A Fatal Likeness (24 page)

As for myself, I had protected one young woman from public scandal and ignominy; I now faced the same distasteful task once more. It was harder, in the gossip of the metropolis, to achieve my end, but I knew the coroner, John Gell, and the editor of
The Times
was in my debt. I likewise persuaded Sir Nathaniel Conant, the chief magistrate at Bow Street, to allow me free rein, though not without profound misgivings, knowing he trusted me, and I had never before abused that trust. I then instructed William Alder to take up residence at the Fox and Bull, so as to be on hand to give witness at the inquest, and ensure that Mary Jones gave the name of the deceased as Harriet Smith, and provided only such further evidence as was strictly necessary. The jury sat barely a quarter of an hour before returning, as I had ensured, a verdict of
Found Dead in the Serpentine River.
The body I then caused to be taken to the Paddington cemetery and buried there under her assumed
alias.

A second pauper’s grave, a second desolate and windswept interment, the only persons present the minister, myself, and Miss Westbrook, her face heavily veiled, scarce able to support herself in the wretchedness of her grief. “We will have our revenge, my love,” she whispered hoarsely, falling to her knees in the mud as the body was lowered into the grave. “Papa will institute a process in Chancery for custody of the children. He will expose that man to the world as a profligate and an atheist. All who know him will abhor and shun him for the murderer he is.”

“I must, I fear, bear some responsibility myself,” I began, assisting her to her feet as the sexton turned the first soil upon the pit. “I am very much afraid that our last meeting only served to distress your sister further, and that had I acted differently—”

But she was already shaking her head. “If you are to blame, then so am I. I was away from the house on Saturday and did not receive this until I returned.” She put her hand into her reticule and drew from it a letter. “Harriet must have left it at the door and waited in the street, hoping—expecting—that I would come out to her. And I did not. I can hardly bear to think what must have passed through her mind. She must have thought I no longer loved her—that I did not care—”

I had no great regard for Miss Westbrook, but I did pity her then. I pressed her hand. “She would not have believed so.”

She shook her head once more and put her handkerchief to her eyes as she watched me read her sister’s last words. A letter she copied for me later, at my request, and sent to me at Buckingham-street. A letter that tore my heart; a letter no man could peruse without seeing—in the tears that stained it, in the very orthography—the most afflicting proof of the depths of her despair.

Sat. Eve.

When you read this let
r
. I shall be no more an inhabitant of this miserable world. do not regret the loss of one who could never be anything but a source of vexation & misery to you all belonging to me. Too wretched to exert myself lowered in the opinion of everyone why should I drag on a miserable existence embittered by past recollections & not one ray of hope to rest on for the future. The remembrance of all your kindness which I have so unworthily repaid has often made my heart ache. I know that you will forgive me because it is not in your nature to be unkind or severe to any. dear amiable woman that I have never left you oh! that I had always taken your advice. I might have lived long & happy but weak & unsteady have rushed on my own destruction I have not written to Bysshe. oh no what would it avail my wishes or my prayers would not be attended to by him & yet I should he see this perhaps he might grant my last request to let Ianthe remain with you always dear lovely child, with you she will enjoy much happiness with him none My dear Bysshe let me conjure you by the remembrance of our days of happiness to grant my last wish—do not take your innocent child from Eliza who has been more than I have, who has watched over her with such unceasing care.—Do not refuse my last request—I never could refuse you & if you had never left me I might have lived but as it is, I freely forgive you & may you enjoy that happiness which you have deprived me of. There is your beautiful boy. oh! be careful of him & his love may prove one day a rich reward. As you form his infant mind so you will reap the fruits hereafter Now comes the sad task of saying farewell—oh I must be quick. God bless & watch over you all. You dear Bysshe. & you dear Eliza. May all happiness attend ye both is the last wish of her who loved ye more than all others. My children I dare not trust myself there. They are too young to regret me & ye will be kind to them for their own sakes more than for mine. My parents do not regret me. I was unworthy your love & care. Be happy all of you. so shall my spirit find rest & forgiveness. God bless you all is the last prayer of the unfortunate Harriet S—

There was a silence then, as I folded the paper and handed it back to Miss Westbrook, with a bow of thanks. I knew now that her sister’s last desperate act was not the decision of the moment: that even if I might have prevented it, I alone was not its cause.

My lamp burns low now, and I will hasten to relate what remains to be told. I will set down my final acts in this case, in the hope that it will be the last time I need involve myself with a family that has been to me such a source of anguish, and that has induced me, three times now, to contravene the professional code I have always upheld, and conduct myself in defiance not only of the law, but of my own most steadfast principles.

Today is the third of January; four days since I presented myself at Skinner-street, that I might hand Godwin my bill. I could have sent one of my men, it is true, but knowing the parlous state of Godwin’s pocket-book I deemed it prudent to deliver it in person. Few can deny me, faced with such a demand. I fully expected a family in mourning, it being still less than three months since the death of Miss Fanny Imlay, but I found instead a dwelling
en fête.
Flowers in the windows, wine on the table, and the most complacent smile on the face of Mrs Godwin when she opened the door. A smile that, I saw, faded at the sight of me.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said haughtily. “Was Mr Godwin expecting you?”

“No,” I replied. “And it seems I call at an inopportune time. You are celebrating?”

“Indeed we are,” answered Godwin, coming to the door and gesturing me to enter. I had never seen a smile on his face before, but he seemed now brimming with satisfaction, and so eager to share it that even I was to be considered a sufficient audience. “We are endeavouring to forget preceding sorrows, and to enjoy the flattering prospects which have now presented themselves. My daughter is to enter the married state on the morrow, and will become thereby the wife of the eldest son of a baronet, Sir Timothy Shelley, of Field-place, in the county of Sussex. She will thus acquire a not insignificant status and character in society, even though she was, hitherto, a girl without a penny of fortune. You can imagine how great a relief this has brought to mine and Mrs Godwin’s mind.”

There was a slight commotion, then, in the adjoining room—a commotion of laughter and excited talk. I glimpsed a maid, holding in her arms a little boy—a boy with soft curls and a round, gentle face—and a moment later I found myself in the presence of the affianced couple. He—nervous, agitated, and when he saw me, red-faced; she—she I could not read. The room fell silent and I allowed that silence, permitted it to distend to the point of eloquence.

“I gather,” I said at last, addressing myself to Shelley, “that I am to wish you joy. Not only in the acquisition of another wife, but in your restoration to Mr Godwin’s good graces.”

Shelley laughed then, that silly girlish dreadful laugh of his, and an even deeper flush overspread his features. “Ha—Maddox! Pat you come like the evil fairy at the feast! But the thought is apt, for tomorrow’s ceremony does indeed seem magical in its effects—indeed you would not believe—”

Mrs Godwin simpered at this, but I saw Miss Godwin’s hand at his arm, her motion of restraint.

“Could you not have waited?” I said then, my gaze encompassing the whole company and coming to rest, at last, on the two of them. “If the self-inflicted death of a
sister
were not deemed sombre enough, surely the suicide of a
wife
requires the lapse of more than a mere month before the mourning blacks are flung aside, and the funeral baked meats furnish forth the marriage table? But since not one of you here deigned to attend either interment, perhaps you do not deem yourselves bound by such trifling conventions, any more than you seem to consider it necessary to observe even the rudiments of common decency.”

Shelley was by now white to the lips, his face drawn in a mask of peculiar affliction.

“And are you, none of you, in the slightest concerned that there are now two young children who have lost their mother, having already, it seems, been abandoned by their
father
?”

“Oh, as to that,” said Miss Godwin airily, “the Westbrooks will no doubt provide.”

“I repeat,” I said, unflinching. “Could you not have waited?”

“I wanted,” stammered Shelley then, “I did propose that we should—that it might be more seemly—”

Miss Godwin turned at once with a look of dismay to her father, and he it was who stepped forwards now in intervention. “I do not consider, sir, that we owe Harriet
Westbrook
any undue consideration. I have it on unquestionable authority that she violated her marriage vows long before Mr Shelley left England with my daughter. The lady has, moreover, lately been consorting with any number of men, including a reprobate Irish scapegrace and a captain in the Indian army, and finally stooped so low as to descend the steps of prostitution, and live openly with a low fellow by the name of Smith.”

I stared at him, scarce crediting his words. “Where did you hear so?” I demanded. “You know as well as I, that I conducted the most thorough and comprehensive investigation as to the whereabouts of Mrs Shelley, and no such information ever came to my hearing. She may have called herself Smith, but she did so merely in an attempt to conceal her real name—and no doubt to protect
you
from scandal, much thanks she seems now to have merited thereby.”

She it was who stepped forward then, and what I heard in her voice froze my soul. “My father was given these facts by a man who had been in
your
service. He said
you
had sought to suppress it, but that we deserved to know the truth. The whole abhorrent truth.”

“Todd?” I said, hardly believing the evidence of my own senses. “
Jacob Todd
came to you with this?”

“He said, likewise, that it was common knowledge that Harriet had drowned herself the day she left Hans-place—that the corpse was so badly decomposed that it could not possibly have been in the water but a few days.”

“That, Miss Godwin, I can refute from my own experience, for I saw the body with my own eyes. Indeed, I spoke to Mrs Shelley myself a full month after the date to which you refer. The same night, in fact, that she penned her last letter—her last letter, sir”—this to Shelley, who had the good grace to hang his head—“to
you.

“I do not doubt,” I continued, “that were I to enquire more closely into the rest of Todd’s assertions I should find them no more reliable than the first. What evidence has he given you for the existence of this Smith, this Irishman, this captain in the Indian army?”

They glanced at one another then, and I saw fear pass between their eyes.

“I see,” I said, nodding. “It is as I expected. Todd has obtained money from you—or the promise of it—by relaying information which is at best unsubstantiated gossip, and at worst slanderous lies. And you have all believed him, because this was what you
wished
to believe. For a philosopher, Mr Godwin, you show a scant regard indeed for the truth.”

My blow hit home, I could see that at once. And having the advantage, I pressed it.

“As for you, sir,” I said, turning again to Shelley, and seeing the look of terror in his eyes. I knew what he had done and I should never have connived in the concealment of it. But it was too late now. What evidence I had once had was lost, and they would all of them deny it. All that remained to me was to make his own fear his punishment. And that I did, and without remorse. “You, sir, bear the greatest blame in this sad affair.
As you have in others, no less iniquitous.
Was it not enough to have abandoned her in the first instance, on the point of bringing an infant of yours into this world? Did you have to compound that cruelty by getting her once again with child? A child begotten in dishonour and the most shameful secrecy?”

“No
—no
!” cried Miss Godwin, starting forward.

“Was it not enough, Mr Shelley,” I continued, unyielding, “to have abused her thus in person, but that you should harangue her by letter into the bargain, and harass her to a dreadful and untimely death?”

Shelley gaped at me, stammered some unintelligible words, then turned and staggered to the wall, one hand at his side, panting and retching.

“How dare you accuse Shelley so abominably!” Miss Godwin exclaimed. “That woman was always harping on suicide, long before they were even married. It was a—a
monomania
with her. You may ask anyone—they all heard her talk of it. She tried to kill herself more than once when she was still at school, and spoke of self-murder perfectly serenely even before complete strangers.”

“Did it not occur to you,” I retorted, endeavouring to keep my temper, “that such talk was nothing but a sign of profound self-doubt? A doubt her husband, if anyone—”

“No,” she countered obdurately. “If it was a sign of anything it was of a mental weakness—a fatal insufficiency that was always going to lead to the same dire end. Indeed, beyond the mere shock of such an event having befallen a being once so nearly connected with Shelley, there is little to regret. Sooner or later she was bound to put an end to a life that was a torment to her, and which rendered her, let us be frank, nothing but a burden to all those unfortunate enough to be associated with her.”