Chapter One

December 1849

It was a perfect winter’s night. The trees sparkled with hoarfrost, and the ground crunched underfoot as Matilda and Silas Ferryman made their way towards Sewell Manor, on the eastern edge of Middlehurst, deep in the New Forest.

The manor’s owner, Joseph Sewell, had accumulated his fortune in the Caribbean Islands, where he held vast tracts of land that produced sugar. Bringing his wealth back to the village, he had constructed a mansion on the grandest of scales, with pinnacles and turrets, and so many bedrooms Matilda had a difficult time imagining what they could all be used for, since Joseph Sewell himself was a widower, and only three of his eight children still lived there. The manor was known throughout the land for its fabulous gardens and ornamental ponds. And although it was frozen over now, in the summer the pond closest to the house boasted an enormous fountain, which Matilda had viewed personally on three separate occasions.

Each Christmas, Joseph Sewell was seized by the spirit of the season and opened his grand hall to the villagers, who were invited inside for hot mulled wine and freshly cooked mince pies. And there was always a performance by the mummers, who toured the public houses and manors with a play about St. George and the Dragon, and gratefully received whatever compensation was offered in return.

Matilda’s father, Cornelius Quinn, was a master blacksmith in Middlehurst. Joseph Sewell was his most important customer, and this fact alone guaranteed that Matilda’s family was among the first to be invited each year to the Christmas celebrations. It also meant they would be met at the door, warmly welcomed, and given a table at the front of the hall, so that they would not have to stand with the commoners.

Matilda was most appreciative of this concession, as her knees gave her unceasing trouble, especially in the chill of winter.

The grand hall on this night was lit by hundreds of candles, some contained in a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling, others upon tables, and still more held by sconces attached to the walls. A huge fire crackled in the stone fireplace at one end of the room, and sprigs of freshly cut holly and mistletoe and branches gathered from evergreen trees were scattered all about for decoration. The whole of it lent the room a delicious Christmassy scent.

“Welcome! Welcome!” Joseph Sewell was, as always, at the door to guide Matilda and Silas to their table. “I trust you are well, Mrs. Ferryman!”

“As well as can be expected, sir,” Matilda replied.

Two fiddlers at the front of the hall were providing the means for a dance. Matilda watched with a certain amount of envy as her brother, Thaddeus, took a turn on the floor with Edwina Sewell, Joseph’s eldest daughter, who was of a marriageable age and, consequently, had no shortage of suitors.

Oh, to be young again, Matilda thought, and unencumbered by rheumatism and catarrh, and an unabated cramping of the stomach and the bowels.

“Will you have some mulled wine, Mrs. Ferryman?”

“Thank you, I believe I shall.” Matilda accepted the cup from Mr. Sewell. “Hot drinks provide such comfort to one’s digestion.”

She sat down, and drank her wine, and observed with languid interest as her husband engaged her father in a conversation about anvils. Silas worked for Cornelius Quinn, the offer of employment having been extended the very same night that Silas had asked for Matilda’s hand in marriage. It was a convenience that had benefited everyone, for although Matilda’s mother had given birth to three sons, none of them had shown any interest whatsoever in learning their father’s trade. Thaddeus was a police constable, and Robert and Maurice had become schoolmasters, one employed in Middlehurst, the other in nearby Sway.

There they were now, with their respective wives and all of their children, including the two yet to be born. Mr. Sewell was leading them, negotiating a path through the celebrating villagers to the Quinn family tables at the front of the hall.

Matilda searched the room for Thaddeus. He had finished dancing with Edwina Sewell, and was now discussing something in earnest with her brother, Bertram, a young lad who had a fine future in store as the sole male heir to Joseph Sewell’s fortune.

Matilda caught Thaddeus’s eye and signalled to him.

“Would you indulge me, dearest brother, and escort me outside for a breath of fresh air?”

“Oh, but you can’t!” Bertram exclaimed. “The mummers are about to come in!”

The impending mummers caused Matilda to become even more impatient. She knew who most of them were: they were the sons of New Forest commoners. Tradition required they appear in disguise, and so their clothing was garish, and their faces were variously blackened, or hidden underneath large hats decorated with rags and ribbons. Last summer, she had chased several of them out of her garden as they attempted to steal apples from her tree.

“It is the same play every year,” she remarked. “I do believe I must have the entire dialogue committed to memory by now.”

One of the boys, made up like Father Christmas, was clearing a space for their performance at the front of the grand hall. Matilda recognized him as the ringleader of the apple thieves.

“But that’s the charm of it!” Bertram argued. “We all know the story. That’s what makes it so enjoyable.”

Matilda was about to take issue with his definition of enjoyable, but Maurice and Robert and their wives and children had arrived.

“Good evening, Matilda.” Maurice’s wife, Nancy, took the lead in greeting her, as she did every year.

“Merry Christmas,” Matilda replied, bestowing formal embraces upon her, Maurice, Robert, and Robert’s wife, Harriet, who was due to give birth within days. “Do have my chair, Harriet. I shall fetch another.”

Another was located, and, with considerable effort, Matilda dragged it back to the table, where Eveline, Maurice’s six-year-old daughter, immediately appropriated it.

“Child!” Matilda admonished. “Manners! If you please!”

“Go and fetch your own chair, Evie,” Maurice replied, with good humour. “You know your aunt suffers greatly from pernicious knees.”

“Is it your pernishest knees which always make you so bad-tempered, Aunt Matilda?” Eveline inquired.

“I shall help you find another chair,” Maurice decided, trying very hard not to laugh.

“I hate Aunt Matilda,” Eveline whispered as Maurice led her away.

Matilda sat down. “That child needs a good hiding.”

“Fortunately,” Nancy replied, “Maurice and I entertain somewhat more enlightened thoughts concerning child-rearing than you, Matilda. It is a pity you and Silas were not blessed with offspring.”

Robert’s youngest son, Lionel, tugged at the bottom of his father’s coat.

“Why have Aunt Matilda and Uncle Silas not been blessed with offspring?” he asked.

"For goodness sake!” Matilda said, growing very red in the face. “Children should be forbidden to speak in the company of adults. Seen and not heard, that is my preference. And, preferably, not even seen.”

“We know, Mattie,” Robert replied. “Next year I shall ask Mr. Sewell to set a separate table for us on the other side of the hall, so—happily—you will be spared further distress.”

Maurice returned with Eveline—but without a chair.

“Never mind,” he said to her. “You can sit on my shoulders instead.” He hoisted her up. “There you are, Evie. You’re taller than the mummers now!”

“What is the play about, Papa?”

“Well,” said Maurice. “There’s a King…and a Turkish Knight….” He winked at Matilda. “And, of course, a very fierce and vexatious Dragon…”

“I shall remove myself,” Matilda announced. “I am going outside.”

"You do that every year, Mattie. The less enlightened might think you didn’t enjoy Christmas at all.”

“I dislike the mummers. You may remain here, Maurice, unencumbered by vexatious dragons, to partake in the enjoyment.”

Father Christmas was beginning his speech, delivered in rhyming couplets. Matilda got to her feet. As she did so, her husband disengaged himself from his conversation with Cornelius and intercepted her.

“I shall accompany you, my dear,” Silas said, taking her arm. “I cannot allow you to venture out on your own into the dark. There are far too many dangers lurking in the woods.”

“Thank you,” Matilda replied, a little surprised. During past Christmas celebrations, Silas had rarely noticed when she had taken her leave to escape the dismally amateur theatrics at the front of the hall, and her nieces and nephews, who were intolerably bothersome. “I shan’t be long. It is cold tonight, and my knees will no doubt protest the chill tomorrow.”

§

In the days that followed, there would be much attention paid to the exact time that Matilda Ferryman had departed with her husband, and the exact time that Silas Ferryman had returned, minus his wife. Matilda had been taken ill, he explained, and he had been obliged to accompany her home, where he put her to bed with a hot water bottle. Whereupon she had insisted he return to the festivities.

The discovery, later that night, of Matilda’s bloodied body, her throat cut and her clay hot water bottle in pieces upon the floor, was the subject of much horrified conversation among the villagers. It was assumed that the motive of the killer must have been robbery. Matilda had been educated, with an aptitude for numbers, and, as a result, had been made responsible for the oversight and care of her father’s accounts.

Indeed, after Cornelius Quinn had been admitted to the Ferryman home to witness the aftermath of the terrible crime firsthand, he had immediately discovered that his considerable savings, of which Matilda had been appointed guardian, had vanished.

Also missing was a locket, which had belonged to Matilda’s mother, Jemima. Matilda had inherited it, and it was her favourite piece of jewellery. It was not an inexpensive trinket.

Christmas was bleak for the Quinns, but not—surprisingly—for Silas Ferryman, whose recovery seemed uncommonly quick, according to Thaddeus Quinn’s practised eye.

Thaddeus and Silas were of a similar age, and they had attended lessons together, had grown up in close proximity, and were likened, by some, to be as close as brothers. And because he knew Silas as well as a brother, it was Thaddeus’s contention—which he shared with no one except his superior at the Middlehurst constabulary—that they need not look beyond the environs of Middlehurst for the man who had taken his sister’s life.

“What is your proof?” Chief Constable Mathers inquired, as he sat with Thaddeus in the quiet brick building that served as their headquarters, as well as the village lockup.

“Their marriage was not a happy one,” Thaddeus replied. “My sister confided this to me upon several occasions.”

“A possible motive,” Chief Constable Mathers agreed.

“And Silas is unable to provide proof of his whereabouts for more than an hour. It is only a ten-minute walk to my sister’s cottage, and a ten-minute walk back. Which leaves forty minutes unaccounted for, and I’m almost certain it does not take that long to see an unwell woman safely to bed. Where was he, sir, and what was he doing?”

The Chief Constable contemplated his cup of tea, which he had made before they had begun their conversation. “What do you make of the theft of the money and the locket?”

“The locket held some monetary value, but I do not think that is why he removed it. I think he took it as a token, if you will. A remembrance. And as for the money…. I’m of the firm belief that Silas Ferryman has planned this for some time, and that he will shortly quit this village, and relocate elsewhere. Perhaps Southampton. Or even London.”

“You have given considerable thought to this.”

“I have feared for some months that Silas was about to abandon Mattie. I could not, sadly, predict that his decision would take a deadly turn.”

“How do you suggest we proceed?”

“With your agreement,” Thaddeus replied, “I shall invite him to attend an interview, so we may put some pertinent questions to him, and consider what he has to say for himself.”

§

And so Thaddeus set out to visit his father’s blacksmith shop.

What he found upon his arrival did not entirely surprise him. Silas Ferryman was preparing to depart the premises, and was dressed not in the leather apron and shirtsleeves of his trade, but in a cloak. He had with him a case, which appeared to be fully packed.

“Are you leaving us, sir?” Thaddeus inquired.

“What of it?” Silas replied.

“An unexpected development, that is all.”

“My wife is dead,” Silas said. “There is no purpose in my remaining here.”

“Will you agree to a small diversion? Chief Constable Mathers has some questions he would like to put to you about the night of Matilda’s murder.”

Silas seemed hesitant. He contemplated his case, which was resting upon the floor. Then he picked it up quickly. “Very well. If he must.”

It was not until they were nearly upon the constabulary that he decided to flee.

Silas Ferryman was in excellent form, and his years as a blacksmith had conditioned his body well. He was easily able to outrun Thaddeus, even with the additional burden of his case, and so the pursuit became a matter of who would become winded first.

Unfortunately, the route Silas chose led precisely nowhere, except into a field occupied by some cattle. The cattle had deposited upon the ground what nature had designed, and Silas was not fleet-footed enough to avoid it. His boot thus mired, he tumbled forward. He quickly scrambled up and was off again. However, Thaddeus had, in the meantime, caught up, and in a matter of moments was upon him, seizing his arm and throwing him once more to the ground.

“I am arresting you, sir!” Thaddeus shouted, catching his breath, but even as he uttered the words, he was aware something was not quite right.

Indeed, everything was not quite right. The grass beneath his feet was no longer in evidence. In its place was a hard substance, which he had not before encountered. And the quiet of the December afternoon had been replaced by rumbling sounds he was also unfamiliar with, and disagreeable smells, and sights.

To his right, contraptions seemed to travel without the aid of a horse. There were no trees and no fields, and there were definitely no cattle. There were, however, people—both men and women—and they were dressed in highly peculiar clothing.

Thaddeus’s surveillance was short-lived, as he was summarily struck over the head by Silas Ferryman, and rendered unconscious.

And that was all Thaddeus Oliver Quinn could recall, until he opened his eyes some minutes later, in response to an urgent voice inquiring about the state of his health.

The voice belonged to a gentleman wearing a uniform not unlike his own, though of a decidedly unfamiliar design.

"What is this place?” Thaddeus said.

“You are in London, sir. And you appear to have had a nasty knock on your head.”

“Yes,” said Thaddeus, as the fog in his mind cleared, and he became aware, once again, of the strangeness of his surroundings.

“Can you tell me your name, sir?”

“Quinn. Constable Thaddeus Quinn. From Middlehurst.”

“Indeed, sir. And the date? Can you recall what day it is?”

“I cannot,” Thaddeus replied, after a moment.

“It is the 28th of December, sir. 1939. And where, might I inquire, is your gas mask?”

Chapter Two

Now

Mr. Deeley was attempting to make tea.

Lying in bed upstairs, Charlie could hear him pottering about in the kitchen. He’d located the Brown Betty teapot, and the tea itself, which was kept in three boxes on a little shelf underneath the window.

Earl Grey. English Breakfast. Yorkshire.

She hoped it was Earl Grey, which was her favourite on a lazy Sunday morning.

Tap on, water in the kettle.

The next bit was the tricky part.

“Plug the kettle into the wall,” Charlie said to herself, repeating what she’d told Mr. Deeley the last time he’d decided to surprise her with breakfast in bed.

Fortunately, she’d got downstairs before the entire cottage had gone up in flames. Her kettle, however, had been reduced to a toxic lump of melted plastic in the sitting room fireplace.

The sitting room fireplace was now off-limits to Mr. Deeley. For food preparation purposes, anyway.

She could not smell anything burning. Excellent.

“Mrs. Collins!” Mr. Deeley called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes, Mr. Deeley?” she inquired.

He had a first name. Shaun. But it was impossible to call him that, as impossible as it was for him to call her Charlie. And anyway, it suited them. John Steed had never addressed Mrs. Peel by her Christian name. And Emma Peel had only ever referred to the most important man in her life as Steed.

“Do you wish your eggs hard boiled, or soft?”

In fact, Charlie wished them scrambled, but she dared not suggest this to Mr. Deeley, as it would mean butter, and a frying pan. Boiled eggs were simple, and involved only water in a pot. He could be trusted with that.

“Are you all right with the cooker?” she checked.

“Yes,” Mr. Deeley said, with a little less certainty than Charlie would have preferred. “I have turned the handle, and the surface is hot. I have placed the eggs in the water. And the pot is now upon the fire.”

“The fire…?” Charlie faltered, sitting up in bed.

“Forgive me,” said Mr. Deeley. “It is a turn of phrase I cannot easily abandon. The pot is upon the hob. And you have not yet replied to my question, Mrs. Collins.”

“Soft boiled,” Charlie replied. “Please.”

She heard him go back into the kitchen. In the years before Mr. Deeley, she had more or less abandoned cooking. Proper cooking, anyway. The microwave oven had been enough, because there was only herself to look after.

But since Mr. Deeley’s arrival three months earlier, preparation of food had become an altogether worthwhile—and surprisingly pleasant—pastime.

The old AGA that her mum had bought decades earlier still sat abandoned in its alcove, a useful place for putting newspapers and odds and ends that hadn’t yet found a more permanent home. But taking its place, at the end of the counter underneath the window, was a newly installed electric cooker, with a double oven and grill, and a four-element ceramic hob. It was upon this hob that Mr. Deeley was now attempting to boil eggs. 

“Mrs. Collins,” he called, again, from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yes, Mr. Deeley?”

“You have not yet replied to my other question.”

Charlie smiled. “That is because,” she said, “I have not yet had ample time to consider it.”

He was coming up the stairs.

He paused at her open bedroom door, and knocked.

“You may come in, Mr. Deeley. I’m perfectly decent.”

Mr. Deeley entered and stood at a modest distance from Charlie’s bed, his eyes averted.

“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie reminded him. “You’ve seen me in a far less respectable state than this. And I have seen you in an altogether less respectable state than the clothes you’re wearing now.”

What he was wearing now was new jeans, and the white cotton shirt he had worn when he escaped from prison in 1825. The loose sleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms, and he was without shoes or socks. He looked, Charlie thought, quite dishy. For someone who was more than two hundred years old.

“The circumstances of our mutual disrespectability,” Mr. Deeley said, trying very hard to maintain his composure, “were… were….”

He stopped, struggling to find the right word.

“Dire?” Charlie suggested.

“Indeed. Dire. Yes.”

“If we’d been given more than one hour together,” Charlie said, “I suspect our circumstances might even have progressed to direness in the extreme.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Deeley. “And therein lies my dilemma. For I feel, Mrs. Collins, that our mutual consummation of nature’s urges must lead us to an inevitable, yet not unpleasant, conclusion.”

“We did not consummate nature’s urges,” Charlie reminded him. “Much as we both had wished it so. That circumstance has yet to be… concluded.”

Mr. Deeley approached the side of her bed. He knelt on one knee, and took Charlie’s hand in his.

“Then marry me, Mrs. Collins,” he said, looking into her eyes. “For I will not accept a refusal.”

“Mr. Deeley…” Charlie paused. “It’s not necessary to be married in order to conclude the circumstances you and I began in your prison cell in 1825. Truly.”

“But I wish to spare you a terrible dishonour, Mrs. Collins.”

“What dishonour, Mr. Deeley? I don’t understand.”

“If we should so conclude said circumstances, Mrs. Collins, and not once but upon regular and, with hope, frequent re-examination… you would soon be with child. And I could not bear to see you scorned by the villagers.”

Charlie clasped both of Mr. Deeley’s hands in hers.

“Mr. Deeley,” she said. “There are ways to prevent such occurrences. Extremely reliable ways. I’m in no rush to become a mother. We may conclude to our hearts’ content.”

Mr. Deeley’s face brightened.

“And these methods are well-known to you? And without attendant danger?”

“Extremely well-known,” Charlie assured him, adding a kiss. “And completely without danger. Now then, what about those eggs?”

§

The eggs had been boiled to perfection. Charlie added toast and butter, and ginger marmalade, and poured the tea—it was, in fact, Earl Grey—with milk and sugar. Mr. Deeley sat on one side of the old wooden table in the kitchen while Charlie faced him on the other, with some sprigs of freshly picked autumn-flowering Clematis from the garden completing the setting.

“Mrs. Collins,” Mr. Deeley said. “Forgive my curiosity, but the knowledge you imparted to me earlier has intrigued me greatly. Have you the means at hand to prevent an unintended outcome to a possible…happy conclusion…?”

Charlie laughed. “I do indeed, Mr. Deeley. In fact, I took the necessary steps three months ago. It was rather pre-emptive of me, I know. But under the circumstances, I felt it a wise precaution.”

“Does it involve a concoction? A disagreeable unguent composed of foul-smelling ingredients?”

“It does not, Mr. Deeley. It involves a tablet.”

“Things have much improved,” Mr. Deeley remarked, “from two hundred years ago. My knowledge is intermittent. However, one cannot share a kitchen table with servants, particularly the housemaids, without gaining some understanding of this… delicate subject matter.” He paused. “Do you then place this tablet in the specified location… so as to interfere with what… issues forth?”

Charlie laughed.

“No, Mr. Deeley. I swallow it with my morning tea, and that’s all that’s required. Chemistry and biology take care of the rest. Look.”

She pulled the packet of tablets from her bag and showed it to him. Then she took one out of its slot and popped it into her mouth.

Mr. Deeley shook his head in amazement.

“I am much cheered by this news,” he said. “And as such, I believe we should consider concluding our circumstances at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Charlie laughed again. “I do love you, Mr. Deeley,” she said. “It’s a wonder I discovered you single and not spoken for in 1825. Were there no attractive and marriageable young ladies at all who had caught your eye?”

Mr. Deeley knew all about Charlie’s husband, Jeff, and the car accident that had killed him five years earlier. She’d told him everything. They’d visited his grave, delivering a fresh pot of flowering geraniums. But Mr. Deeley himself had been very circumspect about his own romantic past.

“There was a young lady,” he began carefully. “Miss Jemima Beckford. The eldest daughter of Mr. William Beckford.”

“From Beckford Farm?” Charlie guessed. The farmhouse, near Stoneford, was long gone, and the outbuildings reduced to dereliction. And the land upon which the buildings had once sat was tumbling into the sea, a few feet every year.

“Yes, the same. It was rumoured that Mr. Beckford provided a safe house for smugglers, although it was never proven. In any case, it was his daughter that I loved. And I would have married her, had tragedy not intervened.”

“Oh, Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said. “I’m so sorry….”

“There is nothing to be sorry about,” Mr. Deeley replied. “The tragedy was another gentleman. Miss Beckford was, unhappily, not constant in her affections. She accepted a proposal of marriage from Mr. Cornelius Quinn, the son of the village blacksmith. And six months following, gave birth herself to a son, whom she named Thaddeus.”

“Six months following,” Charlie mused.

“A not uncommon occurrence,” Mr. Deeley provided. “When human nature is allowed to pursue its most inquisitive course.”

“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said. “If this is not too indelicate a question…did you allow your human nature to pursue its most inquisitive course with Miss Beckford at any point prior to her wedding to Mr. Quinn…?”

“It is not too an indelicate question, Mrs. Collins. We had, in fact, given free rein to our inquisitiveness upon four separate occasions prior to the wedding. I had every reason to believe Miss Beckford would soon become my wife. And as she had not provided any indication to the contrary, we happily indulged.”

“Mr. Deeley,” Charlie said carefully. “Might it be possible that Thaddeus Quinn was not actually the son of Cornelius Quinn?”

“That complication had occurred to me,” Mr. Deeley replied. “Alas, Mr. and Mrs. Quinn took up residence some distance away, in Middlehurst, when young Thaddeus was no more than a few months old. It was therefore impossible for me to observe his features and his character, to determine whether there might be some likeness to myself. And so, Mrs. Collins, that is where it was left. He would have been nine years of age when you made my acquaintance. And, in truth, I had not loved another since Jemima. Not as I love you now.”

“Oh Mr. Deeley….”

Charlie was lost for words. She had wondered why a man in his midthirties, in 1825 Stoneford, should not be spoken for, but until now, it had not seemed overly important to know the answer.

But the idea that he might have had a son did fill her with a sense of intrigue. She made up her mind to investigate further.

“Finish your breakfast, Mr. Deeley. It’s time we put in an appearance at the museum.”