Murder in the East End

by Jennifer Ashley

  Daniel knew all about me and my past, about my daughter—had known before I’d told him. And yet, I was not to know about his family. Did he have more brothers? Sisters as well? Children of his own besides James? Would he tell me or keep this to himself?

  By the time I reached my destination of St. Paul’s Churchyard and walked along Cheapside to the lane that held my daughter, I was out of breath and highly irritated.

  Grace running down the stairs to meet me at the door eased me a bit. I held her, wishing, wishing I never had to let her go.

  “What shall we do today, Mum?” she asked in eagerness.

  I had promised to look into the affair of the Foundling Hospital and should make a start, but I hesitated. My time with Grace was too precious to squander.

  “I have a mind for a nice walk,” I suggested as I tried to decide.

  My friend Joanna Millburn, who looked after Grace for me, said, “It’s blustery for a walk. Why not a game by the fire?”

  The Millburn children had gathered for lessons in the cozy sitting room, presenting a picture of domestic bliss. Mr. Millburn worked as a clerk in the City and was not present, but Mrs. Millburn had taken her place at the window to do the mending and instruct the children at the same time.

  Grace was of an age with the older Millburn girl, Jane, both of them eleven. Jane sat at a table doing her lessons, her brother, a year older, next to her. Grace’s books stacked in the place next to Jane showed she had joined them while waiting for me.

  The younger two, another boy and girl, reposed on the thick hearth rug, the warmest place in the room, picture books and writing slates around them. The girls wore white pinafores, the boys in knickers and gray jackets. The four Millburn children were rosy and healthy, happy in their tiny house.

  Grace was happy here too.

  This was to have been my life, I thought with a pang, once my husband returned from foreign parts where he sailed. Me in a small house, baking and cooking and looking after Grace. Domestic bliss indeed.

  Spending a pleasant morning in a warm room would have appealed to me any other day, Joanne and I chatting while the children played or studied, but today I felt uneasy and restless. Grace shared my restlessness—when I glanced at her, she sent me a look of pleading. She’d been confined too long, the look told me.

  “A brisk walk will do us good,” I said, deciding. “But Mrs. Millburn is correct about the cold. You must wrap up warm, Grace.”

  Grace flashed her happiest smile and rushed to fetch her coat. The maid of all work Joanne employed helped her button up, handing Grace a scarf and mittens.

  “Thank you, Mum,” Grace said as we started down the street, pressed together against the wind. “I’d had enough of lessons.”

  “You must learn everything you can,” I chided her, but today I did so because I felt it my duty. “A woman in this world cannot afford to be ignorant.”

  “I read and write better than Tom,” Grace said with confidence, naming the older boy. “Better at maths too. But I can’t have lessons every day.”

  “No,” I agreed. “All work and no play, as they say.”

  “Makes Grace a dull girl.” She grinned up at me. “And Mum too. Where shall we go?”

  While my heart balked at the idea of taking Grace anywhere near the Foundling Hospital, Mr. Fielding’s story had me anxious. Whatever Daniel’s old quarrels with him might be, missing children was a serious matter. Knowing about it, I could not simply turn aside.

  “Do you mind a great walk? Up along High Holborn, and more?”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Grace said at once. “I’m very sturdy.”

  She was. I was blessed with a healthy child, but I hardly wanted her in the cold too long.

  “We’ll take the trains,” I said. “It will be warmer.”

  Grace’s eyes lit. She liked the underground trains, though they continued to make me nervous.

  We entered the station at the end of Ludgate Hill, and I bought the tickets. Grace hurried along the platform, towing me after her, and we stepped onto the train just before it pulled away.

  The train ran into a tunnel, but before I could become too anxious, we emerged to the light of day on Farringdon Road.

  I disliked this part of London—Clerkenwell—its streets and lanes made dark by a pall of smoke. Because of the cold weather, even more chimneys exuded smoke these days, coating us all in soot and turning the air to a smelly fug. Houses in this area were homes to working-class families, many of whom labored at the nearby brewery, which also emitted its share of smoke.

  I led Grace along Charles Street, which crossed Hatton Garden and turned onto Leather Lane, lively with a market this morning, offering plenty of wares that might hold my interest any other time.

  We hurried past the market stalls and made for a tiny artery called Baldwin’s Gardens, which led past St. Alban’s Church and a school opposite. A more salubrious route, I thought, than taking Grace past the brewery or near Coldbath Fields, a prison that lay too near the Foundling Hospital. A number of indigent men and women lingered near St. Alban’s, and I tugged Grace close as we passed.

  At the end of Baldwin’s Gardens lay Gray’s Inn Road, and there I turned north. The fine squares of the men of law at Gray’s Inn lined the street, shutting us out from whatever parks and greens they enjoyed behind their high walls.

  I knew my way around these streets from the almost-daily walk I’d done when I’d been with child, my feet carrying me again and again to the place I feared I’d have to leave my baby.

  Grace trotted by my side, gazing with interest at a part of London she’d never seen. “Where are we going, Mum?”

  “To Brunswick Square,” I said, not slowing. I decided she’d know soon enough, so I confessed. “To the Foundling Hospital.”

  “Why are we going there?”

  “Mr. McAdam asked me to.”

  I did not want to tell her about the missing children, not yet. I was not certain how much it would upset her.

  Grace seemed to see nothing sinister in visiting the Hospital, however. I kept a tight hold on her hand as we turned on Guilford Street, and slowed our steps before the gates and long courtyard to the massive gray building that had haunted me for the longest year of my life.

  The open space behind the gates teemed with activity. A long line of boys in gray coats marched behind two taller boys. They actually did march, a military-like step that rang on the pavement. The lads’ coats were shapeless, caps of gray jammed on their heads.

  The boys looked neither right nor left as they paraded across the courtyard. Whether they trained for a parade or simply took morning exercise, I could not say.

  Grace watched them avidly, but I tugged her away to the lane that led along the west side of the Hospital. A tall brick wall shielded us from the building, though the upper windows glared down over it.

  I scanned the wall for any entrance or stairs that would take us to the servants’ area. The times I’d wandered past, many years ago, I’d only glanced through the gates and then rushed on.

  “Are we bringing alms to the poor children here?” Grace asked. “Like you do with the beggars in Mount Street?”

  I realized I gripped Grace’s hand more firmly than necessary. She hadn’t complained, but I made myself relax.

  “Something like that,” I answered. “There.” I pointed. “That looks as though it leads to the kitchens.”

  A small gate, unlocked, opened to a short flight of brick stairs that ended at a dust-covered door, its windows so dark I could not see through them. Taking a chance, I turned the handle, and was rewarded by the door opening easily.

  Beyond was a small hallway that stored mops and buckets and a tattered broom evidently meant for the back steps. The ceiling was low, this entry out of the way and unimportant.

  The passageway led around a corner to anot
her set of steps, and at the bottom of this, a larger hall opened out. The ceiling was higher here, with stone beams, painted white, holding the immense weight of the building above.

  Noise came at us, a cacophony of it. I moved cautiously along . . . and then took a startled step back as a maid with a wide basin of water dashed out of a room immediately in front of me to dive into another across the hall.

  A second maid followed with another basin. She caught sight of me, started, and spilled a wave of water down her front before she could right the basin.

  “Out of the way, missus,” she snarled at me, then disappeared across the hall.

  I peeked carefully into the room from which she had departed, finding a large scullery. Three sinks lined the far wall, and three maids in black, sleeves rolled to their elbows, scrubbed like fury at the mountain of dishes beside them.

  The maids banged dishes, breaking several as I watched, which they tossed onto a pile of scraps. They never noticed or heard me or Grace look in on them, and I led Grace onward before anyone else could rush in front of us.

  The end of the hall opened into a wide room with long tables—a servants’ hall, I surmised. Plenty of men and women, young and old, surrounded the tables, busy polishing spoons, mending mounds of clothing, or scrubbing small shoes.

  One of the older women, a plump personage with a broad bosom, darned socks with quick efficiency. She glanced up and caught sight of me and Grace.

  “She’s a bit old for you to shove off on us,” the lady said, and chuckled. “What you want, love?”

  5

  Is Mrs. Compton about?” I asked, giving the name of the cook Elsie had mentioned.

  “Not in here, dear,” the darning lady said. “She’ll be in the kitchen, won’t she? Yonder.” She pointed a thick finger at a door on the other side of the busy servants’ hall. “Won’t have time for a chat, I’m thinking.”

  “I’ll just pop in,” I said. “May Grace sit with you a moment? Kitchens are dangerous places.”

  “That they can be. Grace, is it? A lovely name, child. Sit yourself down.” The lady dragged a stool from under the table with her foot and patted it. “Sure you’re not after leaving her behind, missus?”

  Grace sat down, unworried. “My mum just wants to see your kitchen. She’s a cook, the best one in the world.”

  The woman regarded Grace with wide brown eyes. “Well, ain’t you a cheeky one? Nice to see a gel what hasn’t had all the spirit knocked out of her. Go on.” She waved at me with the gray sock.

  The others in the room alternately stared at me in curiosity or got on with their work, uninterested. I crossed the room, not without a qualm at leaving Grace behind, and entered the largest kitchen I’d seen in my life.

  The vast room ran the length of the building, with tables, stoves, and sinks filling every space, plus shelves upon shelves of crockery, pots, and roasting pans. Cooks and their helpers, male and female, dashed from cupboard to tables to stoves and back, some of them lads and lasses only a little older than Grace. These last were dressed in black or gray, like the boys I’d seen in the courtyard, the girls’ dresses covered with white pinafores.

  I remained near the door but off to one side, so I would not impede those hurrying in and out.

  One of the maids rushing about was the one who’d splashed water on her dress when she’d nearly run into me. “It’s you, is it?” she demanded. “I told you—stay out of the way.”

  “She wants Mrs. Compton.” A lanky youth who’d been polishing boots in the servants’ hall had followed me. “She’s a cook.”

  “She ain’t doing much cooking I can see.” She glared at me with angry dark eyes. “Just standing.”

  “Shut your gob, Bessie, and fetch Mrs. Compton.”

  Bessie. I recalled Elsie mentioning a maid by that name, and telling me the girls called her Old Miss Nick. I could understand why.

  Bessie snapped out a foul word and stomped off. She shouted down the rows, and a woman in an apron that covered her from neck to ankles turned, craning her head to eye me curiously.

  The cook appeared in no hurry to leave her table, so I went to her. I knew how to avoid the assistants swinging platters or pots of food, the knives wielded in wild chopping, the water, grease, and blobs of lettuce and vegetable peels on the floor.

  “Can’t stop,” Mrs. Compton said to me as I halted at the end of her table. She had a nasally voice with an accent that put her from the East End. “Dinner comes too soon. Who are you?”

  “My name is Mrs. Holloway.” I watched her basting a hen, and my fingers twitched. “Might I suggest a bit of parsley in the broth? Perhaps a pinch of flour to thicken? I find it fills out a thin sauce.”

  “Do you now?” The woman sneered. “Your man likes that, does he?”

  “I am not married,” I said primly. “I’m a cook.”

  The woman threw a doubtful look at my brown frock, which I regularly cleaned and mended. “You don’t look like no cook to me. What you doing in my kitchen? If you’ve come to look over the lads and lasses, that’s on Sunday. Unless you’re going to adopt one away.” She snorted a laugh. “Fat chance. No one wants the poor motherless things.”

  The last was said with some sympathy. I snatched up a bunch of parsley that had been left to wilt on the end of the table, rolled it into a neat bundle, lifted a knife, and proceeded to slice the parsley. Mrs. Compton looked on with raised brows.

  “Elsie told me to speak to you,” I said. “Elsie Dodd. She’s the scullery maid in my kitchen.”

  Mrs. Compton’s eyes widened. “Elsie? Sweet girl. Out a few years now. She well?”

  “She is very well. Likes to sing.” I used the knife to scoop up the chopped parsley, and pointedly sprinkled it into the broth in the pan.

  “That she does. Well, well. Little Elsie. Why does she want you to speak to me?”

  I glanced at the others at the table, hands moving, eyes on their work, but I knew they listened.

  “In private, perhaps?”

  Another snort. “Do I look as though I’ve time for a nice chat?”

  “We can fix an appointment.”

  Mrs. Compton banged down her ladle in exasperation, exactly as I’d have done had someone interrupted me at my cooking. “What is this about? Be quick and tell me, or go.”

  “Nurse Betts,” I said.

  The change on her face was remarkable. Mrs. Compton’s expression moved from annoyed curiosity to dismay, to fear.

  “This evening,” she said. “Come to the back door. I’ll be there.” She tried to resume her brisk tones. “Now be off with you, unless you want to chop more herbs. A neat job, that.”

  “Keeps the cut leaves from turning black too fast. Works a dream with basil and mint especially.”

  Mrs. Compton gave me a nod, more respectful now. “I’ll remember that.”

  “Beg pardon for disturbing you.” I backed from the table, Mrs. Compton and her assistants staring at me, and made my careful way out of the kitchen.

  When I entered the servants’ hall, I saw that Grace had stretched a sock over a darning egg, and was busily stitching it, assisting the lady who’d greeted us.

  I announced that we had to depart, but I allowed Grace to finish her part of the task before taking her away. Those at the table were reluctant to see her go—I could not help but be proud of Grace’s good manners and natural friendliness.

  “You come and visit anytime, Grace,” the lady said as we went. “Such a lovely child.” This last was directed at me.

  The woman smiled as I thanked her, but I saw sadness in her eyes, sharp and profound. She took the sock back from Grace, admired her work, and said good-bye as I led Grace away.

  Outside, the wind took our breaths away, and we hurried along, heads down. When I looked up again, I found we’d emerged into Great Coram Street, named for the founder of the
Hospital. A little way along was a tea shop, and I pulled Grace inside, out of the cold.

  The shop was mostly empty, as the midday meal had not yet commenced, but a thin young woman brought us tea and a few slices of indifferent bread.

  “That was excellently done, Grace,” I said as we warmed our hands on the teacups. “Very kind of you to assist. You do Mrs. Millburn credit.”

  “I always like to help.” Grace glanced behind her at the rest of the shop as though not wishing to be overheard. Two women spoke together over a table in the far corner, and the young waitress had retreated to her kitchen.

  “Mrs. Shaw—that was the lady who spoke to me—she’s an under-housekeeper,” Grace said in a near whisper. “She seems very worried about something. Asked me many times why you’d come. I said I supposed to ask about cookery.”

  I lifted my teacup and sipped the hot drink. “Did she? I hope she did not frighten you.”

  “Not much frightens me,” Grace said with disarming frankness. “When I am anxious, I simply think about what you would do, and I’m not afraid anymore. Do you know what they were worried by?”

  I set down my cup, emotion making my fingers weak. I wanted to sweep her into a hug, revel in the compliment she’d tendered me without a second thought.

  I debated whether to tell her why I’d gone to the Hospital. I wanted to shelter my daughter from the nastiness of the world, but on the other hand, I did not want her to be ignorant about danger.

  “I do not like to distress you,” I said in a low voice. “But Mr. McAdam asked me to look into the fact that a few children might have gone missing. They might not be at all, and we are worried for nothing. But you must not say a word about it. I do not wish to raise an alarm until we know for certain what has happened.”

  Grace’s brow puckered, but she looked sympathetic rather than upset. “That would explain Mrs. Shaw’s worry. If she is to look after children there, and something happened to them . . . Mr. McAdam was right to ask you about it, Mum. You’ll find them.”