by Rhys Bowen
I walked into Cork longing for a hot bath, a change of clothing, a comfortable bed. I arrived back at the hotel to find a note from Inspector Harris informing me that the inquest had been arranged for the very next day. Lucky that I hadn’t lingered any longer along the way then. I washed, changed, and enjoyed a good cup of tea with warm scones and cream. Thus fortified I decided I should make use of the remaining hours of daylight by visiting the cathedral and asking questions at the diocese headquarters.
As I turned a corner, I saw a neat procession of little girls, dressed insomber black uniforms, marching two by two under the stern gaze of two black-robed sisters. The sisters looked like two large black birds, wings flapping menacingly, and one called out, “No dawdling, Adeline, and don’t drag your feet.”
And a sudden flash of inspiration came to me. What would a kindly priest have done with a child—the obvious thing, of course. Handed her over to the nearest nuns as quickly as possible, who would most likely have placed her in the nearest orphanage. I darted across the street.
“Excuse me,” I asked the good sisters, “but are you the sisters from an orphanage?”
A look of horror crossed the nuns’ faces. “The orphanage? Holy Mother, we are not. These are the pupils at St. Catherines, where we educate girls of good family from all over Ireland and the continent too.”
The other one muttered, “Orphanage indeed. The very idea of it.”
“I’m sorry for my mistake,” I said, observing the little girls’ giggles and trying not to smile myself, “but is there not an orphanage to be found around here?”
“There is. St Vincent's, run by the Sisters of Charity. On the other side of the river. Cross by that bridge, go about half a mile, and you can’t miss it.”
The two sisters followed me with disapproving glances, obviously wondering what I’d be doing poking around in an orphanage, then set their little charges off at a marching pace again. I set off at a marching pace myself, in the opposite direction and crossed the bridge out of the city. The sound of children's voices at play directed me to a stern brick building. The orphans sounded as if they had a better time of it than those girls from St. Catherine's, I thought, until I met the Mother Superior. What a severe-looking woman she was too, with a face looking as if it was carved out of marble under that white wimple.
“I wonder if you might have been here at that time,” I asked, after I had explained the purpose of my visit.
The look was withering. “I did not arrive here as a young postulant until 1875,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve always found it impossible to tell a nun's age. You all look ageless to me.”
A ghost of a smile rewarded that obvious attempt at flattery. “Let us hope that is because we live pure lives, unaffected by the corruption of the outside world,” she said.
“So would any of your sisters have been alive then?”
“A couple in the infirmary, but it won’t be necessary to disturb them, since we have always kept meticulous records. If the child came here, her name will be in our ledgers.”
“That's wonderful. Would it be possible to take a look then?”
“Of course. May I ask why, after all this time, her brother wishes to contact her?”
“He has only just discovered her existence, and he wants to make sure she is provided for. He's a very rich man.”
“I see. Well, that's good news, isn’t it? Very well. Follow me, please.” She set off at a brisk pace down a hallway that smelled of disinfectant. As she pushed opened a frosted glass door, she turned back to me. “I should warn you, if the child had been very sick, I’m sure she would not have been accepted here. We have the health of a hundred children to consider. She’d most likely have been sent to the charity hospital wards where she’d most likely have died.”
Children passed me, walking two by two, not speaking but glancing up shyly under the direction of more sisters.
One little boy gave me a cheeky grin, reminding me of my own brothers at the same age. I wondered what they’d look like now. Joseph and Liam would be almost young men, and young Malachy would also likely be shooting up. A wave of homesickness came over me quite unexpectedly. When I had left Ireland I had never thought I would long for my family again. And here I was ready to leap on the next train to county Mayo. I had to remind myself that when I last saw them, they had been an ungrateful, lazy bunch, and I was well rid of them.
In a dark and musty storeroom, the Mother Superior brought down boxes of ledgers. “This would have been the time period you wanted,” she said.
I started to turn through the pages. For the years starting in 1845there had been a huge number of children coming to the orphanage, coinciding with the outbreak of the famine. Several Mary Anns. Several “baby girl, no name. Parents unknown.” If the Burkes had abandoned her, would they have told the priest their names? Would he necessarily have remembered them?
And there, at last, it was. Mary Ann Burke. Aged about two years. Transferred from St. Vincent's Hospital. May 1849.
“It's her,” I said excitedly. Then my gaze moved along the line of the ledger. More details were written across the double pages. Date of first Holy Communion. Conduct Satisfactory. Health Satisfactory and finally, “Placed in service, Ormond Hall, county Waterford. September Third, 1861.”
I looked up at the Mother. “She was sent into service. It has the name of the house.”
The Mother nodded. “Most of our girls are placed in service. We educate them to be of use in the domestic arts, and we prefer to see them in the care of a good family rather than working in a factory where they can meet with undesirables.”
The picture flashed into my mind of that son of a good family, Justin Hartley, regarding me with greedy arrogance as he tried to rape me in my cottage kitchen. I didn’t think that Mary Ann Burke would have necessarily been any safer in service, but for once I wisely kept my mouth shut. I took out my notebook and tried to hold the pencil steady as I wrote. “I must copy this down,” I said. “This is encouraging. It means that she survived her childhood and might well still be alive.”
She nodded. “One would sincerely hope so.”
Suddenly the feeling of being trapped in that dusty room with its shelves of ledgers was overwhelming. I had to escape. Mother Superior had softened a little and was muttering how happy she would be if Mary Ann was found and had come into a fortune at last. I think she was hinting at a bequest to the convent that raised her. I was even offered tea with the sisters, but I made hurried expressions of gratitude and fled as quickly as I could.
Fifteen
The inquest into Rose's murder was held at the Coroner's Court, in a somber, wood-paneled room with bottle-glass-paned windows through which light filtered dimly. It was a sunny morn-
ing and dust motes floated in sunbeams, giving the scene an air of unreality. In truth I had put the whole thought of the inquest out of my mind while I was searching for traces of Mary Ann, but as I came in and saw a jury seated in a dark oak box, the fear came rushing back.
I had told myself I wasn’t a suspect. Nobody could believe I was a suspect. And yet when Inspector Harris gave his testimony, I could see the faces of those jurors staring in my direction. The body of a young girl had been found in a cabin booked by the famous actress, Miss Oona Sheehan on the night before the Majestic docked in Queenstown. The cabin had, in fact, been occupied, not by Miss Sheehan, but by a young woman called Molly Murphy, posing as Miss Sheehan. She, along with the girl's cabinmates and the third-class steward, identified the body as that of Rose McCreedy, Miss Sheehan's personal maid.
Medical details were given. The ship's doctor's statement was read.
The coroner was a wizened little man with a receding hairline and beaky nose. In his black robes he looked like a perched raven. “And why isn’t the medical man present to give testimony?” he demanded and was told that the ship had not been detained in port as the shipping company would have suffered considerable hardship
by deviating from their scheduled Atlantic crossings. “Should the matter come to trial,” Inspector Harris said, with a glance at me, “the shipping company has expressed itself willing to put any of its officers at our disposal.”
An autopsy report was given by a local doctor. He confirmed the ship's doctor's original findings. The large amount of carbon dioxide in the blood suggested that the girl had died by suffocation. The bruise marks around her neck were not severe enough to have resulted in strangulation. There was no damage to the windpipe. Therefore it was surmised that the girl's face had been pressed into the pillow with a good deal of force.
I was called to the stand. I was asked to describe how I found the body. I was asked why I was occupying a cabin booked in the name of Miss Sheehan. I gave my explanation. As I was speaking, I heard a slight commotion at the back of the courtroom and I looked up to see the door closing behind the hastily retreating silhouette of a tall man. A reporter, no doubt on his way to dig up juicy dirt about Miss Sheehan. Now my name would be in the papers as well, which was the last thing I wanted.
I expected to be cross-questioned by the coroner, but he merely stared at me with those hawklike eyes and said, “It is not the business of this court to delve into why you were posing as another woman. Should a murder trial later come from the results of this inquest, I should imagine such facts may well be relevant.” He glanced across at the jury, who were still staring at me in fascination. I was released from the stand. The statements of various stewards and ships officers were read. I expected that Inspector Harris would say something about our suspicions and mention the various young men who had tried to make contact with Oona, not to mention the one who posed as a steward, but nothing more was said. The coroner summed up, and the jury brought in a verdict of unlawful killing by person or persons unknown.
We were dismissed and came out into a bright breezy morning. I only stood for a second or two, breathing in the fresh air before I was aware of an approaching clamor. I looked up to see a throng of young men with notepads and cameras heading toward me.
“Miss Murphy? A word or two if you please.”
“Miss Murphy—is it true you were asked to impersonate OonaSheehan? Can you tell us why? Can you tell us where Miss Sheehan is now? What are your own thoughts on who killed her maid?”
I put my hand up to my face as a camera was pointed at me. I turned to flee, but they came after me like a pack of wolves.
“My paper will pay for an exclusive, Miss Murphy. Where are you staying?”
I saw a passing cab, waved to the driver, made a sudden dash across the street, and climbed up with the wolf pack on my heels. As we took off at a lively trot, I found I was shaking. I had hoped to come to Ireland unnoticed, do my work, and then go back to New York. But now it seemed every paper in the land would be broadcasting the fact that I was here. I was no longer safe. The most sensible thing to do would be to book a passage on the next ship home, but I was now part of a murder inquiry and wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Failing that, the most obvious course of action would be to start using an alias.
I made it back to the hotel, half expecting to hear the clatter of hooves on our tail. But the hotel still stood quiet and serene. I should make my escape before those reporters discovered where I was staying. I asked the cabby to wait and ran upstairs to pack up my things. I paid my bill with one ear listening for approaching feet then I was off again in the cab, with relief and excitement flowing through me. I’d be out of Cork before they knew it!
“The train station, as fast as you can,” I shouted to the cabby.
The station clock was striking twelve as we pulled up. I would still have plenty of time to go to Waterford that day. Presumably I’d find somewhere to spend the night in that city, if necessary. I realized as I hurried down the platform that I should have told Inspector Harris of my plan to leave the city, but I decided that it was his fault he hadn’t provided adequate protection for me at the court building. I’d drop him a note when I knew where I’d be staying.
The train that took me to Waterford was not a merry little yellow-and-green puffing affair, but a big main-line engine and we sped along at a rapid pace, frightening horses and cows as we roared past their meadows. I arrived in Waterford and asked about Ormond Hall. I learned that it was about eight miles out of town, near the village ofDunhill. I inquired if another train went in that direction and learned that none did, however the Royal Mail had a coach going out that way every morning and took on extra passengers. I had no wish to walk eight miles that afternoon and risk arriving at a great house looking like something dragged through a hedgerow, so I found a modest boarding-house on the waterfront. Probably not a good choice of location, as I was kept awake by rowdy singing, raised voices, and what sounded like blows.
In the morning I went to pick up the coach. It was a misty, chilly day, and we passengers huddled together with a rug over us as we were quite exposed to the elements. The mail, one gathered, stayed dry. From my fellow passengers I learned that the hall had been in the Con-roy family for generations. Old Sir Henry Conroy had died a couple of years ago, and the new Lord of the Manor was Sir Toby Conroy. They didn’t say, but I got the feeling that the change in masters had not been for the better. Young Sir Toby had been in the army until he inherited the estates and had run up some enormous debts during his time with the Irish Guards—debts from which his father had had to bail him out, so one gathered. And no, he wasn’t married yet. Maybe he’d settle down when he finally chose a wife.
They were obviously curious about why I was planning a visit there. In my current dress, I was probably not going into service there, and yet I was clearly not posh enough to be making a social call. I put their minds at rest by saying I was inquiring about an aunt of mine who had been in service there once and with whom the family in America had lost touch.
“Oh really?” one of the ladies asked. “And who was your aunt? I was in service there myself for a while.”
“Her name was Mary Anne Burke,” I said.
“Mary Ann—no, the name doesn’t ring a bell. What position did she hold?”
“I’m not even sure of that,” I said. “It would have been quite a while ago. I think she went there in 1869.”
The woman started laughing. “Eighteen sixty-nine? I was only a child of five then, so I’m afraid our paths never would have crossed.”
The coach stopped at the bottom of a long driveway, lined with poplar trees.
“Here we are then, me darlin’,” the driver said cheekily. “Watch out for that one, won’t you? They say he's a terrible one for the ladies.”
The coach drove off and I stood facing an imposing gateway, the two gateposts crowned with stone lions, each one resting a paw on a stone ball. I took a deep breath before entering. The driveway was made of fine gravel and continued for a while before it swung to the right and the house came into view. And what a fine house it was, almost a castle with its battlements and turrets, and with an ornamental lake before it. Mary Ann must have thought she’d died and gone to heaven when she went from the orphanage to this place, I decided.
A flight of duck rose from the lake, and from the trees behind the house came the cawing of rooks. I watched the smoke curl from those tall chimneys and something stirred in my memory. Then I realized what memory it had rekindled, and I froze on the driveway. The Hartleys had lived in a house not quite as grand as this one, but with the same air about it, and as a young child I had always been fascinated that a family could afford more than one fire and more than one fireplace lit at the same time. I remembered walking to that house every day of my girlhood to do my lessons with Miss Henrietta and Miss Vanessa after their mother was impressed with my youthful eloquence when the land agent tried to evict my family from our cottage. To me it had been both a joy and a torment: the joy of all those books, all that knowledge, a governess who said I was a delight to teach and shared with me her travels around the continent and her love of music, art, and literature. And t
he torment, of course, in knowing that none of it could ever really be mine. The Hartley daughters always made very sure I knew I was an outsider, only being included in their lessons through charity. And then there was Justin, who was the reason for my fleeing from Ireland.
I glanced back at the gateway, now hidden behind the row of poplars. I had reassured Daniel and my friends that I was in no danger going back to Ireland, and yet here I was walking into a lion's den. These great Anglo-Irish families all intermarried and knew each other.Even though we were many miles from county Mayo, it was highly possible that Toby Conroy knew the Hartleys. He may have heard of Justin's “accident,” and the name Molly Murphy may even have come into the conversation. From now on I reminded myself that I would be using an alias, just in case.
I straightened my hat, brushed the travel dust from my two-piece, and strode out for the front door.
“Yes? May I help you?” The maid who answered it wasn’t quite sure what to make of me. She peeped past me but saw no carriage.
“I have come from New York to inquire about a woman who was once in service here,” I said. “May I speak to someone in charge? My name is Miss Delaney.” It was a name I had used before during investigations so I wasn’t as likely to slip up.
The girl glanced down the front hall. “Mr. Phipps is butler here, miss. You’d better speak with him.come this way, please.”
I was led across the front hall, through the baize door, and then down a flight of steps to that semisubterranean area always inhabited by servants. The maid tapped on a closed door, and I was admitted to a cubicle. As soon as I saw Mr. Phipps, I knew that he’d be of little use. He was a relatively young man. I gave him my name and told him that I had been sent by the family from America to find out if Mary Ann Burke was still alive. He regarded me with a haughty stare, also trying to place my class and background, thus to decide whether he needed to be polite to me or not. I’m sure he took in the cut of Miss Sheehan's silk two-piece and her jaunty burgundy hat.