Chapter 16: Suggestions, Questions, and a Part Answer

Caroline smiled in delight when I explained the stratagem which would enable us to travel to Grantham together. "I wanted to meet your parents before our marriage, in case they were unable to attend our wedding." She gazed at me with admiration. "Your plan is positively cunning in concept. I like a man with that quality within him." She took my earlobe in between her teeth and bit gently, then breathed huskily in my ear. "And I like a man with that quality to be within me."

"What are you going to do about Molly March?"
I was still in that dream like state which takes hold of a man after coitus, and didn't fully comprehend what Caroline had said.

"Molly? What about Molly?" I came fully awake. Caroline lifted her head from my chest, then leaned against me and repeated her question.

"Why, she shall be trained as a lady's maid." I replied, after giving Caroline a warm kiss and embrace to thank her for the hour of pleasure given me.

"I have already set her on that course by having her attend Matilde when they visited Bath. She reports Molly shows great promise."
I could have added 'as she did as a tweenie, kitchen, parlour and house maid'. In fact every task given to Molly was completed with diligence and exactitude, accompanied by a shining smile.
Caroline nodded in agreement. "Molly also shows promise as a nursemaid. I have watched her with John-Jarvis; she gives him as much love and tenderness as Domina, who is devoted to the boy."

"You will employ her as another nursemaid then?"
She shook her head. "Have you really looked at Molly? No, of course not. To you she is a runaway from a foundling home, who lived on the streets picking pockets, and who knows what else, to keep herself alive. When in Bath I had the opportunity to observe Molly closely. She comports herself with the dignity and deportment of a duchess, and her eyes, so large and with a hue of violet I have never seen before, are such that any woman would exchange her virtue for them. Molly's features are as refined as any of those of the nobility, and I think rather than her being a bye-blow from the back streets of London she has been born on the wrong side of the blanket to some aristocratic female."
I pondered the surprising conclusion reached by Caroline, and detected a flaw in her reasoning. "Molly was left on the steps of a foundling home. Surely an aristocratic family, proud of their blood line, would find some goodwife to take her in?"

"Yes, but that would depend on the identity of the child's father. He could have been an anathema to the family: a radical, a revolutionary, or even worse a Catholic. The child would then been taken as far from the birthplace as possible, and left anonymously at some foundling home. The poor mother would have been told the baby died. She probably still puts flowers on a grave where she supposes the body of her child rests." Caroline's eyes filled with tears, and I hugged her to me.

"So, what is your answer to the question you posed? It would appear you seek a higher role for Molly than that of domestic servitude."

"After our marriage we should adopt her as our daughter." After delivering that thunderbolt Caroline got from the bed, blew me a kiss and went to feed John-Jarvis.

After three days of pure bliss spent with Caroline and our son I rode back to London, turning over in my mind Caroline's surprising suggestion that we adopt Molly March. I admit I had a great deal of affection for the girl, but I wondered how she would fit into the family. When married to Caroline I would legally be the step-father to John-Jarvis, but hoped in a short space of time to have children with Caroline whose paternity I could admit to. And what surname would Molly bear? John-Jarvis had Clark-Ashford as his surname, and any children Caroline and I produced would be Greenaways, although I suspect Caroline would insist Greenaway-Ashford be the family name, whereas I would prefer the family name to be Ashford-Greenaway.
How would Molly feel to be given a different name? She had borne the name March all her young life, and might be as attached to it as I to mine. I thought best to say nothing to Molly until after Caroline and my wedding, and perhaps even wait until her next, fifteenth, birthday to ask if she would want to be adopted. Just being made my ward might be enough for her.

Which, of course, led me to think of my current ward, Matilde Gance. The plans put in place would suffice to keep her from any indecorous behaviour while under the watchful gaze of Madame Bovary, but what would happen when I visited Grantham? Zinnia would have been my choice to stay at 18 Queen Street and act as chaperone in my absence, but, of course, she too would be in Grantham. I racked my brains as how I could keep Matilde from straying down the path of illicit pleasure – and then the solution dawned. I would invite Madame Bovary to take up residence at 18 Queen Street during my sojourn in Grantham.

As my horse cantered along the high road to London my thoughts next strayed to Rob Crawshay. I had not needed him to drive me to Bearsted, and Colonel Slade had asked if Rob might assist in moving equipment from Horse Guards to the bureau's new accommodation in Scotland Yard. Naturally I agreed, and had said, in passing, that Rob Crawshay would be an asset to the Military Intelligence Bureau. Not only was he an expert horseman but he also possessed quick wits and a logical mind. The colonel had remained sceptical of his use to MI5 until I explained the reasoning behind my assessment.
Several questions had puzzled me concerning the attack on Chateau Blanchard by the black garbed former Westphalian guardsman. The first being how he knew where I slept – assuming my death had been the object of the assault. Using a pistol to kill me, when a silent knife would not have roused the chateau, posed a second question. And how did he enter the securely locked chateaua?

Rob first deduced the answer to the second question.
Doors in England open into a room, whereas on the continent they open the opposite way. Thus the door of my bedroom at Chateau Blanchard had opened onto the corridor. When Chloe left the room, to use the chamber pot in her own bedroom, the opening door struck the assassin as he was about to enter. His knife, held in a hand ready to slit my throat, was sent spinning by the collision. Chloe's scream not only alerted Rob but so disconcerted the assassin he panicked. He pulled a pistol from his belt and fired wildly into the bed, hoping to achieve his aim of killing its occupant. After loosing off the shot the assassin turned tail and bolted. Rob found the discarded knife when he returned to the room after searching the chateau grounds with me.

The other questions took Rob a while longer to resolve.
We had first sighted the black coach on Tuesday morning at Charleroi, the day after we had left Brussels. The next morning, Wednesday, I visited Hercule Hulot in Valenciennes. Either the coach had followed us from Charleroi or else the coach had driven to Valenciennes on its way to wherever it was bound. Whatever the reason, Rob concluded I had been recognised by the the occupant of the carriage when in Valenciennes, and then followed back to the chateau. On Wednesday afternoon, as I walked back to Chateau Blanchard after buying cheeses in Wallers, I barely escaped being run down by the black coach last seen in Charleroi.
Rob reasoned that sometime on Wednesday, before the assassin's attack that night but after my near fatal encounter with the coach in the early afternoon, a maid employed at Chateau Blanchard, while on her day off in Valenciennes, had been approached by a person from the coach. By subtle questioning this person had drawn out from the girl in which room slept the visiting English Milord. The same girl probably unlocked the front door of the château, allowing the intruder entry and exit.
It soon transpired that the only member of the chateau's staff visiting Valenciennes on Wednesday afternoon was Marie Fabergé, a simple minded, rather fat girl, employed as a laundress. A short, tearful, interrogation of Marie revealed she had been approached by 'a very handsome young man named Horst' in the local patisserie when Marie was consuming a large pastry – several large pastries in fact. 'Horst', who by the description given by Marie was the surly postilion I had encountered at Charleroi, soon had the girl telling all she knew of the château and its guests. This exchange of information took place in the stables during intervals between Marie's madge being stuffed full of Horst's plunger — which was even more often than her mouth had been stuffed full of pastries.
He made another assignation with the besotted girl for later that night at the château, and it was Marie who had unlocked the front door, allowing him entry to the house before, as she hopefully anticipated, his entry into her in the basement laundry room.

That still left one unanswered question – who wanted me dead, and why?

As far as I knew nobody wished me dead, other than Eloise de La Zouche — the Baroness De Ath, in revenge for the death of her husband, the late unlamented Ashby de la Zouche. She had visited Timothy Whyte-Taylor in Brussels four months previously and relieved him of the secret for producing Satan's Breath, or White Lady. I assumed further information, concerning White Lady, had been required from Professor Whyte-Taylor by the cabal of rich and powerful men, who were not aware of the unfortunate death of the professor, and I was convinced Eloise had been in the black coach in Charleroi, en-route to Brussels to gain that extra knowledge from Whyte-Taylor. By pure mischance I had been recognised at Charleroi and followed. I needed to learn the identity of the owner of the black coach, as it appeared he – I couldn't imagine Eloise without a pliable male partner – was closely connected to Eloise, no doubt in more ways than one.
I was still awaiting Patrick Jane's reply to John Stafford's request for information on the coca plant and its growing range, and if Patrick had any information in his capacious memory regarding a death's-head being used as a noble family's coat of arms. Until then I would need to keep a close watch on any black coaches encountered

"I received a letter from Becky today," Zinnia greeted me as she entered the new office in Scotland Yard. "I was concerned, not having heard any word from her for over six months, but it appears travelling with three babies is a slow and arduous business." She bustled into the office which we shared, and sat at the table opposite me."Shall you read her letter, or shall I only read out those sections not dealing with squalling infants?"
Three days had elapsed since my return from visiting Caroline, and I was still getting to know my new surroundings, and the new recruits to the bureau, or MI5 as I should now refer to the department. I nodded for Zinnia to read out the parts of Becky's letter which might interest me.

"They reached Venice two months ago. They spent a week in Geneva recovering from the journey, where the nursemaid Elise Foggi left them and Becky took over her duties as nursemaid to Mary Shelley's children. Becky writes that had she known what a travail it was to look after two bawling babies she would never had put herself forward for the task. The journey from Geneva to Venice was even more fretful than the journey from London to Geneva, but all the effort became worthwhile when she joined Byron." Zinnia momentarily put down the letter. "Becky has written a great deal concerning him, which I doubt you wish to hear?"

"Just tell me where she is now, and if she is collaborating with Mary Shelley on her book."

"She writes the Shelleys have left Venice for Naples, and that she is deliriously happy to be with Byron, and away from that witch Claire Clairemont, who has left her child in Venice and gone off gallivanting with the Shelleys."

"I warned Shelley I would hold him responsible if any harm befell Becky – including harm to her reputation, which will suffer when it becomes public knowledge that she is with Byron." I glowered, but knew there was precious little I could do to alleviate the problem. Becky was her own woman, and nothing said by me would swerve her from her purpose, which seemed to be that of making a damn fool of herself over Byron – although she wouldn't be the first, or the last, female to have trod that particular path.
Zinnia glanced up from the letter with a smile on her face. "Becky and Byron will be joining the Shelleys in Naples later this year, and hopefully she will then begin collaboration with Mary on a revised edition of Frankenstein."

Fortunately I had other things to occupy my mind other than what mischief my foolish sister was getting herself into. I was dispatched on a mission to watch and report on a gathering of dissatisfied former soldiers in Highgate, a small hamlet to the north of London. They had been discharged from service with a few guineas and little else, and some were advocating marching on Horse Guards to demand more money, even a pension, for their years of service. Pensions were awarded to soldiers only after twenty two years of continuous, crime free, service, and few ex-soldiers met those criteria.
I was sitting in the Black Dog Tavern in Highgate, the place filled with disgruntled ex-soldiery, and as I listened to the hum of conversation I got the impression I was being watched. I turned slowly, and saw two men, obviously brothers, looking over at me.
One of them came over to my table. He nodded to me civilly. "I noticed you at the meeting earlier today, " he said."What do you think of the plan to march on London to demand a pension?"

"Doomed to failure." I dismissed his question with a swig of my beer. "The government are in no mood to hand out money, and those who threaten violence will be cut down like wheat."