19. Mrs Dodgson comes to Rogeringham Hall

"Mrs Dodgson, Your Grace." Mr Dives announced the steward's wife.

The woman looked terrified as he showed her into my study. She had a small bundle that she clutched to her breast and her three children huddled close to her skirt as she entered. Her large eyes looked around, taking in the wooden shelves and all the books, the paintings and the deep pile rugs, before she came to a stop in front of my desk and she and her three girls all bobbed curtseys.

"Mr Dives? Will you take Mrs Dodgson's children to the kitchen and see if cook has something warm for them?"

With a nod from their mother, they allowed themselves to be shepherded away.

I drew up a chair for her and suggested that she sit down.

"What can I do for you today, Mrs Dodgson?" I asked as I sat down opposite her.

A whole gamut of emotions ran across her face, a handsome face that in the morning light through my window, I could see was marked by fading shadows. There was fear there, and a wide-eyed uncertainty, but there was also determination. Mrs Dodgson had obviously screwed her resolve up into a tight ball, clenched her fists and she had marched into my study for something. I was interested to find out what had brought her here.

"May I offer you a drink?" I asked gently, she was nervous, and started as I got up to go to the decanter.

"Thank you, Your Grace." She took the offered glass.

I watched her take a sip and waited. The rich Amontillado sherry seemed to trigger something. Her faced changed and where there had been conflict, she now showed calm resolve. Mrs Dodgson placed the cloth wrapped bundle upon my desk.

"You asked what you could do for me, Your Grace, I think it is more what I can do for you."

I was intrigued as she pushed whatever it was towards me.

"Alfred Dodgson is a good man deep inside," she told me. "But he is a man of great passions and sometimes they consume him. They are demons that overtake him, Your Grace."

"I can see that, Mrs Dodgson," I touched my own face with my finger.

"Oh those!" She dismissed them, "I'm clumsy, I bump into things." That she was excusing his behaviour made me very angry.

"I think you are too brave," I suggested. I wanted to probe more about his behaviours, but I hid my feelings by reaching for the bundle.

"I know he has done things which are wrong, sir, but I offer these, to perhaps ..." She paused, searching for the words. "Bring relief to his situation?"

With the cloth wrapping undone, I could see that the bundle contained two small ledgers. On opening them, they appeared to be duplicate books, one with the numbers that he had quoted to me and one with an entirely different set of figures.

"These are his accounting books?"

"I believe so, sir, yes. He keeps them meticulously." She said, pointing at the first book, "That one is the one that he showed Your Grace and the rest of the world, and that one is his own private record."

This was the proof I had been looking for, just a brief look at the End of Quarter totals, showed a difference of over three-hundred pounds in his favour, from just three months! This wasn't skimming, it was full-on larceny!

"Mrs Dodgson?" I paused and looked at her.

"Emily, Your Grace." She said, lowering her eyes.

"May I call you Emily?" She nodded slowly, "I will be honest with you, if anything, this damns your husband even more than before. It will mean jail for him, and no short time either when he is apprehended."

She nodded. Tears were forming in her eyes and her shoulders had begun to lower. "I had hoped that it might do him some good, act like a confession and earn him some good will." She dabbed her eyes with a kerchief.

"But he threatened the children, Your Grace. I don't care for myself, but my daughters ...!

"When he heard that you had been to the house, he became very angry. He swore me to secrecy and threatened to hurt us all including my girls, if I said anything to anyone." The tears that had been threatening, started to flow. But rather than break down, Emily Dodgson sat there crying, tear drops rolling down her cheeks. but yet still holding her resolute pose.

"Mrs Dodgson, you have my gratitude for this," I held the ledgers up, "And I will find an appropriate way to thank you for what you have done."

"It was not done for a reward, Your Grace, but to aid his case. Even though he threatened my girls."

I nodded, though I would still find a way to thank her, "This cannot have been easy, so I will also say how much I admire your courage, Emily."

She sniffed and then nodded.

"Do you know where your husband is now?" I asked her.

Emily Dodgson shook her head. "He went off in a rage but I don't know where he went. He has friends in Buckingham town, but also friends in Aylesbury too." I looked at her carefully, but could see no sign that she was telling anything but the truth.

"Is there somewhere that you can go? Somewhere where he will not immediately look?"

"I have a cousin, the other side of Bicester, Your Grace. She will take me in." I rang for Barclay, and told him that he was to convey Mrs Dodgson and her children to her cousin's house in one of the smaller, less conspicuous carriages, (the landau or the brougham with the Rogeringham coat of arms on, would have caused too many tongues to wag) and see them all safely ensconced there. He would leave her with some money and the bundle of clothes that had been organised previously.

Helena joined us, taking great delight in fussing over the Dodgson girls. She took Emily Dodgson to one side and they talked for a few minutes before Barclay and Mr Hopley took them away into the afternoon. As she climbed into the carriage it looked like a heavy weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

As I watched them drive away, I realised that I was as angry at Alfred Dodgson as much for the way that he treated his woman as I was for the fact that he was stealing from me.

"You're going to look after her?" I didn't hear Helena at first and she had to repeat her question.

"Yes. Yes, of course." I told her, dragging my thoughts back to the here and now. "For her actions, her service, I shall." For a moment I was struggling to organise my words. "It is my duty to her." I finally managed.

"You are a good duke, William. I am so proud of you."

I took my mother by the hand and led her inside to the warmth.

Back inside I wrote to Sir Arthur Walker asking him to arrange for the arrest of Alfred Dodgson stating my reasons and the evidence, and sent it off with one of the grooms.