Madhouse Bride 6

 

Chapter 6

 

Julian awoke in his hotel room feeling quite satisfied. His only regret was in not being able to see Denver’s face as the vicissitudes – and mice – fell on him.

Ah, well, he could imagine it.

 

oOoOo

 

The first intimation that Thomas Denver had that all was not well was a faintly fishy smell. He frowned. He had not ordered fish for today, and he wished the servants would be more careful with their cooking.  He dismissed it from his mind, however; servants were irritating and there was not a lot to be done about it, as new servants were no better. There was no proper servility these days, and the whole class was too damned independent. He did not frame too closely the thought that Wilcox, butler and partner in crime, was one of the worst, even as he did not dare frame too closely the thought that when this was over, Wilcox would not be marrying Clarinda, but would be suffering an unfortunate accident.

Denver acknowledged that Wilcox was the brains in their arrangement, but Wilcox was dangerous. And he would have to go. He knew too much.

Denver wrote a letter to the solicitor who handled Anne’s money, telling him that some upstart was trying to interfere in the estate. That ought to cause Ravenscar some trouble; the starchy Endicott was bound to at least stall the viscount. He decided to walk down to the nearest post office for the same-day delivery penny post in London, rather than send a footman, and pulled on his York-tan gloves.

He encountered an obstruction, and pulled out his hand, pulling the obstruction with it; which he promptly dropped, along with the glove.

“UGH!” cried Denver.

Wilcox appeared from his sanctum, soft-footed and predatory.

“What is it, sir?” he asked.

Denver, who had a horror of mice, pointed a trembling finger.

“It was in my glove!” said Denver, in a low, intense voice.

“Most unpleasant, sir,” said Wilcox, bending to pick up the mouse by the tail, fastidiously held in his gloved hands.

“Send someone with a penny to the post office; I’m going to have a brandy,” said Denver. He staggered into the dining-room to pour himself a stiff drink, and was about to throw it off when he happened to glance at the decanter, and saw its unwelcome visitor in the clear brown liquid.

Denver screamed like a little girl, throwing the glass from which he had been about to drink from him, and staring in horrified fascination at the rodent corpse frozen in time in swimming through his best brandy.

 

oOoOo

 

Julian was about to leave the hotel when someone he knew walked in.

Daisy the Dasher had been his first mistress, and he still recalled her with affection.  He walked over to her and her escort, and raised his hat.

“Beg pardon, may I borrow Daisy to talk to for a moment? I won’t take her anywhere private, but I need some advice as I’m getting married.”

“R… Ravenscar? I… delighted, I mean… certainly,” stuttered the young man, looking anything but delighted.  Julian offered his arm to Daisy and drew her to one side.

“I’d throw any of them up in an instant for you, Julian, you know,” said Daisy. “You’re getting married? She’s a lucky girl.”

“Luckier than you think,” said Julian, grimly. “And I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t know how discreet you are, but I essentially rescued her from the clutches of family trying to drive her insane to get her money.”

“It’s not uncommon, alas,” said Daisy. “My friend, Maggie, she cut and run from an asylum, and every time her brother tries to get married she plasters herself all over him in public and tells all and sundry how he taught her to do her job as a whore when they were both in the nursery. He didn’t add that crime to his manifold shortcomings, but he did connive with the parents when she was left a honeyfall from an aunt.”

“Well, get me some details and I’ll see what I can do,” said Julian. “I’m sort of taking on a private asylum full to sort out, but never mind that. What I’d like to pay you to do is to write half a dozen very frisky letters to a man named Thomas, pretending to be from a mistress who is half educated and thoroughly vulgar, for his wife to find.”

“Oh, I like it,” said Daisy. “I’ll send a garter to tie them up and go on about how it arouses me to think of the garter we sported with tying up our correspondence.”

“Oh, yes, that’s perfect,” said Julian. “I should buy you a farewell gift….”

“I’d as soon have cash, lovey,” said Daisy. “I want to retire; I was thinking of opening a little florist’s shop, me da having been a grocer, and me understanding that sort of thing, and I’d get sentimental if you bought me jewels and I’d come over silly and not want to sell them.”

Julian laughed.

“Well, maybe I shall get you something purely sentimental just because as well,” he said. “Are you set on being a florist? Only I have three actual insane girls, one of whom is a fire-raiser, who need someone to care for them and if you and maybe Maggie were interested….”

“We can do that,” said Daisy. “I can’t say I like the idea of being up at all hours to go buy flowers.”

“Well, I’ll let you know when I have a suitable place. Meet you here in a couple of days with the letters?”

“I’ll have them done for tonight, if you like.”

He raised his hat.

“Perfect.”

 

Julian drove back to his house to keep his fellow conspirators apprised of what was going on. 

Anne laughed and laughed at the thought of the mice.

“Uncle Thomas hates mice; he’s scared of them,” she said.

“Even better,” said Julian.  “I met an old mistress of mine,” he said. “She taught me everything I know about bedroom matters.”

“Oh, good; one of us needs to know,” said Anne. “Amicable, I hope?”

“Very; I’m paying her to write to Thomas as if she was his mistress.”

“Oh, delicious! That will really irritate Aunt Amelia.”

“I asked her to be vulgar.”

“Even better! I fear I could not write such letters for you, so I am glad you know an expert.”

“Her friend is a whore because she was treated like you.”

“We must help her!”

“I hope to. In the meantime, Daisy wants to retire; she must be in her thirties, still lovely, but it won’t last forever. So, I suggested paying her to care for the true lunatics from the asylum where you were.”

“Indeed, she is wise to get out when she can. Are you worried that I would not receive her? I will, of course; if she has taught you what to do, I will be in her debt.”

“You are an amazing girl, and I think I am falling in love with you.”

“I think I already fell in love with you when I fell into your arms, and looked up at an angel,” said Anne.

He put his arms around her.

“Right now, I feel more protective than amorous,” he said.

“Right now, I need more protection than anything else,” said Anne.

 

oOoOo

 

Amelia Denver found the next mouse, in her sewing basket, and yelped; but removed it firmly.  She was, after all, expecting the vicar and sundry local ladies to afternoon tea.

The two-tier plate of cakes was brought in by Wilcox on the dumb waiter, along with tea, and a plate of dainty sandwiches.  Mrs. Denver steeped the tea and poured.

“And how is your poor niece?” asked the vicar, who had been profoundly shocked, but who also disliked the Denvers cordially, and prayed for the grace not to suspect them of being the unwitting cause of their niece’s madness.

“She has responded to treatment, and we have sent her to a finishing school for difficult girls in Switzerland,” said Mrs. Denver, glibly.

The vicar gave a genuine smile.

“Ah, excellent, I am sure the mountain air will bring balm to her soul,” he said.

“I don’t know about that, I gather she’s sickly,” said Mrs. Denver.  It was the narrative they had decided upon, to be followed by the news of the girl’s untimely death. “Can I help you to some cake?”

“Thank you,” said the vicar, who endured the indifferent cake from the Denvers’ indifferent cook.

Mrs. Denver lifted the covers of the plates, releasing the mice designated Albert and Charlie by Julian, who was incorrect, as they were actually Albert and Charlotte. They had caroused within the cake, and now, let loose, made a bid for freedom amidst shrieking women, and proceeded, once safely in the wainscotting, with the rituals to produce a new generation.

Pandemonium raged; and Julian would have been proud of his rodent proteges. Half the women had climbed on chairs, and the vicar, feeling that he should do something manful, seized the poker from the fire irons, but only succeeded in breaking the teapot, which streamed hot tea, to add to the confusion. The tea-party broke up with tears, and a degree of despite towards Mrs. Denver, and the vicar excused himself in a hurry after apologising for the tea pot, so that he could be at home before he collapsed into howls of laughter.

 

oOoOo

 

Julian drove back to London, not having checked out of his hotel, and met up with Daisy, whose youthful protector had gone rather sulkily back to the auspices of his parental home.

“He’s a nice boy, thank you for treating him with respect,” said Daisy. “He half expected you to throw him out.”

“I should, perhaps, apologise for trespassing on your time with him,” said Julian.

“No, no, the poor boy doesn’t have your stamina,” said Daisy.  “Are these the right sort of thing?”

Julian read rapidly through the letters. Thanks for a ‘luverly necklace of sparklers’ and some insinuations around a slang term also used for the hand-warming muff of Isabella mink had him chuckling. 

“Really, Daisy, ‘You and I will think of my garter, and what we did with it and where it has been?’  the mind boggles.”

“Yours might, dearie, but you never had any problem maintaining a stiffie without help,” said Daisy. “Oh, you sweet, innocent boy. A constriction stops it going down.”

“Oh!” said Julian, in sudden revelation. He blushed.  Daisy patted his face. “Er…” said Julian, “How do you know he has difficulty?”

“His sort often do,” said Daisy. 

“I love the way you suggested that he likes… discipline,” said Julian. “With luck, his wife might try it on him.”

Daisy sniggered.

“Amateurs always get carried away,” she said. “He might just have problems sitting for a while.”

“Somehow, I find myself unmoved to sympathy by his coming vicissitudes,” said Julian. “And I like it that the garter letter is the latest, so I can leave that and Amelia will know what she is looking for.”

 

 

There was a lot of yelling in the dining room when Julian slipped in to the Denver house later.

“Wilcox, are you doing this to me?” howled Denver.

“No, sir, it’s not me,” said Wilcox.  “I’m puzzled as to what is going on. Plainly someone is doing something.”

“Fire the rest of the servants and replace them!” cried Denver. “One of them’s been bribed.”

“I can’t think of any other explanation,” said Wilcox.

“I can, but we shall have to see what happens next,” said Denver.

“You think your wife’s out to get rid of you?” asked Wilcox.

There was a long silence.

“That… is possible,” said Denver. “Only how could she make the candles burn green? You’d better replace them with ones from the butler’s pantry.”

“Yes, and I’ll take the rest of those and have a look at them,” said Wilcox. “Seems to me the wick has been doctored somehow.”

He would find the pins; ah, well, thought Julian, the other plans might well be successful.

He was not to know that the news of green flames had already caused most of the maids to flee, some of them packing their band boxes as he stood there.

 

Julian felt he was safe in going into the study, and pushing the garter-tied letters to the back of a drawer.  The Denvers did not share a bedroom, so using that was completely out of the question; but Julian had a thought.

He slipped into the withdrawing room and thrust the supposedly most recent letter down the side of the cushions of what he guessed to be Thomas Denver’s chair. It faced the dining room door, and Mrs. Denver could scarcely fail to see a scrap of white sticking up. Julian did not think there was a woman in the world who could resist the urge to look. Thomas Denver would have had another decanter brought, and more brandy placed in it.

And that should be good for a lovely row, he thought, happily.

And if they were replacing all the servants, he might perhaps sit with them in their hall tomorrow or the next day to hear all about the family tribulations.

Julian left again, chuckling.

He had noted which companies Thomas held shares in, and most of his income came from being the major shareholder in a Jamaican plantation.  And the time of year was very fortuitous, the back end of the hurricane season.

There was time to drop in a letter to the Morning Post which would be printed on the morrow; a mocked-up column purporting to be an article in a colonial paper. Julian knew a printer.

“We hope none of our readers hold any interest in the Glory Hope Plantation on Jamaica, since the sad news reached us last night that a terrible hurricane ripped through it on the 10^th of August, flattening everything, scouring the very soil away, and causing much loss of life. The saddest thing this correspondent has ever seen was of a negro child literally ripped from his mother’s arms and tossed in the wind like a rag, even as she was thrown into a wall with such brutality that life was instantly bereft.”

And if that did not bring the share prices crashing through the floor, thought Julian, nothing would.

 

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.