The Devlin Diary

by Christi Phillips

  Edward looks with solemn delight upon her heaving chest, her flushed face. He kisses her mouth, then carefully lowers himself onto her. Flesh to flesh, arms and legs entwined, he fits his body to hers. She arches to meet him.

  “I will be gentle,” he whispers.

  “Do not spare me,” she replies.

  Chapter Forty-three

  Fifth week of Michaelmas term

  AS THE CANDLES on the High Table burned lower, Andrew listened attentively while Claire related the newly transcribed events of Hannah’s diary: the death of Hannah’s patient, Mr. Henley, and her second meeting with Edward Strathern; her encounter with Jane Constable; Montagu’s attentions; the dance and its aftermath. She told him about the growing intimacy between Hannah and Edward, and their search for Lucy. Then on to Sir Granville’s shocking murder, and Hannah and Edward’s subsequent visits to Dr. Sydenham and Lord Arlington.

  “What happened after they left Arlington’s?” Andrew asked.

  “Edward took her home in his carriage,” Claire replied. She could feel her cheeks burn and was thankful that the lighting in hall was dim.

  “That’s all?”

  “I didn’t have time to transcribe all my notes,” she replied. She felt a bit cowardly for evading his question, but she thought it better to save Hannah’s most private revelations for another time.

  Andrew and Claire’s dinner together was a sort of first date, albeit an unusual one, as they sat at a long table surrounded by more than thirty of their peers. Claire scanned the faces and discovered a few that she recognized: Carolyn Sutcliffe, thankfully sitting some distance away, who was pretending not to watch them; also Radha Patel, Toby Campbell, and Elizabeth Bennet, who sat next to an elderly man she seemed to be doting on. An unusual first date in that Claire was not, by any stretch of the imagination, wearing something seductive but was attired in her dark blue Trinity gown, with the appropriate sub-fusc underneath: a long black skirt worn with black tights and a white, long-sleeved shirt buttoned up to the throat. An unusual first date in that she suspected Andrew had distinct reasons for meeting in this particular public place: to show that he harbored no suspicion toward Claire, and to help put to rest some of the rumors that Derek’s death had engendered. And perhaps to put to rest any other rumors: everyone could see that they were just two colleagues who happened to sit next to each other in hall.

  Claire swallowed the last sip of wine in her glass, and a waiter instantly appeared to fill it up again. The unexpected luxury of Formal Hall still felt foreign to her. At the hall’s eight o’clock dinner, everyone was required to wear gowns, and everyone, including the students, was served at table, unlike breakfast, lunch, or the seven o’clock dinner, which were buffet-style. The meal began with grace, recited in Latin by the master (or the vice-master, if the master was absent), and ended with tea, coffee, sherry, or port and a pudding, as they called dessert. In between was a multicourse affair of a much higher standard than Claire had ever associated with college kitchens. Tonight’s cauliflower soup, stuffed chicken breast, pine nut and goat cheese tart, roast potatoes, and haricot verts were a long way from the fare she remembered from her undergraduate years, even a long way from what she was accustomed to eating at home. That they were dining in a candlelit medieval hall with everyone in academic dress added even more luster to the experience.

  “There are two things we’re trying to deduce from this diary, correct?” Andrew said, bringing Claire back from her wandering thoughts.

  “Two?”

  “As I see it, yes. One, what is the significance of the copied diary page Derek had on him when he died? Two, who killed Roger Osborne, and why?”

  “Not just Roger Osborne,” Claire added, “but Sir Granville, Sir Henry Reynolds, and Hannah’s father, too. The suspects seem to have been narrowed down to two: Madame Severin and Ralph Montagu.”

  “I’d put my money on Montagu. He was also at Henriette-Anne’s bedside the night she died.”

  “Are you sure? Hannah doesn’t mention it.”

  “Perhaps she didn’t know.”

  “But Edward tells her exactly who was present in Henriette-Anne’s bedchambers. He doesn’t mention Montagu at all.”

  “Maybe it’s a simple oversight. There were a lot of people there that night.”

  “But Edward suspects Montagu of being the murderer. Don’t you think he’d remember if Montagu were there?”

  “Maybe he left him out on purpose.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. How much do we know about Edward Strathern, except that by his own admission he was at the princess’s that night, too? I’m certain that Ralph Montagu was there. In fact, he was the one who came back to London to inform the king of Henriette-Anne’s death, and told him her last words.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I spent more than five years researching that period. Montagu told the king that Henriette-Anne’s last words were of Charles—that her ‘only regret was in leaving her beloved brother.’ I’m certain I’ve read it somewhere.”

  “Montagu came all the way from Paris to tell the king that Henriette-Anne had died?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it must be as Edward said: Montagu often traveled between England and France. He could very well be the man who killed Hannah’s father and all the others.”

  “Yes, he very well could be,” Andrew replied, lowering his voice. “I suspect this is exactly what Derek was considering—that Ralph Montagu was a serial killer. A gripping story, all right. Big enough for a book, and not a bad conclusion, I might add. The more I think on it, the more likely it seems.”

  “What do you know about Ralph Montagu?”

  “In a time when honesty, chastity, piety, and caring for the welfare of your fellow men was all but extinct, Montagu—”

  “Was a shining example of goodness?” Claire offered.

  “Just the opposite, I’m afraid. He was a shining example of just how low a man could go. He was never honorable, charitable, and most certainly not chaste. He never made a move without first determining how he would benefit from it. Even during the early Restoration period, a time when men like Montagu flourished, it would be difficult to find a more scheming and despicable man than he.”

  “But Hannah didn’t think so.”

  “She doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight, as we do. When Ralph Montagu discovered that he couldn’t earn enough in bribes from his position as the master of the great wardrobe, he married the heiress Elizabeth Wriothesley. From all accounts, their marriage was troubled from the start. He freely spent her money and made her miserable until the day she died in 1690. Then, still not rich enough for his taste, Montagu decided to court the daughter of the Duke of Newcastle, who was also the widow of the Duke of Albemarle and fabulously wealthy. There was only one problem: the Duchess of Albemarle was completely insane. She insisted that she would not marry again except to a person of royal blood. So Montagu got himself up in exotic garb and presented himself at her house as the emperor of China.”

  “He showed initiative, at least,” Claire said with a smile. “You can hardly blame a guy for trying.”

  “He not only tried, he succeeded. The duchess married him, and he went through her fortune like sand through an hourglass. He built a grand house in Bloomsbury that was designed by Robert Hooke. About sixty years later, the government bought it to house the country’s collections of antiquities, and later still it became the site of the British Museum. While he was married to the duchess, Montagu had affairs too numerous to count. At one point, while in Paris, he was sleeping with the Countess of Castlemaine, King Charles’s former mistress, and her daughter—the king’s daughter—simultaneously. He blackmailed people, was involved in devious and underhanded political plots, succeeded in framing the Earl of Danby, the then secretary of the treasury, for something Montagu himself had done, and generally sowed discord wherever he went. If he were alive today he would be called a sociopath.�
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  “Unless he was a fellow, and then he would be called ‘difficult.’”

  Andrew harrumphed.

  “Something I don’t understand in all this,” Claire said, “is why, in a city so crime-ridden, Hannah makes almost no mention of any sort of police. Even the King’s Guards don’t appear to enforce the law.”

  “There was no police force, as such, at that time. The English people didn’t want one—they associated policing with France and with tyranny. There were night watchmen, but they were usually old and not at all interested in putting themselves in harm’s way, and there were constables, usually three or four to a parish, but none of them truly fought crime, although they might testify in court if they’d seen a crime being committed. The King’s Guards were only trotted out at the king’s behest, usually for crimes of treason.”

  “I think I can understand why Derek Goodman took the diary,” Claire continued, “if he thought that this revelation about Ralph Montagu could be the basis for a book, but it doesn’t answer the question of what the note was about. Jane Constable hardly comes into Hannah’s story at all. She’s just a subplot, a bit player.”

  “I don’t understand it, either.”

  “Oh, no—I just thought of something. Derek Goodman has mapped out the location and the order of the murders: the first was Dr. Briscoe, the second Roger Osborne, the third Sir Henry Reynolds, the fourth Sir Granville Haines.” Claire set down her wineglass and stared at Andrew. “What if the fifth and sixth are Hannah and Edward?”

  “Oh, dear,” Andrew said as the thought sank in. “How long will it take you to transcribe the rest of your notes?”

  Claire stood up and put her napkin on the table. “I’ll start right now. Be at my set first thing in the morning.”

  Chapter Forty-four

  18 December 1672

  THE JOURNEY TO the College of Physicians on Warwick Lane is slow, held up by the pouring rain and an accident on Fleet Street. Hannah rides alone in the hackney coach, staring out the windows at the inclement weather but taking little notice of what she sees. She has thought endlessly on what happened two nights ago. Even now, after receiving such terrible news, she cannot stop thinking on it. What she tried to forestall has come to pass: she has fallen in love with a man who cannot marry her because of money, rank, and duty to family. Or will not marry her, Hannah reminds herself, because of all those considerations and more. Perhaps Edward has no wish to change his life. Now that she has given herself to him, perhaps he erroneously believes that she will become his mistress. Edward does not seem the type of man to seek that sort of arrangement, but he has given no indication that he has broken off his engagement, or is even considering doing so. He has written to her three times in the past two days, letters she has read but not answered, letters full of passionate feelings but empty of promises. Her mind tells her that Edward will need time to think before making such a dramatic change in his life. She does not want him to make a hasty decision that he might later regret. Yet in her heart she expected him to fall to one knee to proclaim his love and eternal fidelity and ask for her hand as soon as their love was consummated. If she could laugh at herself today—if she could laugh at anything right now—she would be amused by her emotions. In some respects, she is forced to admit, she is very much like all other women.

  The coach comes to a halt on Warwick Lane outside the front door of the College. The door opens and Hannah steps down, bowing her head against the storm. Rain falls so fiercely that the lane’s muddy surface appears to quiver under its assault. She quickly walks past the college’s white stone façade, turning into an alley that runs along the back of the building and leads to the anatomy theatre entrance. Overhead, a carpenter’s shop sign depicting a row of coffins swings madly in the wind, each movement of its rusting hinges accompanied by a lunatic screech.

  She enters the theatre’s anteroom, a small, high-ceilinged chamber filled with a sedimentary light and the soft echo of rain drumming above. It’s reminiscent of being underwater. But then, ever since receiving Dr. Strathern’s urgent letter, she’s felt weightless, floating, blank. As though she can only register impressions: her shoes gliding over the marble floor, the animal scent of her rain-heavy cloak as she hangs it on the wall, the alien feel of her leather gloves brushing the rain from her cheeks. She removes her gloves and rubs her hands against her wool-clad arms; the theatre’s sepulchral chill is palpable even in here.

  A hazy sphere of incandescence illuminates the center of the theatre, courtesy of two chandeliers and a few stout-columned standing candelabra. All else—the perimeter of the operatory floor, the spectator galleries, the paneled walls—falls away into a black eternity. From the doorway she glimpses the dissection table and a few strands of long, sinuous hair hanging down as carelessly as a dress tossed over a chair. She finds herself unable to go any farther.

  Dr. Strathern approaches her silently, a dark omen in mourning clothes. He looks at her with a practiced delicacy, such as a warden might eye a resident of Bedlam prone to sudden violence. Behind him stands another doctor, scrawny, ginger-haired, young. She can sense his melancholy mood even before she can distinguish the features of his face; it’s in the resigned slant of his shoulders, his disheartened air. Perhaps he is too sensitive for this work.

  “This is not the way I would have wanted us to meet again,” Edward says, the emotion in his eyes quite evident but his manner restrained in the presence of another. “But I knew you would want to see her.” His gentle touch on her arm propels her forward into the room and up to the table.

  Hannah brushes her fingers against the girl’s cheek, still petal-soft but as pallid and bloodless as an eggshell. “Oh, Lucy,” she murmurs. The girl is dressed in a long white garment that gathers at the neck and wrists and extends beyond her feet so that it can be tied at the bottom, like a sack: the flannel robe of death. Hannah’s throat tightens painfully, and she is unable to hold back her tears. She brushes a few away, then dabs at her face with Edward’s proffered handkerchief. Both men regard her with slight trepidation, such as men often exhibit in the presence of female emotion, as if they fear she will begin to weep copiously, or scream and rend her clothes. It crosses her mind that such histrionics must be consoling in their own way—certainly more satisfying than restraining grief; but for now she has too many questions to give herself over to her sorrow.

  “Where was she found?” Her voice sounds so rough that she hardly recognizes it as her own.

  “Dr. Hamish, will you please tell Mrs. Devlin”—at the slight pause in his speech, she knows he nearly called her Hannah—“everything that the watchman told you.”

  “He discovered her in an alley in Southwark. In the area with all the—” He stops, remembering that he’s speaking to a lady.

  “With all the bawdy houses,” Hannah finishes for him. “There is no need to mince words with me, Dr. Hamish.”

  He colors slightly but continues on. “She was without any effects, or, I’m sorry to say, any clothes. Whether she was left there in that condition or later robbed we do not know. He reported that he saw no blood near the body, by which we believe”—he glances at his superior—“she died elsewhere. He said he inquired of people in the parish, but no one recognized her.”

  Meaning that the watchman had put Lucy’s body in a cart and wheeled it around to all the neighboring shops and houses. Hannah hoped that he’d had a blanket or at least some straw with which to cover her body. It pained her to think of Lucy being so vulnerable, even in death. Perhaps especially in death.

  “She might have been brought to Southwark from anywhere in London,” Hannah surmises. “Why did the watchman not take her to a church?”

  “Because of this,” Edward replies. He rolls a sleeve back from her wrist and nods to Hamish to do the same to the other. He steps back to give Hannah a clearer view. Across each of Lucy’s wrists are two deep red gashes.

  Self-murder. Something terrible indeed must have happened to provoke Lucy to it. P
erhaps she and this young man had run out of money, or he had abandoned her. Either of which would have made her prey to the city’s madams and bawds, always on the lookout for girls like her: young, destitute, and alone. Whatever happened, it was dreadful enough for Lucy to die outside of the comforting embrace of the church. Such obvious sinners as self-murderers aren’t readily granted a church burial. It will require substantial greasing of palms just to get Lucy admitted into St. Clement Danes’s churchyard, and even then the best she can hope for is to be buried facedown on the north side, the least hallowed ground. It’s cold comfort to know that it could be worse; suicides are still sometimes found at lonely crossroads outside the city walls with a stake in their hearts.

  “The watchman brought her here hoping to earn a few extra shillings,” Edward says. “Dr. Hamish was disinclined to subject her to any trials but paid him just so she might not fall into less restrained hands. When I arrived I recognized her from the dance—and the rest you know.” He seems relieved to be finished telling this sad tale. “What would you like us to do?” he asks.

  “Do you truly believe she is a suicide?” Hannah asks.

  “There are no other marks of violence on her body.”

  Her stomach turns at the thought of it, but she must know if Lucy was ravished or hurt. “None at all?” she asks.

  “No, I assure you, nothing of that nature.”

  Small relief, but it is something. She runs her thumb over the ridged cuts on Lucy’s wrists. “How well can you disguise these?”