Madhouse bride 20

 

Chapter 20

 

Jem did not expect to be recognised by Denver, though he was chary about being seen by Wilcox. He went instead to the back and gave the letter to Chalky.

“I work for Lord Ravenscar,” he said. “He’s promised you a place, but if you can just deliver this, I’ll help you pack. He’s bringing Denver down.”

“That’ll be something to do with your mice,” said Chalky.

Jem sniggered.

“I’ll tell you all about it when it’s all over,” he said.

“I look forward to it,” said Chalky.

 

Julian had every intention of being in town for the night that Denver had designated for the invitation, the sixteenth of November, and quite properly for a dinner invitation the night of the full moon.

Julian had discovered the name of the vicar to whom poor Anne had been made to display apparent madness, and asked if he might dine out with him, his treat, to discuss certain matters.

Dr. Matheson was not averse to a free meal at the expense of real quality, and was intrigued by the rumours that the poor mad girl had married the viscount. He must be careful how he spoke.

 

Dr. Matheson opened the conversation, cautiously.

“Rumour has it that you married that poor girl…” he said.

“Nothing poor about Anne,” said Julian. “The laudanum, muscari powder and beatings may have been enough to make people think her insane, but she refused to give in and sign her fortune over to her uncle.”

The vicar stared.

“Do you realise what you are saying?” he said.

“Obviously; and I was hoping that you would feel like testifying to how her eyes were dilated and how she could not string a sentence together when she was presented to you,” said Julian. “People do not go from running a household to incoherent.”

“Dear God in heaven!” said Matheson, who truly was calling on his maker for strength. “Now that you mention it, her eyes were dilated and unfocussed. I… you mean, Mr. Denver used me?”

“That’s right,” said Julian. “And naturally, I knew a man of the cloth would wish to right such a wrong.”

“Yes, indeed!” said Matheson.

“Denver has been putting about rumours that my wife is insane,” said Julian. “I have tracked down the doctor who certified her insane for a fee and I have induced him to testify as to the truth of the matter when I sue Denver for slander.”

Matheson wished he had the comfort Catholics had in being able to cross himself; he felt the need. The look in his lordship’s eyes meant that Matheson did not want to know how the viscount had induced the doctor to do this.

Julian had induced the doctor by the promise that for the distress caused to his dear wife, Clement would beg for death if he failed to testify and take whatever punishment the court visited upon him. Clement had been delivered to Bow Street to give a ‘voluntary’ testament because he believed the cold eyes and ‘Stormcrow’ visage Julian had worn. The idea of being in the hands of a powerful man whose beloved had been his victim terrified him, because he knew what he would do in like circumstance. Julian had rather counted on this, not being sure himself how to set about torture. And not sure he had the stomach for it, either. However, Clement did not know that, and he had images of Julian using voltaic piles to administer shocks in a similar way to the way Clement had threatened Anne; and as Clement also suspected that Ravenscar had an ice house, the use of ice baths struck him as something he would not want for himself. He had been glad to have been taken in charge for assault and fraud.

He was safer, he fancied, in the police cells.

Matheson, meanwhile, seeing a hint of ‘Stormcrow,’ shifted uncomfortably.

“I am glad he is persuaded to do the right thing,” he said, hoping he did not sound too inane.

“Yes, it makes life easier for I will not have to expose Anne to the rigors of being a witness,” said Julian, his face softening.  Matheson wondered that the two faces of Ravenscar the Stormcrow and Ravenscar, the loving husband, could exist in one person! But it gave him hope for the soul of this young man that the loving husband was more likely to be present once this ordeal of a trial was over. And a trial was likely to be hard on anyone.

Again, like Denver, he underestimated Julian, who was looking forward to a formal legal excoriation of Denver.

 

Julian insisted on driving Matheson home after a very fine meal at St. James’s Hotel. One reason for doing so was to have an excuse to be loitering in the neighbourhood of Denver’s house, as Julian had a nasty hunch that there was mischief afoot.  He had Jem and Robbie with him to bear a hand in case of anything.

He had apologised for dragging them out, but had paid for them to eat at the hotel as well, at a separate table.

“I don’t even have a reason,” he said. “Indeed, I wonder if I am wrong to be away from home when Denver anticipated enticing me out, in case he has abductors hired to carry off Anne.”

“Yes, sir, you went through this when you got the letter,” said Jem, patiently. “And you have the stable staff roused, and Mr. Cubitt on an army camp bed in the vestibule with a blunderbuss. Nobody is getting to her ladyship, and she and Meggie both have pistols.”

Julian was happy to take a brandy and a coffee chaser with Matheson in the vicar’s own home, having fortuitously commented on a picture of Plato which Matheson had on the wall whilst Matheson looked up his own comments in his journal on the appearance of Anne Bonnet, as he was certain that he had commented on her eyes being dilated and vacant. They spent an hour or so debating Plato’s ‘Republic’ with Julian commenting that it was, in many ways, the antithesis of the Greek moral and ethical code, being more of the imposition of the idea of the good of the state over the good of the individual within the bounds of living a virtuous life. Julian argued that an unscrupulous ruler could make the good of the state mean a virtual enslavement of its citizens. Both men enjoyed the erudite debate, and Julian promised to visit again, and to add Matheson to his list of eligible house party guests to add someone with decent conversation.

It was after midnight when he left, and stiffened at the door, Jem and Robbie having been called to leave the game of whist they had been enjoying in the kitchen with Matheson’s valet and the curate.

“Is that fire?” asked Julian.

They all ran down the street to see; and noted that there were, indeed, the flames of fire in Denver’s house.

“I’ll get the engine,” said Robbie, noting the Sun Alliance mark on the wall.

Julian and Matheson hammered on the doors of the neighbours, whose own houses would be at risk, rousing their households to start bucket chains, whilst Jem ran round the back to get Denver’s grooms up, and to go in the back door to the pump there.

Denver was in his study on the ground floor, which had a window to the street, ready to leap out as soon as the alarum was given. He had set the fire in the coal cellar, which was now well alight. Jem managed to rouse the cook, the only male servant left within the house, and somewhat overcome by smoke, and dragged him out, before braving the flames working their way up from the kitchen, to open the front door to permit ingress of Julian and Matheson to run upstairs and get up any servants and the ladies.

Denver, hearing the furore, had climbed out of the window and found himself balanced above the area, not having taken that into account. He cried out in fear.

It was also very smoky there, as the coal house opened onto the area and was smoking strongly.

“You’ll have to jump, Mr. Denver,” said his next-door neighbour. “Or go back in and through the vestibule; the vicar and his friend went in that way to rescue your ladies.”

Denver quivered; and returned to the house to brave the heat of the vestibule, whilst thinking perdition on the efforts of the vicar and his friend, since he had insurance policies on the lives of his wife and daughter as well. However, he could hardly say ‘Don’t worry, they are insured’ since that might look sufficiently unfeeling that someone might look for the seat of the fire. He had already removed any valuable items he wished to keep to store in the bank. These items were fewer than Denver might have hoped, since Wilcox had added insult to injury by doing his own sweep of the house for any small pieces of bijouterie, and had been through all of Denver’s pockets for monies left there too, as Denver had discovered when he came to transfer the same to his current clothes.

 

Denver was utterly dismayed to see the tall figure of Ravenscar stumble out of the front door with a wrapped human-sized bundle which he deposited on the pavement as Matheson struggled out with Amelia Denver stumbling along, half carried, on one arm, and her sobbing, hysterical dresser on the other. Matheson turned to go back in. The bundle erupted into a sobbing Clarinda.

“What are you doing, vicar?” asked Denver. “Ravenscar brought my daughter out. And he has gone back in and I do not know why. Everyone is out.”

“Your maids are not,” said Matheson.

“Surely you and Ravenscar will not risk yourselves for servants?” said Denver, bewildered.

He was astonished when Matheson recalled that he used to box at Oxford, and floored him.

“Thomas Evelyn Denver!” cried Amelia. “You would have left Clarinda and me to burn! Oh, how I hate you! I hope Ravenscar has you transported!”

 

Julian fought his way through smoke, having soaked his neckcloth in the water from a vase of flowers in the vestibule, and indicated it to Matheson as that worthy followed him. The stairs fell behind them, and Julian exchanged a grim look with the vicar.

They went up to the top of the building, where Jem had succeeded in rousing all the maid servants, all four of whom were having hysterics.

“Be silent!” snapped Julian. His fine clothing, if smut laden, and upper class voice cowed the women into quiescence.

“There is no more staircase,” said Julian. “But the houses are built terrace-fashion; and it will be possible to go out of a window behind the decorative pilasters which conceal them from the street and into the house next door; the one whose door abuts, as the other has the coal cellar adjacent and is at more risk of taking fire. Grab your satchels, girls, and we shall see you across to the other house and down the stairs to safety.”

The girls were sobbing lustily and the three men saw that they had their blankets with them, and their satchels of meagre belongings, which would mean more to them than Amelia Denver’s jewels would to her, in terms of survival after losing their home. They had references in there which was the difference between having a job or not.

The engine had arrived, and was pumping out water.

“Jem, you go first, there’s a slight step up,” said Julian. Jem went over to the other house, and held out his hands to help each girl step over at a time. Dr. Matheson had to hold one of the girls and guide her over, she being too terrified to move; and Jem brought up the rear.

“Windows are all locked,” reported Jem.

“The we break the window of the box room,” said Julian.  He had a pistol in one pocket and used the butt of it to smash the only window which was not a dormer, indicating its status, and reached in to open the catch. “In you go, Matheson; they won’t mind a man of the cloth manhandling them down, and Jem and I will lower them one at a time. When they’re all down, you lead them downstairs and out.”

“Certainly,” said Matheson. “Do you suppose this fire was an accident?”

“I think Denver set it and was hoping I would come to dinner as invited and planned for me to be burned in it,” said Julian, grimly.  “And is hoping to swindle the insurance company anyway. But what I think, and what can be proven, ah, they are horses of different colours.”

They trooped downstairs and out of the door. Denver was quarrelling with the man from the Sun Alliance over what was insured, the man from the company assuring him that Ravenscar owned the insurance on the house.

“Damn that man!  Anyway, he’s likely burned up wasting his time rescuing maids, and good riddance to him!” said Denver.

This elicited a shocked silence from everyone who had turned out to enjoy a good fire, so long as it was far enough away from their house.

“So glad you have so high an opinion of me,” drawled Julian, who had considered hitting Denver and decided that scaring him witless by materialising out of the crowd in one piece would be more beneficial.

“You!” whinneyed Denver.

“Me,” said Julian. “Now, when Bow Street and Sun Alliance search the coal cellar and find signs of an accelerant being used – you can tell by the soot patterns – I think the insurance of your goods will be null and void. And I will prosecute you for criminal damage of my property which will be so much above your criminal damage of my phaeton that you won’t know what hit you.  And if I discover that you recently took out insurance on the lives of your wife and daughter, Lloyds of London will be talking about fraud and attempted murder.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about!” cried Denver, loudly.

“Is that the paper you had me sign?” asked Amelia.

Denver went pale, and looked around, licking his lips in terror.

“Matheson, old boy, will you help me hold him until we can get a constable?” said Julian.

“Willingly,” said Matheson, grimly.

For the second time in a week, Denver felt the chill embrace on his wrists of handcuffs as a constable rapidly came forward. He slumped. All his neighbours were witnessing this, to add insult to injury.

“I’ll see Mrs. and Miss Denver housed in the hotel I’m in overnight,” said Julian.

“I’ll take the cook into my house,” said Matheson.

“I am sure the neighbours will rally round to house the maids?” said Julian.

There were murmurs of assent.

The fire crew had the flames mostly under control, now, thanks to the hastily organised bucket gangs. The house was substantially intact.

“It’ll cost about twelve hundred to fix up, and three hundred on top of that to clean and decorate,” said Julian. “And I’ll have that from you, Denver, if you did start it.”

“He’ll swing for arson,” said the chief firefighter. “It’s on the Bloody Code.”

“He’ll pay to those servants for their fear and danger first,” said Julian. “And there are other crimes to answer for, not least the drugging and unlawful detention of my wife who was no more insane than anyone under laudanum and certain toadstools, and my man discovered both in the house.”

The mood of the crowd turned ugly, as those feeling guilt for their own behaviour towards Anne reacted more strongly.

Denver was almost glad to be hustled away by the constable.