The Passions of Bronwyn

by Martina Martyn

  ‘It sounds very interesting,’ Ned said, ‘I would really like to help. Life’s certainly not boring with this family he added.’

  After Wyn and Betty had finished their duties the next day they were all back in the study. Ned was with them this time as Mrs Brompton had agreed he could help too as there was nothing for him to do with the car. Wyn finished emptying the cabinets and then started looking through the hundreds of books on the shelves. Betty was still looking through the desk drawers and came across a Birth Certificate for Charles Brompton and one with the name George Edward Brompton on it.

  ‘Who’s he?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied William, ‘I’ve never heard that name. Put it on the pile for Mrs Brompton and forget about it for now.’

  She finished clearing the desk drawers and then joined Wyn in looking through the books. Wyn came across an old family Bible that went back centuries. There was a complete list of all the Bromptons in the front.

  ‘Here’s that name again,’ she told them. ‘He was born in 1851 and Charles Prentice Brompton was born in 1853. It looks like he was the older brother.’

  ‘This is strange,’ William said, ‘I’ve never heard that name mentioned. He’s never visited the family since I’ve been here.’

  ‘Maybe he died,’ Wyn said.

  ‘I suppose that could be it,’ William agreed, ‘you don’t suppose the body in the basement could be him do you?’

  They all looked at each other and Wyn said ‘no, surely not.’

  ‘Just keep on searching,’ William told them. ‘There might be more about him in here somewhere.’

  William was searching the top bookshelves when he found a large bundle of papers clipped together. ‘I’ve found lists of the staff of the house from the beginning of 1800,’ he told them. ‘The family must have kept records of everyone. It could help in identifying whoever the body in the basement was if it wasn’t George Brompton,’ he added.

  They were coming to the end of the search of everything apart from the books when Mrs Brompton came in. William showed her the pile of documents that she was going to have a look through. ‘Oh my,’ she exclaimed, ‘this is going to take me a while.’

  William showed her the Birth Certificate and the Bible that Wyn had found. She opened the Birth Certificate first and read the name and then she had a look at the first page of the Bible. ‘It looks like I had a brother-in-law,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know him. I’ll have to try and find out who he is or was. Maybe the solicitor knows. I’ll go and see him tomorrow.’ She turned to Ned and told him to have the car at the front of the house at ten o’clock the next morning. She told the others that there would be two detectives from the Criminal Investigation Department coming to the house and that they were to give them any help they needed.

  ‘In the meantime keep looking through the books,’ she said, ‘there may be some more interesting things inside them. Look more carefully now, I don’t want you to miss anything.’ She then turned and left the room. Wyn took a few books off the middle shelf and took them over to the desk. There was nothing in the first few books but in the last book there was a piece of paper that looked like a torn page of an accounts book.

  ‘Look at this,’ she said to William. ‘It mentions that name again with some figures by the side of it.’

  ‘Keep hold of that,’ William told her, ‘Mrs Brompton might find it interesting.’

  Betty had taken more books from the middle shelf. She suddenly exclaimed, ‘I’ve found some pages too. Why are they hidden in books do you think? Who is this man?’

  ‘Just keep the pages together and keep looking,’ William told them.

  They cleared the middle shelf and had quite a pile now of the pages.

  ‘Take them straight up to Mrs Brompton,’ William told Wyn, ‘she might need to take them with her tomorrow.’

  Wyn took them up to the drawing room where Mrs Brompton had started looking through the documents they had found so far.

  ‘We thought you might need to take these tomorrow,’ Wyn told her as she handed the pages over.

  ‘Well, this looks very interesting,’ Mrs Brompton said, ‘my solicitor might be able to shed some light on these too. Thank you. Off you go now, it’s almost dinner time.’ As Wyn turned to leave, she said, oh yes, before I forget, as you have all been working extremely hard over the last few days, I think you should take the whole weekend off.’

  ‘Oh thank you,’ said Wyn, ‘I’ll tell the others, they’ll be very happy.’ Wyn skipped happily down the stairs back to the study. ‘Mrs Brompton says we can all have the whole weekend off.’ They all cheered loudly. ‘We’ll have to find somewhere to go she told them.’ They finished off in the study and then went downstairs to prepare the dinner.

  After dinner they sat around the table discussing where to go. ‘Have you ever been to a big market?’ Betty asked Wyn.

  ‘No, I never have,’ Wyn told her.

  There was a livestock market with a few stalls selling vegetables and dairy products but that was all.

  ‘Well that’s one thing we can do,’ Betty told her excitedly, ‘I love Petticoat Lane Market, we could go there on Sunday.’

  The others all agreed.

  ‘How about Portobello Road on Saturday? There’s always something interesting going on there, suggested William. There are some good Taverns round there as well.’

  ‘Markets during the day and Taverns at night. That sounds like paradise,’ said Betty and Ned.

  The next day William let two Detectives into the basement. They had a close look at the skeleton, ‘there was obviously a huge blow to the head,’ one said, ‘I don’t think this was natural causes, I think we need the Coroner. He turned to William and asked him to make sure no-one came anywhere near the body. ‘We’ll arrange for the undertaker to come and pick it up and take it to the Coroner.’

  ‘Do you know if it was male or female?’ William asked them.

  ‘Not at this point,’ they told him. ‘The Coroner should be able to tell. Does anyone in the house have any idea who it was?’ they asked William.

  ‘No, I don’t think so,’ William replied.

  ‘Oh well, I suppose it might become clearer when we know what sex it was,’ the Detective said. They started looking around the basement. ‘Where exactly was it stored?’ he asked. ‘Rolled up in this rug in that room,’ William told them. ‘Show me,’ he asked. William had taken the key with him as he thought that they might need to see inside. He unlocked the door and let them in. ‘It was resting up against the back wall,’ he said. They walked over to take a look. ‘Can’t see anything there,’ they said, ‘smells a bit musty in here though.’ ‘I think it must have been in here for quite a while,’ one of them mused. ‘Right we’re finished, there’s nothing in here.’ They walked out of the room. ‘This is a very thick door’ one of them said, ‘it’s like a prison door. I bet it’s air tight.’

  William showed them up the stairs and out of the house. ‘Don’t forget,’ he was told, ‘no one is to go down there until the undertaker has picked it up. It should be later today.’

  ‘Alright,’ William said, ‘I’ll make sure no-one goes down there although I don’t think anyone would want to.’

  When William went into the kitchen Wyn told him that Mrs Brompton was back and wanted to see them.

  ‘She must of found out about George Brompton,’ William said. When they got up to the drawing room, Mrs Brompton was waiting for them.

  ‘Sit down she told them. As you know I have been to see my solicitor. He had a lot of information about George Brompton because he still corresponds with him. He is living in Jamaica on the sugar plantation and has been for a long time. He is the black sheep of the family and was a worse gambler than my husband.’ He owed a lot of money to a lot of important people. It got so bad that he was called out in an illegal duel. When his father heard about it, he put George on the next boat to Jamaica before he could either be totally disgraced or killed. He is now
living with an ex-slave black woman with whom he has two children and he will never be coming back to this country. Mr Brompton made financial arrangements for him ín his Will which I will, of course, comply with. It means, she continued, that the body in the basement isn’t that of George Brompton. I’m seeing the coroner later today so I might find out a bit more then. William, I would like you to come with me please.’ Looking at Wynn and Betty she said, ‘you two can carry on with your normal duties until I know what is to be done next.’ She asked William to be downstairs by two o’clock. ‘Ned already knows and will have the car ready’ she said. Wyn and Betty went down to the kitchen and told Mrs Davis that they were back to their normal duties for a while.

  ‘Thank goodness for that’ she said. ‘This house is not as clean as it should be so I want you to go through it room by room and thoroughly clean it. Wyn can start with the bedrooms while Betty starts in the sitting room. You’ve got two hours until lunch time so start right away.’ Wyn took what she needed out of the scullery and went up to Mrs Brompton’s bedroom first. She changed the bedding and dusted and cleaned the room. She took the large rug from the floor down through the kitchen to the garden and threw it over the washing line. She started beating the dust out of it. William suddenly appeared, put his arms around her and started nuzzling her neck.

  ‘Stop that,’ she told him, ‘I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Roll on Saturday,’ he told her, ‘who knows what we will be able to get up to then. He gave her a wink, pinched her bottom and then walked back into the kitchen whistling. Wyn just smiled to herself and carried on beating. When there was no more dust coming off the rug she took it back up to the bedroom. By the time she had finished she was very out of breath. ‘I’ve had too much time away from this,’ she thought to herself. ‘I’ve got to get used to it again.’ She went into the next bedroom which was Catherine Brompton’s. This only needed a bit of dusting as it hadn’t been used for a while. The next room was Charles Brompton’s and again, only needed dusting. She had just finished these rooms when she heard Betty calling her. When Wyn got back Betty told her lunch was ready and she was to take a tray up to the Sitting Room for Mrs Brompton. Wyn arranged a tray of food and took it up to Mrs Brompton who looked up from the letter she had been writing when Wyn put the tray down on a little table in front of her, ‘thank you,’ she said, ‘could you post this letter for me?’ she added. Wyn took the letter and went back downstairs,

  ‘I’m just going to post this letter for Mrs Brompton,’ she told Mrs Davis, ‘I’ll be back shortly.’

  After lunch Wyn and Betty carried on cleaning while Ned and William went with Mrs Brompton to see the Coroner, Dr Jenkins. The entrance to the Coroners court was in the centre of the High Street and was in a building with the mortuaries and a post-mortem room. They saw Dr Jenkins in a small office next to the court. He told them what had been found during the post mortem.

  ‘On inspection of the body, we found a smaller skeleton inside the larger one which means the person was female and pregnant. It looks like the cause of death was child birth as there is no sign of foul play,’ he said. ‘Why she had been left in a rug in a strong room we will probably never know,’ he added.

  ‘When did she die?’ asked Mrs Brompton.

  ‘It would have been at least twenty years ago,’ he told them, ‘although we can’t be absolutely sure. The only way we will ever be able to find out who she was is if you can find some record of her in the house. The police are looking at all missing persons they have on record from that time but don’t hold out a lot of hope. As she died of natural causes the Criminal Investigation Department are no longer involved so I’m afraid it’s over to you. If you find anything out, please let me know,’ he added. Mrs Brompton told him she would be happy to, thanked him and left. As they were walking back to the car she told William to tell Wyn and Betty to start reading through all the documents thoroughly.

  ‘We need to find names of all the female staff around twenty years ago,’ she told him. ‘As it’s Friday and I’ve given you the weekend off, tell them to start when they have finished their normal duties on Monday morning as Mrs Davis has been complaining that nothing is being done, the washing is piling up and the house is getting dirty.’

  ‘We’ll help them with the normal household cleaning,’ William and Ned told her, ’so that we can get to the more interesting stuff a lot quicker,’ they added. She smiled and said, ‘I’ll leave it with you then. Let me know what you find. I might remember some of them.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They were all up and ready to go early the next morning. Wyn and Betty were wearing their best dresses and bonnets. Even William and Ned looked very smart in their best clothes. ‘Where do you want to go first?’ William asked them.

  ‘I’d like to see Portobello Road,’ Ned said, ‘Mrs Davis mentioned it yesterday, she said it was a good place to go.’

  ‘Alright,’ the others agreed ‘we’ll start there.’

  They went down to the station and caught a crowded train to Notting Hill. It was quite a long journey and took a long while to get there.They found Portobello Road to be a long, narrow street which stretched for over two miles. It was lined with a lot of shops, antique stalls, book stalls and even some food stalls.

  ‘This is amazing,’ Wyn said in wonder. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’

  ‘Me neither,’ agreed Ned.

  They walked slowly down the stalls stopping to pick up items of interest. William bought them all hot nuts from one of the stalls which they munched as they walked. There was a lot of shouting especially from the venders selling fruit and vegetables. Wyn was fascinated by everything she was seeing and hearing. She grabbed Betty’s hand and they went skipping happily along the road looking at all the stalls with William and Ned running behind them.

  ‘Hold on you two,’ William shouted, ‘we can’t keep up with you.’ Wyn and Betty stopped skipping and stood waiting for them to catch up. They were out of breath and panting but couldn’t stop laughing.

  ‘I love it,’ Wyn shouted, ‘I don’t ever want to leave.’

  ‘I’m afraid you can’t stay,’ William laughingly told her, ‘but we can come back often. Come on, let’s find a tavern, I need a drink,’ he added.

  There was an old looking tavern on the next corner that they decided to try. They walked into a smoky, crowded, noisy room and squeezed themselves into a corner where there was a small table with, luckily, four chairs. William pushed through the crowds up to the bar and bought four tankards of ale. Trying to get back to the table with the ale wasn’t easy and he had to shout to Ned to come and help him. They were both out of breath by the time they got back.

  ‘I think we’ll find somewhere else to buy something to eat,’ William said. ‘It’s too crowded in here. Drink this then we’ll leave.’

  ‘If we can,’ Betty put in, looking at another group of people crowding in. They started drinking their ale but kept being bumped by everyone around them. It was the last straw when Ned put his tankard to his mouth at the same time that a man was trying to push past and Ned ended up with most of his drink down him.

  ‘That’s it,’ he exclaimed ‘I’ve had enough. Let’s find a less crowded place to get a drink in.’ They managed to squeeze through the crowd and get out of the door.

  ‘Phew!’ exclaimed Wyn, ‘I’m glad to be out of there.’ ‘Me too,’ agreed Betty.

  On the other side of the tavern was a stall selling meat pies. The smell of them was too much for Wyn.

  ‘Do you want one of these?’ she asked the others. As they looked really good and they were all starving they told her they’d love one. Wyn bought one for each of them and they found a bench and sat down.

  ‘This is better,’ Betty said ‘at least we can move out here.’

  ‘We haven’t got a drink though,’ moaned William.

  ‘I can see another tavern down there, we’ll try that one next,’ Ned said.

  Once they had
all finished their pies William grabbed Wyn’s hand and pulled her up off the bench.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’m thirsty, let’s go see what this tavern is like.’ He opened the door and stuck his head in, ‘it doesn’t sound as busy, there’s plenty of room in here,’ he told them. ‘I think everyone must be in the other one. This is much better. Come on girls,’ he said, ‘there’s lots of tables free in here, we’ll be able to relax.’

  They walked in, found a table by the window and sat down. Wyn gave a huge sigh of relief. ‘That’s better,’ she said. Ned got some drinks and they all just relaxed and chatted quietly.

  After their third ale they decided that it wasn’t worth going anywhere else as they were quite happy there and decided that this is where they would spend the rest of the day. Wyn was looking around with interest as more people were coming in now but it still wasn’t too crowded. She was so engrossed with the different people she was seeing, she didn’t notice that William had been talking to her.

  ’Hello!’ he said, ‘are you still with me.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she replied, ‘it’s just so interesting in here. Look at that man and woman over there, they’ve been arguing for ages now.’ Just as she said that the woman jumped up out of her chair, slapped the man hard around the face and ran out before he’d realised what had happened. He looked around sheepishly as everyone was laughing. He just shrugged and got up to get another ale.

  ‘Why isn’t he going after her?’ Wyn wondered.

  The others just laughed and Betty asked ‘don’t you know what that was about?’

  ‘I thought she was his wife,’ Wyn replied.

  ‘No, not his wife,’ Betty told her, ‘I think they were arguing about her price.’

  Wyn went very red in the face. ‘Oh she exclaimed, I didn’t realise there were women like that in here.’

  ‘I can see at least four of them,’ William told her.

  Wyn started looking more carefully around her. She saw the four women William was talking about. Their faces were painted a bit more than usual but they weren’t what she was expecting for a street woman as they were clean and well dressed. Betty saw her confused expression and told her that these were the more expensive ladies, that’s why they were so hard to spot. It would be the more affluent men who went with them not men like the one she had just seen slapped.