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Inspector A—
As requested, this dossier contains the letters, documents, notebooks and miscellaneous papers gathered from Miss Emily Gibson’s rooms after her mother’s visit to Whitehall. The housemistress expressed surprise that Miss Gibson’s door was left unlocked and could not attest with confidence that the premises had remained inviolate in the days preceding. I detected no evidence of theft or foul play, no obvious sign of violence or struggle. Nothing of value appeared to have been taken. Many items that I would have considered among her prized possessions were in their proper places in plain sight, including a few coins and a small cache of jewellery on her dressing table near her bedside. None of the other residents could recall any recent visitors. They were unaware of any suitors, romantic involvements or close companions. This is a curious one! The rooms are now secured and will remain so until you approve the release of their contents to the family. Mind the feather.
—Dew
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April the 3rd, 1887
Dear Miss Gibson,
I am in receipt of your three letters to Mother Mary Angelica, our Prioress, which had been held for consideration in the offices of St. Anne’s Priory here in North Hampstead. They have been released to me for reply. I see that you are a journalist, in search of Mrs. Margery Lovett—a wanton woman, a murderess, whose name we daren’t speak aloud for its profanity. A half century has passed since her dark deeds! You believe her to be secreted here at the Priory, working in the kitchen or as a housemaid or possibly as a nurse. What has led you to this conclusion? You do not say. You present a rough and unflattering description of her, which no doubt befits such a monstrous creature. You do not elaborate on your interest in her whereabouts or well-being, though given your occupation one can surmise the worst.
Three letters! You are persistent, I will give you that. I suppose it’s a vital quality in your profession and serves you well for the most part. However, we do not know your Margery Lovett nor do we know where she might be found.
St. Anne’s is a community of Sisters of the Church, living in quiet contemplation. I can assure you the pious women on these premises would have nothing to do with someone as depraved as your Lovett, let alone provide her with shelter. A hundred and fifty gruesome murders! Baking human flesh into pies! Perhaps she was more diabolical than her vile confederate Sweeney Todd, that malevolent barber of infamy, for who could conceive of such a thing. The Sisters here are innocent of such horrible stories as are told to children to frighten them under the covers. They have no knowledge of these ghastly crimes, and they are better for it. One of our youngest, Sister Catherine with her fine and delicate hand, has been assigned to assist me in crafting this reply. Poor soul. The names of Lovett and Todd had never touched her ears until this moment. If only I could be as unspoiled as she.
I wish you had been here with me in the minutes just after dawn when I was out in the yard with the cook’s maid, gathering eggs from our three nesting hens. I take on such tasks as the need arises, and will sometimes top a plumped-up bird to make our Sunday supper. As we had our basket filled and our backs to the runs and were dithering with the kitchen door, a windhover lurking in our ancient oak saw his chance to strike and swept down to seize one of the hens. Unexpectedly, the old girl put up a tremendous fight, screeching and thrashing with beak and claw until the maid and I could grab our sticks and drive the creature off. The hen may yet die from her wounds, poor thing, but not without having torn a few feathers from her assailant. I know some of how she feels. Young as you are, and more fair than fowl, I wonder if you do as well.
Why don’t you turn your attention away from the gutter, to more worthy journalistic pursuits? I have read your inspiring piece in the Daily Post on the suffragist Helen Taylor, and your series of articles on the Malthusian League, abandoned mothers and unwanted children. Why seek out the worst of women, when those who suffer legitimate injustices need your passion, when we need you to shine a light on the struggles we face in every turn of our lives, at every station, at every age? Even the Priory has faced hostilities over decades: accusations of succumbing to papacy and rejecting women’s natural obedience to men. You are not the first to write to us enquiring after vagrants, cutpurses, dissolutes, harlots and worse.
Ours is an order of Christian charity. I myself have suffered greatly, decade upon decade. I have endured many abuses, faced horrors at the very height of London society and among the very dregs. In these, my final years, I am grateful that the Sisters and the Prioress, Mother Mary Angelica, took pity on me and accepted me into their fold so that I could escape the turmoil of the world. Your time and effort would be better spent on noble works, on acts of bravery and benevolence, than on a ghoulish tale which has been glorified in penny bloods and gaffs. In any event, the last I heard of your Lovett was that she died in her cell at Newgate Prison, poisoned herself I believe, which by all accounts was the best possible outcome. Certainly, poisoning is more merciful than a hanging.
With this, Sister Catherine and I must leave you, as we are being called to dine before Vespers. This is a time of great unease for us at the Priory. The Reverend Mother, God bless her soul, was taken to hospital early yesterday evening; we understand her to be direly ill, and do not know if she will ever return. Our Sister Augustine is acting in her place, and is at sixes and sevens with her new duties, as you would expect. Might the Post consider a portrait in prose of the Reverend Mother as a beacon of benevolence in the capital? It would send an inspiring message to the populace, even as she lies on what may be her deathbed.
We wish you the best of luck in your endeavours, but please know this is not the right rock under which to look. Margery Lovett is no doubt at the bottom of a pile of bones in a pauper’s grave, and that is better than she deserves. Leave her to rest with the dead, if rest she can. You would be chasing phantoms.
I enclose for you the windhover’s feather, speckled and striped. A memento between us.
Always look forward, never look back.
Margaret C. Evans (Miss)
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London Evening Post
Monday Evening, April 3, 1887
10 pages—One halfpenny
Hampstead Prioress Taken Ill
Hampstead Heath, England: Mother Mary Angelica, age 71, of St. Anne’s Priory, fell ill unexpectedly last night, and was transported to the Royal Free Hospital where she is under careful watch in the Victoria Wing. Doctors suspect an inflammation of the heart. The Sisters of St. Anne’s request the prayers of our readers to hasten the Reverend Mother’s recovery.
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April the 14th, 1887
Dear Miss Gibson,
Thank you for your kind enquiry after the health of the Reverend Mother. Sadly, she remains at Royal Free Hospital in a most desperate state, watched over day and night by the fine nurses in the Victoria Wing. Despite all our prayers, we are told that she is unlikely to recover. It is only a matter of time. Sister Catherine is beside herself with grief. She and the Reverend Mother had grown quite close in recent months.
As for your other queries, your determination is admirable but remains misdirected. We regret that we do not permit visitors to the Priory. Ours is an order of peaceful observance that benefits from being at a remove from the troubles that surround us. As the acting Prioress, Sister Augustine would be the one to receive guests on our behalf. If you have questions, she would be pleased to assist, though I doubt she has the answers that you seek. Even if your Lovett had been here in decades past, our files are unlikely to be of much use, and are not available for your perusal.
I do see though that we have piqued your curiosity about our order and Mother Mary Angelica. Allow me to take a moment to tell you about the Priory. St. Anne’s was built as Hunt House, a huddle of mottled black brick and grey stone along the north-eastern edge of the cemetery. It was built by Sir Charles Marten shortly after the ascent of George I, and was so named for its proximity to the Bishop’s Wood, now known as Brewer’s Fell. He died fifty years after, leaving the house to the Church which first fashioned it as a convalescent home for those leaving hospital, and then as an attachment to the St. Milburga’s Abbey in North London. Our Sisters number twenty-nine at the moment, the eldest aged eighty-one and the youngest sixteen. To this, we add six lay workers who tend the kitchen, the refectory, the oratory, the dormitory and chapel, and the ice house; the Sisters and I tend to the chicken shed where we get our eggs, the small glass conservatory, the laundry, the garden and grounds. There is also the Prioress, may the Lord bless and protect her. And, of course, they also have me. When my strength is with me, I assist in the baking of altar breads between Matins and Lauds; these are offered up to churches throughout London. On the harder days, I join the elders in the parlour and embroider handkerchiefs, table linens and altar cloths, and help with the mending of socks and mantles and robes. One must strive to be useful in this life, and through usefulness find purpose. My loving Sister thinks I see the world queerly, and perhaps I do. While the women here are gentle with me and hold me among their number, it is at an arm’s length at best: I sleep and eat alongside them; I watch them as they rise and wash their bodies, pale and freckled and soft with womanly down; I listen as they chant and pray; but I am not of their realm, not truly, nor am I of the world beyond the gate. I admit I keep a certain distance as well, and do not invest myself in their whispers and their tiny daily dramas.
Sister Catherine’s face is already flushing, she knows what I’m about to tell: yesterday after Terce, one of the youngers, Eleanor, went to fetch her sewing kit and found her thimble was missing, an enameled silver bauble set with tiny white beads. Eleanor came to us a merchant’s daughter, well-to-do, just turned twenty-one and twice as vain as she was pretty. She refused to surrender this token of her father’s affection and now it was gone: not in the basket, not under the bed, nowhere on the floor. Vanished. An hour of wailing while the others searched the dormitory; then one of the others, Estelle, two years older and two feet taller, she came in laughing from outside to say that she had tossed it in the sluice where we all dump our chamber pots, and no doubt was on its way down to the Thames. Eleanor ran out into the morning fog in just her tunic, hurried to the sluice and combed through the clots of muck with a stick until she saw the dainty item lodged against the iron grate in the Priory wall, stopping it from sliding out and down into the gutter. She scurried back in, sobbing and sniveling, flung herself down to the cellar and into the laundry, and washed and scrubbed the filthy object as best she could. Sister Augustine, meanwhile, took Estelle by the ear, pulled her up the stairs and confined her without meals to the bedchamber that we keep aside for those who are unwell. She remains in there at this hour, and likely through the night. As if all that would not suffice, one of the kitchen girls, a rude and ruddy sort, muttered to the others about “Sister Stinkfinger.” We were two twips away from a bare-knuckle brawl. None of this would have happened, of course, if the Reverend Mother was well and with us. It is in our grief and fear that our tempers flare; pettiness takes hold of our hearts, and we lower ourselves to foolishness that would be frowned upon by bone-grubbers.
I say all this to you, but to the others I say little. Sweet Catherine here has never heard me speak so much. Her eyes are wide as saucers! I keep to myself, and wisely so, and know my company is true. I am more alone here than I have ever been, yet I cannot claim to be lonely. I have never been safer than I am in here, yet my heart still quickens, seizes, at the thought of the dangers I’ve left behind. If you are reluctant to share the story of our Reverend Mother with the world, perhaps you would find something of interest in mine, here at the Priory or in my life before. I have come to virtue late in life. I enjoy a simple existence, and have ample time to reflect upon it. Your readers might do well to join in that reflection.
I wonder, Miss Gibson: Have I seen you at the gate, in those moments after Prime when we gather ourselves to break our fast, when the streets outside are calm and still? Have I seen you standing there, watching our windows, imagining our lives? I have caught a woman lingering there more than once these past few weeks. A smart, sharp, curious girl, perhaps from the village, imagining a life of solitude and service within these walls. Young and strong she is, cheeks aflush with the first light of dawn, a feathered green postilion perched above her auburn curls, emerald dress ruffled and pleated with a jet-black bodice, taffeta and silk, blouse clutched tight at the neck. Could this be you? Would you tell me if it was? Her soft black glove frothed with white lace at the cuff, she clasps one bar and then another, stares intently through the refectory window, strains to see inside. Fleeting figures shuffling in and out of the shadows. Is that you watching, Miss Gibson? Have you seen us? Have you seen me?
Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.
M.E.
