I said there was a lady I must see through her confinement in the next few days, but after that I was at the other lady’s service. I was to send word to this steward the moment I was free. So a livery carriage came to collect me and take me all the way to Dover. I was given a ticket for the steam packet and told to look out for a tall coachman with a blue-and-gold cockade in his hat who would be waiting for me on the French side.’

  ‘And you met this coachman?’

  ‘Yes. He was in a terrible hurry, would hardly allow me time to eat and drink when we changed horses at the inns and wouldn’t answer any questions, didn’t seem to understand English. But I supposed the lady must be near her time and that was the reason for the hurry. So we got to Paris. The house wasn’t as grand as I expected, but then if the lady wanted to be secret perhaps it wasn’t surprising. A manservant took me to a room upstairs and I said I’d have a wash and be with the lady directly. I took my hat and cloak off and I washed and I waited. And I waited, and I waited. After a while, I started to worry that the lady might need me and there I was, sitting up there on my own. So I tried the door handle and the door wouldn’t open. Bolted on the outside. Only of course I didn’t know that at first, I thought it had just stuck, so I started knocking on the door and calling out, quite polite at first then more loudly because I was starting to be alarmed. Then there were footsteps, the sound of a bolt being drawn back and the fat devil walked in. “What is this?” I said. “The poor lady might be having her baby at this very moment.” The fat devil shook his head. He had a sneering kind of smile on his face and you could smell the brandy reeking off his breath. I can see him now and hear his voice saying what he said, quite quietly: “There really is no hurry, Mrs Martley. The baby we’re interested in was born twenty years ago.”’

  Maudie Martley looked terrified remembering it, like a woman seeing a ghost. Even though I’d expected it, I felt myself shivering and instinctively moved closer to Daniel.

  ‘Did you know what he meant by that?’ he asked her.

  ‘Of course I did. It was the worst night of my life.’

  ‘What did he mean?’

  She whispered, ‘The princess, of course. Poor Princess Charlotte.’

  ‘Were you midwife to the princess?’ I said.

  That brought me a warning glance from Daniel, but it seemed to be the cue she needed.

  ‘Not midwife, just midwife’s helper. I was only twenty-two at the time, but already married and widowed with a baby of my own. My aunt was a midwife, very well thought of, and she was training me up as her assistant, so that I should have a trade to provide for my baby. Of course, with the princess, it wasn’t only a midwife. There were three great doctors there. One of them was Sir Richard Croft, a gentleman that was the best accoucheur in London. He trusted my aunt and she often worked with him. Even with great doctors, you see, there are some things that should only be done for a woman by another woman. So my aunt was there and I was there too, just to bring warm water and clean cloths as needed. At the princess’s country home it was, in Surrey.’

  She paused, eyes on Daniel, as if to make sure he was following her.

  ‘You must have been nervous,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, I was at first. Would you believe, the Archbi
shop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor of England and a lot of other gentlemen from the government were waiting in another room. We knew the baby might be king or queen one day, you see, so they all had to be there in the house. We didn’t see them, but we knew they were there. I was nearly fainting from nervousness, but my aunt was quite sharp with me, said a birth was a birth no matter who and my business was to do what I was told and not be a silly girl. I was mostly in a closet to the side of her bedroom, with a fire for heating the water. My aunt would call me when they needed anything. Of course, I could hear everything that was going on. She had a hard time, poor lady. She was in labour from the Monday night until late on the Wednesday evening. I knew from the sounds that the baby was coming at last and my aunt called to me to bring warm towels. When I went in, one of the doctors was holding him. He and my aunt wrapped him in the warm towels, but it was no use, no use at all. A fine-looking big boy he was, but blue in the face and dead.’

  Even twenty years on, she looked as shocked and grieved as if it had happened yesterday.

  ‘And the poor princess died too,’ I said softly.

  ‘Not at once. We thought we were going to save her. She sat up and I was sent down to the kitchen for chicken broth and barley water and she drank some. But then, a few hours later, she died too. Poor Sir Richard was so grieved he shot himself a few months later. But it wasn’t his fault, it wasn’t anybody’s fault. The poor infant suffocated from her being too long in labour. To the highest and lowest it can happen, and it happened to her, poor lady, that’s all. And then years later the wicked rumours started. You know what they were, don’t you?’