The Great Calamity

The Great Calamity

Cecilia Peartree

Smashwords edition

Copyright Cecilia Peartree 2024

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Alex Perry

Thanks to Sheila S. for the conversation that led me towards the idea for this novel, and to Alex P. for designing the cover and for listening to my frequent complaints about how hard it was to write.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1 The Isle of Wight, February 1860

Chapter 2 Everything is Wrong [London, May 1880]

Chapter 3 The Last Coffin [Leith, June 1880]

Chapter 4 Narrow Escape

Chapter 5 Stranger in Their Midst

Chapter 6 The Diary

Chapter 7 The Afternoon Off

Chapter 8 What the Lawyer Said

Chapter 9 Paperwork

Chapter 10 Comparing Notes

Chapter 11 Danger at the Docks

Chapter 12 Old Newspapers and New Ideas

Chapter 13 Over and Done With?

Chapter 14 Travellers in Time

Chapter 15 Mrs Maitland Intervenes

Chapter 16 The Newspaper Reporter’s Story

Chapter 17 Too Many Deaths

Chapter 18 The Gardener and What He Saw

Chapter 19 An Unexpected Visit

Chapter 20 A Lesson for Jon

Chapter 21 Mr Watson’s Niece

Chapter 22 The Sanctuary

Chapter 23 Planning an Expedition

Chapter 24 Confrontation

Chapter 25 State Secrets

Chapter 26 Endgame

Chapter 27 In the Kitchen

THE END

Chapter 1 The Isle of Wight, February 1860

I would not have chosen to travel across the Solent in the dark on a wild, wet night. If I had been alone, I would have waited until morning. From what I could make out, there was no longer any need to hurry. They were all dead, as I understood it, and would remain so. It was only that Lord Palmerston had happened to be in Winchester for some reason and had arrived in Southampton earlier than expected. He was the one who insisted time was of the essence.

I knew the sailors were unhappy too, anxious for themselves and for their ship. Of course, they didn’t know of the horror that awaited at Osborne House. It would all be in the newspapers before very long, but for the moment Lord Palmerston and I might be the only people outside the Royal Household who knew anything. Well, there were probably people on the island who had heard the explosion and wondered about it, but they were used to Prince Albert’s experiments and would keep their mouths shut.

‘It would be helpful if we could go faster,’ Palmerston said to the crew, but they didn’t pay him any heed. They knew he wasn’t a sailor himself.

In the end he understood that they weren’t going to take any advice from a landlubber. He stumbled towards the middle of the vessel, where I had already wedged myself into a corner between some coils of rope and a sturdy-looking mast and had made myself as comfortable as I could under the circumstances. In truth I was afraid to move too fast or too far in case I developed an urge to be sick, not being any more accustomed to sailing than the Prime Minister was.

‘Terrible business,’ he muttered to me, shaking his head. ‘Terrible. An unprecedented constitutional crisis.’

It was terrible, all right. I understood that. I couldn’t make out what the constitution had to do with anything, but then I wasn’t in Parliament and had never had any ambition to be.

‘Presumably you have been summoned to – um – take care of the deceased,’ he continued. ‘Do you have no assistants who might have accompanied you? From what I hear, it is too much for one man working alone.’

I didn’t want to go into details at this stage, before even seeing the scene and the state and number of the bodies, but I said, trying to appear confident, ‘I shall merely assess the situation, my lord. Once I have done so, I shall know the scale of the tragedy, and request assistance accordingly.’

‘Ah, I see. Very good.’

It wasn’t good at all, of course. Palmerston was just making conversation, in the way he must have done countless times before to humble men whose opinion counted for nothing.

The voyage, which should have taken a matter of half an hour or so with a following wind, seemed endless as the ship and crew battled against the elements, but eventually we berthed, not without a further struggle, at Cowes.

We were met by two tall guardsmen with grave expressions, who did not speak but merely helped us out on to the quay and escorted us to a carriage that waited at the end. From the window, I saw them mount huge black horses, and I supposed they would fall in behind the carriage to make sure we found our way to the house.

What was left of the house, that was. His lordship had told me that the explosion, followed by a ferocious fire, had occurred in the Pavilion, where the family and some of the domestic staff had gathered, but the smell of smoke lingered everywhere and I had the impression of utter devastation and chaos.

Palmerston, next to me, growled a few words I would never have imagined the Prime Minister knowing, let alone speaking aloud. For my part, I could not see how I would even locate the bodies amongst the wreckage. Were any of them identifiable? How did anyone know the whole family had been among the victims?

‘Wait here,’ said the Prime Minister, before the carriage had even come to a halt. ‘I shall make enquiries.’

He jumped out, to be greeted by a third guardsman, who seemed to have been expecting him.

They walked a little way away from everyone else, and it seemed they were not in agreement about how to proceed, for there was some gesticulation, and when I opened the window a little, I overheard raised voices from them.

The fact that someone had arranged for the scene to be lit by hundreds of lanterns only made it more grotesque. I could see the silhouette of a building, its windows, many empty of their glass, with almost the appearance of a dead person’s eyes. There were men and women working amongst the rubble, their actions so frantic that they must have been hoping to find someone alive under it all. Beyond the wreckage, I saw that other wings of the house still stood, and the tower at the corner of the Pavilion loomed over the scene.

They were right to hope, for as I watched, there was a muted cheer as one of them moved aside some loose stones and an arm waved from under it to signal that life was not extinct. I supposed it was too much to hope that this was one of the Royal family, however. They had been at the centre of the blast, from what I had heard, closely observing one of the Prince’s steam contraptions in action.

Lord Palmerston climbed back into the carriage, shaking his head. He also put his hand over his eyes and moaned as soon as the door closed behind him.

‘Why? Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why could he not have left these experiments to men who knew what they were doing? Why risk his life and those of his entire family, including that of the reigning monarch? What are we to do now?’

‘His entire family?’ I asked tentatively. ‘Are you sure they were all present?’

‘All except… This is the most aggravating aspect of all!’ he snapped, suddenly taking his hand away from his eyes and glaring at me.

I shrank back in my seat.

‘Do you know what I shall have to do?’ he demanded, looming over me.

‘N-no, my lord.’

How did he expect me to know, when he himself had been reduced to growling and moaning?

‘I shall have to send at once to Prussia! Prussia! Of all places!’

‘To Prussia?’

Almost as soon as the words were out, I began to understand.

‘The Princess Royal?’

‘He nodded grimly. ‘Her Majesty, Queen Victoria the Second of the United Kingdom… And Crown Princess of Prussia, damn it!’

‘Can she be both?’ I ventured after an awed pause.

Palmerston gave me a look I couldn’t quite interpret. ‘You do realise that this development will play havoc with my foreign policy strategy, do you not?’

That was the least of all our worries, I thought.

‘We shall never be able to threaten war against Prussia again,’ he said sternly. ‘Instead we shall be dragged unwillingly into all the silly little squabbles on the Continent, and I can foresee Prussians at Court trying to impose their will on us.’

‘Still,’ he added more reflectively, ‘we do require a monarch in place to give the royal assent to my projected bills, so there is nothing else for it, I suppose… But if you find any of the others alive in there, particularly if they’re male heirs, I for one will be immensely grateful.’

I nodded. It was time for me to carry out my gruesome task. I left the carriage with the uncomfortable feeling that the weight of history rested on my shoulders.

Of course there were people who didn’t believe any of it.

The Queen could not possibly have perished. The Prince Consort at least must have survived the blast. And what of the children? It was impossible that none of them had lived. And to leave the Prussians in charge was unthinkable!

Then there were the people who blamed the Russians. Or the Irish. They were more dangerous, for they also blamed the government, the police and anyone who had anything to do with the tragedy, for not having prevented it.

And so we slipped inexorably into a future of conspiracies and half-truths, and a whole nation steadfastly denying the evidence of the few people who had witnessed the catastrophe, and therefore prepared to believe in any impostors who came forward, to mount attacks upon Irishmen and people who looked like Russian spies, and to doubt the validity of the Prussian succession.

There are always some who are more extreme than others in their beliefs and actions, and so it was in this case.

Chapter 2 Everything is Wrong [London, May 1880]

The front door stood open as Lydia walked briskly along the pavement and climbed the steps, trying not to let fatigue drag at her feet and legs after the day’s work.

Her father must be at home. Why had he not closed and locked the door behind him, as he always did? Still, she knew that was the least of her worries. He must not see her until she had changed out of her working attire, which she was well aware must bear the marks of her calling. There would be blood, and worse, streaking her apron. She should have taken it off while still in the infirmary. That was the rule, only because she was afraid of being even later than usual, she had pulled her coat over everything and rushed off to hail a hackney carriage. Incurring the wrath of the matron was not as frightening as alerting her father to this work she had taken on, much against his wishes.

She pushed the door open further, and it swung back with an ominous creak. There were no lamps burning in the entrance hall. Where were the staff? Where was her father, for that matter?

She hung up her coat and bundled her apron into a ball. Perhaps she could hide it among the laundry. Still wondering at the apparent emptiness of the house, she lit the lamp that always stood ready on the side table, picked it up carefully, walked across the hall and pushed at the door that led to the servants’ quarters and the back stairs. Something was in the way, preventing it from opening fully. She pushed again, and heard a groan from behind the door.

Something was badly wrong.

She managed to push the door a little further and then to squeeze through the gap. Another groan came from the figure on the floor. In the light of the lamp, she saw the black and white attire, the dress rumpled and rucked up almost to the woman’s plump knees… Tilda, the housekeeper.

Lydia dropped the balled-up apron on the floor, trying to suppress her panic as she placed the lamp carefully on the floor and knelt beside the woman.

‘Tilda – do not move until I find out…’ She ran her hands swiftly and surely over the woman’s head and body and limbs. No blood, and as far as she could tell, no broken bones either. So far, so good. But a swelling on the back of the head, which probably accounted for the woman’s inertia.

‘Oh, Miss Lydia! Such goings-on…’

‘Do not try to speak. I must find my father.’

‘Oh, miss!’ The words came out on a sob, but the housekeeper pulled herself together with an obvious effort, and continued, ‘In the kitchen. But you must not…’

‘Do not move,’ said Lydia again. ‘I shall return in a moment or two. She got to her feet, slowly and reluctantly and lifted the lamp again.

Still on the floor, Tilda stirred. ‘But you should not…’

‘Wait there,’ said Lydia. ‘If you try to get up now, you may find you feel giddy, and another fall would not help with anything.’

She stepped past Tilda and walked towards the stairs that led down to the kitchen, glancing round over her shoulder once to make sure the housekeeper was not following her.

All was silent in the passage that led to the kitchen, but Lydia did not find the silence restful and soothing. Her nerves were on edge with the sense that something was very wrong.

Perhaps her father had merely dropped off to sleep in the chair by the kitchen fire. Perhaps he had sent the servants out on an errand…

She came to a sudden halt in the kitchen doorway as the smell of blood reached her, overwhelming even the lingering scent of cabbage soup from the previous day. She took a small step forward to cross the threshold and enter the room. There was a chill draught from the open back door, but that was not why she shivered. With shaking fingers, she lifted the lamp high to light the whole length of the kitchen.

Her father sat in the chair by the fire as she had expected, and he was as still as if he had been asleep, but his eyes were wide open in alarm, and the blood from the cut across his throat had spilled all down his chest.

Lydia leaned against the big wooden table in the centre of the room and tried to breathe. She did not believe anything she could do would help her father now – she had witnessed more deaths than she wanted to recall during her time at the infirmary - but she made herself go over to him and feel for his pulse, although she was confident that his heart had ceased to beat some time before. His skin was cold, his face grey. She could close his eyes at least, and she remained by him for a few moments, unable to give way to weeping, but unwilling to leave him alone here.

Her mind was not working at its usual pace, but suddenly it seemed to be full of random questions without any answers. What could she do now? Perhaps send someone for the police. But where were the other servants? Surely the house hadn’t been the scene of a wholesale massacre? Might the villains responsible still lurk somewhere nearby?

She took a couple of deep breaths, walked over as steadily as she could to the back door, which she closed and bolted, peered into the scullery to ascertain whether anyone lurked there, and then turned and climbed the stairs, to find Tilda waiting.

‘You should not have gone down there, Miss Lydia,’ the woman scolded.

Her cap had fallen off and her hair was ruffled, but she had smoothed down her skirts and appeared to be recovering somewhat from the bump on the head.

‘Where are all the others?’ Lydia demanded. ‘There was no-one in the kitchen except…’

Tilda nodded. Her eyes filled with tears, and she obviously struggled to speak at all.

‘Perhaps we had best sit down and compose ourselves,’ said Lydia. ‘In the parlour?’

She took Tilda’s arm with her spare hand and led the housekeeper into the small room at one side of the entrance hall where she was accustomed to sit while waiting to go out. It was one of the few rooms her father did not use as an office and library. She supposed she would have to go through all his books and papers before very long, but she preferred not to think about that at present. She set the lamp on a low table and sat down next to the housekeeper.

‘Do you have any idea what has happened here, Tilda?’ she asked, patting the woman’s hand in what she hoped was a soothing manner.

‘I did not see everything, Miss Lydia.’ Tilda spoke through her tears. ‘But I was in the kitchen when the men came downstairs with the master and – I cannot say what they did. I tried to stop them, I really did, but there were three of them and they were too strong….’

She gave way to sobbing for a few moments, while Lydia patted her hand again and considered what Tilda had said. Three men who had presumably entered the house through the front door… but where had the other servants been wile this was going on? And where were they now? Surely they had not met the same fate as…

She blinked back tears. This was no time for her to give into them.

‘How much did you see of those men?’

Tilly shook her head. ‘I saw hardly anything. They were rough men with straggly beards… I heard them speaking to each other, though. In some heathen foreign tongue.’

‘A foreign tongue?’ said Lydia, taken aback. Tilda looked as if she might dissolve into sobs again at any moment. She must try to convey calm in her tone as she was used to doing in the infirmary. ‘But where are the others? Cook, and Mary and Jean, and Thomas? They cannot all have been out!’

‘No, indeed, Miss Lydia,’ said Tilda, fishing in her pocket in vain for a handkerchief and blowing her nose on her apron, something she would certainly not have done under any other circumstances. ‘Only it is Cook’s day off, so she was visiting her sister in Hampstead, having left instructions about dinner, which was what took me down to the kitchen. The others were at home, as far as I know, but I did not see any of them from the time when the men burst in on me.’

‘Perhaps these men somehow subdued the rest of the staff before taking my father,’ said Lydia, thinking aloud. She saw Tilda’s horrified expression and added hastily, ‘I do not suppose the same fate became any of the others. I believe we must search the house… Are you able to accompany me?’

‘Should we not send for the police?’ said Tilda nervously.

‘We have no-one to send until Cook returns,’ said Lydia. The thought of going out into the dark streets of London again made her shiver, although they might have gone for the police together rather than remaining in the house. She glanced sideways at Tilda and added, ‘Perhaps we should search for the others. Perhaps they had time to conceal themselves after hearing the men break in.’

‘It’s possible,’ Tilda conceded. ‘We’d best find ourselves a weapon before we search, for those villains may have left one of their number behind.’

Lydia did not think that very likely, for surely the men had done their worst here before leaving the house, but she silently accepted the walking-stick that Tilda offered her from the umbrella stand, and they began to climb the stairs to the first floor, slowly and cautiously.

The first floor was as dark and silent as everywhere else. They did not open any of the doors at this stage, but proceeded up the next flight to the nursery floor, as Lydia still thought of it, where the rooms were smaller and less well-furnished. It was only when she opened the door to the box-room, from which a stair that was little more than a ladder ascended to the attics, that they heard any sounds not made by their own feet.

‘Was that not a call for help?’ whispered Tilda.

They stood still and listened.

Lydia nodded. ‘Indeed it was!’

She felt a wave of relief. The villains would not be crying out for help, if any of them were still about after all. At least one of the domestic staff must still be alive.

‘Thomas?’ she called, for the voice had seemed to be male. Then, ‘Jean! Mary!’

A louder call came back this time. Thomas.

‘We are all here, Miss.’

‘It is safe to come down,’ she called. ‘Are you all well?’

Thomas did not reply, but a few moments later he appeared at the top of the stairs and began to make his way down, placing his feet carefully.

‘Them stairs are a death-trap,’ Tilda remarked. ‘I’ve been telling the Master so for years on end.’

The maids, Jean and Mary, dustier and more rumpled than usual, followed Thomas and Lydia glanced over them, looking for any evidence of injury.

‘Let us adjourn to the small parlour,’ she suggested, ‘and you can tell me what you know.’

‘The Master?’ said Thomas anxiously.

Lydia shook her head, suddenly unable to speak.

Tilda said briskly, ‘You will have the chance to hear more once we are all sitting down.’

Lydia led the way down to the first floor, and then she had a sudden urge to look in her father’s study, where he spent most of his days. Perhaps if she went in, he would be sitting behind his desk as usual, and everything else would have been a dreadful nightmare.

She told the others to go ahead, Thomas bearing the lamp that always stood on a table on the first landing, and opened the study door. And immediately wished she hadn’t done any such thing. The surface of her father’s desk, always cluttered with reference books, open notebooks and papers bearing copious writings in his neat copperplate hand, had been swept clean of them. She saw books scattered randomly about on the floor, some open and face-down with the pages crushed under the covers. She could not see any of his notebooks, though perhaps those were out of sight, under the desk.

Suddenly she could not face looking at the chaotic scene any longer. She turned to leave the room. At the last moment, before closing the door behind her, she bent to pick up a small piece of white card that had caught her eye on the dark floorboards. She was still holding it in her hand when she reached the small parlour and joined the others, and she tucked it into a pocket in her dress, not knowing whether it was important or not but somehow reluctant to throw it away.

Lydia had already been exhausted when she came home. She had gone far beyond exhaustion now, to a calm place where nothing mattered any longer and she could speak of her father’s death first to the staff and later to the police, without breaking down into sobs or fainting or indeed showing any emotion whatsoever.

It was not until much later, after she had broken the news of her father’s death to the three members of staff who had been hiding in the attic, and Thomas had gone for the police, and they had come to the house, asked questions, arranged for her father’s body to be removed, and gone away again, that Lydia looked more closely at the card she had picked up from the floor of the study. Finding it in her pocket as she was preparing for bed, she had laid it on the dressing-table, where it caught her eye while she was brushing out her hair.

She frowned, puzzled. Why should her father have had in