In 1838, a German-born businessman named Johann Adolphus kissed his young wife Louisa goodbye before leaving his palatial house in Abercromby Square. He entered a waiting carriage loaded with luggage and waved once to Louisa, who stood tearfully on the front step. The carriage took Mr Adolphus to the docks where he boarded a steamer bound for Bombay. Johann was an importer of tea and various commodities from India, and his stay overseas was likely to last up to six months, sometimes more. These bouts of prolonged absence were not exactly conducive to his marriage to Louisa, who was 25 years younger than 50-year-old Johann.
Two months later, Louisa’s elderly maidservant Mrs Hastings suffered a stroke and died. Louisa’s aunt, Moira Hennessey thought a 16-year-old orphan girl she had adopted would make a fine trainee maid. The girl was Rosie Fitzpatrick, a shy but beautiful brunette who spoke with a slight speech impediment. Louisa hired Rosie, and found her to be a most conscientious and hardworking girl. One of Louisa’s faults was her aloofness where servants and maids were concerned, but she felt as if she had known Rosie all her life, and the two got on well.
One day, Louisa Adolphus was watching the new maid cleaning silverware in the drawing room, when Rosie suddenly stopped polishing and began to stare into space as if she had entered an hypnotic trance.
‘What is the matter?’ Mrs Adolphus asked, but received no reply.
‘Mrs Waln has just died ma’m.’ Rosie suddenly said with a dazed look.
An intrigued Mrs Adolphus inquired, ‘Who is Mrs Waln?’
With a grave expression the young maid said, ‘She was a friend of my guardian Mrs Hennessey.’
Later in the evening, Louisa’s aunt, Moira Hennessey arrived at the Abercromby house from Low Hill and unwittingly confirmed Rosie’s claim; Mrs Hannah Waln, a neighbour of Moira, had died earlier, aged 112. She had passed away at the very hour of Rosie’s strange remark. Louisa put the eerie incident down to coincidence, but there were many more strange episodes concerning the young maid.
One Sunday afternoon, Louisa and Rosie were strolling through Abercromby Square on their way to a chapel, when a tall man tipped his hat as he walked by. About a minute elapsed, then Rosie told her employer that the same man had recently written her love-letters, and that his name was Ralph. Mrs Adolphus was outraged by Rosie’s bizarre assertion, yet she was intrigued at her supernatural knowledge, because she knew the man’s name was Ralph Foster. He was a business associate of her husband, and he had been a guest at her home on two occasions, but Ralph had never showed an iota of romantic interest in Louisa, or so she thought. On the following day Mrs Adolphus received an anonymous letter from someone who said he was deeply in love with her. Rosie was quizzed about her clairvoyant talent, but the maid said she knew nothing about her strange abilities, only that she had possessed them for as long as she could remember.
One evening Mrs Adolphus asked Rosie if she could tell her how Mr Adolphus was in Bombay. Rosie sat gazing at the hearth, then made a very controversial claim which shocked Louisa Adolphus to the marrow. Rosie said Johann Adolphus had another wife staying with him in India. She was a Dutch woman named Julia. Mrs Adolphus rejected Rosie’s scandalous claims at first, but ended up travelling to Bombay with a relative to see if her husband was a bigamist. It turned out that he was. He had been married to a Julia von Veltheim for four years. His marriage to Louisa was annulled, and Johann stayed abroad to avoid imprisonment for bigamy. Louisa retained Johann’s properties in Liverpool and later married Ralph Foster in 1841. Rosie was a bridesmaid at the wedding.
