Bruce Alexander: The Price of Murder

“That is all well and good, Clarissa,” said I. “But you must now account to me for your condition. I mean how did you. . that is to say, we never. . tell me then, who is the father?”

She then gave me a puzzled look that ended in laughter.

“You goose,” she whispered, “there is no father. My ‘condition,’ as you put it, is what it has always been.”

“Then you’re not pregnant?”

“Shh, no, of course not.”

“Oh, I’m so glad.” And truly, reader, I was glad. I felt as if a great weight had been lifted from me.

Clarissa said naught for a short space of time. And then: “Jeremy, you’ve no idea how proud I am of you and your praise of me when you did not even know that I was lying.”

“Well, I was not completely convinced-just, well, alarmed. But I thought that whatever happened, we would work it out between us. We always will, you know.”

“Oh, Jeremy, I’ll make a good wife for you. You may be sure of it. Sir John says so himself. He was in on this right from the start. It was his idea to keep you in the dark.”

“It was? But why?”

“He thought that you would react more emphatically- and you certainly did react in just such a way. It was all done, you see, to deal with Lady Fielding.”

“I don’t quite understand,” said I.

“Well, you said yourself that Mr. Ogden had asked Elizabeth a question of that sort to plant in the minds of the jurymen that indeed she might be pregnant. I wished to plant in the mind of Lady F that though I may not now be pregnant, I might soon be so, if we two remained living under the same roof and within easy kissing distance.”

Whereupon, having spoken thus, she jumped up, ran round the table, and kissed me soundly upon the lips.

“And when will you tell Lady Fielding of your mistake?” I asked.

“Oh, eventually,” said she, “eventually.”

Now, having all but ended this tale, I offer but two post scripts. The first, relating in a manner to what I have just written, concerns Elizabeth Hooker.

Seven months or a bit less after denying to Mr. Ogden that she was pregnant, she delivered a healthy eight-pound baby boy. Though efforts were made to keep the birth secret, it was not long before the matter was made known to the public by word of mouth. It also became known to the law, and Elizabeth was brought to trial on the charge of perjury. It was all handled very quickly. She might claim-and indeed she did-that she had simply been mistaken in most of what she had said from the witness box-but to be two months pregnant and nevertheless be ignorant of it was more than this jury chose to believe. She was sentenced to five years transportation to the colony of Connecticut, where she was taken into the home of a Methodist minister and worked her time as a servant. Her child was adopted into the Turbott family. Her former employer thus had the son he had long hoped for.

Finally, my second post script is little but a rumor. I heard from Mr. Patley that far up in Yorkshire someone very like Mr. Deuteronomy by description had founded a stud farm. He was happy up there in the north. Pegasus, it was said, was even happier.