A Christmas Carol Murder Read online

  Charles checked around the pub again when he returned to town, just a short walk from the grand, if sadly diminished, house. The quarters for servants were empty. Madge seemed to have gone into hiding. How she could abandon her nephew so carelessly, he did not know, but perhaps she was too devastated by her sister’s death to think clearly.

  * * *

  A day later, Charles and the baby were both sunk into exhaustion by the long journey to London. Charles’s carriage, the final step of the trip, pulled up in front of a stone building. Across from Mary-le-Bow Church in Cheapside, it had shop space, three floors of apartments, and a half attic on top. He’d had to hire a carriage from the posting inn where the coach had left them on the outskirts of town. While he had no trouble walking many miles, carrying both a valise and an infant was more than he could manage. At least they’d kept each other warm.

  He made his awkward way out of the vehicle, coughing as the smoky city air hit his tortured lungs. In his arms, the babe slept peacefully, though he had cried with hunger for part of the long coach journey.

  Charles’s friends, William and Julie Aga, had taken rooms here, above a chophouse. The building exuded the scent of roasting meats. His stomach grumbled as he went up the stairs to his friends’ chambers. William was a reporter, like Charles, though more focused on crime than government.

  Charles doubled over, coughing, as he reached the top of the steps. He suspected if he’d had a hand free to apply his handkerchief, it would come away black again.

  The door to the Agas’ rooms opened before he had the chance to knock.

  “Charles!” William exploded. “Good God, man, what a sound to torture my ears.”

  Charles unbent himself and managed a nod at his friend. William had the air of a successful, fashionable man-about-town, even at his rooms on a Thursday evening. He wore a paisley waistcoat under an old black tailcoat, which fit him like it had been sewn directly on his broad-shouldered body. They both prided themselves on dressing well. His summer-golden hair had darkened due to the lack of sun. He had the look of a great horseman, though Charles knew that William, like he, spent most of his time hunched over a paper and quill.

  “I like that fabric,” Charles said. “Did Julie make you that waistcoat?”

  “Charles.” William waved his arms. “Whatever are you carrying in your arms?”

  Charles dropped his valise to the ground. It grazed his foot. He let out a yelp and hopped. “Blast it! My toe.”

  William leaned forward and snatched the bundle from Charles’s arm. The cloth over little Timothy’s face slid away, exposing the sleeping child. “No room in the inn?”

  “Very funny,” Charles snarled. He rubbed his foot against the back of his calf. “That smarted.”

  “Whose baby?”

  “A dead serving maid’s. I remember you said that a woman across the hall from you had a screaming infant. Do you think she might be persuaded to feed this one? He’s about four months old.”

  William rubbed his tongue over his gums as he glanced from Timothy to Charles, then back again.

  “He needs to eat. I don’t want to starve him. Also, I think he’s a little too warm.” Charles gave Timothy an anxious glance.

  “Let’s hope he isn’t coming down with something.” William stepped into the passage and gave a long-suffering sigh. Then, he crossed to the other side and used his elbow to bang on the door across from his. “Mrs. Herring?”

  Charles heard a loud cry in the room beyond, a muttered imprecation, and a child’s piping voice, then the door opened. A girl about the age of his youngest brother, Boz, opened the door.

  “Wot?” she said indistinctly, as she was missing several teeth.

  “I need your mother,” William said, smiling at the girl.

  The girl turned her head partway and shrieked for her mother. A couple of minutes later the lady of the house arrived, a fat babe burping on her shoulder. She appeared as well fed as the infant, with rounded wrists tapering into fat fingers peering out from her cotton dress sleeves.

  “Mr. Aga!” she said with a smile.

  Charles instantly trusted Mrs. Herring’s sweet smile. Her hand had gone to the top of her daughter’s head for a caress, the sort of woman who genuinely enjoyed her children.

  “Good lady,” Charles began. “I’ve been given the custody of this orphaned child due to a rather dramatic situation. Might you be able to take him in to nurse?”

  Mrs. Herring stepped toward William. She took one look at the sleeping Timothy and exclaimed, “Lor bless me!” She handed her larger infant over to her daughter, then reached out her hands to William. He promptly placed the bundle into the mother’s arms.

  Charles saw Timothy stir. He began to root around. “Hungry. Hasn’t been nourished since this morning.”

  “Poor mite,” Mrs. Herring cooed. “How could you have let this happen? They must be fed regularly.”

  “I don’t know how to care for a baby,” Charles admitted.

  “But I remembered my friends had you as a neighbor. Can you help him?”

  “We’ve no room for the tiny lad,” Mrs. Herring said sternly. She coaxed her daughter back inside.

  “I can pay for his board,” Charles responded.

  Mrs. Herring didn’t speak but her eyebrows lifted.

  “Just for tonight at first,” William suggested with an easy smile. “You can see the situation is desperate.”

  Charles reached into his pocket and pulled out a shilling. “I’m good for it. Truly. This would pay for days of his care if I hire a wet nurse. He has an aunt but she disappeared. I couldn’t find her before I had to return to London.”

  “We’ll talk to you again in the morning,” William said. “I won’t leave the building until we’ve spoken.”

  “Where am I to put him?” she asked, staring rather fixedly at the shilling. “The bed is full and we don’t have a cradle.”

  William nodded wisely, as if he’d thought of this already. “Mr. Dickens and I will consult with my wife and bring something suitable. If you can feed him while we wait?”

  Mrs. Herring reached out her free hand. Charles noted she had clean nails. She seemed a good choice for wet nurse. He placed the shilling in her palm and prayed they could make longer-term arrangements for a reasonable price.

  Timothy let out a thin wail.

  “He sounds weak,” Charles said, guilt coloring his words.

  “I’ll do what I can.” Mrs. Herring glanced at the babe in her arms, then shut the door.

  Chapter 2

  Charles followed William across the chilly passage to his chambers, happy to have the emergency of baby Timothy’s hunger dealt with for now. He couldn’t let Timothy die on his watch. What would it say about his future skills as a father? Yes, children might die of illness and from accidents, but not from hunger, not if he could help it.

  “You came to the right place,” William said in a resigned tone, leading him directly to the fireplace. He gestured Charles to a pair of giltwood chairs with arms in the shape of lions’ paws. Charles recognized them as having come from the library of Lugoson House, owned by Julie Aga’s baroness aunt. “I can’t believe you remembered my neighbors.”

  “I have an excellent sense of recall. Lady Lugoson offering you her castoffs?” Charles asked, proving his point.

  “She’s redecorating her library,” William said. “Wanted to remove anything her late husband liked from the room.”

  “Understandable. Dreadful man from all accounts,” Charles said. He glanced around the room. The Agas had moved in only recently, but they’d finished decorating. A games table complete with black and white pattern painted across the top waited next to a long decorative bench and a deal table pressed against the wall opposite to the fireplace. Three inexpert watercolors were framed on the walls and the coal hod was new and decorative. The mantelpiece held two enameled candlesticks and a framed duo of silhouettes that someone had cut of William and Julie. “Now, as to the matter at hand
. Do you think you can talk Mrs. Herring into keeping Timothy?”

  “No,” William said. “Her husband makes a decent wage and their rooms are crawling with children as it is.”

  “That is bad.” Charles sighed. He held his hands out to the fire, attempting to warm them. “I am half dead and about as hungry as the babe. I can’t think of where else to take an infant who still needs to be nursed.”

  “Someone might be able to bring him up by hand. He is old enough,” William opined while Charles’s stomach rumbled.

  “I’ll feed you, Charles.” Julie Aga came into the room, wiping her hands on her apron. Just seventeen and a fiery redhead, she was young to be a wife of eight months, but her unconventional upbringing and time treading the boards as an actress had made her grow up quickly. “We ate hours ago, but I have the remains of a roast and a couple of slices of potato.”

  “If you can add a cup of tea, I’ll take it.” He smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  After she departed, William opened a chest hidden behind the coal hod and pulled out a bottle of rum and two glasses. He poured, then added hot water from the kettle over the fire into it.

  “Many thanks,” Charles said, taking his share. “Though it may put me to sleep.”

  “What are you going to do with the baby?” William asked. “You’ll have no problem finding someone to take it for your shillings. The problem is, will they keep it alive?”

  “I know it’s hard to find a place with trustworthy, clean wet nurses who won’t dose the babies with laudanum. Your Mrs. Herring is ideal.”

  “I know,” William muttered. “I should go and pull out a drawer from the bedroom chest so he has something to sleep in for tonight.”

  “Do you have an old towel or blanket for it?”

  William nodded. “The problem is really what to do with Timothy tomorrow.”

  “Who is Timothy?” Julie asked, coming back in with a tray. On it was a plate with meat, potatoes, and bread. Next to that rattled a small teapot and a china cup.

  William stood and pulled the game table over to Charles. Julie set down her tray, then busied herself with pouring water over the tea leaves. Charles stared at the elaborate and messy braid coiled around the back of her head. His fiancée, Kate Hogarth, could never manage such a hairstyle with her fine blondish brown locks. Nor did she have the time to fiddle with her hair, with abundant younger siblings needing her attention.

  Looking away, he drained his rum and water with one long gulp. “Timothy is the baby I brought with me from Hatfield. His mother died in the fire and his aunt seemed convinced I was his father.”

  Julie sloshed hot water over the tray. She lifted the kettle away and placed it back on its nail, then tore off her apron and blotted up the boiling water before it buckled the tray’s painted surface.

  “You don’t say,” William exclaimed, replacing the lid. “A father? You?”

  “Kate will be devastated,” Julie said in a similar tone of surprise. “I hope it isn’t true.”

  “You know it isn’t true,” Charles rejoined. “I’d never been in Hatfield before this month.”

  William winced and poured more rum into his glass, motioning to Julie to pour water over it. “Why did she think you were the father?”

  “I don’t know. She disappeared after that. Quite young for the responsibility of a child and distraught over her dead sister.”

  “The kettle is empty,” Julie said. “Stop talking for a minute so I can refill it.”

  Julie went for her water can while Charles stared blankly at the brown glazed teapot, not much bigger than a child’s plaything.

  “She must be getting along with Lady Lugoson and her son, for you to have received all this largesse,” Charles said.

  “Lady Lugoson asked Julie to take watercolor lessons with her,” William explained. “They started in October.”

  “Oh, they are spending time together.” Charles nodded wisely. “That makes sense. Lord Lugoson is at school?”

  “Yes, her son is at Harrow. Not too far from my father’s school.”

  “That would give the lady more leisure time,” Charles said. “I saw her at the theater last month.”

  Julie bustled back into the room and put the teakettle over the fire. She tossed the wet apron on the bench, then came to perch on the corner of her husband’s chair. “Now, do tell everything, Charles. Let’s have some excitement.”

  “You’d have rather a lot with a four-month-old infant in your rooms,” Charles suggested.

  Julie and William glanced at each other, then back at him.

  Charles knew Julie had lost a baby earlier in the year. He’d seen no signs of her increasing since. He cleared his throat awkwardly, hoping he hadn’t caused her pain. “Excellent training for when you have your own children. He’ll be across the hall with Mrs. Herring tonight. William, do you think she would nurse the child as long as he lived in your rooms?” he asked, as if the thought had only just occurred to him.

  “Why would I want him to do that?” William asked.

  “Practice,” Charles said patiently. “When I have time, I’ll go back to Hatfield and track down the aunt.”

  “You can’t do it tomorrow,” Julie reminded him. “We have our caroling party in the evening.”

  “Yes. My Kate is looking forward to it,” Charles assured her. “But you can see I’m left with no options for the poor babe. Can you take him?”

  Julie’s gaze moved from one end of the room to the other. She seemed in a considering mood, rather than a sorrowful one. “I suppose I could try.”

  “Only until you have time to return to Hatfield, Charles,” William cautioned. “There will be an inquest on the fire?”

  “Once all the bodies are found.” Charles shook his head. “As I was leaving town, I heard they were finding bones.”

  “Good,” William said. “I suppose we can keep the baby for a week or so, if Mrs. Herring will agree to be his wet nurse.”

  Julie nodded. “We won’t have him all the time, then. I’ll be able to leave him with her and do the marketing.”

  “Yes, and Charles will pay for everything,” William said with a smile.

  * * *

  “No Kate?” Julie Aga asked from one of the giltwood chairs the next night when William and Charles walked into the Agas’ chambers after their walk home from the Morning Chronicle’s offices.

  William immediately went to his wife and looked down at the bundle in her arms.

  “She’ll be along with her sister Mary,” Charles assured her, smiling at the rosy-cheeked babe. “My brother Fred has started working in a law office in Birchin Lane, so he should be here soon.”

  “That’s so convenient to hear.” Julie handed Timothy to William. “You should think about moving to this building. The Herrings cannot last much longer. They are fit to bursting out of their chambers with all of those children.”

  “Kate has agreed to Furnival’s Inn,” Charles said stiffly. It had been a topic of much discussion and he did not wish to revisit it. He’d made a disastrous attempt to live in Brompton near the Hogarths’ home over the summer that was best forgotten.

  Here in town, the young literary lions of London had been seeking him out of late, like his mentor and friend William Ainsworth, who had introduced Charles to his new publisher. They knew to find him in his current rooms.

  “I’ll take Timothy to Mrs. Herring in a minute,” Julie told them. “She’s agreed to have him overnight, so that she can feed him just before they sleep and right when he wakes up. During the day I’m supposed to try to give him porridge.”

  “Well done,” Charles praised.

  “That sounds like a lot of work.” William pulled off his damp coat and hat and spread them over the fire screen to dry out a bit. Charles followed suit.

  “Most new mothers can’t sleep much, because of the baby needing to be fed.” Julie bent over the sleeping baby and kissed its forehead. “This is good, easy practice for me. If he won’t take eno
ugh porridge then I have to give him back to Mrs. Herring to be fed.”

  “I did send a letter to place an advertisement about the baby in the newspaper that serves the Hatfield area,” Charles said.

  His words seemed to fall on deaf ears, with both Agas cooing over the baby. After Julie gave him a final kiss, William tucked Timothy up against his shoulder and went to give him to Mrs. Herring.

  Charles sat and pointed his toes at the fire. It had sleeted during the first part of their walk from the Chronicle’s offices at 332 Strand, though the skies were dry again by the time they arrived.

  Julie dropped into the matching armchair. “Can I speak to you about something serious before everyone arrives?” She cleared her throat. “I couldn’t sleep two nights ago. I went for a walk, like I used to.”

  “You used to run errands for Percy Chalke all hours of the night,” Charles said, remembering the actor-manager who had employed her. “I assumed you’d ceased such tomfoolery.”

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she repeated. “I ended up on the foreshore by Blackfriars Bridge, where our mudlark friends sleep.”

  Charles shook his head at her. He and William had started a charity to help a small band of young people who made their living from scrounging by the river, but that didn’t mean they were tame. “It’s not safe for you to be down there alone.”

  “I’m good at blending in. I’m an actress, remember? It’s only the upper classes who are afraid on the streets at night.”

  “You are the upper classes now,” Charles cautioned.

  “Not really.” She shook her head abruptly, as if to banish a memory. “Charles, I saw something that disturbed me, and I’m worried about Lucy Fair.”

  “She’s turning into a young lady,” Charles said, remembering how he’d thought the mudlark gang leader was filling out when he’d seen her in the summer. Now, with winter weather, she was bundled up again, hiding her curves.

  “New mudlarks are encroaching on Lucy’s territory,” Julie explained. “Older boys. And older boys could mean trouble to a girl that age.”