Chapter Twenty-Two
The next morning, as Bridget and Aunt Marianne stepped outside in search of a teashop, the door to a black carriage parked in front of the Old Jerusalem Inn swung open, and someone beckoned to them from within.
Bridget froze and squinted at the carriage. Just then, the driver hopped down and approached them.
“Mrs. Phillips requests that you join her in her carriage. But you must make haste. She is short on time.”
Bridget glanced at her aunt, whose look of surprise mirrored her own shock.
Then the two of them hurried to the carriage and climbed inside.
The driver shut the door, locking out the day’s sunshine as the window shades in the carriage were drawn.
Although they were on the street, they had complete privacy.
Mrs. Phillips looked exactly as she had the previous day, with her ink-black hair scooped in a tight bun and hidden under a large black bonnet, and her pale face pinched.
She did not greet her guests but simply lifted her black umbrella and used it to tap the roof of her carriage, which then lurched forward.
“We shall take a turn around the block, so as not to raise suspicion,” she said. “I only have a few minutes.”
“Thank you for taking the time to talk to us,” Bridget said, now extremely curious as to what information the woman had to divulge.
“I am only doing it to prevent you from asking questions around town. The minute I met you, I knew you were the sort who wouldn’t be content until you got the answers you were seeking, and the last thing the esteemed reverend needs is people gossiping about his family.”
“Oh,” Bridget said, taken aback. She was certain Mrs. Phillips had not meant to compliment her but, all the same, she felt oddly pleased that the woman had noted her persistence.
Mrs. Phillips sighed. “The truth is that George is not our son. He came to us when he was a boy of nine.”
“He’s Lady Matheson’s child, isn’t he?” Bridget glanced at Aunt Marianne. It had not been difficult to put the pieces together after their meeting with the Reverend and his wife yesterday.
Mrs. Phillips pressed her thin lips together and nodded.
“My husband’s cousin, Sir Roald, married Lady Patter…
Matheson when George was an infant—her first husband having died while out at sea.
Even though she was below his station, Sir Roald was blinded by love, and so he made the mistake of marrying her.
All was well for the first few years, but as George grew, his behavior became troublesome.
He seemed like a very charming child on the surface, but there was something sinister about him. He’d lie and well…hurt people.”
“Hurt people?” Bridget said. “That doesn’t sound like George.”
“I know it doesn’t. That is because he could be very endearing, and his ‘bad’ deeds were conducted in secret. When caught, he was very good at playing innocent.”
“But who did he hurt?” Bridget asked, still unable to believe that the winsome George, who loved poetry and nature, could hurt anyone.
“Mostly servants and other children. They’d accidentally trip in his presence, or he’d trick them into doing something dangerous, like retrieving an object from up high, and then he’d cause them to fall.
One time, he sent his nanny tumbling down the stairs.
Another time, he ‘accidentally’ bumped into one of the maids as she was stoking the fire. And her hand was severely burned.”
“Oh my!” Aunt Marianne gasped.
“When George was eight, Sir Roald employed a new caretaker for his estate. The man arrived with his family—a wife and two sons. Right away, the two little boys, who often played with George, always seemed to be getting injured. On one occasion, the younger of the two boys almost lost an eye when George forced him into a fencing match using sticks. After the child accidentally poked George hard in the stomach, he lost his temper and thrust the sharp end of the stick at the child’s face, just missing his eye. ”
Aunt Marianne gasped.
“I can hardly believe this,” Bridget said.
“Neither could his mother. She wouldn’t entertain any complaints about her son.
And each time, the incident was blamed on the victim’s clumsiness or simply dismissed as an unfortunate accident.
No one wanted to believe that a small child was capable of inflicting harm on others, so they let him get away with it.
He went through several nannies, not to mention governesses.
Then one day, something truly terrible happened… ” She paused.
“Go on,” Bridget said, her nerves now on edge.
“The caretaker’s wife gave birth to a third child—another little boy.
Sir Roald doted on the infant—and I think you can guess why.
His marriage to Lady Matheson had come under immense strain.
Her mood declined, and she was often sullen and gloomy.
Sir Roald sought comfort in the arms of another—the caretaker’s wife, to be precise—and she had given him the son Lady Matheson had not.
I am uncertain if Lady Matheson knew the child was his, but George noticed how Sir Roald doted on that baby, and it enraged him. ”
“Dear heavens!” Aunt Marianne said. “Don’t say he did something to that poor infant…”
“Sadly, I cannot. The minute that poor helpless babe became the focus of George’s anger, he was lost to the world.”
“Are you saying that George hurt an infant?” Bridget asked fearfully.
“I’ll tell you what happened, and you be the judge.
One day, George took the child from the house with the help of his two older brothers, under the pretense of playing ‘Moses and the Bulrushes’—as he’d recently been given a Bible lesson on that very subject.
So, he put the child in a basket and set him sailing on the large, murky pond on Sir Roald’s estate, telling his brothers that he would save the little lad and take him to live in the castle, which in that instance was Sir Roald’s estate. ”
“Oh my, oh dear!” Aunt Marianne whimpered.
“Unfortunately, the basket he put the child in wasn’t adequate, and it quickly filled with water.” She fell silent. “It only took a few seconds before the infant disappeared under the murky waters of the pond.”
“Good grief!” Bridget felt the sting of tears in her eyes.
“By the time his mama realized her babe was gone from his cradle, it was too late. George attempted to lay the blame on the infant’s brothers, but there was no doubt in Sir Roald’s mind about what had happened.
There had been too many ‘accidents’ over the years to ignore the truth.
That’s when Sir Roald decided to banish George from his estate.
He could no longer look at the boy. He paid my husband, a great deal of money to take care of the boy and instruct him in the Christian way of life.
And I must say, it seemed to work. Reverend Phillips took a stern hand with George and instilled the fear of God in him.
For the first four years that George was with us, the boy adhered to a strict schedule of Bible study, Latin and mathematics lessons, prayer, and chores. George had no time for mischief.”
“But what about his mama? Did he not cry for her?” Bridget asked.
“No. He appeared to have scant feelings for her—for anyone, in fact. But he did rail against the rules he was forced to follow. He wasn’t used to that, but once he realized that things were not going to be as they had been for him, he finally settled down.
By the time he turned thirteen and went to boarding school at St. Joseph’s, he was completely transformed. At least that’s what we thought.”
“Did he get up to mischief in school?”
“Oh, no. George loved school. It was a haven for him with its systematic bullying in place. They call it fagging, where younger boys do the bidding of older boys, who punish them in various cruel ways at their will. I fear it reignited George’s appetite for cruelty.
He thrived at boarding school, and afterwards, he went on to Cambridge.
The reverend wanted him to follow in his footsteps. And for a time, it seemed he would.”
Bridget pressed a hand to her pulsing throat as she waited to hear what happened next.
“About two years ago, a young woman came to see us, claiming George had courted her and promised to marry her but would not fulfill his obligation.” Mrs. Phillips paused. “She was with child.”
“My word!” Aunt Marianne said.
Bridget could hardly believe it. She hadn’t known George for long, but was it possible that he could have hidden his true self so expertly? The George she knew had been a kind and sensitive young man.
“The reverend was furious and called him home from Cambridge,” Mrs. Phillips continued, “but George denied ever having known the young lady. He was adamant. There was a big row, and George left us. He refused to return to university. Sir Roald cut him off. And we never heard from him again.
“But there was gossip—talk that he was in York. People said he claimed to be a poet and that he got money from…” She swallowed. “From women he entertained or charmed—widows and lonely wives.” She covered her eyes and shook her head.
Bridget wanted to reach out to the woman and offer some comfort, but decorum held her back. She did not know Mrs. Phillips well enough to intrude on her personal space.
“Then I heard talk that he went to Westmorland. That was just before his mother arrived and gave us news of Sir Roald’s passing.
She wanted her son, of course. Even after all those years, she still thought of him as a little boy.
It was as though time had stood still for her.
The reverend threatened to have her locked away as her husband had done, but I was not so heartless.
Men have all the power, you know. They can lock us away, deny us our freedom, our speech, and our children.
” She paused. “So, I told her that he was an aspiring poet and had gone to Westmorland to follow in Wordsworth’s footsteps.
” She gave a half smile. “It seems I made the wrong decision because they are both now dead.”
A cold chill ran down Bridget’s spine. “You don’t think Lady Matheson would have murdered her own son, do you?”
“I don’t know.” Mrs. Phillips said. “Perhaps I was misguided in sympathizing with her. It seems she was mad, after all. So, who knows what she might have done? It’s quite possible she killed George and then killed herself.
On the other hand, that butcher may in fact be the guilty one.
I think George inherited a touch of his mother’s madness, and it led him to wander dangerous paths.
Indeed, I believe he would have ended up a victim of murder sooner or later.
” She shook her head. “Sir Roald tried to save them both, first by sending George away and then by keeping his wife under lock and key. Alas, it was not to be.”
Bridget sighed. Despite everything she’d discovered, she was still no closer to knowing who killed George. And if she returned to Westmorland without answers, Groby would go to trial in York, where he was certain to be found guilty of murder.