As he spoke them, it was as if she had lost her hearing. She heard nothing, merely saw the faces of those she knew suddenly loom vivid from the rest of the pack–Betty, with her hand over her open wailing mouth, Sir Geoffrey, his familiar long, thin face half hidden, his hand over his brow, head downcast towards his knees. But sharpest of all was Ella, tossing her hair back from her face, showing her white throat, brazenly watching Alice through narrowed eyes, a self-satisfied smile playing on her lips. It was as if Ella was illuminated, every detail keen as cut-glass; Alice could not even blink as Ella hefted up her fine new skirts, turned away and swaggered out through the open door into the fresh air of the street outside.
Chapter 32
Geoffrey exited the courtroom, his heart beating like a hammer, his underarms damp with sweat. That expression on Alice Ibbetson’s face when they said she would hang–it sent a peculiar feeling along his spine, as if he were a dog and all the hackles were standing on his back. He went straight across the road to the Ring O’ Bells tavern and ordered a flagon of ale. Many other people had had the same idea and soon the little taproom was full to overflowing with a noisy crowd, all vociferously discussing the titbits of the case.
‘Ah, Geoffrey. There you are.’ He looked over his shoulder at the sound of the voice. It was Robert Rawlinson in his best suit, his face red above the white cravat. He had been acting as usher for the proceedings and was keen to dissect the case with a fine blade. Geoffrey found he had no taste for it, to hear over and over the minutiae of the evidence.
‘I am sorry, Robert, I am on my way,’ he said curtly, and pressed past him. At the door he found his path blocked by two old women. He tried to force his way past but there was no room, they were literally shoulder to shoulder. He rammed one of them hard and her ale washed over the edge of the glass and down her front.
‘Say pardon,’ said one of them indignantly. Geoffrey ignored her and pushed against the door, but it would not swing open.
The woman brought her wizened face close to his. ‘A bit of courtesy costs nothing,’ she said.
He noticed the faint outline of her skull, pink beneath her white hair, and the room began to swim around him. Her face seemed to take on Margaret Poulter’s, dark beneath her hood. He had to get away.
Geoffrey tried again to push the door before realizing that it opened inwards. He pulled it and blundered through, hearing it slam behind him. On the pavement, he stooped to be violently sick.
Ella had taken her time in the bar of the Ring O’ Bells, revelling in being the centre of attention. Thomas must have been stricken with cold feet, she thought. She had been nervous about his testimony, although she had told him of the discovery of the bloodstained knife. He would maybe take it hard–the dishonour of being associated with such a wife. Perhaps that explained his curious absence from the trial. Ella had almost, but not quite, forgotten she was responsible for the whole trial, so taken was she with playing out her part. But Thomas would come round, if she warmed his bed right.
Afterwards she travelled back in a carriage with the others from Netherbarrow, alighting at the crossroads to walk back through the village to the house. She was in truth a little nervous about telling Thomas the verdict. Her stomach fluttered. It was getting on for dusk but the lamps had not yet been lit and the houses appeared gloomy with their black windows, the trees and shrubs in the gardens almost bare except for one or two shreds of leaves still clinging to the branches. There was a nip in the air and the fine rain had given way to a murky fog.
She pulled her new shawl around her. It was a good thick wool, dyed a sumptuous berry colour. She felt the warmth of it around the back of her neck, her fingers teasing the soft tassels. A week ago when she had asked for it Thomas had asked her whether there was any cheaper sort to be had. She had cajoled, and bullied, and pouted, and finally he had smiled good-naturedly, said he couldn’t be bothered to argue any more and reached into his pocket for the coins. Ella had almost loved Thomas at that moment, but not quite as much as she loved that shawl, its warmth and colour, its soft texture, its luxuriant fringe.
Ella walked more briskly, her pattens clopping on the cinder paths. She wished the hanging was over. In the back of her mind she knew a woman was about to hang for a crime she probably did not commit, but that thought seemed distant, disconnected from here and now. Alice Ibbetson’s fate was nothing to do with Ella’s walk home through the misty lanes, was quite unrelated to the feel of her soft wool dress and shawl, a thousand miles away from the warm fires of the house and Thomas’s waiting and urgent embraces. It was as if she had put Alice into a magic cabinet inside her head and waved a wand to make her disappear.
The only slight apprehension was that someone else might discover the real killer before the hanging could take place and Alice be pardoned, but that seemed unlikely as no one had come forward before now. She could not imagine going back to being a mere maidservant, or giving up her new clothes and her place in the master’s bed. Those things had always been hers by rights. That other life she had had before, well, that was a mistake on the part of the Almighty. She had always known it was this she was born for, to be comfortable, to grow old and fat with a man who could provide a good solid living. If he was dull, then so much the better, she would make sure he would have eyes only for her, that she, and only she, would have access to his cock–and his purse. Then she could get her sister Sadie away from Da, provide a proper place for them both.
The lingering idea that the real killer, whoever he may be, might still be abroad somewhere was a sobering thought, and Ella glanced right and left as she hurried along. The fog was thicker as she went over the bridge by the river, but now she could see the lighted windows of the house ahead of her, and twin lamps as if on the side of a carriage. She wondered who could be visiting, for Thomas always rode, never took the carriage. As she got closer she saw that all the rush-lights in the house had been lit. The news of Alice’s impending execution must have travelled ahead.
She went up the front path and opened the front door. This small act gave her great pleasure, for previously she had been used to going around the back through the dark passage between the wood store and the yew hedge. She hooked her shawl on the pegs behind the door. Several of Alice’s things still hung there, a wide-brimmed hat, a navy shawl, a bee-keeping gauze and a parasol. They would have to go, thought Ella.
‘And who might you be?’
Ella jumped–the woman’s clipped voice had startled her.
‘Ella.’
The woman looked her up and down, questioningly.
‘The housekeeper,’ Ella was obliged to continue.
‘Come along then, we will need you. The surgeon is with Mr Ibbetson now. I’m the vicar’s wife, Mrs Goathley. There was not a soul around when the alarm was raised, except that half-witted scullery maid, and she was about as much use as a pig in a basket.’
Mrs Goathley led the way into the parlour where the local surgeon and barber was bending over Thomas. Thomas was propped up with cushions in a boat-backed chair. The physician had hold of a curved bottle and struggled to administer some kind of drench.
‘Help me hold up his head,’ he said, beckoning impatiently at Ella.
Ella hurried forwards and took hold of Thomas by the shoulders. ‘Master,’ she said, looking into his face, ‘what’s the matter?’ Thomas was grey with a faint blueish outline to his lips. His face sagged, one side of his mouth hung open, a string of spittle like a cobweb dangled to his collar. His eyes were opaque. He showed no sign of recognizing Ella. Ella turned to the doctor, angrily. ‘What’s happened to him?’ she said.
‘An attack of the dropsy,’ said the doctor. ‘The scullery maid found him lying on the floor. He must have been there since this morning, poor man. He could not get up again or tell her what happened. Now, take hold of him and tilt his head back for me.’
Ella went round the back of the chair and, resting his forehead in the crook of her arm, drew back his head. The skin near hi
s ear was stubbled and rough, and clammy with cold sweat. She let his head drop back onto the cushion and rushed to kneel in front of him. Putting her hand on his knee, she looked into his face.
‘Master,’ she said in a rising panic, ‘Thomas!’
She implored Mrs Goathley, who was standing rigidly to one side. ‘Tell me he’ll be all right.’ She did not answer, so Ella pawed at her, grabbing hold of a handful of her sleeve. ‘He will be all right, won’t he?’
Mrs Goathley detached Ella’s hand from her sleeve and dropped it as if it were something odious.
‘’Tis too early to say. We will see what this drench will do for him.’ Ella stood whilst the doctor poured a stream of thick liquid into the back of Thomas’s throat. Thomas struggled and coughed and tried to speak, so most of the liquid fell out of his mouth and down his vest front, making a foul-smelling brown stain. Mrs Goathley took one of the protruding gloves from his pocket and mopped and rubbed at the stain.
‘Leave him alone!’ snapped Ella. But Mrs Goathley was already stepping away with distaste, wrinkling her nose and frowning. Ella noticed his breeches were damp too, and there was a faint whiff of urine.
‘Master,’ said Ella, moving round proprietorially to hold his head, ‘be still now. The doctor is giving you some physic to make you well again.’
Thomas did not respond, but Ella pulled his head back and the dose was administered again. This time the doctor clamped his jaw shut whilst Thomas writhed and made noises like a mare in labour, until at last he lay still, his eyes dull and his mouth slack.
‘He will be quiet now. But we need to get him upstairs to his bed. You–housekeeper, go down to the alehouse and bring back a strong man to help me.’
‘No,’ said Ella. ‘I’m staying here. I’ll not leave him.’
The doctor sighed and raised his eyebrows to the vicar’s wife. ‘Mrs Goathley, be so kind as to go down the lane and fetch help.’
Mrs Goathley opened her mouth about to protest, but then, seeing the mutinous look on Ella’s face, nodded, squashed her hat back on her sparse brown hair and went out through the open door.
The doctor began to put away his equipment in his greasy holdall, the bottle of leeches, the bone spatulas, several dark glass bottles, the tweezers and the blood-letting scalpel. ‘How much help is there in the house?’ he said without looking up, his grey wig lowered over the task of fitting so many objects into such a small bag.
‘Myself. April, the scullery maid, and a stable lad that tends the master’s horses. Our cook’s just done the dirty on us and quit.’ The physician looked up as if expecting more, and Ella added, ‘Lottie Jennings helps out when there’s a need.’
‘There’ll be a need,’ said the doctor. ‘It looks severe. He’ll need nursing. There’s no telling when he might be up and about again, if at all.’
Ella stared at him. She did not know what to say. ‘You mean, he might die?’
‘Best to send out for his next of kin anyway. He will need someone to take charge of his affairs. Mrs Goathley told me about the shocking business with his wife, that she’s to hang. My physic may not be a match if there’s sorcery involved. The outcome is much more–how can I say–unpredictable.’
From the chair in the corner came a low bleat. Ella rushed over. Thomas leered at her, his face purple, trying to speak, but his words were thick and indistinct. She leaned in to hear better what he was trying to say, and his left hand shot out and clutched her by the wrist. His face was contorted down one side, the other flaccid and useless. His speech would not come, his lips unable to form the letters, his hand squeezed the bones in her wrist till she thought they might snap like kindling.
She dragged her hand away just as the door opened and the purse-lipped Mrs Goathley and the farrier arrived. The last time she had seen him was the night of the cuckolding. This evening he was sober and rubbed his calloused hands together.
He approached Thomas’s chair and doffed his cap. ‘Mr Ibbetson,’ he said.
Thomas lay inert in the chair, not responding.
The doctor exchanged a meaningful look with the farrier, and they approached the chair. ‘Come on now, sir,’ said the farrier.
The doctor and the farrier levered him up with difficulty, for although the farrier was strong as a bullock, Thomas had always been well fed and portly, and he was now a stupefied dead weight. They threw his arms around their shoulders and hauled him up the stairs by the armpits, his ankles catching and banging on every step. Ella and Mrs Goathley followed, picking up the rolling coins from his pockets and his eyeglasses. Finally the men dumped him onto the bed and left him there. Mrs Goathley and Ella looked on from the landing, Mrs Goathley sucking on her own lips as if on a lemon.
As they came out of the room, the doctor nodded to Ella. ‘Get him changed and into his nightshirt. I will call on him the morrow to see if my physic has taken effect, to bleed him if necessary, and to see how he does.’
Ella regarded the lifeless figure on the bed. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
‘Oh, and try and find out if there’s a relative with access to his funds. I will need paying for my duties.’
Ella inclined her head, having no intention whatsoever of sending for any relative. As far as she knew, Thomas had a mother and a twin brother somewhere in the south, but the mother was rumoured to be a proper termagant and the brother cut from the self-same cloth. The last thing Ella needed was to have them both here, lording it over her and telling her what to do. No, she would take charge herself, and if there were any bills to be paid, then she would make sure she got the wherewithal out of Thomas to pay them.
Mrs Goathley smiled thinly at Ella. ‘When his family have arrived, we will see you in church, no doubt. I will ask my husband to remember Mr Ibbetson in his prayers. You know you can call on us for help at any time.’
Ella was shrewd enough to know that this speech was purely for the physician’s benefit.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ she said with over-obvious deference, curtseying so low that Mrs Goathley coughed in embarrassment.
When they had gone out through the front door she slammed it behind them and clattered up the stairs to the bedroom. Thomas had not moved. He lay there looking up at the ceiling, a bubble of saliva on his lower lip.
‘Thomas,’ hissed Ella, ‘speak to me.’
He made a gargling sound, but no words came.
‘Thomas,’ she repeated, shaking him urgently by the shoulders, ‘what is it? Just tell me what ails you, what I can do?’
Thomas flailed his one working arm in her direction and mumbled something unintelligible. Ella strained to understand him but could make no sense of his words. They were like bedlam talk, just sounds, not words at all.
She manhandled him out of his coat and vest, cursing the stiff buttons, and rolled him over onto his side to force his limp arms through the sleeves. By the time she had done this, she was out of breath. She removed his sodden breeches, discovering with repulsion that he had soiled himself too. She left him with his breeches round his knees whilst she went for water and soap, exposing his white legs, bristling with gingery hairs like a hog’s back.
When he was passably clean she dragged the counterpane from under him and threw it over his chest, then she deposited his wet clothes in the pot under the bed. All this she did in a daze; her arms and legs moved, her body bent at the waist to the task, but she could not force her thoughts to arrange themselves in any logical order.
‘Sleep now,’ she said woodenly, unsure whether she was addressing Thomas or herself. ‘Happen you will feel better the morrow.’
But if Thomas heard her he made no reply, except his breath, a hoarse irregular sound, like the gushing of water from the village pump. She watched him dispassionately for a moment before she went to the linen press and took out some freshly laundered sheets and fetched a feather palliasse from the trunk in the hall. Then she made up the truckle bed in the room where the child Flora used to sleep. It was clear she would not be needed in
Thomas’s bed tonight.
She did not sleep well. She thought of the mistress sleeping her last few nights on this earth. Soon she would be swinging like a sack of grain, her thoughts silenced, her heart cold and still as a river rock, and it was she, Ella, who had made it happen. She marvelled at her own power, but trembled, for she knew it was wickedness. Yet why did it not feel wicked? She ought to feel something, suffer some sort of remorse for what she had done.
Ella tossed in the sheets, listening to Thomas’s breath rising and falling in the next room, praying he would recover quickly. For what would become of her if he were to die? She would have nowhere to go, and no position. She thought of her father and the dark attic where her sister still slept in soot-stained sheets, imagined her cowering in the blanket when she heard Da’s footsteps. She smelt again the drink on him, dreaded the thwack of his leather belt. A swell of compassion for her sister filled her eyes with tears. She must find a way to get Sadie out of there, away from Da, to find her a place somehow.
When the faint light of morning came, she heard the clunk of the key in the back door and knew it would be April, the scullery maid, come to light the fires ready for the day’s cooking. Betty the cook had resigned. ‘I would not lift a finger for you if you were the last human being on this earth,’ she had said after the trial. ‘You are a lying, thieving bitch, and by rights it should be you strung up on the gallows. I hope you rot in hell.’
Ella had tossed her head, defiant, and said, ‘Cooks are two a penny. And your food stinks. Master wanted rid of you, anyways.’
Betty’s face had grown red and hot then, and she had slapped Ella sharply across the cheek. It stung like blazes, but Ella stayed fast, like a statue, watching Betty hobble painfully away on her bad leg.
So today there would be nobody to cook, except herself and April. Ella roused herself and dressed hastily, running down the back stairs. April was fiddling with the coals, for the fire had gone out and needed relighting. She jumped up guiltily as Ella entered. Ella ordered her to get a move on. She would have April make Master some tea and a tempting breakfast. Thomas loved his food–a platter of bacon and eggs would soon get him up and about.
The Lady's Slipper Page 31
