The Damnation of John Donellan Read Online Free Page A

instructed that two women be sent for to lay Theodosius out.
    It was the evening of the thirtieth, the day of Theo’s death, that Francis Amos, the gardener, said that John Donellan came into the garden. Seeing Amos, Donellan called to him, saying, ‘Now, gardener, you shall live at your ease, and work at your ease; it shall not be as it was in Sir Theodosius’s days. I wanted before to be master; but I have got master now, and shall be master.’
    There were no witnesses to this remark, to which Amos testified in court; at no time did Donellan confirm it.
    On Friday 1 September, Theodosius’s friend Fonnereau arrived and was allowed to view Theo’s body. Fonnereau himself remains a shadowy figure. It was said that he lived in Northamptonshire, and there was certainly a Claude William Fonnereau, born in 1761 to William and Anne Fonnereau in Clapton, Northamptonshire, who would have been nineteen in 1780 and so would have been a contemporary of Theodosius. His brother, Charles William, was only sixteen, but could have been a riding or sporting companion to Theo. It was later implied by the prosecuting counsel that Theodosius was interested in Fonnereau’s sister, and that the possibility of marriage had been mentioned, a marriage which would have certainly – if the couple had had children – taken the inheritance away for ever from Theodosia. Charles and Claude had two sisters, Harriet and Mary-Anne, but no other mention of Fonnereau’s family was ever made and Fonnereau’s connection to Theodosius ended after this visit. He was not seen again; he was not called to the trial; he did not give a deposition to the coroner.
    On this Friday, however, no matter how silent Lawford Hallappeared to be, the countryside around it was not. The first of the persistent rumours began to spread. Sir William Wheler, still at Leamington, testified at the trial that ‘it was intimated to him … a suspicion of Sir Theodosius having been poisoned’.
    Curiously, it was a full twenty-four hours before Sir William acted on this information. And, although a guardian to the dead boy, he did not go to Lawford Hall to see what was happening for himself or to comfort Anna Maria and Theodosia in their grief. Instead, on Saturday 2 September, he wrote his reply to Donellan’s first letter telling him of Theo’s death. It had taken Sir William three days to respond.
    But most curious of all, considering that he had already been given a ‘suspicion’ of poison, was the text itself.
    Lemington, September 2nd, 1780
    Dear Sir,
    I received the favour of your letter the day after my return to Mr Sitwell’s. The sudden and very untimely death of my poor unfortunate ward gives me great concern, and we condole with Lady Boughton, Mrs Donellan, and yourself, for his loss. I send a servant with this, to know how Lady Boughton and Mrs Donellan do after so sudden and great a shock. Please make our respects to them; at a proper time I shall make my respects to them and you in person.
    I am, sir, your obedient and humble servant, Wm Wheler.
    It was at best a holding letter, and one which was by now several days overdue; the sympathies were extended more to the ladies than to Donellan, as would have been proper. Perhaps Wheler’s attentions were divided between two grieving families, his friends the Sitwells and the Boughtons? It would not have been expected of him to descend without invitation or notice; nevertheless, his concern for Anna Maria in particular is distant, bearing in mind that she had lost her only son and had no husband to support her. Interestingly, although Sir William notes that the death was‘sudden and very untimely’ he does not ask for the exact details.
    Wheler did nothing more that day. It was on the Sunday, 3 September, that he was really stirred into action.
    The local vicar, the Reverend Piers Newsam – the same priest who had been seen speaking to John