They Hanged My Saintly Billy (15 page)

Dr Palmer therefore conceded her a little gin, but still she would not eat, and raised s
uch a hubbub when he pressed th
inly sliced bread and butter on her, that for his wife's sake he added an opiate to the next noggin. Since Annie no longer ventured into the sickroom, lest the distress it occasioned might dry up or sour her milk, and hazard the life of their infant son, Dr Palmer took charge of the nursing himself, with the help of Mrs Bradshaw, the

handywoman. Annie suggested that Dr Knight should be called, for a second opinion; but he was suffering from a severe cold and could not come until January
1
4
th
—when he briefly examined the patient, shook his head, as Dr Bamford had done, and went off without demanding a fee. Four days later, Mrs Thornton died in a wandering delirium, and Dr Bamford duly signed the death certificate, ascribing her death to apoplexy. 'It would not be seemly to put "died of gin and prolonged self-neglect",' he remarked.

The nine houses in which Mrs Thornton had a life-interest now reverted to Mr Shallcross as the heir-at-law—but not before Dr Palmer had paid a further sum out of his own pocket towards their repair. Mrs Thornton, it appears, had been responsible, as landlady, for mending the fissures in the walls and the leaks in the roof but, since she had failed to do so, the tenants had revenged themselves by not paying rent. That Dr Palmer thus acted against his own interest in repairing these houses is an effectual proof that, so far from poisoning Mrs Thornton, as has since been unkindly alleged, he had hoped, by bringing the sick creature home, at great inconvenience, to increase her span of life. She was not yet fifty years old and, her expenses being sma
ll, the longer she lived, th
e better for the Palmers as her guardians.

Mr Shallcross, when informed of Mrs Thornton's death, claimed the property, and not only refused to allow Dr Palmer
anything for the repairs, but when these were presently completed, and the tenants therefore paid their arrears, demanded the entire sum, amounting to nearly five hundred pounds. Dr Palmer brought an action against him, but Shallcross won the case.

An even more unfortunate event happened two or three months later. Old Mrs P
almer's brother, one Joseph Bentl
ey, was living at Dodsley, near Uttoxeter in Derbyshire. Since Dr Palmer had business near by, she asked him to call on his uncle and convey her affectionate remembrances; but forgot to warn him what sort of a customer to expect.

Joseph Bentley we
nt by the nickname of 'Beau Bentl
ey'. He always dressed in the height of fashion, and could well afford to do so, his first wife having left him a great deal of money. The people of Dodsley suspected him of murdering his second wife, who fell downstairs one morning and broke her neck; and he had since lived, for eighteen years, with a servant girl on whom he fathered an illegitimate daughter. Beau Bentley was now not only married a third t
ime, but had also seduced his ill
egitimate daughter.

O
n Dr Palmer's arrival, Beau Bentl
ey showed him a little female toddler, and said proudly:' She's both my daughter begotten in adultery, and my grand-daughter, begotten in incest. If God grants me long life and continued strength in my loins, I hope to breed yet another daughter by her. Pray, young fellow, what do you think of that?'

Dr Palmer answered: 'I reckon you're the blackest sheep of a tolerably vile family, Uncle Joseph; and I don't hold with inbreeding, even in sheep.'

' Ah, but you don't know the half of it!' chuckled Beau Bentley, who had been drinking heavily. 'I surprise myself sometimes by my scarlet sins.'

'What crimes have you committed beyond incest?' Dr Palmer asked.

'Why, there's murder,' said Bentley, 'in the first degree, and also in the second; besides robbery, arson, and rape. But Jack Ketch will never get old Joe Bentley! He may drown; he'll never hang.'

'I almost fear to drink with you, Uncle!' cried Dr Palmer.

'I almost fear to drink with myself,' he rejoined, 'lest I entertain too strong a dislike for the wretch whose face I see reflected in the brandy. Nevertheless, here goes!'

With that he downed a large tumbler of neat brandy, and toppled from his chair insensible. Dr Palmer quitted Dodsley in disgust, and heard next day that Beau Bentley had never recovered from his stupor.

No Coroner was called, but Dr Palmer made a sworn statement before the magistrate, exacdy recounting the conversation, and Beau Bentley's body went to the graveyard without more ado. The magistrate commented: 'Well, Sir, he cheated us and took his own way out: for certainly he drowned in that tumbler of brandy!' As might have been expected in a town like Stafford, the case of Abley, who had died after drinking with Dr Palmer, was brought up in this connexion; and tongues also began to wag about Mrs Thornton's death. The Doctor was rumoured to have gained twelve thousand pounds from it; and
an equal amount from Beau Bentle
y's—though, in effect, he gained nothing but trouble from either event. The bulk of Bentley's money had been willed to his illegitimate daughters, and not a penny-piece came to any Palmer.

Yet another fatality ensued soon afterwards. By this time Dr Palmer had more or less abandoned the medical practice which his brass plate still announced. He spent most of his week away at race-meetings, betting and studying form. In May
1850,
a gentleman named Leonard Bladon, living in London and employed as collector for Charrington's Brewery, attended Chester Races with him. Bladon, it seems, backed two winners and made a pile of money, mostly by bets laid and paid on the racecourse; it also seems that Dr Palmer owed him a great deal more. Bladon wrote to his wife in London that he would not be home for two or three days:'. . . but with what I have in "ready", and what Palmer will pay me, I shall come with a thousand pounds. Being a good loser, the Doctor has invited me to Rugeley, and promised me some sport with a gun.'

Bladon duly came to Rugeley, where the Palmers entertained him, and that evening inquired whether anyone would be driving over to Ashby de la Zouch, his native town. He had debts to collect there, he said, and would like to see his brother Henry again. Jeremiah Smith, the solicitor (Dr Palmer's crony, and old Mrs Palmer's present bedfellow), volunteered to drive Bladon to Ashby and back the same day. It is acknowledged that Bladon carried one hundred pounds in his money-belt when he arrived at Rugeley. But we find a conflict of testimony about his subsequent wealth. Some say that Dr Palmer owed him six hundred pounds, and that a further sum of three hundred pounds was owing him at Ashby de la Zouch (which would account for the thousand pounds he hoped to take home); others, that he arrived at Ashby with five hundred pounds, and that he collected no money there, but spent plenty; and, further, that Dr Palmer owed him no more than four hundred pounds—from which it would appear that Dr Palmer had paid in full and on the nail. At all events, Bladon visited his old friend Mr Bostock, an Ashby printer; he also ordered a fine pair of riding boots from his brother Henry, a shoemaker, who undertook to bring them over to Rugeley when completed; and Jeremiah Smith drove him back to Rugeley that same night.

Now, though reckoned to be in tolerably good health, Bladon had not yet recovered from a recent accident at the brewery, where a shaft of
the
manager's gig had caught him in the stomach. The London surgeon employed by Charrington's to protect them against frivolous claims for compensation examined him and pronounced that the slight internal injury sustained would soon heal, if he consented to spend the next few days quietly; but for this Bladon had no patience. On his return to Rugeley he fell ill again, and Dr Palmer treated him, with Ben Thirlby's help. After they had exhausted their skill, and Bladon still complained of severe pains in the stomach, Dr Bamford was asked to prescribe a mixture; which he did. Bladon begged Dr Palmer not to let his wife know that he was ill; because she had strongly opposed his going to Chester in the first place. No letter was therefore sent her. However, a friend of Bladon's, by name Merritt, who had attended Chester Races, and knew his present whereabouts, came over to Rugeley with a hot tip for the Oaks. Shocked by Bladon's dismal appearance, Merritt hurried back to
the
railway station and caught the London Express train; he told Dr Palmer in forcible language that Mrs Bladon should be at once acquainted
with
her husband's condition.

When Mrs Bladon arrived on
the
following day, she found him in
the
greatest pain, and no longer able to recognize her. Annie Palmer took
the
dismayed lady down into the parlour, made tea, and showed her the greatest sympathy. Bladon died soon afterwards. It has been said that Dr Palmer refused to let Mrs Bladon see the corpse, pretending that it was fast decomposing and not a pleasant sight; but, in fact, Annie charitably kept her from the room. Dr Bamford again signed the certificate, declaring that death had been due to internal injuries, received some weeks previously and aggravated by the journey along rough country roads to Ashby de la Zouch and back.

Mrs Bladon expressed surprise that a mere fifteen pounds had been found on her husband's person. He had made a large sum of money at Chester Races, she said. Jeremiah Smith agreed that he did indeed take a deal of money to Ashby de la Zouch, but suggested that it was spent there. William Merritt came down for the funeral with Mr Henry Bladon, the dead man's brother; both of them were convinced that Leonard Bladon had been robbed and poisoned, for his pockets had been ransacked, his private papers turned over, and some of them abstracted, including the betting-book. Merritt informed the Rugeley Police of the matter, hinting at foul play and demanding an inquiry; but on being approached by the Inspector, Mrs Bladon declared herself unready to make any charge against Jeremiah Smith whom she strongly suspected of theft, or against Dr Palmer as an accomplice. She feared that they might bring an action for slander.

Here is a letter which she wrote to Mr Bostock, the Ashby printer, on this occasion:

June
14, 1850

Dear Sir,

I am exceedingly obliged to you and Mrs Bostock for the kind interest you take in my affairs, and have no doubt, from the respect you bore my late husband, you would have done what you say. But if you take into consideration the afflicting circumstances I was placed in, with no one of my own friends round me to offer advice or counsel, ignorant of the distance from
Rugeley
to Ashby (which I considered much farther), and bowed down by grief, you will understand that I did not act with the coolness of reflection.

In the midst of my trouble Mr Palmer insisted on my signing a aper for
.£59—£50
of which he said Mr Bladon had borrowed of
h
im, and
£9
which he said had been paid to Mr Bladon for twenty gallons of
gin not received. The gratitude I felt for the kind treatment my husband had, as I thought, received from them would have induced me to sign it on the spot, could I have done so without self-injury. But knowing the embarrassed state of my affairs I candidly informed them of it; still, Mr Palmer insisted on my signing the paper, though urging me that if it was not in my power to pay, he could not compel me to do so by law. And I think I should have signed the paper, but for his saying that he had never borrowed a farthing of Mr Bladon in his life. I knew that this was a falsehood, as
I had seen a paper in my husband's desk in which he acknowledged
£100,
and I told him so.

From that moment he ceased to insist on my signing, and said he would make me a present of the debt; and on Mrs Palmer coming into the room, from which she had been absent a short time, he told her to throw the paper, which was lying on the table, into the
fire.

Now as regards the suspicions that Henry and you seem to entertain of his brother's death, I did not share them. I felt, and still feel, extremely obliged to Mrs Palmer for her tenderness to mc which could not have been greater if I had been a relative of her own. Consider how shocking it would appear, without some proof more than mere surmises, to accuse anyone of a foul crime which your letter more than hints at. If your mind is not easy, go over yourself and make inquiries; but pause before you do anything to render Mrs Palmer so uneasy as such a dreadful charge must make her. Think what in such a case your own wife's feelings would be, and consider mine. That Mr Palmer has acted unjustly in money matters I have good reason to believe. His letters I have placed in the hands of the Brewery firm and, if they think proper, and there are sufficient grounds, they will no doubt investigate the matter.

Thanking you and Mrs Bostock for your kind invitation, of which I shall be happy to avail myself, allow me to subscribe myself your sincere friend,

E. J. Bladon

No investigation was, in fact, made. We believe that an autopsy would have sustained Dr Bamford's diagnosis; also, that the lost money would have been traced to the possession of another than Dr Palmer.

Annie Palmer's position was by no means to be envied. She had, it is true, the affection of a husband who did not stint his generosity towards her, and loved her
with
passion; but he was now often away, attending race-meetings in different parts of the country, and could be expected home, for certain, only on Sundays. He never failed to attend divine service at St Augustine's, though he might have to travel fifty miles by railway train and fly, in order to reach Rugeley on Saturday night. Miss Salt had not cooled towards her in affection, and neither had Mrs Edwin Salt; she had, however, no other close friends, Mr Dawson having expunged her from the list of his intimates since the marriage. Worse, she was pregnant every year, and with unfailing regularity every child of hers died within a month or two of birth. An unfortunate remark of Dr Palmer's now went the rounds: that a growing family would be too great a charge on his slender purse
, and that he could not altogeth
er blame Providence for having cut short the lives of little Elizabeth, Henry and Frank. They all, it appears, died in convulsions.