Grave Expectations Read online

  A Dickens of a Crime Mystery Series

  By Heather Redmond

  A Tale of Two Murders

  Grave Expectations

  Grave Expectations

  HEATHER

  REDMOND

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Acknowledgments

  BOOK CLUB READING GUIDE for

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2019 by Heather Redmond

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019932239

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1716-0

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1716-3

  First Kensington Hardcover Edition: August 2019

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1719-1 (ebook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1719-8 (ebook)

  For Rachel and Joseph

  Cast of Characters

  Charles Dickens* — a journalist

  Kate Hogarth* — Charles's fiancée

  Fred Dickens* — Charles's younger brother and roommate

  Mr. George Hogarth* — Charles's newspaper editor and Kate's father

  Mrs. Georgina Hogarth* — Kate's mother

  Mary Hogarth* — Kate's younger sister

  William Aga — A journalist at the Evening Standard

  Daniel Jones — A blacksmith

  Mrs. Addie Jones — Daniel Jones's spinster sister

  Edmund Jones — A blacksmith

  Hannah Jones — Edmund Jones's spinster sister

  Prince Moss — A lower-class youth

  Pietro Ferazzi — A landlord

  Miss Haverstock — A tenant

  Mrs. Julie Aga — An underemployed actress

  Evelina Jaggers — Miss Haverstock's foster daughter

  Osvald Larsen — An escaped convict

  Ned Blood — An escaped convict

  Breese Gadfly — A songwriter

  Lady Holland* — A famed hostess

  Reuben Solomon — A dealer in old clothes

  Lucy Fair — The leader of the Blackfriars Bridge mudlarks

  Little Ollie — A mudlark

  *Real historical figures

  That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

  Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1860)

  Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,

  How shall ye flee away and be at rest!

  George Gordon Bryon, sixth Baron Byron

  “Oh! Weep for Those” (1815)

  How can you expect us to show kindness, when

  we receive none?

  Richard Cumberland, The Jew (1794)

  Chapter 1

  Chelsea, London, June 20, 1835

  The ancient magazine had been pushed under Charles Dickens’s Selwood Terrace door sometime on Friday night, after the household had retired.

  “Here.” His brother Fred thrust the crackling papers into his hands. “I found this on the floor.” Fred, a gangly almost fifteen-year-old, was dressed to go out in a cut-down frock coat, a shawl, and gloves.

  “Was there a note?” Charles, still in his dressing gown, regarded the yellowed pages and scarred cover of Migrator Magazine with bewilderment.

  “No.” Fred shrugged. “I’m going to the bakery for fresh buns. Do you want anything?”

  “Please. When you return, I expect you to work on your Latin lessons while I finish an article,” Charles said.

  Fred squeezed his cheeks toward his nose with his fingers, forming his amiable face into a pout. “It’s going to be a perfect summer day. I’d rather walk into the countryside.”

  “Not until you’ve done your lessons.” Charles went to the water jug and found just enough water left for tea. He poured it into the kettle and handed the empty can to his brother.

  “Very well,” Fred said with a hint of desperation. “But my stomach is growling.”

  Charles gave his brother a cheery wave of goodbye and stirred the fire in the hearth, attempting to bring it back to life. While the day would be a pleasant one, with no hint of rain, for now a decided chill permeated the air.

  He heard the click behind him as Fred went out the door. After tossing a fresh lump of coal onto the grate, he went back to the magazine, settling into a mostly unstained armchair he’d picked up from a Holywell Street secondhand furniture dealer. Since he’d kept his lodgings in Holborn, he had a limited furniture budget.

  Still, it was worth the inconvenience to be closer to Kate Hogarth, his new fiancée, during the summer months. He wanted to see her without the time expenditure of a five-mile walk. The early part of their courtship over the past winter had burned through a great deal of shoe leather.

  The publication date on the top sheet read “1785.” Who would hold on to it all these years, only to shove it underneath his door? He was a parliamentary reporter, a sketch writer, and an occasional theater reviewer, not a collector of stirring tales of past times.

  When he flipped through the pages, he found a scrap of faded hair ribbon, a brown that might once have been lavender, tucked into the binding. The title of the marked article was “Death of a Jewish Child.”

  Charles winced at that. The death of any helpless creature excited his natural sympathy. Was this the part of the magazine that the unknown sender had wanted him to read? He leaned toward the fire and perused the page.

  Four children followed their leader, nine-year-old Pete, down the ladder behind his house in Limehouse. The tide swept out, leaving a beach full of fine pickings for an intent and cunning eye.

  “Sharpish,” Pete ordered, a disdainful eye on the two girls, Han and Goldy.

  “I know,” snapped Goldy. She had already bent her head, focused on the beachscape under her nose. The only Hebrew in Pete’s gang, she was prized for her unerring ability to pick out unbroken pipe bowls.

  Han went toward a large rock and cast herself over it, belly down, then inspected among the stones for salable items the river had cast up.

  Eddie, Han’s younger brother, kicked over a rock. On the other side lay a china doll, face pressed against the sediment. He picked it up, then made a rude remark when he saw half the face was caved in. Throwing it in Osvald’s direction, he jeered, “’Ere’s a mother for ye.”

  The b
oy’s hand shook as he plucked the ruined doll from the seaweed bed, where it had fallen. His mother had died from a blow to the face by her brutal, drunken husband, but Eddie had no sympathy for Osvald’s loss.

  “Lookee ’ere,” Pete called. “Come quick, lads.”

  “A barrel,” Goldy cried. “Is it full?”

  Pete ignored her, breathing heavily as he fought to control the spirit-scented barrel. “Get behind it,” he ordered Eddie. “Take the other side, Os!”

  The three boys managed to push the barrel out of the water onto a patch of pebbles that was only damp.

  “God’s teeth!” Pete swore when he saw the bottom of the barrel was missing.

  “No grog for us,” sulked Eddie.

  “Where’s me pipe?” Pete asked, turning in Goldy’s direction.

  She held out a tiny bowl with a long, wide crack on one side. “All I have so far.”

  With a wave of his hand, Pete smashed it from her grip. As the pipe fell, the momentum of his movement swung Goldy’s hand into her face, causing her to slap herself on the nose. She sobbed loudly.

  “Shut up,” the gang leader snarled after a moment’s shocked pause.

  Goldy sniffled and pressed her fingers to her injured nose. They came away with a smear of blood. With a shriek of irritation, she flew at Pete and pummeled the stocky boy with undersized fists.

  He clouted her on the side of the head. “Stop crying!” he ordered.

  But she wouldn’t stop and spun around, dizzy from the clout.

  “Into the barrel,” Osvald said. “That will shut her up, the greasy slattern.”

  “Into the barrel,” Eddie repeated, kicking the girl’s feet out from under her. When she fell to her knees, he stood over her, hands on his hips. “She’s only a dirty Jew.”

  Osvald grabbed the back of her ragged dress. The fragile cloth ripped as he picked her up. She screamed as he dropped her into the barrel headfirst.

  Pete leaned a hand against the barrel. For a moment, all was silent, except for the slap of oars on the water as a rowboat went past, sending waves flowing over the rocks.

  Then the waves upset his footing, and he collapsed against the barrel, making it totter. It fell on its side. Goldy cried out.

  “Can’t she ever shut up?” Eddie complained, kicking at the barrel.

  It moved. A larger wave came in.

  “Tide’s early today,” Pete observed.

  Another wave. The barrel bobbed in the rising water.

  Goldy beat against the barrel. Her dirty bare feet spilled over the edge.

  Eddie kicked at the barrel over and over again until another wave came and pulled the barrel a good four feet closer to the dirty Thames.

  A larger boat came by, with a complement of rowers working tirelessly. They sent a flurry of water toward the dampening beach, but the wave caught the barrel.

  Han screamed as her playmate disappeared into the muddy brown waves. “She’ll drown. She’s in headfirst!”

  Eddie clutched his sister’s shoulders and shook her. “Quiet now. We never saw her today, do you hear?”

  The children ran away, damp and shivering. Smoke from the forge at a nearby shipyard stole over the beach, making it hard to see the river. They climbed up the ladder behind Pete’s house, one by one, none of them looking back, leaving Goldy to her watery fate.

  Charles blinked hard as he came to the end of the story. Such a tragic tale within the damp-marked pages of this old periodical. A tale to make one rue humanity, in its depiction of cruel children and their immoral ways. He wondered if one of his neighbors, Miss Haverstock or Mr. Gadfly, had taken him seriously when he chattered about writing a historical novel and had slipped it to him for inspiration.

  The door to his chambers opened as Charles turned the page.

  Fred handed him a neatly wrapped bundle of buns. “Is the kettle hot?”

  “Yes, it should be by now.”

  Fred peered at him. “Are you well?”

  Charles closed the magazine, which sent a waft of mold spiraling into his nostrils. He sneezed. “Perfectly. I was quite transported by the article I just read.”

  Fred dug into his pocket for a handkerchief as Charles sneezed again.

  “Thank you. Just the magazine irritating my nostrils.” He set it on a pile of papers, far away from the heat of the fire or the damp of the windows.

  Fred went to the mantelpiece and reached for the stoppered china jug that held their tea leaves. “Did you deduce who left it?”

  “No, but it’s a sociable building. Dotty old Miss Haverstock from upstairs could have found it in her belongings, or Mr. Gadfly could have picked it up when he was perusing at the stalls, looking for inspiration for his songwriting. Then there are our unpredictable friends, William and Julie Aga.”

  Fred shook their teapot until the leaves were disbursed to his satisfaction, then covered the teakettle handle with a rag and gently poured the steaming liquid into the pot. “I was surprised when they moved in. It’s quite a walk for William into the city.”

  Charles stood and stretched. “They seem happy enough. Besides, William and I can walk to work together.” William was a crime-focused reporter at the Morning Chronicle.

  “Do you think so? You can hear William’s cheery whistles from half a mile away, but Julie looks drawn to me.”

  “She had some sort of illness in the spring. High-strung people have these problems.”

  “Maybe she left the magazine to tease you.”

  Charles rejected the idea. “No, there was nothing funny about it.”

  “Shall I let the fire die down?” Fred asked.

  “You might as well. It should warm up now. Why don’t you do your lessons this morning, and after that, we need to tackle our windows. They are so frightfully dirty that it is hard to see in here.”

  “What about my walk?”

  “This afternoon,” Charles promised. “You won’t get anywhere in life without applying yourself. I have to write a sketch before I can please myself.”

  The Dickens pair worked diligently at the elderly, rickety deal table they’d pushed in front of the fire to catch the last of the heat. A knock came at the door just as the bells of St. Luke’s tolled 10:00 a.m.

  “I’ll get it. You keep translating,” Charles said, rising. He pulled off his fingerless gloves and dropped them on the table.

  He opened the door a crack. “Hogarths!” he boomed when he saw the young ladies.

  His fiancée, Kate, smiled at him, her heavy-lidded eyes brightening. She wore a crisp cotton dress, its thin stripes of red creating cheer. Her bonnet had been trimmed with matching ribbons. He still couldn’t believe she was his, though she’d accepted his proposal of marriage in the early days of spring, three months after her father had introduced them.

  Her sister Mary, dressed in a summery floral print, held up a basket and pulled back the cover. The luscious sight of strawberry scones and butter greeted him.

  “Such a pleasure, my dears.” Charles opened the door wider. “Fred is in the parlor, and we were about to eat.”

  He shut the door after they entered, careful to keep their wide skirts from being caught. Fred rekindled the fire and boiled more water. The girls laid out four plates on the table, with the dish of scones and the crock of butter in the central place of honor. Charles found a butter knife in his box on the mantelpiece and handed it to Kate.

  “Do you have enough chairs?” Mary asked.

  “There are four, yes,” Charles said, pointing behind her. “I imagined many pleasant mornings like this when I moved to be close to my dear Hogarths.”

  Mary asked Fred about his translations, and they discussed the Latin poetry he had set aside in favor of their repast. Charles found the catalogue detailing the kitchen equipment that was deemed necessary for every new home and shared it with Kate.

  “Do we really need all these specialized brushes?” she asked with a hint of anxiety.

  “The more the better,” Charles said.
“You know how the soot goes everywhere, but you can’t let it win. We are planning to tackle our windows this afternoon. They are a dreadful mess.”

  “It is rather dim in here,” Kate said.

  “I’ll run home and get our special cleaning solution,” Mary offered. “And Father has a translation of Caesar’s Gallic Wars that Fred might like.”

  Fred snorted.

  Charles spoke over his brother. “The cleaner would be very useful.”

  “Go quickly, Mary, but assure Mother that Fred is here to chaperone us,” Kate said.

  “Yes, go quickly,” Fred added, “because I’m going out as soon as this poem is ready.”

  Mary snorted at the younger boy’s order. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, for Kate’s sake.”

  She flounced off. Charles and Kate shared an amused glance at the antics of their strong-willed siblings.

  “Have you learned Latin, Kate?” Fred asked.

  “A little.” Thus enticed, Kate bent over Fred’s side of the table.

  Charles picked up The Times and flipped to page three to read the parliamentary news. He read the lengthy article about Mr. Buxton’s speech.