A Murder at Rosamund's Gate - By Susanna Calkins Page 0,93

don’t know those words, sir,” she had told him.

“What?” The magistrate had chuckled. “Oh, right, of course. I forget sometimes. Well, let’s rectify that.”

“Sir?”

“Let’s start from the beginning.”

Every evening, sometimes for an hour or more, the magistrate had taught her about the law. It began as a means for him to pass time, but Lucy sensed he really wanted to share his thoughts.

“It was after William’s trial, actually,” the magistrate explained, “that I apprehended how imperative it is that we have new standards of evidence. Your brother, I’m sure you realize, came very close to being judged guilty, and would have been, had that hearsay evidence held. While judges should be allowed a measure of latitude, it should not be a different standard of justice at every circuit court. The people must understand their rights.”

The magistrate tapped his pen against the sheepskin on his desk. “That is why I run these ideas by you, Lucy. They should be comprehensible even for a young girl, although I think few young girls would show the inclination you have demonstrated toward understanding the law.”

“I’m sure you will make that change,” she had replied, without thinking how forward it might sound.

Unexpectedly, the magistrate had taken her hand in his for an instant. “Thank you, my dear. I am a lucky man to have such a good and loyal companion beside me.”

For Lucy, the opportunity to learn had changed something in her. Her thoughts were bigger than they had ever been before. She was starting to make more sense of the magistrate’s ideas and words. Cook said she was starting to “talk like gentry.”

The biggest change came, though, when Lucy began to write. At night, with only a nub of candle, she had begun to write her own ideas. Sometimes she would kept the Bible open beside her, since it seemed that people liked to draw on scripture, but other times she just wrote from a place deep in her soul.

The first piece she wrote was about Lawrence. She called it “On a Young Boy Dying,” and it detailed her young friend’s short life. This she kept to herself, tucked in a little chest. She cherished her scraps of paper, imagining what her pieces would look like, all neatly printed out on one of Master Aubrey’s presses, but she knew she would not dare. Master Aubrey! she thought with a pang. She hoped he had survived the plague.

* * *

Fingering Adam’s letters now, Lucy wished they had been addressed to her. Unable to help herself, she opened the first one again. It had come within a few months of the family’s settling in Warwickshire, in August 1665.

Dear Father,

I am glad to hear that you are in better spirits since those terrible days when we lost my mother. My heart is with the family and household. I have found London to be very strange these last few weeks; as you know, the Mayor ordered all of the stray cats and dogs to be rounded up and executed, the fear being that they were the conveyers of the plague. On this point, I am not convinced, as the evidence of the sickness seems to travel among other vermin, like the ever increasing rats. One near bit me the other day, but I did beat it off with a staff. If you please, tell our Lucy that she need not worry; I have helped her dear friend Avery to find safety and shelter for himself and his cat. I did also meet with Will, who told me that both Lucy’s mother and sister are safe and out of danger’s way. Father, you did ask me in the last letter if I had seen Lord Embry yet, but I can only say that I heard that he and the family, including his daughter Judith, had safely escaped the sickness and have not yet returned. I have not had the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance or of discussing with her father the particulars of the shipping industry. My love to you and Sarah and the household.

With warmest regards,

Your son, Adam

The second one was from early January.

Dear Father,

Thank you for your letter. It is indeed good to know that all members of the household are in raised spirits. London seems to be ridding itself of the lunacy that beset it since last summer, and thanks be to God, the rats are lessening, perhaps being driven off by the cold. The tolling of the bells has mercifully stopped at last; one could