country.
While I was reading this, Mrs Martley returned from her daily visit to Jenny and Daniel, with two warm pies for our supper
in her basket because she hadn’t had time to cook. I’d opened a bottle from our small store of claret in celebration of having
a case that might pay well and poured two glasses to go with the pie. As we ate and drank I asked her how Jenny was.
‘I’ve never known a woman so happy. Mr Suter fusses over her that much, he’ll hardly let her lift a finger. I told him not
to worry. She may be only a little scrap of a thing, but she’s strong as oak.’
‘The baby’s due soon, isn’t it?’
She gave me a reproachful look for not knowing.
‘Four weeks this Sunday. It’s often late with the first, especially if it’s going to be a boy. She’s carrying it high, so
…’
Tides of midwife’s technicalities drifted over my head. Mrs Martley had got over her reluctance to talk about such matters,
with me in my unmarried state. There were times when I wished she hadn’t. I thought about the Brinkburn family, and how the
death of Handy might affect my investigations.
‘…so I told her if she did it again I’d pitch her down the stairs and watch while she bounced.’
‘What?’
It took me a while to realise that she’d changed the subject. While I was away, she’d caught the waif Tabby inside our part
of the house.
‘Right up here in the parlour, looking round like somebody at the zoo. The girl’s so alive with lice and fleas it makes my
flesh creep to look at her.’
It made my flesh creep too. Still, I felt an interest in the girl.
‘Did she say what she was doing here?’
‘She said she wanted to know how people lived. Can you imagine the insolence of it? I told her I had a good mind to call the
beadle and have her put in the poorhouse.’
‘Oh, don’t do that.’
I didn’t want Tabby in the house uninvited either, but it sounded as if the girl had been guilty of nothing but curiosity.
Since that’s a sin of mine as well, it gave me something of a fellow feeling for her. I decided not to tell Mrs Martley about
the day’s events. She thoroughly disapproved of my way of earning a living, even though it did pay our rent and put food on
the table. A few months before, I’d lost patience and told her roundly that she must either accept it or go. To my surprise,
she stayed. To my even greater surprise, I was glad that she’d stayed. So we’d come to a truce on the subject. I tried not
to intrude my professional concerns on her, while she tried hard not to nag about my irregular comings and goings. When, after
the meal, I fetched my old black bonnet down from my room and asked her help in steaming it back into shape, she didn’t even
ask why I needed it at the height of summer.
Anybody may attend an inquest. It’s a public event like any other court case. Still, a woman among the spectators tends to
be conspicuous and I didn’t want to attract attention. I wore the re-shaped bonnet tilted well down to shade my face and a
black cloak, hoping to pass for some obscure mourning relative. The usher didn’t give me a second glance as I took my place
at the end of the back row in the stuffy courtroom. The windows were set so high that the dusty sunlight coming through them
made little difference to the dimness of the place. When Jimmy Cuffs limped in, I kept my head down. He walked past to a seat
at the front without noticing me. From the sideways glance I had of him, he looked to be the only cheerful person present.
The oddity of the body’s discovery combined with the current jousting mania should pay his wine and laundry bills for another
week. The coroner arrived and we all stood up. The jurors were sworn in and immediately sent out again for the formality of
viewing the body in a room next door. After a two-day delay in this heat, I didn’t envy them. Several were holding handkerchiefs
to their noses as they came
While I was reading this, Mrs Martley returned from her daily visit to Jenny and Daniel, with two warm pies for our supper
in her basket because she hadn’t had time to cook. I’d opened a bottle from our small store of claret in celebration of having
a case that might pay well and poured two glasses to go with the pie. As we ate and drank I asked her how Jenny was.
‘I’ve never known a woman so happy. Mr Suter fusses over her that much, he’ll hardly let her lift a finger. I told him not
to worry. She may be only a little scrap of a thing, but she’s strong as oak.’
‘The baby’s due soon, isn’t it?’
She gave me a reproachful look for not knowing.
‘Four weeks this Sunday. It’s often late with the first, especially if it’s going to be a boy. She’s carrying it high, so
…’
Tides of midwife’s technicalities drifted over my head. Mrs Martley had got over her reluctance to talk about such matters,
with me in my unmarried state. There were times when I wished she hadn’t. I thought about the Brinkburn family, and how the
death of Handy might affect my investigations.
‘…so I told her if she did it again I’d pitch her down the stairs and watch while she bounced.’
‘What?’
It took me a while to realise that she’d changed the subject. While I was away, she’d caught the waif Tabby inside our part
of the house.
‘Right up here in the parlour, looking round like somebody at the zoo. The girl’s so alive with lice and fleas it makes my
flesh creep to look at her.’
It made my flesh creep too. Still, I felt an interest in the girl.
‘Did she say what she was doing here?’
‘She said she wanted to know how people lived. Can you imagine the insolence of it? I told her I had a good mind to call the
beadle and have her put in the poorhouse.’
‘Oh, don’t do that.’
I didn’t want Tabby in the house uninvited either, but it sounded as if the girl had been guilty of nothing but curiosity.
Since that’s a sin of mine as well, it gave me something of a fellow feeling for her. I decided not to tell Mrs Martley about
the day’s events. She thoroughly disapproved of my way of earning a living, even though it did pay our rent and put food on
the table. A few months before, I’d lost patience and told her roundly that she must either accept it or go. To my surprise,
she stayed. To my even greater surprise, I was glad that she’d stayed. So we’d come to a truce on the subject. I tried not
to intrude my professional concerns on her, while she tried hard not to nag about my irregular comings and goings. When, after
the meal, I fetched my old black bonnet down from my room and asked her help in steaming it back into shape, she didn’t even
ask why I needed it at the height of summer.
Anybody may attend an inquest. It’s a public event like any other court case. Still, a woman among the spectators tends to
be conspicuous and I didn’t want to attract attention. I wore the re-shaped bonnet tilted well down to shade my face and a
black cloak, hoping to pass for some obscure mourning relative. The usher didn’t give me a second glance as I took my place
at the end of the back row in the stuffy courtroom. The windows were set so high that the dusty sunlight coming through them
made little difference to the dimness of the place. When Jimmy Cuffs limped in, I kept my head down. He walked past to a seat
at the front without noticing me. From the sideways glance I had of him, he looked to be the only cheerful person present.
The oddity of the body’s discovery combined with the current jousting mania should pay his wine and laundry bills for another
week. The coroner arrived and we all stood up. The jurors were sworn in and immediately sent out again for the formality of
viewing the body in a room next door. After a two-day delay in this heat, I didn’t envy them. Several were holding handkerchiefs
to their noses as they came
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