The Mysterious Death of Charles Bravo by Tim Vicary. Part 5.
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Chapter 6. Jane Cox’s story
My name is Mrs Jane Cox. I am 49 years old. I am Florence Bravo’s friend and companion. At the time of Mr Bravo’s death, I was living at The Priory, in Balham. I now live in my own house in Lancaster Road …
The first time I met Charles Bravo was in 1869, two years after I came to England. My husband had died in 1867, in Jamaica. I had three young sons, and very little money. Charles’s stepfather, Joseph Bravo, knew my husband, and he lent me some money. I met Charles at his house.
Later, I went to work for Florence Ricardo. She was a lovely young lady – very friendly, kind, and interesting. I was her companion – my job was to talk to her and help her with the servants. Soon we became friends. We talked a lot and told each other everything.
Florence liked my sons. She was sad because she didn’t have any children herself. ‘I’ve always wanted children,’ she said. ‘Lots of them. But I didn’t have any with Alexander, and now, well …’ She shook her head sadly. ‘To have children, I need a husband. And the right man isn’t easy to find, is he, Jane?’
When I first met Florence, she was a close friend of Dr Gully. I liked him – he was a good, kind man, very easy to talk to. He had lots of interesting stories about his hospital work. I told him about my life in Jamaica – he had been to Jamaica too, when he was young.
But he was too old to marry her, and his wife was still alive. So I introduced Florence to Charles Bravo.
I know, it was a big mistake, I can see that now. But I didn’t know Charles very well then. I thought he was young, clever, handsome, amusing – just the right sort of husband for Florence. And she thought the same, at first.
She talked to me about him. ‘I’m not really in love with him, Jane,’ she said. ‘Not how I was in love with Dr Gully, but… well … Charles is my own age. A young man that I can have children with. My parents will like him. Married women will invite me to their houses and talk to me again.’
‘A perfect husband, then,’ I said, smiling.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose so.’
But he wasn’t perfect, of course. I know that now. So does Florence. She found out a few days after the wedding. I heard them talking in the garden.
‘How many gardeners have we got, dear?’ he asked her.
‘Three,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask, Charlie?’
‘Well, three is too many,’ he answered. ‘They don’t work hard – I saw two of them smoking this morning. I’m sure we only need one.’
‘Oh, but they have families,’ said Florence, surprised. ‘And … they love the flowers.’
‘Well, they can go home to their own families and flowers,’ said Charles with a cold laugh. ‘From now on, we’ll have one gardener, not three.’
‘Oh no, Charles, please …’
‘And another thing,’ her new husband continued. ‘I looked in the stables this morning. We have five horses, Florence. Five! That’s far too many. I’m going to sell three of them next week.’
‘But Charles, you can’t!’ Florence screamed. ‘Those are my horses, not yours – and I love them !’
‘My dear Florence,’ said Charles quietly. There was something about his voice – he wasn’t angry or upset as I expected. In fact, he was laughing at her – he seemed to enjoy making her unhappy! ‘My dear Florence, I am your husband now, haven’t you noticed? Married women don’t own things, they can’t. So everything that used to be yours is now mine. If I want to sell the horses, I will. It’s for me to decide, and you to obey.’
‘NO!’ Florence screamed. The gardeners heard her, and looked up. She was shouting at him, screaming into his face. ‘Those are my horses and you can’t sell them! I won’t let you!’
‘You can’t stop me, woman,’ he said. Then I heard a terrible sound – the sound of his hand hitting her face. Not once, but twice. She screamed and fell to the ground. I ran to help her. There was blood on her face and she was crying. I looked into the eyes of the man who had hit her – Charles Bravo, the perfect husband. The man I had introduced her to. He was smiling.
‘Mrs Bravo has had an accident, Jane,’ he said quietly. ‘Please help her. She needs to wash her face. And then perhaps she will think about what I have said. Now, I am going to talk to these gardeners.’
That was how the marriage began, and that was how it went on. Almost every week there was a new argument, and almost every time he won and she lost. If she argued, he hit her, so she stopped arguing. The gardeners left and three horses were sold.
But even that wasn’t enough for him. He argued with the coachman as well.
Before she met Charles Bravo, Florence’s coachman, George Griffiths, used to take her and Dr Gully for long drives in the countryside. Sometimes I went with them. Florence liked George – she was interested in horses and so was he. She paid him well, and sometimes she spent hours outside in the stable yard, talking to him and watching him work with her horses.
But everything changed when she married Mr Bravo. Charles Bravo didn’t really like horses – he was afraid of them. Sometimes he hit them, and then of course they ran away. That made George angry – he was kind to his horses, so they worked well for him. And George tried to argue when Charles sold three horses. Well, Charles didn’t like servants to argue with him. So he decided to get rid of George Griffiths as well.
One day when George Griffiths was driving, another coach hit them. Nobody was hurt, but Charles was angry. He said George was a bad driver and it was all his fault.
The next day he came out to the stables. I was outside, in the garden, so I saw what happened. George Griffiths was putting some white powder in water for the horses.
‘What’s that?’ Charles asked.
‘Antimony, sir,’ George answered. ‘It’s a medicine for horses. It cleans their stomachs.’
‘Stop that!’ Mr Bravo said. ‘You can’t give antimony to horses – it’s a poison!’
That made George angry. He didn’t think Charles Bravo knew anything about horses.
‘It’s all right to give them a little, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ve worked with horses for twenty years – I know what I’m doing.’
‘I don’t believe you. Yesterday you hit a coach and now you’re trying to poison my horses!’ Charles said angrily. ‘That’s it! I don’t want you here. You can leave this job today!’
‘But sir, I’ve got a wife and children!’ George said. ‘I …’
‘That’s your problem, not mine!’ Mr Bravo shouted. ‘Get out of this house now, and don’t come back!’
So George Griffiths lost his job. But before he left, I heard him talking to the other servants in the kitchen. He threw his coat on the table angrily.
‘That man Bravo isn’t just bad, he’s crazy!’ he shouted. ‘I’ve worked with horses for twenty years, and now this! And he hits his wife, too – we all know that!’
‘Well, you’ll get a better job somewhere else, won’t you?’ said the cook. ‘I’d like to leave too.’
‘You and I can leave, but his wife can’t, poor woman,’ George said. ‘You know what? Charles Bravo will be dead in four months. You wait and see.’
That was a strange thing to say. Did George mean he was going to kill him, himself? Surely not. He was just angry. But then, only a few weeks later, Charles Bravo was dead. So did George Griffiths kill him? Is that possible?
After all, Charles Bravo was poisoned with antimony. And George kept antimony in the stables. He used it as a medicine for the horses.
I never saw George again after that day. He got a job as a coachman with another lady, twenty miles away. And he told the Coroner he threw all the antimony away, before he left.
Maybe he did, I don’t know. I don’t know where he kept it. I didn’t go into the stable yard very often – not as often as Florence, anyway.
But Charles went there quite often. He knew where everything was, and he was interested in medicine – that’s why he knew that antimony was a poison.
So maybe he took the antimony, himself. That’s what I think happened. Maybe it was an accident, but I think Charles Bravo killed himself.