Dread Murder

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Authors: Gwendoline Butler

BOOK: Dread Murder
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I wish to thank John Kennedy Melling
for his technical advice, especially on the
19
th
century theatre and particularly on
the amazing life and management of
the Theatre Royal, Windsor
of Henry Thornton.
The town of Windsor was wrapped in mist; it came up from the river to cover the town and the Castle on the hill.
In his set of rooms deep in the heart of the Castle, Major Mearns sat over his breakfast, drinking hot tea while he read
The London Times.
‘Drat the dust,' said Mearns, shaking a powder of grey from the papers and, indeed, from his breakfast as well. He could hear the crashing and banging of stonemasons so he knew from whence came the dirt.
The Castle was being restored by the new King, who had found the edifice crumbling from a century of neglect; the King, who had a perceptive eye, was determined to return it to grandeur.
But for the lesser souls like the Major and Denny who lived in the Castle, it meant noise and dirt. The men worked harder when the King was in residence, as he was at present, so that all the residents were grateful when he returned to Buckingham Palace, which he was also restoring, and the Castle quietened down.
The smell of the dust kept bringing back an episode he would like to forget. A woman, of course. ‘All the worst troubles came from the female sex' was the Major's view. A duchess, no less. She was strongly suspected, so the message came from Mr Pitt's staff, of having poisoned two people. ‘Do not let her do the same in Windsor' was the message that came with her.
In this, alas, he had not succeeded. ‘She got away with murder,' he said to himself, shaking his head as he always did when he thought of Madame La Duchesse. Then she had curtsied to the old Queen and gone off.
But where had she got to? That was the real mystery to interest the gossips.
Mearns went back to reading with a sigh, brushing a spatter of dust from his hair with his hands. To be sure all this work might rid the Castle of its bugs – a persistent and prolific population.
It was not his copy of the newspaper, as it was an expensive item which he preferred to read but not to buy. Sergeant Denny, his friend and supporter in his business as Watcher in the Castle, read the paper after him. They were both slow, careful readers, so this took some time. Then the paper would be folded, ironed and delivered to His Majesty King George IV – not so long ago his Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, but still a drunken layabout even if a man of excellent taste in clothes and pictures. Not to mention women.
Mearns and Denny knew that the King rose late, very late, so that there would be no early call for his newspaper – if indeed he read it at all, which both men
doubted. They were not admirers of His Majesty, although they appreciated his choice in wine, bottles of which sometimes found their way to their table. As soldiers both, they preferred rum or whisky, but wine would do. They had fought side by side in some of the wars against Napoleon, pillaging and sampling the wines as they went through.
They had served in Wellington's army in various quiet ways so that when William Pitt looked around for someone to keep a watchful eye on the Royal household (an unfortunate necessity because of Mad King George's illness, his wife's foreign relations and the behaviour of the then Prince of Wales) these two got the task.
Watchers, spies, guardians – call them what you will; they did their work quietly and with such tact that they made friends in the Castle household rather than enemies.
That is, if they were noticed at all. Somehow they contrived to be just a bit of background furniture.
William Pitt was dead, Napoleon was dead, the mad old King was dead; but these two Watchers were still here in the Castle, reporting now to Lord Castlereagh. There would always be someone or something for the Watchers to report on while King George IV and Queen Caroline (only divorced and never crowned, but now on the scene again) lived, and also later, if Mearns and Denny themselves should survive, when the young Princess Charlotte grew up if heredity was anything to go by. The two men did a good job.
‘And if we hadn't known how to behave ourselves,
then we would never have survived the wars. Not noticed is how you want to be in a war if you are to get through it,' Denny had observed sagely as he speared a slice of ham on to his plate.
‘The one thing we can say about the Castle is that the pay is poor but the food is good.'
‘So it is,' agreed the Sergeant. It was his duty to go to the kitchens, of which there were many, each having their own functions, and bring back their food. He had always done this – in Portugal, in Spain, and through France. He was a natural scavenger. The Major remained aloof from all this as officers do not do such things, but it was his function to point Denny in the direction of the foods they both wanted. Never ask how he got his information; it was part of being a Watcher.
‘Brew another pot, Denny.' He watched while the Sergeant warmed the metal pot, put in the tea leaves, then waited for them to infuse. In the poor household in which he had grown up, Denny had seen the tea leaves used, and used again. He felt rich now in being able to be lavish. After a minute or two he poured a cup for the Major, waited for Mearns to drink and nod his approval, then drank himself. It was a ritual the two went into every morning.
‘I read in
The Times
that the King's health is improving, and that he has had a “peaceful rest”. “His Majesty is making a good recovery and we shall soon see him restored to active life.” We know better than that. Not while he drinks the way he does. That's his sickness.'
‘Active enough in some ways,' commented Denny.
‘Too active. You can hear his shouting and swearing down the stairs and two floors away. Screaming like a dog with fits. 'Tis a fit.'
Mearns nodded gravely. ‘Madness, madness. Like his father.'
‘Mindy says that he is not so violent; not biting the doctors and kicking all who come near him so bad that they have to bind him up in a kind of dead suit.' Thus had the mad old King been treated. His son had a touch of his madness – all his sons had – but mildly, mildly.
Charlotte Minden, now more fondly called Mindy by her friends, had come to the Castle as a very young, frightened girl — not even sure of her own name. She was to act as a maidservant to Miss Fanny Burney, the author, who was then In Waiting upon the Queen. Fanny called her Charlotte, and Fanny's father, Dr Burney, had added the name ‘Minden', after a famous battle. As Mindy had taken root in the castle and matured and flourished, she grew into a handsome woman. Meanwhile, Fanny had continued writing her novels, knowing her own success as a married woman. In time Fanny found that the trials of attending on the Queen were too exacting and exhausting, and so she had fled from the Castle. But the sturdier Charlotte had stayed and prospered.
Mindy had not married, although she had not wanted for suitors. The Major had watched the girl grow into a woman; he thought of his affection as paternal, but lately he had acknowledged some warmer emotion growing there.
Could you fall in love at his age? He was still denying it to himself; but Denny, watching him, knew he had. Sergeant Denny, himself, had a happy and good-natured lover in the town. Twice widowed, she had said that that was marriage and death enough. ‘Never ask me to marry you,' she had said to Denny. ‘For I'd say “No”.'
It might be a lie, but Denny told the odd lie himself, and in fact had a wife in Cripplegate, London, whom he had not seen for years (and possibly some others elsewhere). For all he knew, she was looking for him. Not dead, for she had vowed to haunt him if necessary and he had never seen her ghost – although there were so many ghosts in the Castle that he might not have noticed one more.
Mindy, of course, was different, as was the Major. Not liars, either of them, although they might be haunted.
What was doubtful was Mindy's own feelings. She loved them both, but was it the love that the Major wanted? As for himself, Denny had no hopes.
In these same years, a revolution had swept over France while, without a revolution, the nature of society in Britain was changing too. Britain was slowly turning into an industrial nation with new riches in new regions: Wales and the industrial north of England, rich in coal and iron, and busy with weaving cloth for the workers and for the new markets across the seas.
Political life, too, had changed, with the sickness of the old King, and the disinclination of the young one to be King – a factor which, together with the rising wealth and power of the middle classes, served to enhance the
House of Commons while slowly depreciating the importance of land and farming.
Not much of this was felt in Windsor Castle, except for the illness of the mad old King – which had troubled the whole household, including Mindy whose closeness to the old Queen and the unmarried Princesses showed her their troubles at close hand.
‘She's grown into a handsome woman,' said the Major, dwelling fondly on Mindy.
‘Oh, you would notice that,' said Sergeant Denny to himself.
‘She will catch someone's eye and be off to be a wife.'
‘I daresay,' Denny replied to the Major.
‘In fact I've heard that one of the coachmen, Joe Hilly, has his eye on her.'
‘He's only got half an eye,' said Denny.
‘Aye, his left eye does move around a mite,' agreed the Major.
‘She deserves better than Hilly; he smells of horses.'
‘So she does, so she does.'
‘I reckon Mindy knows her own value.'
Mearns nodded, before going back to his breakfast. ‘He is a warm man, is Hilly. You can do well in the stables if you know your business.'
It was true that a man with his eyes open could make a profit out of being a royal servant in the household of King George III, and his successor for that matter.
The subject of making money reminded him of a friend. ‘Mr Pickettwick is back today,' he remarked to Denny.
‘So he is.'
Samuel Pickettwick was a retired businessman experiencing good circumstances who divided his time between London and Windsor. He himself never mentioned money; he had no need to do so, for he exuded comfort and prosperous living. In any case, the Major — who had his own way of checking – had found out that he owned a manufactory in Manchester as well as several emporia in the poorer parts of London that sold any cotton or silk that failed in the richer world. A sensible arrangement, thought Mearns: sell to the poor what the rich don't want.
Mr Pickettwick's business was now run by his nephew who remained in London, living in Gray's Inn Road. Major Mearns had his own reasons for believing the nephew not to be a nephew at all, but a bastard son.
Mr Pickettwick was one of the Major's sources of London gossip, all of which was grist to his mill. There was a tacit agreement between them to exchange information: London items from one side and Court and Cabinet tips from the other. Probably neither party trusted the other completely but, that said, they enjoyed each other's company.
‘Nice to see the old boy again,' said Denny, who licked no one's boots and had his own notion of ‘Mr P', as he called him. ‘We must give him a din-din. He likes his grub.'
‘And his drink.'
‘That's right, Major,' said Denny with a grin. Mearns had an officer's rank, won in war, and Denny was a
Sergeant, but there was an equality of status between them – Denny was the Major's other self.
There was a sharp double rap on the door.
‘Could be Tommy Traddles … I heard he was around looking for you the other day, but couldn't find you.'
‘He could have found me fast enough if he'd really looked,' said the Major. ‘I'm glad he didn't find me – wanted to borrow some money, I expect. And you never get it back.' The Major went back to his reading.
‘He spat at me last time I saw him,' reminisced Denny. ‘And dang me if I know why.'
‘No, he's not a nice man,' said Mearns, ‘but he has sent more felons that deserved it to the gallows than you and I have.' Traddles was a Watcher and a Searcher who worked for the most important London Magistrates. He worked for anyone who would pay him; he had certainly worked for Mearns, identifying and bringing in those suspected of crimes.
There came another rap on the door.
The Major raised his eyes from the paper. ‘Open it, Denny …'
But even as the Sergeant moved towards the door, it swung open and, not Traddles, but Charlotte Minden stood there, a long, striped shirt hanging over one arm.
‘You were long enough opening the door.'
Denny shot towards her.
‘Here, Denny, here is the shirt I mended for you, and it is time you got another.' Denny murmured that he could not afford it.
‘Well, get that Mr Pickettwick to give you one cheap
– he sells them, I believe. He sent one to the King and the King said it would do as a nightshirt, but no more.' Mindy gave a huge sigh and sat down. ‘If there is tea or coffee there, give me a cup. Such a night we have had of it.'

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