The Children of Silence (44 page)

Lionel Antrobus had been busy with all the duties attendant on him as executor of his brother’s will, so it was not until a week after the inquest that he came to finally settle his account with Frances for the work she had commissioned with Tom on his behalf.

He examined the invoice without a change in expression and handed her an envelope. She expected him to take his leave as soon as the business was done, but he did not.

‘A few days ago,’ he announced, ‘I had a conversation with Dr Goodwin.’

‘What, the Don Juan of Bayswater?’ said Frances teasingly.

He gave her a cold stare. ‘You taunt me, Miss Doughty.’

‘Yes, I do,’ she retorted, staring back at him unflinchingly. ‘But tell me, has Dr Goodwin finally succeeded in convincing you that Mrs Antrobus has an affliction of the ears?’

‘It is clear to me now that something occurred from the sound of the gunshot with which she killed Mr Henderson which has affected her hearing. I already knew that persons can become deaf from such insults, and Dr Goodwin assures me that the opposite may also be the case.’

Frances had been pondering something. ‘At our first conversation when I said I believed Mrs Antrobus to be genuine you disagreed very strongly, saying that you knew her better than I did. I now see that you were, in a sense, right, but it was for the wrong reasons. You knew, you somehow felt from the start of your acquaintance with her, that she was not to be trusted. It was this that made you believe that her hearing condition was a mental affliction.’

‘So the great detective can be wrong?’

‘I can be wrong about many things,’ she replied. There was a moment’s silence.

‘Dr Goodwin suggested that it would be for the best if Harriett did not come to trial. If she did she would evoke sympathy and would no doubt be imprisoned rather than hanged. Under those circumstances it would be very probable that she might try to take her own life. It is hard enough for the boys to have a mother in prison for such terrible crimes, but the additional taint of suicide would be insupportable. It would be better therefore if she was adjudged unfit to plead and placed in a secure situation.’

‘An asylum? But she is not insane.’

‘I really do not care whether my brother’s murderer is insane or merely wicked. But I think you would agree that it is better if she is allowed to live out her days in some quiet location. She is an evil woman, but I do not think it is justice that she should endure the torments of the abyss, at least, not while she is still living. The hereafter will judge her in due course. I have therefore taken the necessary steps, and Dr Goodwin supports the arrangement. Not the public asylum, but a place with respectable females to care for her. She would even be permitted to receive visitors and play her piano.’

Frances could see the sense of his argument and had to admit that it was probably for the best. ‘Who will pay for this?’

‘Mr brother’s estate. I act wholly for my nephews now. I have discussed the question with young Edwin, who is a sensible boy, and he agrees with my course of action. He wants to be able to visit his mother, and I do not intend to prevent him.’

He rose to leave, but there was something else on his mind, and he hesitated for a while, then addressed her again. ‘Miss Doughty, you strike me as a capable and intelligent young woman. I have never opposed the idea of women in the professions, or in honest trades; I believe there may be as many women so suited as there are men, but I cannot help thinking that you have chosen unwisely.

‘It is my intention to open another tobacconist’s shop on Westbourne Grove. If you are interested I can offer you a position there where you would be able to learn the business. In time, I have no doubt that you would be able to progress to manageress.’ He paused. ‘In fact, you might well be able to aspire further.’

Frances thanked him but her first impulse was to decline. He was not, after all, a bad man, merely one in whose company she did not feel easy.

‘I do not expect an answer at once. Will you consider it?’

Frances promised that she would, and over the course of the day the more she thought about it the more attractive the prospect appeared. The tobacco trade, she reflected, was not so very far different from the work she had undertaken in her father’s chemist’s shop. She could undoubtedly make a success of it, and the position of manageress was tempting. She found herself wondering what Lionel Antrobus would be like as an employer and whether that stiff formality ever unbent.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a tearfully grateful client, pressing rewards upon her for finding a missing child, who had been discovered by Tom, muddy, cheerful and unharmed, having sought an afternoon of excitement with a little band of street urchins. The joy of the happy mother was enough to decide Frances. There could be no comparable satisfaction to be gained in selling cigars. She decided to write a polite letter to Lionel Antrobus thanking him for his kind offer but saying that she could not accept.

As to the further aspirations he had hinted at she could not imagine what that could mean. It was only after she had discussed the conversation with Sarah and seen her assistant’s horrified reaction that Frances realised that she had just received a proposal of marriage.

It was an autumn wedding; a quiet affair in which it was possible for old differences to be settled and new connections forged. The bride had never looked so well, and the groom was happier than he had been in many a year. Frances was glad to see Lionel Antrobus shake hands with her uncle and genuine good wishes exchanged. Sarah was a witness, as was Mr Luckhurst, who arrived with a handsome new ring sparkling on his finger and a merry twinkle in his eye. Dr Goodwin stood in place of the bride’s father, while Isaac, all smiles, was the perfect usher.

Nothing was said of what had recently passed, and no mention was made of those who perforce were absent.

The ceremony over, Frances embraced her aunt, the former Miss Charlotte Pearce, now Mrs Cornelius Martin. Her uncle was kind and forgiving, and had not allowed the youthful error of his intended bride to affect his love for her. ‘Who amongst us is without fault?’ was all he had said to Frances when telling her that the wedding would take place as planned. ‘We all make mistakes when we are young, and why should we suffer for them our whole lives? In my dear Charlotte’s case I am inclined to think that the man was a scoundrel and, as a man of the world, far more to blame than she.’

After the wedding breakfast the happy couple were due to depart for a week’s honeymoon at a quiet hotel on the south coast, and they would then take up residence in Craven Hill. Though the house held many unhappy memories both seemed determined to populate it with new and better ones.

‘So,’ smiled Cornelius to Frances and Sarah as the carriage arrived to bear the newlyweds away, ‘which one of you will be the next to marry?’

‘Not me!’ said Sarah, robustly. ‘It wouldn’t suit at all.’

‘And you, Frances, do you not have a sweetheart?’

Frances smiled and assured him that she did not. There was a sudden laugh and an exclamation, and she saw a posy of flowers, the bride’s bouquet, flying high into the air. Without effort, she reached out and caught it.

END

The author has suffered from both hyperacusis and tinnitus for many years and is the founder of a support group on Facebook for people with hyperacusis. The main symptom of tinnitus is a constant noise in the ears that comes from no external source. Hyperacusis is a reduced tolerance to sound, which means that the noises of everyday life, especially if high pitched, cause pain. The earliest reference to the term hyperacusis the author has traced so far dates to a medical volume published in 1873.

For more information see:

www.tinnitus.org.uk

www.hyperacusisresearch.org

The Facebook support group is Hyperacusis Sufferers at

www.facebook.com/groups
/2414964219/

The Paddington Canal Basin was drained in November 1880 following complaints about pollution and smell, and some human bones were found. The event is recorded in the
Bayswater Chronicle
.

In 1880 Mr William Whiteley purchased properties in Queens Road (nowadays Queensway) in order to erect new warehouses. More details about Mr Whiteley’s character and career are in the author’s
Whiteley’s Folly: The Life and Death of a Salesman
.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s comic opera
Patience
opened at the Opéra Comique in April 1881 and played there until October.

Ignatius ‘Paddington’ Pollaky was a private detective known for his keen questioning. He retired in 1882. For more information see
Paddington’ Pollaky, Private Detective: The Mysterious Life and Times of the Real Sherlock Holmes
, by Bryan Kesselman. (The History Press, 2015)

In 1881 American inventor James Bonsack patented a machine for the mass production of cigarettes. It was introduced into the UK in 1883.

Following the Milan conference of 1880 many schools for the teaching of deaf children converted to the German ‘pure oral’ system, banning the use of sign language. Children sometimes had their hands tied together to prevent them signing. More information can be found at
http://deafness.about.com/cs/featurearticles/a/milan1880.htm
.