People of Abandoned Character

by Clare Whitfield

  The stiff taffeta of our dresses rubbed against each other and my thoughts roiled. For the past year I had been trying to speak to my grandmother about my leaving Reading and taking up nursing in London. I was twenty-seven years old and desperate to seize some of the adventure I’d read that other women savoured. I was desperate not to die an old maid, never having left that house in Reading, never having done anything but be a companion to an old woman. Would I never know the touch of a man, get married or have children? But my grandmother never listened to my concerns and hopes; she had stopped listening after my grandfather died.

  I itched and crawled with frustration. For some weeks I had carried this oily feeling at the top of my stomach and a burning sensation when I swallowed. I thought I was falling ill, then I convinced myself that it was because my chance to escape was fast disappearing. If I didn’t do something soon, I would never leave.

  Every window in St Bartholomew’s was broken and the missing parts had been blocked up with sacking. It made the patchwork Bible scenes harder to place. As I sat there that January Sunday, trying to decipher the story of one particular window, I caught sight of a fly beating itself against a coloured pane. It was thrashing the glass in a panic, straining to get out. I knew exactly how it felt.

  My grandmother forbade me from talking to the others in the church congregation, and so they had long stopped bothering to offer us anything more than a polite greeting. I so lacked practice with people and conversation that on the occasions I did talk to someone, such as the chemist or the lady at the post office, I went as red as a strawberry and couldn’t think what to say. People must have thought me either dumb or an imbecile.

  As always, we waited in our pew until the rest of the congregation had dribbled out. The frail and unwashed tended to loiter towards the back, the better dressed righteously possessed the front. It took forever for them all to shuffle out of the door though there weren’t many of them. Grandmother stared straight ahead at the large crucifix and rolled the beads of her own mother’s rosary through her fingers. I imagined ripping them from her hands and throwing them down the aisle.

  I looked up to the fly and saw it find an unblocked pane and escape. Speak now, I urged myself. I drew in breath, but I didn’t need it.

  ‘Are you going to talk again of leaving me?’ The tension in Grandmother’s chin made the knot of her bonnet twitch.

  ‘I wish you wouldn’t think of it like that,’ I replied. ‘It’s not about leaving you, it’s about finding a life of my own.’

  ‘We have discussed this time and time again, as I recall – and I do recall, as much as you think my mind is feeble these days. Each time, the subject cuts as deep as it did the first, my dear.’

  I opened my mouth to speak but was interrupted. ‘Drunks, vagrants and defiled women gather like rats in London. They take people apart in hospitals there, you know! They tear limbs from bodies, cut them open – is that what you want?’

  ‘Then what? Am I to spend my life here? I am twenty-seven. If I am able to become a nurse, I can earn a good wage, for the both of us.’

  Grandmother fixed her pale blue eyes on me. ‘Pah, it’s not about money. It’s about that part of you that wants to wriggle free of the guidance it requires. I shudder to think what you’d get up to. You don’t have the will. Sin seeps through you, but while you are here, I can frighten it away; we can stop it. I’m glad your grandfather isn’t here; he would be heartbroken to know you want to abandon me.’

  Her paper-white fingers worked her rosary faster and faster, her thin veins like blue and green cotton. I looked towards the hole in the stained-glass window and wished I could fly out too. The sound of her sobbing echoed around the church. This was her trick; she cried so as to sabotage the conversation.

  ‘Please… please don’t cry,’ I said, and placed my hand on hers, though I had no feeling for it. I didn’t like to touch her but knew it was the thing to do.

  Her hand felt cold and small, and she snatched it from me anyway. ‘Stupid little fool! You don’t know anything,’ she said.

  ‘Then let me go!’ I growled.

  Contempt flashed across her face.

  I glanced around. No one had seen me struggle to contain my resentment. ‘How can I know anything when you refuse to let me leave the house?’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘You will take me home now.’

  In my gut I had made the decision already, but my gut had yet to persuade my head. With her continued resistance to my desires and ambitions she had sealed her own fate. She hadn’t always been like this, not when my grandfather was alive. He was more liberal in relation to me and she had respected his male authority. I had learned that girls should fear the jealousy of the women who raised them, for they sought companions in confinement.

  My grandmother’s health had deteriorated in recent months. She tired easily and complained of feeling ill and feverish all the time, for attention mainly. The village doctor was used to being called and would send me to the chemist for a tonic I could have purchased without his direction, if only she’d asked. She was an irritant. I knew he thought I had the patience of a saint. Often she forgot herself and called me Christabel, which had been my mother’s name. When she realised I wasn’t Christabel, she became listless and sad. She would pace the house at night, looking for my grandfather, and I would take her back to her bedroom and lock the door – just like Mrs Wiggs now did to me. What was the distance between locking an old woman in her room for her own safety and helping her on her way back to God? It didn’t seem so great to me.

  I prayed to Him many times, but I think the Devil answered. I prayed for the chance to fly and it came three days later. I was in the potting shed, looking for a trowel to fill in a hole some animal had dug in the garden, and as I sifted through the rusted tools, a box fell from an old shelf – my grandfather never was much of a carpenter – and dropped on my head. It was a box of flypapers with arsenic.

  That night she said she would take her supper in bed. I generally served her some broth and bread, and a little mutton if she could manage it. I soaked the flypaper in water and used it to make the broth. As I walked up the stairs carrying that tray, there was excitement, I admit, at the prospect of a huge event about to occur. With each step I took, I thought I wouldn’t do it, she might not eat it, it might not work. God could still intervene.

  But she became ill after the first night and never left her bed again. I continued to make the broth each day until the end.

  On the last night, when she was very weak, I heard her cough from the landing. I hurried to her door but did not go inside, just listened to the rasping for a while. Then I ran down the stairs, out the back door and all the way to the bottom of the garden. From the potting shed I took a spade and dug a hole of my own. I dug and dug and dug. The earth was hard, but I didn’t care. It started to rain and I carried on digging a hole right in the middle of the garden. I prayed for someone to help me, vowed that I was sorry for being wicked. I promised that if it didn’t work, I would never do anything like it again. I sat on the ground, wet through and with mud under my fingernails from where I had tired of the shovel and had clawed with my hands. It wasn’t deep. I wasn’t much good for digging holes.

  When I finally dared to enter the bedroom, she was dead. Her white face had turned grey, her eyes were open and she was staring at the ceiling. Her silvery white hair was wild and knotted from where she’d struggled. Her mouth was stuck wide open in a silent scream. It was misshapen, as if something, maybe my conspirator, the Devil, had blown a great wind into her, forced it open and reached inside with an arm to take her soul. I took the rest of the box of flypapers, threw them in the hole I’d dug and filled it, because I was the fly and that was my broken window.

  35

  I stuffed Mrs Wiggs and her lead-heavy limbs and big skirts into a cupboard. I was in a complete panic; any lucid thoughts I’d clung to were crumbling away. I was filled with anger at her. If she’d let me leave, she wouldn�
��t be dead. I refused to feel guilty. It was her own fault. It was self-defence. If she’d only let me leave, she’d be alive now; cursing me, yes, but alive and with her precious monster of a son.

  Her skirts kept billowing back in my face as if they were laughing at me, too voluminous to fit in the cupboard. Her old-fashioned habits still fought me, even in death. My thinking became haphazard, desperate and littered with unrealistic peaks of optimism. If I could get to my solicitor, if I could get some money, he would help me. I would go abroad, run to France, walk to Spain if necessary. I would keep running until I fell off the edge of the Earth.

  I’d pulled out pudding bowls and crockery, shoved them onto other shelves and heaved her bleeding body, hips first and folded over, into the bottom cupboard. I had no idea when Thomas would return with Dr Shivershev, but if the two of them walked in and found her dead on the floor, they would call the police. By doing this, I might still escape, if I were clever.

  I saw myself in court, in a prison cell, trying to explain how I’d been imprisoned against my will, raging from the dock that my husband was Jack the Ripper, the typical hysterical shrew. There would be rows of pale and pompous bewigged men, grey faces puckered in disapproval, and when they heard I was the daughter of a prostitute and had lied my way to becoming the wife of a gentleman, I would be done for. I had wandered across London dressed as a man and mourned a dead woman lover. I would not stay to see how any trial played out. It would end with me imprisoned, or with my feet swinging clear of the ground, or in the asylum, though without any perambulating around a Surrey lake.

  A steady flow of blood dripped from between the cupboard doors. Without proper soap and water, I was smearing it everywhere and covering clean linens in blood. I was creating more evidence out of thin air. I couldn’t breathe, my chest snatched shallow gasps. I had to wipe up what I could and hope Thomas would not enter the kitchen, at least not immediately. He would think I had escaped and that Mrs Wiggs had pursued me. He would wait for her to return and would not find her body until much later; that was my hope. My dress had blood on it, my hands were red with it. I pushed my hair out of my face and smeared blood across my cheeks. It was hopeless.

  A knock at the front door cracked through the house like thunder. I thought my bones would crumble into dust. I tried to open the back door, but it was locked and there was no key. If I’d had any sense, I’d have realised the key must be on Mrs Wiggs, but I didn’t think of it. I crept back up the stairs towards the hallway, towards the knock at the door. I heard men’s voices and saw dark shadows shuffled through the mottled glass. It was Thomas, and he’d brought Dr Shivershev to diagnose the lunatic. As I neared the door, they knocked again, so loud it made me tremble.

  They were waiting for Mrs Wiggs to come to the door. I remembered now that I had thrown the attic key under the sideboard when I fell down the stairs. Thomas had commandeered Mrs Wiggs’ key, and she had then had another cut to make up for the missing one, routine had returned and I had forgotten all about that missing key. I knelt down and found it in the same place, covered in dust. I raced up the main stairs and had got as far as the attic staircase when they gave up waiting. I could only be grateful for Thomas’s dependency on Mrs Wiggs: he was so pampered by his mother that it took three knocks before he could be bothered to reach all the way into his pocket for his front door key and open it himself.

  I locked the attic door behind me as they clattered into the hallway downstairs. Inside the attic, I was in darkness. There were no windows, but streaks of light beamed like torches across the roof where the pigeons came and went in holes in the side of the roof. I was sure there had been a candle on the desk, but I didn’t dare try to find it for fear of knocking it over and making a noise. I moved across the floor on my hands and knees to the roar of my rapid heartbeat. It was freezing, but I didn’t feel it because of the terror that kept my blood surging. The floor reeked of mouse piss and mothballs. I dragged thick dust along with me and it flew up in my face. The pigeons were roosting and the scurrying and creeping of all the little creatures hiding in the dark with me was as loud as an orchestra. Then I heard Thomas shout for Mrs Wiggs and I shuddered.

  I found the edge of the skirts on the tailor’s dummy and crawled underneath. A broken crinoline cage had been tied onto it, and I was able to fit underneath it in a ball and pull the skirts over me. I buried my face into my knees and realised I’d left the knife in Mrs Wiggs. I thought of the keys she’d have had on her waistband. Such an idiot. I was trapped in the attic with two men blocking my escape and the dead body of my housekeeper stuffed in a cupboard in the kitchen.

  My heart thumped as their voices got ever louder. The attic stairs creaked under their weight. Then came silence, followed by the metallic clank of a key in a lock and everything – heartbeat, breathing, sweating – stopped. My hand gripped the key so tight, I could have made another from the mould it left in my palm. I twisted my lips together with my other hand and tried to breathe steadily and silently.

  ‘What? No gaslight?’ said Dr Shivershev. He sounded agitated; I was glad to have inconvenienced him.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Thomas.

  When he came back with a candle, I realised the skirt I was hiding under had a tear in it. There was a sheer petticoat beneath it. I could see vague outlines through it, but I was pretty sure the petticoat would mask my eyes from the other side. Thomas came towards the dummy. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew it was him. He held the candle high and swept it from left to right. Dr Shivershev trudged behind him in his black coat and billycock; he was carrying his medical bag.

  ‘Robert, if she’s escaped, we’re all going to be done for. I’m telling you now,’ said Thomas.

  ‘What exactly did you tell her?’ said Dr Shivershev.

  ‘Nothing, specifically, but believe it or not, she’s not stupid.’

  ‘Why say anything at all? You’ve put everyone in this house in danger.’

  ‘You try living with her! I had to tell her something – she was on my back constantly.’

  ‘One might have acquired an imagination – or simply come home on occasion,’ said Dr Shivershev drily. ‘Who else lives here?’

  ‘No one. The servants are all gone, there is only Mrs Wiggs, and I don’t know where she is either. Oh God, it’s such a mess. What shall we do? What shall we do, Robert? She’s a nightmare.’

  ‘First things first, Thomas, why don’t you put that candle down on that desk. We must remain calm. The most important thing is, of course, not to panic.’ Dr Shivershev sounded the same as he did when he examined my tongue.

  He set down his bag, opened it with black-gloved hands, pulled out what looked like a length of rope or thick cord, then lunged forward. It was an explosion of energy. I heard a frantic struggle, the scrape of boot heels against the floor, energy spending itself to the point of exhaustion. I tried to look through the tear, but the fight came too close and the dummy wobbled. I had to hold it steady. At one point, Thomas’s feet reached under the skirts and he nearly kicked me.

  There was a hissing sound, and then choking. After an age of this came complete silence, then Dr Shivershev let Thomas drop to the floor with a dull thud. Just like that, my troublesome monster of a husband was dead. I was shaking so violently, I was sure the whole dummy must be quivering.

  Dr Shivershev fumbled in his bag. Next thing I saw was Thomas being hoisted up like a flag in clumsy jerks, until his feet were dangling in the air. His polished black shoes swung side to side mere feet from my face. Dr Shivershev was panting like an old dog. He dragged one of the attic chairs to a spot on the floor in front of Thomas, sat down on it, leaned forward over his knees, let out a huge sigh and wiped his forehead. He stayed like that for a few minutes until his breathing had calmed.

  ‘It would be best if you were to come out now, Mrs Lancaster.’

  *

  ‘You left footprints,’ he said, as if I should remember my mistake for next time. ‘Like deer prints, leading all the w
ay up here. Are you hurt?’

  He glanced around the attic. The pigeons cooed, unperturbed by their new housemate swinging from the rafters. One of them dropped faeces on a redundant chest of drawers and we both watched them land with an undignified splat.

  ‘Charming place you have,’ said Dr Shivershev.

  His breathing had steadied, and he leaned forward and reached into his bag again. There was no one else in the house, so whatever came out of the bag was going to be for me. He pulled out a long silver knife and cleaned it, although it already gleamed in the candlelight.

  I sat on the floor with my knees up to my chest and my arms wrapped around them. Dr Shivershev remained on the chair, his eyes shining like Vauxhall glass. I knew I had the time it took for him to compose himself to bargain for my life. I had to maintain this focus. Meanwhile, my dead husband’s feet swung between us like a metronome, a useful reminder that my time was finite.

  ‘Are you here to kill me?’ I asked.

  He nodded, and said in a sympathetic voice, as if he were informing me of the death of a beloved pet, ‘I can do it quickly. It won’t hurt.’

  I fell apart. I shook and trembled. I couldn’t breathe. I cried without pride or dignity. I begged him not to do it as he looked over my head and into the distance. I had never professed to be brave.

  ‘You could let me go. You know I can keep secrets. I never informed a soul about Mabel, though you told Thomas about my mother.’ I surprised myself at how quickly I moved to anger when it appeared my crying had no effect.

  ‘I never said a word to him about you.’ His voice echoed across the attic. It was a little strange that the man who had just murdered my husband should be offended at an accusation that he was a gossip. ‘I kept my word,’ he said. ‘I always do…’