Character Showcase - Josefina Dallet

 In A DEADLY SHADE OF NIGHT, Detective Inspector Deverell – living and working in 1894 Yorkshire --is haunted by a murder that happened eighty-two years prior. In a house known as Furthermore, on a wild, windblown place called Whitherward Fell, the Thorley family were murdered by meat cleaver. It is a crime for which the young maidservant “Josefina” was tried and hanged, but there is a gentleman who firmly believes she was innocent and, all these years later, he is out to find justice for Josefina.

A newspaper account of the old case, has brought all this to Deverell’s attention and it won’t let him rest now, until he has proven, to his own satisfaction, who committed the crime. He joins Mr. Alaric Jacoby’s crusade to uncover the truth of what happened to the Thorleys and, if possible, to clear Josefina’s name.

It won’t be easy. After eighty-two years, many of those who were alive at the time of the trial are dead and others do not like to talk of the gruesome tragedy.

Josefina was an orphaned waif taken in off the streets by William Jacoby when she was approximately eight years of age. Her provenance before that was never known, but she was a bright and cheerful child, who quickly become a favorite of Mr. Jacoby’s. He taught her English and she trained as a maid in his house, but she was as much of a daughter to him as his own children. When she was old enough, he gave her a good job in his mill. But he always saw in Josefina something special; something that suggested she was destined for greater things. In his diaries he wrote of his ward,

 

Josefina Dallet is a girl who looks at the world and people in it as an amusing diversion. She is inquisitive, and in her quest for knowledge she sometimes forgets her own safety, or her manners. Or to wear her shoes. When reprimanded in anger, she is more curious about the chemical reaction that causes the scolder’s face to flush scarlet, than she is in her apology and contrition. But there is no intentional harm in her. It seems I am the only one who sees this.

As much as she studies the world with her bright eyes, she has yet to learn that not all have good, straightforward and honest motives. Since she speaks exactly as she sees, the contrivances, cunning and darker side of humanity are utterly unknown to her.

 Although a clever girl who could learn quickly anything she was taught, Josefina also had a tendency to do “Silly things like keep climbing a tree to jump out, over and over again, convinced she might take flight if she tried often enough. She would wander in the garden during a thunderstorm, daring the lightning to strike her, or touch something that she’d been warned was hot and likely to burn, just because she wanted to see for herself.”

And she would only learn if the subject and the teacher had caught her imagination.

In many ways, she was a girl who lived in her own world.

William Jacoby was a kind and generous man, always looking to help those in need. So when he sent Josefina to work as a temporary maid for the Thorleys on Whitherward Fell, his intention was to show the young woman more of the world; to let her enjoy the fresh air of the countryside away from the mill and the town life. He thought it would expand her horizons and be a good experience to build her confidence. He knew she was very gentle and loving with children for she had a child-like curiosity and zest for life herself, so he believed she would be a great help to Mrs. Thorley – a tired, sickly woman with eight children and a demanding husband.

On Whitherward Fell, Josefina liked to sing to the Thorley children, accompanied by a music box that William Jacoby once gave to her. She was described by those who knew her as a “Sunny girl. Always light-hearted, never cross.” She had an ability to see only the good in people and the beauty in life. If somebody was sarcastic or deliberately unkind it generally went over her head because she did not understand anything that was not simply honest and straight-forward. As William Jacoby wrote of her:

She lacks an ability to read the intentions of others, or comprehend the mood of the crowd, but she is not an imbecile.

 Unfortunately, William’s good intentions ended tragically for everybody involved and he never forgave himself for what happened next. The last forty years of his life were spent fretting over what he might have done differently and trying to clear Josefina’s name. In his diaries he wrote it all down – all his own theories about the crime, and his unwavering belief in Josefina’s innocence. Before he died, he passed everything into the hands of his ten-year-old grandson Alaric, certain that, one day, somebody would come along to help investigate.

Now, forty years after William’s death, his grandson has put the story back in the newspaper and it has fallen into the capable hands of Tolly Deverell.

Can the wrongful conviction of Josefina Dallet be proved at last, or will the Detective uncover a truth more startling than anything anybody could have expected?

 Find out in A DEADLY SHADE OF NIGHT (A Bespoke novel III), coming March 5th, 2021! Available now for pre-order

(Image: Portrait of a Young Woman, artist unknown. Swiss c. 1800)