sweet. Bessie was a good girl,” she whispered. “She’s in heaven now, singing with the angels and tossing those golden curls.”
Soon after, Bessie’s coffin was slowly lowered into the ground. As the diggers shoveled fresh earth on top, Lucy cast in a nosegay with the few pitiful blossoms that bloomed this time of year. “To my friend. My sister,” she murmured. “May you bring your joy and laughter to heaven.”
Straightening up, Lucy noticed two poorly dressed, haggard women weeping. One of them was clutching a baby. They must be Bessie’s mother and sister, she thought, who had made the long trek from Lambeth. Shyly, Lucy walked over to introduce herself and utter a few words of solace.
“Thank you,” the woman whispered. Lucy could barely hear her over the baby’s crying. “I’m Rebecca, Bessie’s elder sister.”
They stood silent for a moment. Then Lucy blurted out, unable to hold her tongue, “Can you tell me? Do you know? Where was Bessie going, you know, that night? Was she coming to see you?”
Rebecca’s shoulders slumped. “I wish I knew. She was not coming to see me, or at least I did not know it. Damn the man who killed her!” Her voice broke. “That bastard should swing, and Lord knows if he will ever be brought to justice.”
Without even stopping to think how her words would sound, Lucy asked, “Do you think it was a stranger that killed her, then? Not a lover? Someone she knew?”
Rebecca pulled her hand away angrily. “Our Bessie was a good girl. You’ve no right to say otherwise.”
“Oh, oh!” Lucy said, contrite. “I’m sorry to have offended you, missus. I’m just trying to make sense of this.”
Only somewhat mollified, Rebecca sniffed. “No sense to be had. She was killed in cold blood, by a monster, and there’s little else to say. That I know for certain.”
Rebecca stated to walk away. Lucy remembered something else. “Your baby. Daniel? Is he well now? I remember Bessie telling me he took awful sick this winter past.”
“Not too sick, God be praised. He’s a strong one.”
“Oh, but I thought she came to tend him when you took the sickness, too.” Lucy floundered a bit under Rebecca’s hard stare.
“I think you are misremembering. The babe’s not took sick all winter. A miracle, to be sure, when so many others had the sickness.”
“Oh.” Lucy swallowed. “Oh, well. I’m glad to hear he is in good health.”
* * *
The rest of the family a few steps ahead, Lucy walked soberly home from the funeral. Trudging along, her head down, she spied a scrap of paper in a patch of muddy grass. It was a broadside, no doubt having fallen, unbeknownst, from a bookseller’s bag or from the hands of one of the many onlookers who had come to watch the spectacle. Lucy picked it up.
The text was a ballad—“Murder Will Out!” set to the tune of “Three Men in a Tavern”—and the words were striking. The broadside described the story of a young maid who fell in love with a rich lord, who made promises to her that he had no plans to keep. He persuaded her to run off with him, only to rid her of her hard-kept virtue. Then, when he wanted to marry another woman, he lured his young mistress to a secluded spot and killed her.
“The cad!” Lucy muttered, but she kept perusing the ballad.
The story did not end with the young woman’s death but shortly after her body had been discovered. When they moved her body, her hand fell open, so that one finger ended up pointing to the young lord, wordlessly naming him as the murderer. Lucy started to crumple the penny piece but instead put it carefully into her pocket.
* * *
When Lucy arrived back at the Hargraves’ house, she found that Cook had tied a wreath laced with black ribbon on their door. She saw, too, that rushes had been laid in the streets to muffle the sounds of carts and the footsteps of tradesmen and gawking passersby. Cook had prepared a bit of stew for the family, but Lucy found it impossible to swallow. Everyone spoke in hushed tones, and no one spoke directly to her. For this, she was grateful.
As Lucy lit the candles at the hearth that evening, she thought about her conversation with Bessie’s sister. It was as she had feared—Bessie had no doubt been keeping company with some gent. She had not been to see her sister as she had said. Where