A Tale of Two Murders Read online

  The footmen seemed afraid to touch the girl. Impatient, Charles went to one knee on the other side of the lady, letting his branch fall to the carpet. “I’ll be happy to carry her, my lady, if your men will not.”

  At a nod from Miss Hogarth, Charles gently slid his arm under the girl’s knees while Miss Hogarth helped her sit up. Charles slowly stood with his burden. He wasn’t a large man himself, but the girl was slight.

  One of the young footmen seemed to come to his senses then. He took a three-pronged candelabrum from the mantelpiece and led the procession away from the foul-smelling floor. Miss Hogarth walked next to Charles and her father joined them, trailed by Lady Lugoson and the second footman.

  “Please, my lady, take my arm,” Mr. Hogarth said, solicitous. She leaned heavily on him, a bent reed, as Charles followed the footman into the passage. The girl relaxed in his arms, seeming mostly unconscious still.

  “Would you mind taking her to her chamber?” Lady Lugoson asked. “She’ll be more comfortable there.”

  “Of course,” Miss Hogarth assured her. “Mr. Dickens won’t mind, I’m sure.”

  Charles felt his awkward burden instantly lighten under Miss Hogarth’s affectionate gaze. The girl in his arms was calm. She smelled of cloying floral perfume and sweat.

  They went up the grand staircase to the first floor, and then continued up to the second. The carpet on this floor was a dusty rose color and few candles were lit to guide the way, unlike downstairs.

  The third door on the right was open. Inside was an unadorned chamber, mostly taken up with a large bed. Charles noted an ancient, blackened chest and a washbasin on a simple table. A woman, who must be Miss Lugoson’s lady’s maid, sat in a hard-backed chair next to the chest, sewing lace onto a handkerchief’s edge. She was a plain creature of about thirty years and her eyes widened in alarm as the crowd entered.

  Miss Hogarth rushed from Charles’s side to pull back the blankets. When she stepped aside, Charles set the girl on the mattress. The young lady tossed her head from side to side and then settled.

  Instead of pulling away, Lady Lugoson clutched Mr. Hogarth’s arm even more tightly, dragging him toward the bed and the girl upon it, still in her white evening dress, as tightly cinched as her mother’s.

  “I will help her maid ready her for bed,” Miss Hogarth said. “With your permission, my lady? I am used to caring for my younger sisters.”

  The woman smiled faintly and nodded. “Agnes will assist you.”

  Mr. Hogarth nodded in his kindly way at the distressed baroness. “Then we shall return to your guests. Perhaps you should post a footman outside the door to be ready to bring messages or whatever they might require?”

  “An excellent notion,” Lady Lugoson said after a pause. She nodded at the first footman. He placed his candles on the table next to the bed, then led most of the group out of the door.

  Charles smiled in the direction of Miss Hogarth, but the efficient little nurse had not even taken off her mantle, much less noticed him, as she bent over her charge.

  “Such a capital girl, your daughter,” he said to Mr. Hogarth.

  “She’s an excellent child. Never any trouble to her mother or me.” He turned to the distressed girl’s mother. “I hope your daughter doesn’t suffer so often, my lady.”

  “No.” Lady Lugoson put a small handkerchief to her eyes. “This is very strange.”

  They returned downstairs to find the elderly lady and her German companion in the hall. Lady Lugoson’s butler helped them into furs and cloaks.

  “Thank you so much for coming, Lady Holland,” the hostess said.

  Charles did a double take. This was Lady Holland? Why, she was famous, both in political circles and for her naughty past. Charles and Mr. Hogarth waited until the guest departed, then followed Lady Lugoson back into the drawing room.

  He counted five people still gathered there. Lady Lugoson walked across the room to the second fireplace. “Mr. Hogarth, may I present my son? I am afraid I do not know the name of this young man who has been so kind.”

  “Of course, my lady,” Mr. Hogarth said. “This is Charles Dickens, an employee of ours at the Evening Chronicle. Perhaps ye know that I am coeditor there.”

  Charles bowed his head, happy to see the towels and whatever they had covered had vanished in their absence from the room, along with their makeshift weapons.

  “A pleasure. Yes, I did know your profession, Mr. Hogarth,” Lady Lugoson said. “I have met your wife and two of your daughters. They called here one afternoon when I was at home.” Lady Lugoson held out her hands to her son. With a sulky air, the boy set aside a scrapbook in his lap and stood. Charles saw the scrapbook was thick with clippings, and on the cover was an engraving of a theater’s interior. Drury Lane, most likely.

  “Lord Lugoson,” the lady began speaking to the boy. “May I present the distinguished journalists Mr. George Hogarth and Mr. Charles Dickens. Mr. Hogarth is our new neighbor. And gentlemen,” she addressed Charles and Mr. Hogarth, “that was my daughter, Miss Christiana Lugoson, whom you aided.”

  “You are interested in the theater?” Charles asked, after they greeted the young lord.

  “Oh yes,” Lord Lugoson said, his expression animated for the first time. “We have a relative who has a theatrical calling.”

  Charles kept his eyebrows in a neutral position with difficulty. While a couple of formerly theatrical ladies had married into the aristocracy, rarely would such a family advertise any relationship to the theater.

  “Yes,” Lady Lugoson said, in a faded tone very different from before. “The children do love the theater. They collect paper sets of famous productions.”

  “I like the opera best, especially Mozart,” the boy said eagerly, his voice cracking. He had a wide mouth and rather large teeth set in a narrow jaw. “But Christiana prefers Shakespeare.”

  “I share your interests,” Charles said. “But tell me, what happened here tonight? From the screams, we were afraid murder was afoot.”

  “Christiana lurched through the room like a figure out of a play,” Lord Lugoson announced. “Then she cast up her accounts and collapsed to the floor. Rather thrilling, really.”

  His mother stared at the lad, her mouth pulling down, aging her face. He cleared his throat awkwardly and went back to his scrapbook.

  “I am Eustace Carley,” said a man who had been in the middle of the room earlier, coming toward them. Carley, a man with overblown salt-and-pepper hair and a grizzled moustache, wore a waistcoat straining at the buttons. He had the arm of the better-dressed woman in his meaty clasp. While Mr. Carley appeared to be around fifty, his wife still had the tiny waist and brown hair of a younger woman, perhaps in her very late thirties.

  “A Member of Parliament, if I am not mistaken.” Mr. Hogarth nodded to him.

  “Yes.” Mr. Carley inclined his head. “We are near neighbors, as my wife prefers our country residence to our home in Grosvenor Square, and were invited for the Epiphany meal.”

  “My daughter is a particular friend of Miss Lugoson’s,” said Mrs. Carley. The gems in her gold drop earrings sparkled with the firelight.

  “Is she much better now?” squeaked Miss Carley, the couple’s daughter, whom Charles had seen standing in the middle of the room earlier. She had taken the seat next to a harp, and her hands moved restlessly in her lap, fingers clutching and un-clutching. Her gown fit her poorly, as if someone had merely pinned her into one of her mother’s castoffs. Despite her creamy skin and pink cheeks, she was not pretty, and her hair color could not be described by any term more accurate than “mousey.”

  “Oh yes, my dear. She needs only to rest.” Lady Lugoson’s smile was gentle.

  “I cannot imagine what happened,” said the less fashionable woman in yellow, moving toward them. She was slightly older than Mrs. Carley, and had silver streaks in her black hair. “She seemed quite herself when we first arrived.”

  “This is Mrs. Decker.” Lady Lugoson gestured in th
e woman’s direction. “Another neighbor, beyond the Carleys’ house. I know your husband had to be away this evening.”

  “He is in New York,” Mrs. Decker said, pride marking her voice. “A cousin of his died and he is sorting out the poor man’s affairs.”

  Lady Lugoson nodded. “If you’ll forgive me, I must speak to Panch and order fresh tea. We all need a restorative.” She rushed off, looking flustered.

  “Lady Lugoson was a well-known political hostess, as I recall,” Mr. Hogarth said.

  “She was during the late Lord Lugoson’s day,” Carley said. “But he shuffled off this mortal coil nearly two years ago now and she took the children to live with her aunt in France for some time. They have only recently returned.”

  They spoke of the past glories of the House of Lugoson, Charles wondering all the while why the Hogarths hadn’t been invited to this gathering when the other neighbors had been. Not high enough in the instep, he supposed, despite their nearby home.

  Lady Lugoson returned and begged everyone to seat themselves in a squared-off area in front of the first fireplace, furnished abundantly with sofas and chairs, leaving her son near the second fireplace. The Carley girl whispered in her mother’s ear, then left the room.

  “I am only just reentering society.” Lady Lugoson’s tone was musing as a maid brought fresh tea. “I am sorry to have my first party end like this.”

  “Are you as concerned about social reform as your late husband?” Mr. Hogarth asked.

  “Oh, yes.” She put her hands to her cheeks. “I’m particularly inclined against the workhouse system. So dreadful, the new Poor Law Amendment Act of last year. I keep my son in London so he can see things as they really are, instead of locked away with other boys of his class.”

  The butler, some forty years older than the footmen, entered the room, looking even more distant than before. Lady Lugoson frowned. “Excuse me.” She stood and walked toward her servant as the man didn’t seem to want to come closer.

  The butler lowered his head on its long stalk of neck and spoke into her ear. Her eyes widened and her face went pale. Charles read some calamity on her expressive face.

  Instinctively, he rose and went to her side. “What has happened, madam? May I be of some assistance?”

  “Christiana has taken ill again,” she whispered, fingering her garnet pendant necklace. “Oh, Mr. Dickens, I must go to her.”

  She took a step, but then seemed to falter.

  “I’ll go with you,” Charles said. “We must not delay.” Had the girl fainted again, while lying on the bed? Or had she risen and paid the consequences of ill health?

  Lady Lugoson took Charles’s arm as she had taken Mr. Hogarth’s before. Panch led them, trailed by Miss Carley, who was sobbing loudly, back to Miss Lugoson’s room. The footman had disappeared, and the door was open. Charles peered inside the room.

  “What happened?” he demanded, taking in the pale, panting face on the bed as he stepped in. He glanced back. Miss Carley followed him in, wringing her hands, tears dripping off her nose. Miss Hogarth leaned over Miss Lugoson on the opposite side, dotting her forehead with a square of cambric. She lifted her face and joined her gaze to Charles’s, then a moan returned her attention to the wretched figure on the bed.

  Charles pulled his arm away from Lady Lugoson, and pointed his finger at Agnes.

  “I went to the WC, sir.” The maid, frizzy hair in disarray, let out a sob. “When I returned Miss Christiana was like this.”

  “Call for a doctor,” he said.

  No one moved. He turned around, hoping the butler was still in the room, but he had vanished. Taking the maid’s cold, callused hand in his, he stared into her eyes. “Fetch a doctor. Miss Lugoson needs medical attention.”

  Chapter 3

  An hour passed. The butler had come and gone after receiving orders to call for more doctors. Charles sat in the corner, as unobtrusive as the maid, wincing at the sight of the girl writhing on the bed, complaining about stomach pains and nausea. He felt unable to leave, as the household seemed generally indecisive. Miss Hogarth stayed at the bedside, sponging sweat from Miss Lugoson’s brow and praying with her. Charles admired her steadfast support, even as he mentally composed an article for the Chronicle about the tragic scene.

  Eventually the situation worsened. Miss Lugoson lost the contents of her stomach repeatedly, weakening with each blow to her fragile frame. One doctor came, then another. None of the remaining guests appeared ill. The Deckers and Carleys went home during the second hour of the ordeal, after Mrs. Carley sent up a maid to call mousy and hysterically sobbing Miss Carley from the room.

  At some point, Lady Lugoson retired to her bedchamber. She returned after half an hour in a different dress, simple and black, something out of her mourning wardrobe. She gestured to Charles and together they knelt at the side of the bed to pray.

  He could ill afford the time to stay at the bedside, but he knew it was his duty, both to this distressed girl and to the valiant Miss Hogarth.

  Eventually a footman came with a note for him. Charles excused himself and read the missive from Mr. Hogarth. He was returning home to his family, and entrusting his daughter Kate to Charles’s care. A promise to notify his editors at both papers with the reason for his next day’s absence cleared his mind.

  Candles burned around the bed, keeping the room illuminated despite the utter blackness outside. As the hours passed, he committed the sight to memory, as he’d done with anything he’d found interesting since he was about eight years old. The sad sight of the girl on the bed, the bouncy curls spread across her sweat-stained pillow a testament to a young woman who should be healthy and strong, pulled him to her, a partner in her dance with death. His pulse seemed to slow with every sign of her deterioration.

  Death was what he feared, though the dawn brought a blessed cessation of symptoms. Miss Hogarth helped Miss Lugoson drink a little beef broth. A sense of relief cut through his half-dreaming state and he realized his clothes were sticky and clung to his body after a night by the constantly stoked fire.

  “Oh,” Miss Hogarth cried. The broth dropped from her grip, spilling its contents on the rug.

  He shifted to stand from his kneeling position, but a deep moan from the bed startled him and he went down, hitting his head on the hard wood bed frame. Recovering himself, he helped Lady Lugoson to her feet, just in time to reach for the girl as she cast up her accounts yet again.

  Miss Hogarth dabbed at Christiana’s temples with a cloth while Lady Lugoson dropped her head into her hands. The maid went for towels to clean up the latest mess.

  Charles’s shoes squelched in the broth soaking into the rug as he moved to Miss Hogarth’s side. “You must have the kitchen thoroughly cleaned before anyone else takes sick,” he said to Lady Lugoson from the other side of the bed. “Throw away all your stores and bring in new food.”

  “Do you think something was wrong with the broth?” The lady wrung her hands.

  Charles gestured to the bed. “She had been somewhat recovered for more than an hour. I had thought to return Miss Hogarth to her family.”

  “You’ve been everything that is kind,” Lady Lugoson said. “Will you wait while I have the doctor called again?”

  “Of course.” Miss Hogarth caught his eye. Her stricken face had him wishing he could squeeze her hand to offer her comfort.

  “Is there anything more we can do, Mr. Dickens?” she asked.

  “We are not so far into the countryside. The family will bring more doctors. Someone must know what to do,” he said soberly.

  Over the course of the morning, three doctors came and fretted over Christiana. One of them brought a bloodletter, but Lady Lugoson stopped his labors abruptly when Christiana fainted. The man bandaged the girl’s arm and stalked off with his bowl of blood. Crimson droplets dotted the white sheets, the vibrant color in sharp contrast to the pale, still girl. The smell of beef broth and blood commingled with the general air of sickness in the room. />
  Of young Lord Lugoson, Charles saw no sign.

  “Your son?” he asked Lady Lugoson suddenly, after an hour of silence, late that morning. Miss Hogarth sat across from him, her ribbons trailing along the edge of the stained counterpane. “Has he taken ill as well?”

  “No, sir, he’s with his tutor. I don’t want him to be exposed further to whatever has taken Christiana. What if it is contagious?”

  He stared at Miss Lugoson again. That slight, slight figure. “I still would consider the food, given her reaction to the broth.”

  Lady Lugoson nodded. “I have given orders to clear the kitchen and clean it.”

  Charles considered if he was thinking food poisoning in the hopes whatever was plaguing Miss Lugoson would not affect himself or Miss Hogarth. He felt his throat, no sign of the lumps that often presaged illness, and Lady Lugoson, though drawn and looking every minute of what he now knew was her thirty-three years, did not look ill either.

  “I thought the cream sauce served with the potatoes had gone off,” her ladyship fretted. “Perhaps that was it.”

  “You should find out who ate it and have your guests monitored for symptoms,” Charles said.

  “I will write letters when I can,” Lady Lugoson said in a small voice. She sank to her knees on the carpet next to the bed and began to pray again, holding the unbandaged arm of her daughter, who had yet to fully regain consciousness since the bloodletting. He knelt next to her on the damp rug and joined her prayer.

  The maid’s keening was the first sign something was wrong. “The rattle,” she cried. “The rattle.”

  They both struggled to their feet and stared at the girl. Miss Lugoson’s head was back, the tendons of her neck sharply delineated. Miss Hogarth touched her shoulder, calling her name. Lady Lugoson threw herself onto the bed, half covering her daughter. Miss Lugoson wheezed gently, then went silent.

  “A mirror,” Charles called.

  The doctor in attendance opened his bag and found one, then held it up to the girl’s mouth for a couple of minutes. “I am sorry, but there is no sign of life.”