A Murder at Rosamund's Gate

20

Taking a break from packing, Lucy wandered out to her favorite stone bench at the Hargraves’ home in Warwickshire. It had been a long ten months since those terrible days in May, when the family had fled the city. Tomorrow, they would finally be journeying home, having had word that the plague had let up in London. To what they’d be returning, no one dared to guess.

The household had grown smaller—just herself, the master, Cook, John, and little Annie, who had become like her own true sister. Lucas, of course, had first stayed in London to minister to the sick and sinful, then spent some time in Oxford, where he had begun his theological studies. Adam had never come to the family home at all. He had chosen to remain in the city, for reasons only he and his father seemed to know.

She flushed now to think of his kiss and, even worse, her own foolishness. She forced herself to think instead of Sarah, who had stayed through the winter but then returned to her aunt in Shropshire. The magistrate had let his daughter leave, of course, but was puzzled by her request. Only yesterday, they had found out what Sarah had intended.

Lucy pulled Sarah’s letter from her pocket and smoothed it out. As was common, letters got passed around the family members and the household. No one noticed that several had ended up in her hands.

Dearest family,

I am most thankful to hear that you are well and in good spirits. Although I still miss dear Mother every day, I find that I am refreshed in my spirit, having become a handmaiden of the Lord. Ever since I found the light and joined the Friends (should you pass this letter to Lucas, our godly fellow, pray do not let him call me a Quacker! Although I will answer to Quaker), I have found my calling. It was God’s will, Father, that you sent me to Shropshire. I am preparing now to journey to Jamaica and Barbados with my dear aunt! Perhaps, after that, we will journey to Boston, and trumpet the Lord’s word there. I shall not come to London for a while, so that, Father, you will not feel you must send me to Newgate, under that terrible Conventicle Act. I hope, though, that we are together in spirit.

Yours in Christ,

Sarah

Lucy had seen the magistrate’s face when he first read this letter. Although he crumpled it in his hand, he had smiled wryly. “Well, that gypsy told Sarah she was going to travel, eh, Lucy? And that I wouldn’t like it? Maybe there’s something to all that chicanery after all.”

Beneath Sarah’s letter, Lucy had also hidden three letters from Adam. They were not addressed to her, of course, but rather to the whole family.

“Why would he write to me?” she softly berated herself. She stared down at the letters, trying to decide if she wanted to read them again. The papers were practically falling apart, she’d held them so often.

She sighed. Thinking about Adam felt disrespectful to the magistrate. He’d hardly appreciate his son cavorting with one of his servants, Lucy thought—although, over the last few months, Master Hargrave had seemed to welcome her as a daughter. When he had first thanked her for saving his life, in his grave and somber way, Lucy had felt embarrassed for them both, but a great tenderness had surfaced between them.

When the magistrate discovered her reading the same penny chapbooks they’d brought from London, he’d handed her a leather-bound copy of Shakespeare’s comedies.

“No more of that twaddle,” he had said, and after she was done, she found Jonson, Marlowe, and the like left for her.

The magistrate seemed to seek her out, too, asking her opinion on different matters and listening closely to her responses. Once he read her a passage from a bit of legislation that he was putting forth to Parliament, and she could only shake her head. “I don’t know those words, sir,” she had told him.

“What?” The magistrate had chuckled. “Oh, right, of course. I forget sometimes. Well, let’s rectify that.”

“Sir?”

“Let’s start from the beginning.”

Every evening, sometimes for an hour or more, the magistrate had taught her about the law. It began as a means for him to pass time, but Lucy sensed he really wanted to share his thoughts.

“It was after William’s trial, actually,” the magistrate explained, “that I apprehended how imperative it is that we have new standards of evidence. Your brother, I’m sure you realize, came very close to being judged guilty, and would have been, had that hearsay evidence held. While judges should be allowed a measure of latitude, it should not be a different standard of justice at every circuit court. The people must understand their rights.”

The magistrate tapped his pen against the sheepskin on his desk. “That is why I run these ideas by you, Lucy. They should be comprehensible even for a young girl, although I think few young girls would show the inclination you have demonstrated toward understanding the law.”

“I’m sure you will make that change,” she had replied, without thinking how forward it might sound.

Unexpectedly, the magistrate had taken her hand in his for an instant. “Thank you, my dear. I am a lucky man to have such a good and loyal companion beside me.”

For Lucy, the opportunity to learn had changed something in her. Her thoughts were bigger than they had ever been before. She was starting to make more sense of the magistrate’s ideas and words. Cook said she was starting to “talk like gentry.”

The biggest change came, though, when Lucy began to write. At night, with only a nub of candle, she had begun to write her own ideas. Sometimes she would kept the Bible open beside her, since it seemed that people liked to draw on scripture, but other times she just wrote from a place deep in her soul.

The first piece she wrote was about Lawrence. She called it “On a Young Boy Dying,” and it detailed her young friend’s short life. This she kept to herself, tucked in a little chest. She cherished her scraps of paper, imagining what her pieces would look like, all neatly printed out on one of Master Aubrey’s presses, but she knew she would not dare. Master Aubrey! she thought with a pang. She hoped he had survived the plague.

* * *

Fingering Adam’s letters now, Lucy wished they had been addressed to her. Unable to help herself, she opened the first one again. It had come within a few months of the family’s settling in Warwickshire, in August 1665.

Dear Father,

I am glad to hear that you are in better spirits since those terrible days when we lost my mother. My heart is with the family and household. I have found London to be very strange these last few weeks; as you know, the Mayor ordered all of the stray cats and dogs to be rounded up and executed, the fear being that they were the conveyers of the plague. On this point, I am not convinced, as the evidence of the sickness seems to travel among other vermin, like the ever increasing rats. One near bit me the other day, but I did beat it off with a staff. If you please, tell our Lucy that she need not worry; I have helped her dear friend Avery to find safety and shelter for himself and his cat. I did also meet with Will, who told me that both Lucy’s mother and sister are safe and out of danger’s way. Father, you did ask me in the last letter if I had seen Lord Embry yet, but I can only say that I heard that he and the family, including his daughter Judith, had safely escaped the sickness and have not yet returned. I have not had the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance or of discussing with her father the particulars of the shipping industry. My love to you and Sarah and the household.

With warmest regards,

Your son, Adam

The second one was from early January.

Dear Father,

Thank you for your letter. It is indeed good to know that all members of the household are in raised spirits. London seems to be ridding itself of the lunacy that beset it since last summer, and thanks be to God, the rats are lessening, perhaps being driven off by the cold. The tolling of the bells has mercifully stopped at last; one could surely be driven mad by their monotonous call. Shops are opening. Indeed, many MPs and JPs are starting to return; we’ve heard tell that the Inns of Court shall be reopened before long. It has been rumored that the king will be returning to London soon; we can but hope that he will see it fit to do so, as I think it would do the hearts of the people good to see their great sovereign among them.

I did see Lord Embry and his daughter Judith at a Twelfth Night gathering; since near everyone is in mourning it was quite a small affair. I recall with some regret and happiness Easter night past; this had not near the gaiety that comes when hearts and minds are joyfully engaged. I am glad to hear that our Lucy is reading so well; perhaps she can help Cook puzzle out some new recipes from this book I have enclosed. Please tell Lucy that I have seen her brother in London and he sends his best regards.

St. Peter’s has been cleared of all the sick and dying who had sought shelter there in the darkest days of the sickness. I assume Lucas will be returning from Oxford soon, to put his new learning to use in the pulpit.

Will you and the household be returning soon to London? There is an issue we must discuss, sir, post haste. My heart is with you and Sarah and the household.

Yours truly, Adam

His third letter had just come a few days days ago, on the twenty-fifth of March, and was terser than the other two.

Father,

When shall we expect your return? I fear that London very much needs you here. I have been bidden to tell you that with the great death toll that has been brought to Parliament and the courts, you must return to the bench post haste. I myself have sped through my exams at the Inns of Court and will be entering the circuit. I will be leaving at the end of the month to take up the county assizes in Kent. I hope to see you ere I go, as I would very much like to apprise you of an arrangement I am making with Lord Embry.

Yours, Adam

Lucy looked at the three letters again, admiring Adam’s small, neat script, reading her own name in his hand. Every time she was grateful to know that her family had survived the plague. It was hard to be so long away from Mother, Will, and little Dorrie, and she was grateful that Adam had thought to include the news in his letter.

She could not help but reread the passage that referred to Judith Embry. I did see Lord Embry and his daughter Judith at a Twelfth Night gathering; since near everyone is in mourning it was quite a small affair. I recall with some regret and happiness Easter Night past; this had not near the gaiety that comes when hearts and minds are joyfully engaged. He must have been remembering how he had kissed Judith that night, Lucy thought with an odd pang. She tried not to think of the last thing he wrote, but the words slunk into her mind anyway. I hope to see you ere I go, as I would very much like to apprise you of an arrangement I am making with Lord Embry.

Lucy shook her skirts. That’s how the gentry speak of marriage, she supposed.

This last letter from Adam was what finally roused the magistrate to action. With great regret and even greater apprehension, the family began to pack their belongings to prepare for the weary journey back to London. The life they had forged for themselves, while not exactly happy, had created a bond built on a sense of shared grief and companionship—a bond that no one was sure would continue when they returned to the harsh reality that London was sure to be.

Only Lucy was glad of the tiresome preparations, working feverishly, trying to quiet her mind with busy hands. She was so tired each evening that she would just drop off to sleep, although her dreams were restless. What would they be coming back to?

* * *

On the first of April, the Hargraves’ carriages stopped before the Red Rooster Inn, five miles from London’s limits.

“All Fools’ Day,” the magistrate had commented as they jumped off the cart. “It may be fitting, although I suspect we will find little to laugh at when we get to the city. Let us stop here for a quick dinner and a bit of news.”

John stayed outside to look after the horses and carts while, with some trepidation, the others went inside the tavern. As they ate their leek and meat pies, people traveling from London warned in hushed tones of the grim landscape ahead.

“At least all the corpses are gone, carted off to Houndsditch, I hear,” one woman said.

“And the king’s men have stopped the looting,” added another.

“The plague was an omen,” a third woman said, noisily slurping her soup. “Sixteen sixty-six. The Year of our Lord. Bah!”

“The year of the devil, to be sure!” A man banged his fist on the table. “London is paying for her sins.”

Lucy and Cook looked at each other, and Annie snuggled closer.

“Stuff and nonsense,” Master Hargrave declared, chewing a bit of lamb.

The magistrate’s words steadied her when at last the spires of St. Paul’s and St. Giles came into view. Makeshift camps were everywhere, people in tattered rags cooking over open fires.

“Banned they were for suspicion of sickness,” John muttered, “and, poor souls, they have not found a place back inside the city.”

As their carts passed carefully through the bedraggled groups of huddled families, a familiar face caught her eye. “Maraid!” she whispered.

As if she had heard, the old gypsy looked straight at her. For a moment, they stared at each other, Maraid as proud and fearless as she’d ever been. Lucy smiled slightly and gave a little wave, glad she had survived the sickness. Unexpectedly, Maraid crooked her finger, invoking the age-old calling of the blessing. The cart jerked and moved on, and within moments, the gypsies were out of sight.

* * *

As their horses trotted closer to the city walls and they began to breathe in the familiar smoky haze that engulfed the city, Lucy tried to prepare herself for what they would find.

Right away, though, Lucy could see London little resembled the bustling, noisy town she remembered. The streets were thick with rushes, laid down in mourning, quieting the wheels of their carriage. As it was twilight, few people were in the streets. House after house was shuttered and closed from the street; black crepe draped from many windows. Most doors were marked with a great cross signifying the plague had come to the inhabitants inside, with a grim number below indicating how many in the house had been claimed by the reaper.

Annie gripped her hand tightly, and Lucy gave her an answering squeeze.

As they turned down their own street, Lucy could feel her companions grow tenser, expectant. Their own house was still mostly shuttered and dark, but the wood across the door had been pried off, great holes showing where the nails had been. Adam must have removed them, for the master had sent word that they would be arriving.

For a moment, they could only stare. The last days they had spent in the house, the sickness, the anguish, the death of the mistress and Lawrence, weighed heavily on her heart. Lucy longed to touch the master’s hand, wishing to soften his despair. Instead, she put her arm around little Annie and hugged her close.

Cook brushed a tear from her face. “Right, then,” she said, bustling past them. “We’d best get everything inside before dark. I’ll get a good fire going. Lucy, come help get supper on.”

Supper that night was a sad affair. The master sat alone at the table for a while, eating little. When Lucy came to bring him some ale, she found him in the drawing room gazing at the portrait of his wife. She coughed into her hand. “Here’s some ale to warm you, sir.”

“Ah yes. Lucy. Thank you, dear.” They heard a step in the hall and a muffled greeting. “Ah, here must be Adam.”

Adam swung open the door then and quickly embraced his father. He nodded stiffly at the others, immediately turning back to him. Lucy quietly poured out a second flagon of ale for Adam. When their fingers touched, he glanced away.

As she walked out of the room, she heard the magistrate say, “Now, Adam, tell me about this business with the Embrys.”

Lucy put her hand to her stomach, feeling queasy. Would banns announcing Adam and Judith’s betrothal be read, now that the family had returned? She stumbled up to her old small chamber, which stifled her with memories. Gratefully, she saw that someone had made her bed with fresh sheets, and there was even a flower by her old mirror. She held the flower to her nose and sniffed deeply.

When had Cook done this? she wondered. Or had Adam? She dismissed the thought as soon as it came to her. Don’t be daft, she scolded herself. The magistrate’s son was not likely to be making the beds of his servants. More likely, he had hired a local lass to take care of it. Still, it was kind, she thought as she gratefully snuggled in the clean sheets, exhausted after the long journey. No chance of weevils or bedbugs biting her legs, which she had feared. In her last waking thought, she blessed the small kindness.

* * *

Over the long summer of 1666, Lucy saw little of Adam or the magistrate, as they were both involved with restoring the Inns of Court to some semblance of order. On the few occasions she did see Adam, he seemed intent on ignoring her. The one or two times she directly addressed him, he answered her curtly, so, out of embarrassment and anger, she soon stopped trying. Only once did she see an expression of regret on his face, which further fueled her sense of shame.

Cook mentioned once that Master Adam spent a great deal of time at Lord Embry’s when he was not in session. “Everyone expects him and Lady Judith to be betrothed within a fortnight or two. Most likely before Master Adam sets out on the circuit.”

Lucy just nodded, trying to ignore Cook’s knowing and sympathetic gaze.

* * *

Gingerly stepping through the streets, Lucy skirted the piles of debris that still littered the walkways. Haggard men with yellow eyes, faces drawn from the miseries they had suffered, drove carts led by bony horses. As the August sun beat down, she hoped the city government would start sending the raker around again. The new mayor’s efforts to clean up the city were slow, but at least the streets were less foul than when she had first braved them upon their return.

At the market, Lucy walked listlessly among the stalls. At the butcher’s stand, she inspected the sad, stringy meat arrayed before her on a bed of straw. Everyone, whether peddling or buying, looked gaunt and beaten by the tragedy of the previous year.

The normal happy din of the marketplace had been replaced by a sense of feverish desperation that made Lucy’s stomach churn. You must buy my wares, Lucy seemed to hear. My kids are sick, and my husband, he died. The rent is due, and the master won’t keep me long if I can’t empty out my basket. And from those without coin, eying the straggly baskets of others, Feed me! Clothe me! Why should you have what I need? Give me! Give me!

Looking away from the misery surrounding her, Lucy noticed a flash of blue. A woman, her back to Lucy, was wearing a blue cloak that looked exactly the same as one Bessie had once loved. As the butcher handed Lucy a cut of meat tied in string, she idly watched the girl walk through the stalls. Her hood slipped, revealing an abundance of tousled blond curls.

Lucy stopped short, her mouth open. “Bessie!” she whispered.

Knowing she was being foolish, Lucy began to move after the girl, who weaved easily through the market stalls. Intent on her, Lucy did not see a man pushing a cart of half-rotting vegetables. She tripped, falling against a few women gossiping together. They glared at her. Lucy stumbled about, picking up the packages she had knocked over.

“Watch where you’re going, then!” one of the women called, only slightly mollified.

Lucy peered through the crowd. She did not see the woman. She shook her head, wondering what had possessed her. “I must be mad.”

* * *

That night, Lucy dreamed of Bessie again. As before, Bessie was disfigured and still, lying on the cold ground. Her golden curls were a dirty mop around her head. She was wearing her green dress. In the dream, Lucy felt herself move closer and closer to the body that looked frozen to the earth. Lucy sniffed. The cloying scent of lavender assaulted her nose.

Against her will, she moved closer and closer to Bessie’s still form. She gawked at Bessie’s face, pale and lovely, her rosebud lips tinged in blue. She looked like one of the tiny alabaster statues that the mistress had once kept on her dresser.

Then her eyes opened and stared straight into Lucy’s own.

She stretched a gaunt arm toward Lucy, the tattered remains of her precious green dress fluttering. Her mouth began to move as Lucy watched, horrified.

What do you want? Lucy asked in her dream. Bessie! Tell me!

Bessie lifted her face imploringly to the heavens. A single tear rolled down her face. Then she was gone.

Lucy woke up then, confused and weeping. “Oh, dear Bessie! I haven’t forgotten you!”

The image of a woodcut she’d once seen came into her mind. The ghost of a midwife, who had been murdered by her husband, haunted her old servant to tell her how her husband had murdered several villagers besides herself and buried them under the tiles of the house. Was it true, then? The souls of the wronged did not remain still.

Lucy buried her head in the blanket, but it was a long while before she fell back asleep.

* * *

Still troubled the next morning, Lucy moved slowly about her morning chores, stopping to refill mugs of hot cider for Master Hargrave and Adam. Looking keenly into her face, the master asked if she were well.

“Yes.” Lucy hesitated.

The magistrate lifted his eyebrows. Adam set his cup down on the table, waiting. Keeping her head down, Lucy murmured, “It’s just that I dreamed of Bessie last night.”

“Ahh,” the magistrate said, taking another sip. “There are many ghosts here now, I fear.”

He sounded sad. Lucy wondered how well he had been sleeping these many nights since they had returned home.

Lucy took a deep breath. “It’s more than that, sir. In my dream, I felt her soul is still lost. I’m troubled, I am.”

The magistrate nodded understandingly. “Because we never brought her justice, you mean.”

She nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

“Well, my dear Lucy,” the magistrate said, his voice gentle, “no one has come forward with news. Indeed, it is as like as not that her murderer is long gone or dead from the plague. It may be that our Bessie will not get justice in our temporal courts on earth, but indeed, she shall find justice in the next.”

His words offered some comfort, but Bessie’s forlorn face still weighed heavily in Lucy’s thoughts.

* * *

The first day of September, the household set off to St. Peter’s to hear Lucas—newly returned from Oxford—deliver his first sermon.

The magistrate had mentioned that Lucas would be sharing the Reverend Marcus’s pulpit duties, a necessity with so many people seeking solace from the madness around them.

Thankfully, the church still possessed its sense of timeless strength and grace, a virtue so necessary in this tumultuous time. Every week, Lucy recognized more faces as the parishioners slowly returned to London, although there were many people she did not know. Nearly all looked haggard and grim, as if they had been at war. The practice of families staying in carefully kept rows had been abandoned. Lucy remembered how when they first had returned, they had discovered another family sitting in the magistrate’s family pew.

Without a word, Master Hargrave had simply moved to another pew and, after letting Adam slide in, had sat down. The magistrate had then patted the seat beside him. “Here, Lucy,” he had said. “With us.”

Although surprised, Lucy had slid in beside the master, and next to her came Annie, Cook, and John. Cook had shrugged, and John had grinned a bit, but both took the change in stride. No more standing for hours at the end of the pew.

Today, Lucy waved to Avery, who gave her a slow answering grin in return. She had been so glad to find that Avery had survived the plague. He had found new clothes and no longer looked the dull-witted ex-soldier as when she had first met him. Indeed, as she had since learned, the church had hired him to maintain the graveyard in exchange for his keep in a little lean-to out back.

With a pang, Lucy could not help noticing that Judith Embry, still resplendent in her finery, was also there. Her face was drawn as she sat stiffly beside her parents, her eyes flitting to Adam. She could not see if Adam was also watching Judith.

Cook clutched Lucy’s arm. “Look there!” she whispered. She pointed at a woman with great blond curls across the aisle, several pews up. “She looks like our Bessie, don’t you think?”

“Yes. I saw her once at the market. I wonder who she is.”

To her greater surprise, Lucy saw Del Gado enter the church and sit down beside the woman, saying something in her ear. Marie, his old companion, was nowhere to be seen, but certainly she might have been among the thousands who had not survived the plague.

The reverend stepped out to signify the beginning of the service. Beside her, Annie gave an excited squeal. “Look, Lucy,” she whispered. “It’s Lucas.”

Watching Lucas, she thought he seemed different. He had not the reverend’s fire, but his words were earnest, sincere—compelling. He looked to have taken to his new calling. Perhaps, like herself, he had lost a bit of the tenderness of youth, having witnessed so much death and misery over the past year.

* * *

After the service was over, the family waited outside to congratulate Lucas on his sermon. As she waited, Lucy noticed Constable Duncan and a soldier approach Del Gado, the woman who so resembled Bessie still clinging to his arm. Lucy could see that the constable, while still handsome, looked far older than his years. The last year had not been easy on him; that was plain enough.

Lucy nudged Cook, who got the hint. They sidled closer, trying to hear the constable’s conversation with the painter. Lucy noticed that Adam also seemed to have moved closer as he conversed lightly with an old acquaintance.

“No, I hadn’t seen Marie since before the babe was born,” Lucy heard Del Gado telling Constable Duncan. “She most certainly had left before then. No doubt to be with the baby’s father, as the babe most assuredly was not mine.”

Constable Duncan coughed politely. “Miss, if you would excuse us? I’d like a private word with Master Del Gado.”

Nodding, the woman stepped away, nervously rubbing her hands on her skirts. The three men moved down the path, out of earshot.

Lucy and Cook looked at each other. Cook nodded toward the woman, a question in her eyes. Adam, having sauntered over, caught their wordless exchange. “What?” he demanded. “Tell me.”

“It’s her cloak,” Lucy whispered behind her sleeve. “Bessie’s.”

He glanced at the woman’s cloak. “How can you possibly know that?” Adam asked. “There must be a hundred cloaks like that—”

Cook added, “Look at the burned patch. There, above the hem.”

As Adam peered closer, Lucy recalled that day with a start. Bessie had come in from the cold, her eyes intensified by the blue of her cloak, her cheeks rosy. It was not long after Bessie had met Will, Lucy remembered. Even when they realized her cloak had caught a spark, Bessie had just laughed when John stamped it out.

“How did she get it? The cloak, I mean?” Cook wondered out loud. “It disappeared from the house along with her other clothes.”

The suspicion that had been gnawing at Lucy would be held in no longer. “Del Gado?” she murmured, thinking about her suspicions from so long ago.

They all watched as Del Gado took his leave of the constables, without a backward glimpse at the woman he had accompanied to St. Peter’s.

“I wonder what brought him to this parish,” Lucy murmured, watching the woman disappear back into the church. “Perhaps he’s moved out of Putney-on-the-Green.”

Adam nodded. “We must find out.”

“I’ll go and see him,” Lucy said.

Adam turned on her fiercely. “You’ll do no such thing!”

Cook cocked her head, her expression inscrutable. “I must head back, lest dinner not be ready for the magistrate. Lucy, don’t do anything foolish.”

Lucy shrugged. “Fine. You talk to Del Gado, then,” she said to Adam. “I’ll talk to her. Find out about that cloak.”