Who cries for the lost, p.15
Who Cries for the Lost, page 15
Hendon drained his cognac and set the empty glass aside. “By that time, Napoléon himself had come to take charge of the French Army in Spain, and London was afraid he was going to march on Cádiz and free his captured soldiers. Just think: twenty-five thousand men—or, I suppose, more like twenty thousand by then—added to the French ranks. We told the Spaniards they had to get their prisoners out of there.”
“But not send them back to France.”
“Obviously not. The Spanish government—or what there was of it at the time with the King in exile—decided that if we wouldn’t let them send the prisoners to France, and if they couldn’t keep them on the mainland, then the only thing they could do would be to ship them to the Mediterranean, to Majorca or Minorca. Except the citizens of the main islands didn’t want them, and Collingwood didn’t want them there either because he liked to use the two islands for his fleet.”
“So whose idea was it to send them to Cabrera?”
“I don’t know. It’s a tiny, wretched place about twenty miles from Palma, totally uninhabited and essentially uninhabitable. Basically it’s just a small stretch of rocky cliffs and scrub-covered hills with only one freshwater spring that disappears in the heat of summer. I’m told there’s a small medieval castle by the bay—more like a fortified tower, really—that could provide shelter for maybe twenty or thirty men. Not fifteen to twenty thousand.”
“And we simply dumped them there?”
Hendon nodded. “With no food, no water, no shelter, and no means of building any. At least Robinson Crusoe had a wrecked ship from which he could salvage all sorts of tools and materials. Those poor bastards on Cabrera had nothing. Nothing.”
Hendon drew a pouch of tobacco from his pocket and reached for his pipe. Sebastian waited while he tamped a load of tobacco in the bowl and kindled a taper. After a moment, the Earl continued.
“Eventually the local government in Majorca hired someone to take over a small shipment of food from Palma every four days. But the rations were starvation level—a few ounces of bread and a handful of beans per man per day. And sometimes the ship simply didn’t come, either because of the weather or because the officials in Majorca couldn’t pay the bill. Then the men marooned on the island would starve. At first, when there were more of them, they were dying at the rate of four or five hundred a day.”
“My God,” whispered Sebastian.
Hendon was silent for a moment, his hand cupping the bowl of his pipe, his expression that of a man whose thoughts were far, far away. Then he sighed and said, “No one knows exactly how many died there. Some of the men eventually volunteered to join the Spanish Army simply to have a chance of surviving. At one point we took off a few dozen officers and brought them here to England. And the prisoners themselves tried to hide the real number of deaths because an artificially inflated number of survivors meant more food for the living. But it wasn’t only the lack of food that killed them. Many died of thirst in the summer or of exposure in the winter. After a few years, they were basically naked, and they could never really build much in the way of proper shelters. More than a few of them despaired of ever leaving the island and threw themselves off the cliffs into the sea.”
“I’m surprised any of them survived.”
“I suppose it’s a testament to the human spirit.”
Sebastian lifted his cognac to his lips and took a deep drink that burned all the way down. “You say ‘London’ decided not to allow Spain to repatriate the French prisoners. Who in London?”
Hendon drew on his pipe, then let the smoke ease out slowly before answering. “Castlereagh was foreign minister at first and must bear a large measure of responsibility, along with Admiral Collingwood. But it would be wrong to put it all on those two alone. Wellington’s voice was loud, as were those of his brothers. Richard Wellesley was our ambassador to Spain, then took over as foreign secretary, at which point their brother Henry was sent to Spain as ambassador.”
“And Jarvis? What was his position in all this?”
Hendon met Sebastian’s hard gaze. “What do you think?”
And yours? Where was your voice? Sebastian wanted to ask. Instead he said, “Who else?”
Hendon thought about it, then shook his head. “I honestly can’t recall.”
Sebastian decided to let it go. “I’m told Miles Sedgewick played a role, mainly as a go-between for the Wellesley brothers and Collingwood.”
“You’re suggesting that’s why he was killed? But why would someone go after a mere messenger?”
“Because Collingwood is already dead, and men like Castlereagh and Wellington are essentially beyond reach, perhaps?”
“And the two headless bodies that have been pulled from the Thames? How do they fit into it?”
“I don’t know that they do.”
“God preserve us,” muttered Hendon.
The two men sat in silence for a time, Hendon sucking on his pipe and Sebastian nursing his drink. Then Sebastian said, “Any news from Belgium?”
“Not yet. But it’s coming.”
Sebastian emptied his cognac and set the glass aside. “So tell me this: What happened to the men from Cabrera? The few who survived, I mean.”
Hendon kept his gaze on his pipe. “After Napoléon was exiled to Elba, they were loaded onto ships from the French Royal Navy and taken to Marseilles. At first the Bourbons locked them up, intending to send them into exile in Corsica.”
“Are you serious?”
Hendon nodded. “Except when word of it leaked out, the people of Marseilles stormed the barracks where they were being held and released them. After all, these were their brothers, fathers, sons, and husbands. At that point the Bourbons gave up and let them go. Most are so wrecked both physically and mentally by what they went through that they’ll probably be invalids the rest of their lives and die young. But I’ve no doubt some of them found their way to rejoin Napoléon’s army and are at this very moment marching against us in Belgium.” He paused. “If I wanted revenge, I suspect that’s what I’d do if I were one of them. Not come here to London to lop the heads off a few men who surely played only an incidental role in what was done to me.” Hendon looked over at Sebastian. “Wouldn’t you?”
“If I were still sane. Except . . . how sane do you think anyone would be after spending five years in hell?”
Hendon met his gaze and held it. “Probably not very.”
Chapter 30
How have I never heard of any of this?” said Hero later that night as they sat beside the fire in their room, Hero curled up in the armchair with Sebastian leaning back against her chair and sipping a glass of Burgundy at her feet.
“Who’s going to talk about it?” he said. “I suspect even the men responsible for it aren’t proud of it—although I’ve no doubt they long ago found a way to justify it to themselves. There’s a certain kind of man who can justify almost anything.”
She was silent for a moment, and he knew she was thinking of her own father. Then she said, “If McPherson is right—if this is all in revenge for what happened at Cabrera—how do you think the killer learned of the role Sedgewick played?”
Sebastian watched the flames lick at the coal on the hearth. “I don’t know; that’s a good point. The truth is, Cabrera could have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to any of those men. I mean, why castrate Sedgewick? Why cut off the other two men’s heads? If the killer simply didn’t want them identified, why not bury the bodies someplace where they’d never be found?”
She leaned forward to put her hands on his shoulders and massage his neck. “It’s still possible the last two killings have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to Sedgewick. Yes, the bodies were mutilated, but in a dissimilar way. No one cut off Sedgewick’s head, hands, or feet. Just his privates—which strikes me as a very different thing.”
He blew out his breath in a long sigh. “There’s no denying that what happened to Sedgewick does suggest a more sexual motive to his killing.”
She reached for his wineglass, took a sip, then handed it back to him. “I thought I might try talking to Eloisa again tomorrow. I keep thinking about what that poor governess, Phoebe Cox, told you about Sedgewick’s marriage.”
“You think Eloisa and her reverend might have decided to make her wish that Miles die a reality?”
“I can see a woman whose husband seduced their governess under her own roof being so furious as to shoot off her husband’s face and castrate him.”
He swung around to look at her. “Even someone like Eloisa?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“And she would have had her good friend the Reverend dispose of the body for her afterward.”
“I didn’t realize you disliked her that much.”
“I don’t. I actually feel sorry for her, in a way. But excessively religious people tend to make me nervous. All too often, they’re the kind who can massacre every Muslim in Jerusalem and burn witches at Smithfield and toss the heads of suspected werewolves into the Thames, then have a good dinner and go to bed to sleep the sound sleep of the proudly righteous.” She reached for his wine again. “If you like, I could also ask her about Cabrera. She might know something.”
“You think she’ll agree to see you again?”
“I don’t intend to give her a chance to deny me. She frequently takes her children for a walk in the park in the morning. I’ll simply contrive to run into her there.”
Saturday, 17 June
* * *
The next morning dawned clear and sunny, with a light breeze that lifted the bright green leaves of the plane trees in the park against the blue sky and scattered the red and pink petals of spent roses across the grass like confetti. Hero and Claire took the boys to toss a ball near the round reservoir in Hyde Park and hadn’t been there more than ten minutes before Hero spotted Eloisa Sedgewick with two of her three children and a middle-aged woman in a somber black dress turning in through the gate.
“Here,” said Hero, throwing the ball to Claire. To the boys she called, “I’ll be right back.”
Eloisa had seen her now, and Hero caught the faint pinch of dismay that flitted across the woman’s features before she smoothed it away.
“Mrs. Sedgewick, good morning!” said Hero, walking across the grass toward her. “How are you?”
Eloisa paused, one hand coming up to cup the crown of her black widow’s bonnet as she cast a quick glance farther up the path. “Lady Devlin; what a pleasant surprise. I’m doing well, thank you.”
The two children—a serious-looking towheaded boy of eight and a girl who couldn’t be more than a year younger—stood a few paces away from their mother with the somber, pinched-faced woman who was surely their governess. Eloisa had obviously decided not to take any chances when she’d replaced Phoebe Cox.
“It’s a lovely morning, is it not?” said Hero, coming up to them.
“It is, yes.”
“How fortuitous, my seeing you like this. I’ve been wanting to ask you something: Did your husband ever speak to you of Cabrera?”
Eloisa looked at her blankly. “Who?”
“The island of Cabrera, just off Majorca in the Mediterranean. Did he ever mention it to you?”
The widow colored slightly, obviously embarrassed by her error. “No. Why do you ask?”
Hero kept her voice low out of consideration for the children. “Devlin thinks it might have something to do with his death.”
“Oh,” said Eloisa, casting another glance up the path.
“I’m sorry,” said Hero, watching her. “Am I keeping you? Were you meeting someone?”
Eloisa jerked her gaze back to Hero’s face. “What? Oh, no; of course not.”
“Good, because I need to ask you something else. Let’s walk apart from the others for a moment, shall we?”
“What is it?” asked Eloisa, accompanying Hero with obvious reluctance.
“It’s about the governess that you dismissed last spring. I’m wondering, why was that?”
Eloisa’s expression remained bland. But Hero could see the pulse beating in her throat, just above the narrow band of black lace that edged the high neck of her mourning gown. “I’m afraid she simply proved to be unsatisfactory.”
“Oh? And how long was she with you?”
“Four years.”
“Goodness. And you only just decided she was unsatisfactory?”
The widow’s jaw tightened. “If you must know, I was forced to let her go because I discovered she was with child.”
“Did she tell you who the father was?”
Eloisa gave a decidedly unbelievable laugh. “Good heavens, no. Why would I care?”
“She didn’t tell you that your husband seduced her? That he was the father of her child?”
For a long moment, Eloisa simply stared at her, her face draining of all color, her chest jerking with her agitated breathing. “Who told you that?”
“Why? Is it true?”
“No! Of course not! The nasty little liar. She was desperate to stay—claimed she had no place else to go.”
“And yet you dismissed her anyway?”
“Why wouldn’t I? What do I care if she starves in the streets? Lying little strumpet, no better than she should be. She deserves everything that has happened to her.”
“Are you quite certain she made it up? That Miles wasn’t the father?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The widow gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “I heard just this morning that she’s been remanded into custody.”
It took Hero a moment to understand what Eloisa was saying. “Phoebe Cox is in prison? Why?”
“For murdering her own baby. And if there’s any justice in this world, she’ll hang.” The woman cast another quick glance up the path, then said, “And now you must excuse me.”
Signaling to her children and their governess, Eloisa turned away, her head held high, her eyes fixed straight ahead as she walked toward the fashionably dressed young gentleman Hero could now see waiting for them farther up the path.
It was the Reverend Sinclair Palmer.
* * *
“I don’t think dear Eloisa will agree to speak to me again,” said Hero, taking off her chip hat as she walked into the library on Brook Street an hour later.
Devlin looked up from where he sat at his desk, cleaning a small double-barreled pistol. “Why? What happened?”
She told him. “Do you think it’s true? That Phoebe Cox is in prison for killing her own baby?”
“Well, when I saw her, she did say the child was dead.”
Hero went to stand beside the window, her arms crossed at her chest, her gaze on the housemaid scrubbing the steps of the house across the street with a brush and a bucket of soapy water. “I can’t believe I actually felt sorry for Eloisa the last time I spoke to her. What a bitter, vile creature she is.”
“But you already knew that, didn’t you? You’re the one who saw the fires of Smithfield in her eyes.”
Hero turned her head to look back at him. “What prison would Phoebe be in?”
“I’ve no idea. But I can find out.”
Chapter 31
Someone less familiar with the ways of his world might have been inclined to view what was happening to Phoebe Cox as a tragic but isolated incident. Sebastian knew better.
Sometimes, like Phoebe, a woman in service allowed herself to be seduced by her employer. But more often than not she was simply forced, by either her master or one of his sons or even a passing houseguest. English gentlemen of means were rarely held accountable for raping servants. After all, who would believe such a woman over her “betters”?
The lucky ones cried themselves to sleep at night and somehow found a way to live with what had happened to them. The unlucky ones fell pregnant.
Once her belly began to show, an unmarried servant “in the family way” would inevitably be turned off without a character. And if she didn’t die of starvation or exposure but lived to birth her babe, she faced a new, even more terrifying danger, for a single woman who gave birth to a child only to have that child die could be accused of killing it.
And then hanged for murder.
Driven by a heavy sense of dread, Sebastian went first to the Haymarket, looking for Phoebe Cox. But her place across from the theater was empty, and none of the women he spoke with would admit to knowing where she lodged. He told himself that for someone who catered to the crowds of theatergoers, it was early yet; he would need to come back again later. But on the off chance that what Eloisa had told Hero was true, he set Tom to making inquiries at the city’s various prisons and sent a note to Sir Henry Lovejoy asking for his help in locating the woman. London had a lot of prisons.
He then spent several hours making discreet inquiries into the Reverend Sinclair Palmer.
Marylebone was a choice living, and it didn’t take Sebastian long to discover that Eloisa Sedgewick’s childhood friend was related to both the Duke of Newcastle and the Earl of Oxford. The Reverend hadn’t particularly distinguished himself at Cambridge, but he’d more than made up for that by his ostentatious religious zeal. A conservative Old High Churchman in the mold of the new Bishop of London, he was obviously an ambitious man. And it occurred to Sebastian as he turned his horses toward Marylebone that marriage to Edward Platt’s wealthy, recently widowed daughter would do much to advance such a man’s career.
* * *
