C. Harris: Who Buries the Dead

Sebastian went to stand before the fire. “Who wrote it?”

“No one knows. That’s partly what makes it so delicious. It’s simply ascribed to ‘the author of Sense and Sensibility .’ And no one has yet to discover who she is.”

He reached to pick up one of the other two volumes resting on the table beside her and read the title. “ Pride and Prejudice . Whoever it is obviously likes alliteration.”

“And she has the most devastatingly wicked wit. Listen to this.” She opened the book again. “‘They were in fact very fine ladies. . had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank; and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England, a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade.’”

“Devastating, indeed. I wonder, could you tear yourself away from this delightful tale long enough to tell me what you know of Mr. Stanley Preston?”

“Stanley Preston?” she repeated, looking up at him. “Whatever for?”

“You haven’t seen the morning papers?”

“No; I’ve been reading this book. Why? What’s happened to him?”

“Someone cut off his head.”

“Good heavens. How terribly gauche.”

“Frightfully so. What do you know of him?”

She laid the book aside, open and facedown, although he noticed she gave it one or two reluctant glances before she brought her attention back to him. “Well, let’s see. The family is old-he’s from the Devonshire Prestons, you know, although his is a rather insignificant, cadet branch.”

“Yet his cousin is Lord Sidmouth.”

She waved a dismissive hand; obviously, the Home Secretary’s antecedents did not impress her. “Yes, but Sidmouth himself was only recently raised to the peerage. His father was a mere physician.”

“So where did Preston acquire his wealth?”

“His father married a merchant’s daughter. The woman was dreadfully vulgar, I’m afraid, but quite an heiress. The elder Preston invested her inheritance in land in the West Indies and did very well for himself, as a result of which he was able to marry his own son-Stanley-to the daughter of an impoverished baron.”

“Wealth acquired from trade being seen as something vile and shameful that can be magically cleansed by investment in land-even when that land happens to be worked by slaves?”

She frowned at him. “Really, Sebastian; it’s not as if he were engaged in the slave trade. Slavery is perfectly legal in the West Indies. The French tried to do away with it, and look what happened to them. A bloodbath!”

“True,” said Sebastian. “What was the name of this baron’s daughter? I gather she’s dead?”

“Mmm. Mary Pierce. Lovely young woman. In the end, the marriage was surprisingly successful; Preston positively doted on her. But she died in childbirth some seven or eight years ago. I’ve often wondered why he never remarried. He’s still quite attractive and vigorous for his age.”

“Not anymore.”

“Don’t be vulgar, Devlin.”

He gave a soft huff of laughter. “Tell me about the daughter. What’s her name?”

“Anne. She must be in her early twenties by now. Still unmarried, I’m afraid, and in serious danger of being left on the shelf. Not that anyone is exactly surprised.”

“Why? Is she ill-favored?”

“Oh, she was pretty enough when she was young, I suppose. But Preston never did move in the highest circles, and Anne has a tendency to be rather quiet-and a tad strange, to be frank.”

“Strange? In what way?”

“Let’s just say she’s more like her father than her mother. And of course it hasn’t helped that her portion from her mother is not large.”

“I was under the impression Preston’s holdings in Jamaica are substantial.”

“They are. But that will all go to the son.”

“I assume the man was a Tory?”

“I should hope so. Although unlike Sidmouth, I don’t believe he was overly interested in affairs of state. His passion was collecting.”

“Collecting? What did he collect?”

“Curiosities of all sorts, although mainly antiquities. He had a special interest in items that once belonged to famous people. I’m told he has a bullet taken from the body of Lord Nelson after Trafalgar, a handkerchief some ghoulish soul dipped in Louis XVI’s blood at the guillotine. . that sort of thing. He even has heads.”

Sebastian paused in the act of leaning down to throw more coal on the fire. “Heads? What sort of heads?”

“Those with historical significance.”

“You mean, people’s heads?”

“Mmm. I’m told he has Oliver Cromwell, amongst others. But don’t ask me who else because I’ve never seen them. They say he keeps them displayed in glass cases and-” She broke off. “How did you say he died?”

“Someone cut off his head.”

“Dear me.” She readjusted her shawl. “I take it you’ve involved yourself in this murder investigation?”

“I have, yes.”

“Amanda won’t like it. That girl of hers is starting her second season, and Amanda blames you for Stephanie’s failure to go off last year.”

Sebastian’s older sister, Amanda, was not one of his admirers. He said, “From what I observed, I’d say my niece was enjoying her first season far too much to settle down and bring it all to an end.”

“Yes, I’m afraid she’s your mother all over again.”

When Sebastian remained silent, she picked up her book and said, “Now, go away. I want to get back to my reading.”

He laughed and kissed her cheek again. “If you’re not careful, Aunt, people are going to start accusing you of being bookish.”

“Never happen.”

He turned toward the door. But before he reached it, she said, “Is it wise, involving yourself in this murder, Devlin? You’ve a wife and child to think of now.”

He paused to look back at her. “I am thinking of them. Whoever did this is not someone I want roving the city.”

“We pay constables and magistrates to take care of that sort of thing.”

“I don’t believe that means the rest of us can simply abdicate all responsibility for our own safety.”

“Perhaps. Yet. . why you, Devlin? Why?”

But he only shook his head and left her there, her attention once more captured by the pages of her book.

“We costermongers is a proud lot,” the wizened old woman told Hero. “Ain’t no doubt about it. We all knows each other, and we keeps ourselves to ourselves.”

Her name was Mattie Robinson, and she sat perched on a three-legged stool behind an apple stall formed by laying a flat wicker tray across two upended crates. She’d been born, she said, in the year they sent poor Dick Turpin up the ladder to bed, which Hero figured made her somewhere in her seventies. She wore a man’s tattered greatcoat and had a plaid shawl knotted about her head, and still she shivered, as if the cold from all the decades spent sitting at her stall had irrevocably settled deep in her bones. She’d agreed to talk to Hero for two shillings-which was, she admitted, considerably more than an entire day’s take.

“I’ve kept me stall here at the corner of St. Martin’s Lane and Chandos Street e’er since me leg was crushed by a gentlewoman’s carriage.” She shook her head, as if the ways of the gentry were a puzzle to her. “Didn’t even stop to see if I was alive or dead.”

“When was that?”

“The year after me Gretta was born. Before that, I used t’ work the Strand.” Hero had learned enough by now to know what costermongers meant when they spoke of “working” a street or district.