A Murder at Rosamund's Gate

16

After supper had been cleared that night, Lucy brought a mug of mulled wine to Adam, taking care to leave the door wide open. A few thick law books lay about his room, various passages marked by any number of odd objects, including a feather, a rock, and a shard of wood. A sheaf of printed pamphlets was strewn across his writing desk. Placing the steaming mug on his desk, she waited nervously for him to look up.

After one last notation, his quill stopped scratching on the paper. “Thank you, Lucy.” When she did not move, he added, “Yes, Lucy? Is there something else?”

He knows what I’m going to ask, she thought. She nodded at the papers on his desk. “Is that William’s case?”

Adam grimaced slightly. “Yes. I’m afraid I haven’t much new to tell you. I’m trying to work out the questions he must put to his accusers.”

“You cannot ask the questions for him? I’m afraid he will not remember what to ask.”

“No, I wish I could. You see, the law of this realm is set up so that a man may face his accuser and be able to question him. That is all well and good, but I have seen many a time when an accused man grows flustered, or is tongue-tied, or simply forgets to pose the right questions to his accusers. I’ve often thought that barristers should be the ones to pose the questions in court, so long as the accused agrees.” He rubbed his forehead. “All I can do is try to keep him focused, so he’ll ask the right questions,” Adam said. “It’s rather tricky, you see. He must plead a certain way, so we must think through what words he should say. We must, in essence, work out his defense. It shan’t be ‘learn the neck verse’ either. Worst piece of advice a fellow can get!”

“How so?” she asked.

He explained. “One of the prison clergy taught it to him. The neck verse is the Fifty-first Psalm. It’s a common enough strategy. If the accused can memorize it and speak it to the magistrate and jury during his trial, sometimes that means the prisoner can be passed off as clergy.”

“Clergy are not harmed?”

“Sometimes they are spared. A fool’s strategy, I can tell you that!” Adam slammed down his book. “The whole case is based on hearsay! There is no definitive evidence that Will did it.”

“Because he didn’t,” Lucy said.

Adam glanced at her. “Of course. Unfortunately, Will had a motive and means—two things the law is most concerned with. Bessie was with child, probably his, and the jurors are likely to believe he did not wish to be hindered with wife and child when he’s widely let it be known that he wishes to be his own master.”

“Still, he had no need to kill her,” Lucy said. “He could just have denied her, as men usually do in situations like these.”

If Adam heard the bitterness in her voice, he did not let on. “Well, she was murdered in a fit of rage. It might be argued that Will killed her because he could see no other option. The courts might well have made him marry her, if she claimed he was the father to her babe.”

Lucy looked up at the ceiling, despairing of his logic.

“Or,” he continued, “the jurors could be convinced that Bessie was blackmailing him. And there were, of course, the stolen items. The constable might also say that Will had convinced her to make the theft and then killed her to maintain her silence.” He raised his hand to stem her protest. “We know that was not the character of either Will or Bessie. The jurors, however, do not know that. So we must create doubt in the minds of the jury. That is our only hope here.” Adam began to pace around the room, his steps on the wood floor softened by the leather slippers he wore.

Lucy watched him quietly. Does he regret his offer to help? Her lip curled. He must think the case is impossible. What hope is there for William?

Adam’s next words confirmed her fear. “We could say that he had been drinking, which is of course true,” he mused. “When he discovered her infidelity, and about the baby…”

“No!” she cried. “I won’t allow it! It’s not true!”

He went on as if he hadn’t heard her. “’Tis unlikely to get him out of jail, but it should do well enough to keep him from swinging at Newgate, to be sure. That will have to do.”

Lucy wanted to slap him. This was her dear brother he was speaking of, not some common oaf out of the gutter. A life in jail was as bad as swinging. She marshaled her anger and tried to stay calm. Her tone was icy, reasonable. “What about the painter, Master Del Gado?”

“What about Del Gado, Lucy?” he asked, stacking the papers into a pile.

“He certainly knew Bessie. Indeed, he knew her intimately.”

Adam shrugged and picked up the wine. “He had no motive.”

“Yes, but he also knew Jane Hardewick!” she cried. “Quite well! What do you make of that?!”

Adam set the mug down heavily. “What do you mean? How could you possibly know that?”

“Sir, I was at Master Del Gado’s today, and I—”

The force of his glare stopped her midsentence.

“Why were you at Del Gado’s? For God’s sake, Lucy! Are you completely addled?”

Lucy flinched. “I’ll have you know that your mother, Mistress Hargrave, sent me and—”

“Of course she did.” Adam picked up his mug again and set it down without taking a sip. “No thought about sending a girl like you into a scoundrel’s den like that.”

Lucy shuddered as he unconsciously echoed Del Gado’s own words.

“By God, Lucy, it isn’t right. Anyone can see you’re a decent respectable innocent girl! Mother shouldn’t have sent you there; John should have gone to check on her precious portrait, which I imagine is the excuse she gave you! I’ve a good mind to say something to her!”

“Oh, no, sir!” Lucy cried. “Please don’t! Mistress Hargrave did not want me to tell anyone she had sent me. I mean, I wasn’t to tell the master. I mean…” She trailed off.

“All right, Lucy. I won’t say anything. But sometimes my mother—” He muttered, “I mean, look at you! A girl like you! A man like him! Your brother would never allow it!”

Thinking of her brother made her remember why she had come to his room in the first place. “Oh, yes, sir! Do you think that Master Del Gado may have had something, er, to do with Bessie’s death? I mean, he did paint her, and I know he gave her the box with the dressing brush and combs…”

“Combs?”

“Well, the combs like the ones your mother wears.” Her voice faltered; she was unsure how to put her thoughts into words. “When I was dressing your mother’s hair, I saw her combs. They were just like Bessie’s, painted, I’m sure, by the same hand. I asked her about them, and she said they were a gift from your father. Forgive me, sir, I think they may have been from Master Del Gado.” Lucy twisted her hands uncomfortably.

“Never mind about that,” Adam responded tersely. “I daresay everyone knows about mother’s, er, sessions with the painter. Everyone excepting Father, that is, but that is neither here nor there. I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

“It got me thinking. I knew Bessie and Mistress Hargrave had both posed for Master Del Gado, and I think he gave them the combs—”

“Yes, yes,” Adam interrupted. “I understand that. What does this have to do with Jane Hardewick?”

Suddenly, Lucy felt trapped, like a hen before the butcher’s knife.

He went on. “So somehow you assumed that Jane Hardewick had posed for Del Gado, too? You thought, what, that you would just ask him? Tell me, Lucy.” Adam’s voice grew hard. “Exactly how did this leap in logic come about? I’m quite eager to know.”

Lucy glanced at his writing desk. The tobacco pouch was nowhere to be seen. Following her quick look, his eyebrows raised. “I see. In your infinite devotion to this household, you thought to make sure that all nooks and crannies, including the pouch containing the miniatures of two eyes, each from a different nameless woman, were thoroughly cleaned. Clearly, I underestimated how much a chambermaid—ahem, lady’s maid—will snoop.”

Lucy’s hand tightened into a fist, but she willed herself not to cry. She felt something dear had slipped away. He no longer trusted her, she could see. A different thought arose, and she heard herself speak. “Why did you have a portrait of Jane Hardewick’s eye, sir?”

Adam crossed his arms, his own face taut. “I found it where the poor woman was murdered. I assume it depicts her eye. I have no doubt you saw that I also found Bessie’s comb. This object I also found where she was killed.”

“But why—?”

“Why did I go searching these morbid scenes? Simple enough. I believe that when a crime has occurred there is often evidence that is overlooked. Our constables and our bellmen, good men though they may be, are given these positions because they’ve proved themselves capable of banging together the heads of drunken men. They know how to keep men from tearing each other apart in pub brawls. They know how to stop a bread riot.” He shook his head. “For God’s sake, they know how to keep watch, tell time, and shout a report at the hour. But what do they know of evidence? What do they really know of the law? Read enough legal testimony and it’s obvious how many things are overlooked.”

Lucy was not to be deterred. “And the other eye portrait? I know it was not of Bessie. ’Twas not the shape of her face. Whose eye was it?”

“Alas, I do not know. I found that miniature, too.”

Awfully convenient, she thought, but did not dare say. Reading her doubt, he added, “I did find them. The first, I found on the street in front of our home, believe it or not. I still do not know to whom it belongs.”

“On the street? In front of our home?” she repeated. “That would mean”—she broke off, a sickening thought coming to her.

“That this monster may have passed you in the street? That you may have seen him?” He ran his hand through his hair. “That he may have seen you? Believe me. I’ve thought all these things.” He turned away then, not seeing her shiver. He went on. “So I too have been suspicious of Del Gado, knowing that this form of expression is peculiar to his hand. Even before that swaggard Richard showed us those sketches of Bessie, I knew enough of that dastardly painter to know that he usually ends up bedding his models. Forgive me the coarseness.” He sighed in frustration.

“Yet, I’m sorry, Lucy, but I don’t think the painter had any reason to kill Bessie. Unfortunately, he lacks motive.”

“But he—” She paused, grasping for the right word. “He seduced her! You said so yourself.”

A muscle twitched in Adam’s face. For a moment he seemed amused, which renewed her earlier anger. How could she ever have thought he was kind or compassionate? Her cheeks turned a delicate shade of pink, but she continued breathlessly, her words tumbling out as she tried to make him understand.

“Don’t you see? Perhaps it was he who got her with child! She had nowhere to go, nowhere to turn to, maybe she threatened to expose him for the”—again she paused, trying to find the worst words she knew—“for the dung beetle cad that he is!”

She imagined the scene. It all fit perfectly, yet Adam was shaking his head.

“I know, Lucy, I know Bessie was a good girl and he took that from her, but the jury won’t see that. Perhaps if there were ever women on the jury! If you will forgive me for speaking so bluntly of your friend, the jurors will just see her as a fulsome wench, ripe for the plucking. Surely, they will see her transgression as her own folly. Indeed, we know him to be a philandering cad. The plight of a serving girl who has been taken in by the gentry is of little consequence.”

Adam’s words shocked her. “That’s not fair!”

“No, Lucy, it isn’t. After all,” he said, pacing around the room, studiously avoiding her stare, “what is a serving girl to anyone in the privileged ranks? Indeed, it was foolish for her to have believed he would marry her; society would never condone such a match.” He held up his hand at Lucy’s hiss. “There’s no denying Del Gado’s of noble blood, though I daresay there’s nothing noble about him. The reputation and standing of his family make him still notable in society, even though he’s no doubt run through his inheritance and seems to laugh off his title. Indeed, for him, such an attachment would be a laugh, as he is unlikely to settle down with one girl when so many throw themselves before him for the taking.”

Tossing some kindling on the fire, he continued. “Indeed, I am sorry to say that a rake like him might well see his reputation bolstered by his philandering. His art will only become more fascinating and sought after by foolish women with indulgent husbands.” He stirred the fire with a poker. “And Bessie, little twit she could be, how would she not know this! She could not have expected marriage! There was nothing she could do to him, nothing with which she could entice or threaten him. Nothing that would induce him either to marriage or to murder.”

“She was not a little twit!” Lucy said hotly.

Ignoring her, Adam said, “He is a man whose passions run deep, yet he is a man so self-interested that he will only pursue a woman until he has grown tired of her. As I suspect he did with our Bessie, and with my mother, another good-hearted but silly soul. It’s good that you are so little likely to tempt a man like him, or you, no doubt, would be his next prey.”

Stung by that last remark, and by what he said about Bessie, Lucy drew herself up in barely contained fury. “Bessie and me, maybe we’re just simple girls. Bessie was just a bit dumb, getting herself mixed up with a member of the gentry who would cast her off. Perhaps that’s what men of your kind do to a poor lass who has naught to offer but love.” Her voice became shrill. “We’ve got feelings! And Del Gado said he wanted to paint me, he said so! So I guess he sees something in me, even if I am not tempting to some!” Stifling a sob, she added, “If there is nothing else, sir, I am off to bed.”

Adam looked taken aback. “Lucy, I want to help, but I can only do what I can.”

Her fury blazed again, true and full. “I do believe, sir,” Lucy began hotly, “that you say you love the law and have studied all these wonderful books”—she waved her arm around the study—“and yet I do not think you can get beyond those words to see that the heart and soul, nay, the very life, of a good man are at stake.” She wiped away a tear. “William may not be the best man, but he is a good man, and honest and true, and he deserves that the law regard him as such. And Bessie, whatever you think of her, was a good and true lass, too, who deserves the same justice as the very highest of high. Our lot in life may be to serve the likes of you, but we deserve more, sir. We deserve more!”

Her voice having broken at the last, she fled, not daring to see the effect of her words. Running up the steps to her little room at the top of her house, she moaned, her face in her hands.

“What did I just say?” She groaned. She did not think Adam would have her discharged, but would he refuse to help William now? She cursed her heedless tongue and spent a restless night hearing her words repeated in her mind, until the sun bid her to her Sunday morning chores.

* * *

As the family was leaving the church the next morning, Lucy edged up to Adam, her cheeks flushed. The words she had said—nay, shouted—yesterday still echoed in her ears, but she had to know how her brother was doing. “I was wondering, sir, how is my brother? I forgot to ask when we,” Lucy stammered, “when we spoke yesterday.”

“As well as can be expected, Lucy,” he said, his tone cool. Clearly, he did not want to continue their conversation.

“I am seeing him today—”

“Lucy! Alone? That’s hardly wise!”

“Oh, no,” she said hastily. “Lucas is going to accompany me.”

“I see. Well, take care. You can let him know that I shall, of course, come with him on Tuesday morning.”

And then be done with him, and by extension be done with her as well, Adam’s tone seemed to imply. Their growing friendship had been checked; no doubt, the right and proper thing to do. An unexpected wave of sadness washed over her as she watched him leave the churchyard.

Within a few moments, Lucy found herself alone, waiting for Lucas, as the other parishioners climbed into waiting carts or passed down the dusty paths toward town or their homes. Walking among the peaceful stones and crosses, Lucy read the names and epitaphs on the graves. MARY WORTHINGTON, BELOVED WIFE. ELIZABETH MOORE, DEAREST MOTHER.

Lucy wondered idly about their lives. She wondered if that would be her one day, someone’s wife and mother, buried after a life of love and happiness. Such a life would probably not be surrounded by books. Her husband was not too likely to read much, just the Bible or some dreary sermons. She would miss the magistrate’s household, she thought, and though it was like to be a long way off, she already resented her future husband for taking her away from the security and happiness she found living with the magistrate.

She heard someone calling her name, interrupting her reverie. “Who’s there?” she asked, peering among the white alabaster angels that gracefully protected the bones of long-dead parishioners.

Avery popped his head from behind one of the graves. Fingers on his lips, he waved her over.

“What’s wrong, Avery?” she asked. “Did you lose your kitten again? I’m sorry, I’ve no time to help you to find her today.”

He shook his head. “Kitty is here.” He patted his pocket. Sure enough, there was a movement, and a little white head popped out. Lucy petted it. “I’m to tell you, someone wants to talk to you.”

Lucy studied him. His gray hair was matted about his face, but his eyes seemed clear. “I’m waiting for Lucas right now, Avery. Who wants to speak with me?”

“I don’t know her,” he said. “It’s about your brother. Me and Kitty, we’re so sorry, miss, that he’s in Newgate.”

“My brother? What news?”

“Will was with me,” said a woman, flouncing toward them, “the night that the cheap vixen was killed.”

The orange seller! From the theater! Lucy grew excited. “He was with you? When? What is your name, by the way? I’m sorry my brother never told me—”

The woman sniffed. Up close, Lucy could see she was not as young as she had appeared when she was bantering with customers at the Globe. She could see lines around the woman’s mouth and a single gray strand in her brown hair. Avery faded away, leaving them alone.

“Name’s Maggie Potts.” She licked her lips. “That’s right, I was with Will all day, all night. Your brother, he’s a swell lad. I shouldn’t like to see him swing, especially for a daft git such as her that got herself killed.”

Lucy frowned. “When? He was with Bessie—I’m sorry, but it’s true—and then at the Muddy Duck, which is where he was, sousing himself silly, until Richard came back to the pub, and they seem to have had a bit of a brawl. Many people saw it, I heard tell—”

Maggie put her hands on her hips. “Well, it was after that. No matter. I’ve got some girls who can swear to the same.”

“So he was with you?” Lucy pressed. “That night?”

The woman smirked. “Sure. For a few sovereigns, I can say whatever.”

“A few sovereigns?” Lucy echoed, startled.

“Pay me five and I’ll even testify in court. I can be real convincing.” She swung her bodice a bit. “I can get them jurors to like me, no problem. They’re just men, right? I should have been a player myself, not just selling stupid oranges all day.”

Lucy hesitated.

“Look,” Maggie said, pulling out a flimsy pamphlet. “Do you want Will to end up like this poor sod?”

With shaking fingers, Lucy pulled open the crumpled bit of paper. “‘Order Regained, or The Last Dying Speech of Robert Preswell, convicted of murdering Jane Hardewick of Lincoln Fields, before he was hanged at the Tyburn Tree.’”

Lucy skimmed the document, feeling a bit faint. Apparently, several neighbors had heard Preswell confess to fathering Jane Hardewick’s child, while another neighbor testified that he had borrowed a knife just that morning and “had an evil glint in his eye when he did ask for it.” While even in his last dying speech Robert denied murdering her, everyone agreed that justice had been achieved, and order restored.

“Hanged Friday last, he was,” Maggie said, looking at Lucy. Her eyes seemed to gleam.

Lucy could only shake her head helplessly. “I don’t understand. If you were with Will, you must come forward! ’Tis the honorable thing to do. Please! If you care two bits for my brother.”

“I’ve given you my terms. Five sovereigns.” Maggie looked around. “I’ll be serving at the Anchor tomorrow night. Don’t tell anyone.”

Before Lucy could speak again, Maggie melted away as Lucas appeared.

“Ah, Lucy,” he said, holding out his arm. “Shall we take a turn here in the churchyard?” He looked ruefully at the stones that lay cracked and fallen all about them. “Morbid though it may be, there are some interesting words among them to be read.”

Lucas grinned in the old way, pausing before a modest gravestone.

“Here’s my favorite,” he said.

Lucy read the inscription aloud. “‘Here lies dearest mother, who was verily poisoned by her serving maid who she had beaten for many a year, who then herself fell into the hearth and died.’” She looked at Lucas. “This is your favorite?”

“Divine atonement, do you suppose?” he asked. “Who says the good Lord does not have a sense of humor.”

“Or at least he who makes the stones,” she added with a slight smile.

“I do believe that sinners get what they deserve. I also believe that sometimes the good Lord in his wisdom uses man to enact his justice on this our earthly plane.”

Lucas’s bald words drew Lucy up short and reminded her of why she had come. “The hour is growing late, sir, and I fear we shall not have time to get to Newgate and back without the mistress missing me very much.”

As they walked down the cobblestone streets, she related what Adam had told her about Will’s defense.

Lucas nodded. “The neck verse,” he said, “was probably not a very good idea. Upon reflection.” He changed the subject. “Lucy, who were you talking to, back at the church? Before I walked up? Avery I know, of course, poor soul, his mind addled by the war. Who was the woman? She looked familiar, but I can’t quite place her.”

“Oh, that’s Maggie Potts. She’s, er, a friend of Will’s.”

“Indeed?”

“She says she was with Will the night of Bessie’s death and would swear to it in court.”

Lucas gave a low whistle. “That would save Will, to be sure.” He glanced at Lucy. “Tell me, Lucy. Why, then, do you not look more overjoyed? When Miss Potts’s testimony could set him free? Or,” and he looked at her shrewdly, “is there a fee to be had for this helpful testimony?”

Lucy hung her head. “I’m to meet her at the Anchor with five sovereigns. She tends the tavern there when she’s not working the plays.”

“Pray, do not resort to desperate measures, Lucy,” he said, putting his arm around her slumped shoulders. “God, and I, will help you through this terrible time.”

Lucy began to weep in earnest then, and she scarcely knew for what she was crying. Bessie’s death, the strain of Will’s trial, and even Adam’s disdain … all of it overwhelmed her. Lucas let her weep, and she was grateful that he asked her no questions.