LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS by Mrs Henry Wood

Link to volume 1 of 3

The prolific author also wrote the book EAST LYNNE, that caused this immortal line of Victorian stage melodrama: "Dead! Dead! And never called me mother!" LORD OAKBURN'S DAUGHTERS is in a similarly sensational vein.

This particular novel turns out to be interesting as a proto-detective novel. It was published in 1864, five years after Collins did WOMAN IN WHITE, but I'd like to mentally fit elements of it into that genre - even if who done it and why is obvious to the reader from the start.

Now, in this story, the following persons occupy the small town of South Wennock:

• Stephen Grey, a respected doctor, long term resident with a wife known to the townspeople


• Frederick Grey, his teenage son


• John Grey, brother and fellow doctor to Stephen, long term resident with a wife known to the townspeople


• Lewis Carlton, recently arrived doctor, presents as bachelor


• Mrs Pepperfly, alcoholic and uneducated midwife, well-known to all the doctors


• Mrs Crane, newly arrived heavily pregnant woman of antecedents unknown, staying in a local widow's lodging house

The murder mystery takes place when Crane is poisoned after giving birth, to the following sequence of events:

• Crane requests Carlton as her doctor even though local opinion advises her to choose the Greys, but only Stephen Grey is available at the time.


• Stephen Grey hires Pepperfly as the nurse when no other midwife is available.


• Crane gives birth with Stephen Grey's assistance and is ill, but expected to live.


• Stephen Grey makes Crane an almond oil tonic that's sealed and carried to her lodgings. His brother watches him do this.


• Carlton examines the tonic, claiming it smells of prussic acid and he's off to question Stephen Grey about it. Pepperfly watches him do this, but cannot smell anything unusual herself because she has just drunk gin.


• Carlton asks the servants if they have seen a strange man on the stairs. The narrator confirms that Carlton's apparition was at least real to him.


• Carlton later claims in court that he cautioned Crane against taking the tonic until he had confirmed with Stephen Grey.


• Pepperfly feeds Crane the tonic; Crane does not object.


• Crane dies. Medical analysis reveals that the tonic contained a lethal dose of prussic acid and nothing else Crane consumed was contaminated.


• Stephen Grey examines his own bottle of prussic acid in the company of his son and brother. The prussic acid bottle needs a stoop to get it down from its customary storage place, which Stephen did not use on the day the tonic was compounded. According to the three Greys' story in court, the bottle was dusty and cobwebbed and had not been opened for weeks. The bottle is clean during the trial, but the brothers and Frederick claim it's because Frederick decided to subsequently clean it. John Grey also claims he saw no prussic acid added to the tonic by Stephen.


• Stephen Grey, his messenger, Pepperfly, and Carlton claim in court that as far as they know they are the only ones to have touched the tonic.


• No husband comes into the picture to inquire about his dead wife or living son.

It certainly does not take the massed grey cells of a Hercule Poirot to figure out the likeliest murder mystery solution here. But there may be one or two surprises waiting for a reader nonetheless - there was one mystery element where I admit I was guessing the wrong character entirely!

The novel contains some heavy sermonising against clandestine romantic relationships and marriages, which in the twenty-first century we're inclined to disregard when the parental figure is abusive and his objections are simply classist. Additionally, at the very end, there's a tacked-on moral that it's best for women to always obey their husbands, and never travel when their husbands say they oughtn't. After all, a murderous husband should be able to kiil his wife at the location he finds most convenient!

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