The Quickening and the Dead

by J C Briggs

  Mrs Feak had seen, too, how infection came on so quickly, so that a thin, starved body would be stricken with a burning fever and covered with those black patches that she’d seen on Evie’s legs and arms — and the rest of her, no doubt. She’d known it was too late as soon as she’d seen her. Blood poisoning — no cure for that.

  Someone had let Evie Finch go. She knew about girls who were taken in a carriage to a respectable house with a piano in the parlour. Girls who would come out again after a short time, who would have to be supported on the arm of a mother or a friend, and who would be taken home. But someone had let Evie Finch go alone. Mother Hubbard, she thought. Not the woman from the nursery rhyme, I’ll bet.

  She went home and scrubbed down her kitchen.

  Chapter 7: The Morgue

  Dickens and Jones looked down at the body on the white marble slab in the cold, white-tiled mortuary. The flare of blue gas flame showed them the waxen pallor of the dead girl’s face. Her eyes were closed and her head with the scraped back hair, looked all bone, as if she were an effigy, the colourless lips and the high thin nose drawn in stone. But her uncle had recognised her. She was Lavinia Gray.

  The news that a body had been found on the muddy shore by Waterloo Bridge had come in the morning. Jones had gone with Rogers to look. He had wondered about the missing fiancée of Richard Farleigh. The girl stretched out on the watery edge looked very young, very fragile, and the white face seemed quite without expression. Not peaceful, just absent. He did not know if it were she, but when they had removed her to the mortuary, he had seen the handkerchief with the initials L.G. embroidered there, and had sent for Mr Gray.

  Caught, he had thought, in a familiar snare — should you hope that the body were known to the person for whom you had sent? If it were, then you were the bringer of grief to someone whose life would be irrevocably altered. You would feel a kind of guilt that you were the messenger. Yet, if you were wrong, then you had made a mistake and had caused unnecessary suffering, and must go through it all again with someone else. But, Mr Gray had nodded. He had turned away then, his face, in the ugly light, stricken. He had gone away to tell his sister that her daughter was dead.

  Jones had sent a message to Dickens at Wellington Street — he wanted him to go with him to see Richard Farleigh.

  The sheet had been pulled down so that they could see the neck and shoulders — so thin that it looked as though, at a touch, she might break. Dickens thought about Miranda Deverall. Something linked these two, if only a sense that they had been worn to bone by some grief. Lavinia Gray had run away the night before her wedding, and she had cast herself away into the river. Why? Or had someone cast her away? Dickens stared at the head and shoulders. Above the collar bones, the hollows seemed too deep, and the skin looked almost transparent stretched across the too prominent bones of the chest. ‘She is unnaturally thin — as if she were wasting away.’

  ‘The doctor who examined her said that she can hardly have eaten anything for months — starving herself to death, he said. Perhaps she had hoped to do so before the wedding. Which adds to the theory that she was a suicide — according to the doctor, she went into the water alive.’

  ‘How could he tell?’

  ‘There was no evidence that she had struggled against any attacker — no bruising or contusions, and she had grasped in her hand a piece of rope which, he thinks, she had caught hold of unconsciously as she went in. It seems that this is not an uncommon occurrence and is one of the strongest proofs that the deceased went into the water living. But, for us, it’s her state of mind that tells us she killed herself. She ran away from her wedding.’

  ‘But wouldn’t someone have noticed that she wasn’t eating — her mother? Richard Farleigh — surely he saw that she was becoming thinner and thinner?’

  ‘Well, that’s interesting — I didn’t notice that she was especially thin when I looked at her at the river, but the doctor directed me to look at her clothes. The jacket, the bodice, the skirt were all padded. Someone had sewn padded linings into the garments. She didn’t want anyone to know.’

  ‘But her mother? Did she never see her daughter undressed? She must have had a maid.’

  ‘We shall have to ask, but first I should like to see Richard Farleigh. I want you to come with me. You know him — I thought it might make it easier. I shall have to ask some difficult questions.’

  ‘And the other girl?’ Dickens pointed to the sheeted figure on another slab.

  ‘Evie Finch — you remember her? A friend of Mollie Rogers — she came to the wedding.’

  ‘I do — pretty girl, as I recall, lively — and sharp, I thought. Good Lord, what’s happened to her?’

  ‘She and Mollie were in service with the Crewes in Grosvenor Street, but Evie Finch went on to work for a Mr and Mrs Simpson. It seems that she had left her employment. A message came for Mollie from a lodging house off Compton Street. The girl was dying when Mollie got there. She sent for Mrs Feak —’

  ‘Your Sybil of Star Street.’ This was what Jones had named the nurse who was a mine of information — and wisdom. Mrs Feak’s son was one of Jones’s constables.

  ‘Indeed. Mrs Feak knew the girl was dying of blood poisoning, and it took only a look for her to know why. Evie Finch had been pregnant and someone had botched an operation.’

  ‘Good God! Any idea who?’

  ‘Not yet, but Rogers has gone to see Mrs Feak, and he is going to question the other servants at the Simpson house. I haven’t much hope — it’s not a thing that folk will talk about.’

  They were silent then in that cold morgue. Water dripped somewhere. There was the smell of carbolic soap, and underneath it, the faint smell of corruption. Lavinia Gray slept, the life that might have been hers vanished like a dream. Death and the maiden. Too soon. The pity of it, thought Dickens. He looked at the covered form of Evie Finch who he had last seen glowing with beauty and smart ribands. Another wasted life.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Jones said. ‘Let’s do something useful.’

  At the Farleigh house, Dickens asked to see Mr Farleigh. They stood in the hall where Jones explained the purpose of his visit. Miss Gray had drowned, and it was his duty to discover any circumstances which might explain that death.

  ‘She killed herself, you think?’ Mr Farleigh asked. He looked anxious. Dickens wished for a moment that he had not come. Mr Farleigh had looked doubtful at his presence. He hoped they did not think that he had come out of curiosity.

  ‘I do,’ Jones answered.

  The strained look in Mr Farleigh’s eyes relaxed for a moment. He had wondered if his son might be suspected. If this policeman needed to find out about Lavinia Gray, then he would have to know about his son’s relationship with his bride-to-be, and that would be difficult for Richard — to talk about what had seemed, to his father, the obvious thing wrong with Lavinia — she had seemed frightened about her marriage. He felt glad then that Dickens was there — he knew him. Man of feeling, sensitive, he thought. Richard might be able to talk to him. He looked at the shrewd grey eyes of the policeman. Perhaps that was why he had brought Dickens — sensitive, too. He looked like a decent man.

  They went into the library where Richard Farleigh sat by the fire, looking like a man who would never be warm again.

  ‘Richard, you know Mr Dickens, and this is Superintendent Jones of Bow Street, who has come to talk about Lavinia. She has been found — drowned.’

  The young man’s face turned white. He put his hands over his face. They waited. When he looked up, his face was wet. ‘My fault,’ he said. I should never…’

  Mr Farleigh put his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘I don’t think so, Richard — you did what you thought was best. You could not have known.’

  ‘If you feel able to answer some questions,’ Jones said quietly.

  Richard looked at him, surprised at the kindness in his voice. ‘I will tell you all I can — it is not easy, but I suppose you must know — for her sake. Please do sit down
.’ If Richard Farleigh was surprised at the presence of Dickens, he did not show it, but he looked at him as if at a man throwing him a lifeline.

  ‘I do not really know where to start…’ he faltered.

  ‘Just begin wherever you like — you do not have to tell us from the beginning.’

  Dickens sat down opposite Richard. Jones sat a little away from Dickens so that he could see the young man’s face. Mr Farleigh stood behind his son’s chair. He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder again.

  ‘You need to know the truth — I wanted to get out of it. I know it sounds brutal, but increasingly, I felt that she did not want marriage. She seemed to be shrinking before my very eyes — I felt, somehow, as if I were sucking the life from her by my very presence. I asked her as gently as I could if she would prefer me not to come anymore — how else could I phrase it? But she looked terrified then — I couldn’t understand it. I didn’t know what she wanted from me. But, I couldn’t face seeing that doctor again.’

  ‘Doctor?’ Dickens asked, puzzled.

  ‘Plume,’ Charles Farleigh said.

  ‘Lancelot Plume, the doctor who was killed?’ Jones asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Richard Farleigh answered.

  ‘Why did you see him?’

  ‘He was Lavinia’s doctor. My father thought — he thought that Plume might be able to tell me if there were any reason that Lavinia should not marry —’

  ‘Why did you ask?’

  ‘Because —’ he paused, and they saw how his pale face flushed, but he looked at Dickens straight, and at Jones — ‘because she could not bear me to touch her — she tried, but even when I took her hand, she seemed to flinch. It was impossible —’

  ‘Yet, she was terrified when you offered to stay away.’

  ‘Exactly — I tell you, I couldn’t understand it. I couldn’t abandon her — it was a matter of honour. I was bound to her.’

  Jones asked, ‘What did the doctor tell you?’

  ‘It was natural that she was anxious — that she would come round — young women usually did. She would come to understand her duty — as if that made it right.’ Richard Farleigh bowed his head. They waited for him to master himself. ‘He was so sure of himself, so patronising, so — knowing — he knew nothing. She wasn’t Lavinia Gray to him — she was just a silly girl who would submit to … and now she’s dead because she thought I was the kind of man who would insist on…’

  ‘Would the doctor have told her that?’

  ‘I don’t know — I don’t know if she saw him…’

  Dickens glanced at Jones. It was an idea — perhaps the doctor had told Lavinia Gray something that had pushed her over the edge. Pity he was dead. What kind of a doctor had he been?

  Richard Farleigh looked up, his eyes bitter and despairing. ‘Do you know, he recommended a book I could give her — The Medical Synopsis of Married Life. Apparently, there’s a chapter on marriage and its obligations. As if I could … it’s a wonder he didn’t suggest we read it together.’

  ‘We should go to see Mrs Gray — surely Lavinia’s mother might be able to help us?’ Jones rose from his seat. They had put Richard Farleigh through enough. He was surprised to see an expression of dislike in the young face.

  ‘She’ll tell you nothing.’

  ‘A hard woman,’ explained Charles Farleigh, ‘and, I think it is probably the reason that Lavinia seemed terrified that Richard would withdraw. She was frightened of her mother.’

  Chapter 8: The Hard Woman

  They walked away from the house in Adam Street, through Manchester Square, noting as they went, the drawn blinds of the Gray house where the wedding feast had been dismantled, the presents packed up, and the arrangements for a funeral would have to be made. And that made him think: buried hugger-mugger in the deep midnight in some unhallowed corner of a dank churchyard? So often the case for suicides. He felt horror at the thought. Perhaps Mr Gray would find a clergyman to read the maimed rites, or perhaps there might be a family vault in which she could be quietly interred. He thought to speak, but Jones was hurrying on.

  Mrs Gray lived in Queen Anne Street. They passed number forty-eight where the old painter Turner lived. Dickens had met him at a farewell dinner years ago before he went to Italy. It had been a sultry June night, but he remembered the painter with a huge red-belcher handkerchief round his neck. No one could persuade him to take it off. A quiet man — Dickens had seen him looking at the lights on the river. What had he been seeing? Something visionary there over the river where the sky was dark and louring, save where the glory of the departing sun had piled up masses of gold and burning fire, and the reflected light had shivered and splintered in the dark water?

  Reality was the black painted door of number twenty-three where the blinds were drawn, too, and a red-eyed housekeeper, Mrs Pook, came to answer their knock. She wasn’t certain that Mrs Gray would see them — she was not in good health, and her daughter — well, if that’s what they had come about, she would see.

  They waited in the darkened hall. It was cold. Dickens thought, what a dead house it was, so still, so silent. Oil paintings on the walls, so dark that you couldn’t tell what the subjects were — vaguely brooding landscapes. Dreary. He thought of Turner’s great canvas — Rain, Steam and Speed, an explosion of light and colour. No light, no colour here. If the mother matched her surroundings, no wonder Lavinia Gray had wanted to escape. And Charles Farleigh had said that Lavinia was frightened of her mother. Why? Well, they would see. Mrs Pook came back to tell them that Mrs Gray would see them.

  Jones had told Dickens to keep well in the background — he had a feeling that Mrs Gray would not welcome Charles Dickens. He would be Constable Feak of the Detective Division. Watch, Jones had said, and busy yourself with a notebook. Keep out of her line of sight. Dickens, the actor, had arranged his face into an expression of gormless simplicity. Jones had grinned. ‘No need to overdo it.’

  ‘I shall be as invisible as the air — sir.’

  The room into which they were shown was dark, too. The curtains were closed. There were oil lamps and a small fire smouldering in the grate. No modern gas light here. Heavy furniture, dark velvet that looked black in the dim light. More sombre pictures, except for the portrait over the mantel — a young man in the uniform of an infantry soldier. The tight red jacket with its white band across the breast, the gold-braided cuffs and epaulettes glowed in the dark. The young man with the eager blue eyes carried a sword. Dickens recognised the thin, high-bridged nose. Lavinia’s brother?

  The same nose, though sharper and longer, could be seen on the woman seated in a wheeled chair by the fire. She was dressed in unrelieved black, a black so dense that the material of the dress seemed solid. On her grey hair she wore a square of black silk. Dickens thought of the black cap placed on the judge’s head when he passed a sentence of death. Apt image. There was something death-like about her, and he was sure it was not only to do with her daughter.

  A stern, narrow face, the colour of parchment, with thin, pale lips compressed into a line of disapproval as she looked at the Superintendent. Jones mentioned the constable, but she did not glance at Dickens, who kept well out of the way.

  Mrs Gray did not speak. Her eyes were pale ice. She was mistress here, and this large man, a policeman, Mrs Pook had said, must state his business and be gone. She had nothing to say about Lavinia, and what she thought was her private business. She waited.

  She is all edge, Dickens thought, and our presence here whets and sharpens her edges. He wondered how Jones would deal with her.

  Jones knew what she was, and he knew that she had something to do with her daughter’s suicide, but he kept his feelings to himself. He saw how she thought to exercise her power over him. However, he didn’t care. He had plenty of experience of those who looked down their long, supercilious noses at the police, whom they were the first to call when they were outraged by a crime committed against their person, and as important, their property. He looked at those
icy eyes. He waited. After all, it was a matter of courtesy — the householder should speak first. Let her wait. The atmosphere congealed as if the very air were freezing. Dickens would not have been surprised to see icicles forming on her lips.

  She gave in. ‘Well?’

  ‘Your daughter, Mrs Gray. I must ask if you have any idea why she should take her own life. There will be an inquest. Information must be given for a verdict to be reached.’ Jones’s voice was studiedly neutral, that of a rather dull man going about his duty.

  ‘Must?’

  He ignored the edge of sarcasm. ‘I am afraid so, Mrs Gray.’

  ‘My brother will attend the inquest. He will provide any evidence — if there be any. I am not well enough. You see that I cannot walk. You must see him.’

  Jones forbore to echo the “must”, though he was tempted. ‘It would be helpful if you could give any indication of your daughter’s state of mind. After all, it was the eve of her wedding. Was she anxious about it?’

  ‘I have no idea. My daughter did not take me into her confidence. I will tell you this — I did not approve of the marriage.’