madhouse bride 5

 

Chapter 5

 

“One of the things Blackman wrote was that Denver remortgaged his house in order to cover a sparkling season for his daughter,” said Julian. “I already instructed my man of business to buy up the mortgage. I own him.”

“He’d have done better hiring people to help Clarinda to be a lady,” said Anne. “I had another nightmare last night, and she was pouring buckets of ice water on me.”

“Poor Miss Anne had thrashed until the covers fell off, and the window had come wide open,” said Meggie. “It likely prompted that thought.” She did not say that Anne had nightmares nightly, and that Meggie would often climb into bed with the girl to cuddle her until the tremors and sobbing stopped. Meggie had woken up with the younger girl in her arms more than once.

“Oh, if that doctor invited Clarinda to participate in torture dressed as treatment, she would have jumped at it,” said Anne. “Are you intending to pursue a legal path of recourse against my uncle, Julian?”

“Anne, if I did that, it would mean having you go on the stand as a witness,” said Julian, seriously. “How do you feel you would stand up to a smart lawyer questioning you about what I am sure he would call ‘your little episodes,’ disparaging any idea that drugs were involved?”

“I’d fall apart and confirm any belief that I was insane, wouldn’t I?” said Anne, a tear trickling down her face.

“I don’t want you put through that, if we can’t be certain of a conviction,” said Julian. “And you are the only real witness against him, and this man of his, Wilcox, whoever he may be, will be all respectable butler, and ‘one does not wish to speak ill of a young lady, but…’”

“He is a most unpleasant fellow,” said Anne.

“And the sea is damp,” said Julian.

“I can hardly believe you fooled them into thinking you had left, and then just strolled out the back,” giggled Anne, who was experiencing mood swings. Nobody commented; they had all helped Julian through something similar.

“The servants scarcely noticed me,” said Julian. “But I did make a note of the livery of the couple of footmen I glimpsed; I think I’ll have some made.  The servants never seem to stay long, so if I just act like I am supposed to be there, they won’t bother to ask.”

“What were you thinking?” asked Anne.

“A gill of shrimps distributed in sundry crevices,” said Julian. “Or oysters. Yes, oysters. There’s nothing quite as offensive as decaying oysters.”

“When do I take myself to France?” asked Robbie.

“Give it a day or so before setting out,” said Julian. “It’ll take you two days to the coast, a day across the channel; so he has a week in which to stew before the first letter comes.”

“All properly postmarked at each station,” said Jem Watkins. “And he won’t dare refuse a letter from Switzerland.”

“No, that’s the beauty of it,” said Julian. “And quite three and six postage, I should think.”

“Should I write one from Paris, and ask Robbie to mail it from there, as if I had been travelling?” said Anne. “All full of news?”

“Why not?” said Julian. “If Robbie’s up for it.”

“I’m up for it,” said Robbie. “I want to see Mr. Friday-face that miserable butler who let you in, go down with his master.”

Anne duly wrote.

“Dear Aunt Amelia and Uncle Thomas,

Well, here I am in Paris, the City of Light itself! The war is over and people are cautiously picking up the pieces. 

You will be pleased to know that Mr. Tremaine, Ravenscar’s man of affairs, is very efficient. He provided me with a duenna, a Mrs. Felicity Fellowes, whose husband was an Englishman, living in Switzerland, but as he has died, Mrs. Fellowes is happy to return to England with me in her charge. We had some little trouble with some brigands on the way from Switzerland and into France, but Mr. Tremaine and Mrs. Fellowes shot them all. It was prodigious exciting, and Mrs. Fellowes is teaching me to shoot, and to use a sword. How liberating that will be! I shall be in England soon, and Mr. Tremaine intimates that Ravenscar has arranged somewhere for me to live temporarily.”

Your niece, Anne.”

“Ah, a nice touch, that you are surrounded by people able to shoot brigands,” said Julian. “I did not miss your little dig at families going behind each other in the first. You are very good at this.”

“I want to cause him disquiet,” said Anne. “Julian, is the betrothal document enough for a vicar to marry us?”

“It ought to be,” said Julian. “If not, we’ll go to Gretna.”

Anne laughed, rather wryly.

“Just like that?” she said.

“Why not?” said Julian. “We shan’t have to have a runaway wedding with a gig and a bandbox, we can go with two coaches, servants, and do things properly.”

“Is it quite ethical to go to Gretna without someone in hot pursuit?” giggled Anne.

“Well, I suppose we could tell your uncle, if you want to be pursued,” said Julian.

Anne shuddered.

“I think I don’t consider it necessary after all,” she said. “Julian, how long does it take to get to Gretna?”

“A week or so; why?” said Julian.

“Well, if we got married whilst waiting for the letters to start coming, I would feel safer,” said Anne.

“And nothing to stop us trying the more conventional route first with your father’s permission” said Julian.

“He would have given it readily to save me from Uncle Thomas, so I feel no qualms in using it,” said Anne.

“I shall get a special licence from a bishop so we have our own time in which to act,” said Julian. “Parental consent is clear; and trumps refusal from any other guardian. It acts like a dying deposition, like the wishes left in a will.”

“Good,” said Anne. “I don’t mind avoiding a run to Scotland in winter.”

“Indeed; not very pleasant, and snow more than possible before returning,” said Julian. “Well, I need a livery, and some oysters, to entertain Thomas and Amelia while they don’t know they are waiting for letters.” 

 

oOoOo

 

Thomas Denver was, meanwhile, ripping into Dr. John Clement.

“How could you lose her?” he demanded. “You assured me that your establishment is completely secure. And that you were keeping her sedated.”

“The perishing little brat found a way to dispose of the laudanum and dilute the bottle,” said Clement, sulkily. “And she cut through the ceiling in her room into the attics, and made a rope out of sheets and climbed out of the gable window. She’s hurt, though, the rope ended a good ten feet above the street, so she’ll have had to drop the rest of the way. I wager she has a sprained ankle, if not a broken one.”

“And yet, she managed, somehow, to get away,” said Denver, menacingly. “Are you suggesting that she flew?”

Clement shrugged.

“It’s not far to open country and she had all night to get off the road and into a spinney,” he said. “She could find a branch to help herself along, there, no doubt. It’s not as if we kept dogs.”

“Hire someone with a dog,” said Denver. “If she’s alive, I want to make certain that this situation is rectified.”

“I hadn’t managed to get her to sign yet,” said Clement.

“No, and it makes no difference,” snarled Denver. His comment was somewhat qualified, and Clement looked at him askance for the blistering oaths.

“How so?” he asked, mildly.

“I had a viscount turn up with a prenuptial and betrothal agreement signed by Henri, and, what’s worse, the turning over of all her estate to the care of the said viscount.”

“Is that legal?” asked Clement.

“Even in an informal betrothal is sufficiently binding that a woman let down can sue for breach of promise, and this is on parchment, drawn up by a lawyer, by the language, and signed by Henri and Ravenscar both,” said Denver.

“Ravenscar!” cried Clement. “Why, you’d better leave for the continent right away; if he finds out what you did, he’ll make you wish he had only killed you!”

“What do you mean?” asked Denver.

“His uncle tried to do to him what you did to the girl. And he’s living on a pittance on the continent. And glad to accept that as a compromise for the family name. You don’t bear his name, or Henri Bonnet’s.”

“He’d have to get the girl on the stand to have legal recourse against me,” said Denver.

“Well, that assumes he goes by ‘legal’ recourse,” said Clement. “I don’t know why Lucius Ravenscar capitulated so easily, but I don’t suppose it was for nothing, and there was no court case.”

Denver, who had met Ravenscar, shuddered.

“He can’t touch me,” he said.

It lacked conviction.

“I’ll hire those dogs. If she’d dead, all well and good, but if not? I’m winding up my business here, and heading for pastures new.”

“Coward,” said Denver.

“I want to survive and enjoy the fruits of my betrayal of the Hippocratic Oath,” said Clement, frankly. “I went into this for money, and I want to get out with that intact.”

He was unaware that a Mr. Blackman had been finding out all about him, and his asylum for troubled or otherwise inconvenient girls, was about to be raided by the police as a house of ill repute.

It would be found to be an asylum, but a Bow Street employee of Blackman’s would have been able, by the time apologies were made, to have rifled through all his papers, cracked his safe, and made sure to turn everything over to Blackman.

Including all of Clement’s financial records. It was far easier than having a burglar crack so formidable a ken, and there were plenty of Runners crooked enough to take the bribe. And any loose cash they found lying around. And the beauty of it was, thought Blackman, that Clement would probably not dare to complain, for fear of a more robust investigation into his financial dealings.

Julian met up with Blackman in a coffee house in London, and Blackman passed the papers over.

Julian passed over several large notes of hand.

“You pay generously, my lord,” said Blackman.

“This is personal,” said Julian.  “The rest of them… I don’t want them left in that place. Would you be up for arranging a fairly robust breaking and entering, without manhandling the girls?”

“That can be arranged, my lord,” said Blackman.

Julian looked through the papers.

“This is the history of every one of the girls there,” he said.

“And three who died, two from heart-failure following ice baths, and one who took her own life,” said Blackman. “I took notes. I’ll be doing a bit of freelance work, I think.”

“Any time you need money or an alibi, or someone with a curricle, let me know,” said Julian.

Blackman met his eyes.

“Aye, you mean it,” he said. “I’ll bear you in mind.”

“I do mean it. I want to do something for the other girls, and see to revenge.”

“There’s a couple of genuine cases; a girl who lights fires, one who isn’t mad so much as… well, wanting, and one who may have been sane once, but her mind is broken from the treatments.”

“I’ll see about a quiet house and some strong women to care for them,” said Julian. “I’m about to indulge in some childish irritation of the Denvers.”

“Are you planning on telling me?”

“Why not? You might have more ideas.  It’s just nuisance whilst we wait for a ‘letter from Switzerland.’

“Oho!  Making him not sure what is real and what is not. I like it.”

“Well, the interim plot is to wander into the house in his own livery and plant oysters in various  places to rot down,” said Julian.

Blackman sniggered.

“That should smell like nothing on earth,” said Blackman. “It’s a valid tactic to reduce his willpower.”

 

Julian took a hotel room, and changed into a set of Jem Watkins’ clothes. He left via the servants’ stair, invisible as his own valet. He went looking for a small gents’ outfitters near to Denver’s house, and found one.

“I need livery for Mr. Denver’s house,” he said. “As fast as possible.”

“Of course, sir,” said the shopkeeper. He hesitated. “Have you already signed a contract?”

“Why?” asked Julian.

“Well, sir, the servant turnover in Mr. Denver’s house is quite high,” said the shopkeeper, apologetically.

“Well, thanks for the warning, but beggars can’t be choosers,” said Julian.

“Good luck,” said the shopkeeper, in the tone of voice usually heard when wished to the officer of a ‘folorn hope’ attack upon a wall breach.

“Thanks,” said Julian. “When will you be done?”

“I can have it for you by this evening; I keep partly finished liveries in stock.”

“Good; I’ll be back to pick it up.”

Julian was using a hackney carriage to get about town, his curricle in the hotel, and went to purchase two pints of oysters. He paid to have them removed from the shells.

“My master likes some French soup called Bullybash, with oysters in,” he said. “And I’d as soon lose pay as have to scoop the wretched things out.” He bought an earthenware jar with a tightly fitting cork lid in which to keep them.

He purchased some fine copper pins from a haberdashery and a pair of pliers from a hardware store. He ate heartily at an hour usually reserved for afternoon tea, and then, having collected, and assumed the livery, took himself to the Denver house to slide in at the back whilst the master was at dinner. The dining room was on the ground floor, and Julian ran upstairs to leave some of his fishy allies in strategic places in bedrooms, before the maids went up to light fires. Curtain swags of curtains not likely to be used, those for pure decoration, suggested themselves, and the tops of testers. The upstairs boudoir had ornamental vases on the mantlepiece, which begged to be treated. In Denver’s study, ornamental woodwork suggested itself, a door cornice, and to his delight, the drawers of the desk were in enclosed sections, not open, and could have a slimy little ally placed right at the back of the drawer. He had a brief look at Denver’s paperwork but decided to leave it for another time.

 He settled himself into an unused guest bedroom and waited for everyone to go to bed, dozing until they did. The amount of dust declared that guest rooms were not cleaned daily, so he did not fear to be interrupted.

Once the house settled down to quietude, about midnight, Julian awoke. He gave it another half an hour, and crept downstairs.

Here he doctored the epergne in the dining room with the remaining oysters, and opened the candle drawer in the sideboard. There was enough left of the old candles, which would be discarded on the morrow, to heat up some of the copper pins to insert, held with the pliers, into the new candles, down beside the wick. Candles burning green would terrify the servants, who would speak of witchcraft; and it should unnerve the Denver family too. He collected a dead mouse from a trap in the kitchen, and dropped it into the brandy decanter. With a wicked chuckle, he went to relieve the rest of the traps of their mice, popping the two live ones into covered plates containing cake. He used a glob of wax to hold up the bottom just enough to allow air in, to ensure they were still lively. A dead one went in Amelia Denver’s sewing basket, one went into a pair of gloves left on the table in the vestibule, and the rest inside a folded umbrella, which should form a nasty shower when the thing was opened.

Julian chuckled happily, and slipped out of the back door.