The Conviction of Cora Burns

by Carolyn Kirby

  ‘So that someone I have lost touch with might see it and find me. Mr Thripp said he would keep a note of anyone who enquired. But that can’t have happened if the likeness is still in the drawer. So I’ll have my money back thank you very much. And the likeness.’

  The man smoothed a hand across his beard. There was a resemblance to old Mr Thripp about the mouth and nose, but this one had a detached, straightforward gaze.

  Cora shifted under his stare. ‘Well?’

  He put out his hand. ‘I’m Mr Alfred Thripp. How do you do?’

  Cora could not remember that anyone had ever before sought to shake hands with her. She eyed his hand suspiciously as she put her own limply inside its grip. In spite of his well-cut suit and the gold ring on his littlest finger, young Mr Thripp had the hands of a workman. It was the photographic chemicals, Cora supposed, that had hardened the scars of blisters and made his hand as rough as her own. But its movement was firm and businesslike. She found her anger deflated by the contact.

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Cora Burns.’

  ‘Well, Miss Burns. I shall do my best to make amends for my father’s oversight. Shall we try to locate the likeness? When was it that you came in?’

  ‘Last Saturday. Late in the day.’

  She watched him lift a box on to the glass counter and sort through prints of all sizes inside. Rough as his hands were, he picked up each portrait lightly by the edges so that his fingers never once touched a glossy surface.

  ‘Let me try another box.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll come back and see the other Mr Thripp.’

  ‘I’m afraid my father can be a little… unreliable at times. You’d do better to stick with me.’

  Cora glanced up warily expecting something saucy to have crept into his expression but it remained plain.

  ‘Let me look in the studio.’ He pulled back the curtain. ‘You are lucky to find someone here. I’m usually out and about with my camera on a Sunday but the light is poor today.’

  In the corner of the studio, the camera on its tripod was covered by a pink dust sheet. Alfred went to the shelf beside it and pulled forward a box labelled STEREOSCOPICS. As before, he lifted the prints out gently. Each one showed two apparently identical scenes joined together on the same piece of card.

  Cora shook her head. ‘I paid only for one likeness not two.’

  ‘My father may have wanted it for a stereograph.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Have you not seen one before?’ He picked up from the shelf a device on a metal rod then clipped a twin-image to one end. The other end of the rod was attached to a pair of heavy wooden spectacles.

  ‘Here.’ Alfred held the spectacles gently to Cora’s face. ‘Put your hand on this screw and turn it forwards until you see one single picture clearly.’

  Intrigued, Cora wound the knob on the side of the eyepiece and the photographs moved towards her. The duplicate views of New Street Station merged miraculously into one; ironwork shifted into sharp relief under the vaulted glass roof and a locomotive seemed to move forward in a soft puff of steam. The two pictures in merging, took on the detail and depth of real life.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Good, isn’t it? I took that one. The images look like copies but they are not. The difference between them is almost invisible to the naked eye but each one is taken exactly two and three quarter inches apart, the same distance as between your eyes. Would you like to see another?’

  Cora felt his breath on her cheek. She had a sense, for a vivid second, of how his mouth might taste; not of beer, like Samuel’s, but of something sweeter, perhaps like the Rowntree’s fruit pastille she’d once had.

  ‘No. I have to get back.’

  ‘Do you?’ He lowered the stereoscope. ‘No matter. I’ll look through the negatives later and make a print if I find yours.’

  ‘And put it in the window?’

  ‘Yes. I promise.’

  He smiled and began to file the stereographs back into the box. One of the double images showed a lady with a sly smile raising voluminous skirts by a fireplace to warm her bare legs. In another, a girl not much bigger than Violet looked into a stereoscope wearing only a transparent chemise. Cora’s pulse quickened. Had old Mr Thripp been behind the camera when those likenesses were taken, or his son?

  ‘Oh my word.’

  Alfred had pulled a glass negative from the end of the box and was holding it up to the light. Cora’s nasty stare shimmered, ghost-like, from the plate.

  ‘This is… striking.’

  She felt suddenly unsure about putting the fiendish person in that likeness on public display but changing her mind would mean losing face.

  ‘And you’ll put a print of it in the window?’

  ‘Gladly. I expect many will stop for a closer look. And if your friend does, to where should we direct her… or him?’

  Cora hesitated for a second, but then put into words the thought that had remained in her head but been unspoken for so long.

  ‘It’s a she. My sister, in fact.’

  ‘And the directions?’

  ‘The Larches, Spark Hill.’

  ‘Mr Jerwood’s house?’

  Cora flinched. ‘You know him?’

  ‘A customer. He has a very fine collection of photographic equipment.’ Alfred was smiling. ‘And will you come back next week to view the print?’

  Cora shrugged. ‘Not without the tram fare.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Alfred took out a pocket book from his jacket and fumbled with the flap on the pouch. He held out two silver coins. ‘Please… accept this reimbursement, with apologies on my father’s behalf and compliments on my own.’

  Cora shook her head. ‘You don’t have to pay me off. I’m not going to the police.’

  ‘No, no. Please take it. Your likeness is such a fine character study that I am grateful to put it in our display. And, of course, pleased to help you find your sister.’

  Cora frowned but took the shillings, closing her fist to feel their imprint on her palm. She saw then, beneath the glass counter, a display of fancy frames, some ornately wrought in silvery metal, others lacquered black and delicately painted.

  ‘Are any of those from Salt & Co?’

  ‘Would you like to inspect one of them? I could offer a discount.’

  ‘No. I just want to know the whereabouts of Salt & Co, the japanners.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. We used to stock a wide range of japanned ware but there’s not so much call for it nowadays.’

  ‘Where could I find their directions?’

  He shrugged. ‘Kelly’s Trades Directory perhaps. Was it a particular thing that you wanted from them? Perhaps I have something similar.’

  ‘No. It comes only from Salt.’

  the trap

  On the way back, the steam tram terminated at the recreation ground and then Cora had to walk. When the pavement ran out, she kept to the hard top of the cart ruts so that her boots would not get spoiled. Once off the main road, the lane was lined with dense hedgerows. Strings of red berries wound through the dark leaves.

  Two girls with baskets over their arms were picking fruit that left purple stains on their white pinafores. Nestled between them, a small child, hardly more than a baby, burbled as Cora went by and held out a fat berry in juice-smudged fingers. Cora looked back blankly. She tried not to see the baby’s slippery red cheeks or to hear the chatter of the little girls looking after him.

  She walked, head down, as quickly as the road surface would allow until a thud of hooves made her pull into a gateway across a stubble field. The pony slowed as it approached and Cora recognised its flattened ears and bad-tempered eye. She put her hand to her brow. Low sunlight outlined the two men sitting close together on the front seat of the trap.

  Samuel Shepherd slid he
r a furtive look as he pulled on the reins. The master, smartly dressed in a dark suit and polka-dot bow tie, tipped his hat.

  ‘Hello there! Can I offer you a ride?’

  Cora tried to give a deferential bob of the knee. ‘I’ll walk, sir. It’s not far.’

  ‘No, no. Samuel can make room for you. I shall drive.’

  ‘Sir, I’d rather walk I…’

  ‘No, Cora. I insist.’

  The edge in his voice suggested that if she was to return to The Larches at all, it would have to be on the pony trap.

  Samuel passed over the reins and made to climb into the back but Mr Jerwood, smiling, shook his head.

  ‘I think we should not over-tax Hector’s legs, Samuel.’

  Cora puzzled for a moment before realising that the horse had a name.

  ‘Right, sir.’

  Samuel climbed down and stood awkwardly, smoothing his hand over the pony’s shiny flank. His face had reddened but whether from embarrassment or irritation, Cora couldn’t tell. She felt his eyes on her ankles as she clambered on to the swaying seat. The leather was still warm where he had been sitting.

  ‘Trot on!’

  Mr Jerwood flapped the reins and the pony trap lurched forward, leaving Samuel standing in the road. From the high seat, Cora could see across the hedge-tops and ploughed fields to the reddish-grey fringe of the town. The whip swished across the pony’s conker-brown rump and the trap clipped around the bends. Mr Jerwood sat in the middle of the driving seat and, although Cora tried to keep a gap between them, she could not help her arm brushing against his.

  Then, after a minute or two, he pulled up the pony to a walk.

  ‘We should let the animal cool off before we reach home.’

  Mr Jerwood put the reins in one hand and straightened his homburg hat with the other. The air fell quiet. Cora had the sense of him preparing to speak and she stiffened at the thought of what he might say.

  ‘You have met my ward, I believe.’

  ‘Sir?

  ‘My young charge, Violet.’

  Cora blinked with surprise. All she could imagine might be coming next was a reprimand for talking to the girl which must be one of those rules that everyone knew about except her. The pony’s ears flicked as if it was listening.

  ‘I have seen her, sir.’

  ‘And talked to her?’

  Here it was then, the inevitable knuckle-rap.

  Cora’s grip on the seat tightened. ‘It would have been rude not to.’

  ‘What do you think of her?’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘How did you find her? Was she shy or talkative, polite or rude?’

  Cora faltered. ‘She is a child.’

  ‘Indeed. But she still has a character of her own. And some might say that the character of a child is more pronounced than that of an adult.’

  He turned to look at her briefly but with intent. ‘Would you be willing, I wonder, to assist me in a small experiment?’

  ‘Experiment?’

  He nodded. ‘I would say that I know Violet, but I see only how she behaves towards me. If I am to understand her true character, by which I mean the pattern of traits and reactions which we call “the self”, I must see how she reacts to others.’

  ‘To me?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘How, sir?’

  ‘By setting Violet a small dilemma. Nothing dangerous or difficult. But a choice that requires her to reveal something of her nature.’

  ‘How would I do that?’

  ‘By suggesting that Violet break a rule.’

  Cora stayed silent. Her instant instinct was to refuse. But if she did, he might turn her out without even a week’s paltry wages. Yet the thought of entering a secret pact with the master to deceive Violet made her squirm.

  He glanced at her sideways. ‘Fear not. I have in mind merely some trifling transgression that would not cast the girl into any real trouble. She might simply fail to confess to a smudge on a newly polished fender, or eat a left-over biscuit from the pantry without asking. Whatever small misdemeanour of your choosing that you think might pose her with a conundrum.’

  ‘Why would she listen to me?’

  ‘She may not. That is also part of the test. I wish merely to gauge how readily she agrees to the suggested mischief when it is put to her by a person of, forgive me, low station who is unlikely to chastise her. With me, Violet always appears to be docile and compliant. My study requires that we see if this remains so with you.’

  The pony shook its head, jerking at the traces and Mr Jerwood pulled the slack from the reins. Cora could not bring herself to agree.

  ‘I don’t wish to get anyone into trouble.’

  ‘No, no of course not. This is merely an experiment. And so if you were able to engineer an eventuality such as I have described, perhaps you could, for my scientific purposes, time Violet’s response.’

  ‘What, sir?’

  ‘Count slowly, as if exposing a photographic plate, from the time of inviting the wrongdoing to the moment of Violet’s acquiescence. And note the willingness of her response on a scale of one to ten; one being refusal, ten being eagerness.’

  Cora moved her head in a way that might look from his angle like a nod. But if he imagined she’d get mixed up with him in any of that sly nonsense he could stick his photographic plate up his arse.

  Half-built walls scarred the mud-churned field that faced The Larches. The pony started again to pull but Mr Jerwood kept a tight hold on the reins.

  ‘So, you understand my request?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And once you have carried out the task, I’d be obliged if you would come to me when I am alone in my laboratory and advise me of the result.’

  Ten

  1874

  a lark

  As soon as the littlest Union house inmates could walk, they were kept most of the morning in the airing yard. So Cora and Alice spent every recreation time at the schoolyard railings calling to the infants. The girls found a place where the wrought metal was bent wide enough for Alice to get her arm and shoulder through. She seemed to have a special language of dickies and sleepy-byes and din-dins that the little ones instinctively understood. They crowded round her arm as it protruded through the railings, pushing each other out of the way to feel the soft touch of her fingers.

  Sometimes the old female inmates who watched the infants outdoors would raise themselves off the bench and totter towards Cora and Alice at the gap in the fence, clapping their clawed hands and screeching off with you!. The little ones reached out and blubbered as the girls went back towards the school room. But they always returned.

  To Cora, all of the infants looked the same, but Alice seemed to remember which little boy it was who had fallen over just before she’d stamped on the baby bird. The boy had gingery hair and a habit of scratching at the back of his collar. He made plenty of noise but couldn’t say any proper words.

  ‘Hey little laddie. Come here. Cat got your tongue?’ Alice called out to him then punched him lightly in the stomach until he smiled. She looked up at Cora. ‘We should give him a name. What would you call him if he was yours?’

  Cora shrugged. ‘I dunno. Percy?’

  Alice laughed like a tinkle of broken glass. ‘Percy, Percy come and suck on my sticky.’

  Cora watched, transfixed, as Alice licked her thumb and then put it, dripping, into Percy’s mouth. The boy began to suck hard and stared, unblinking, into Alice’s eyes. She reached down with her free fingers and tickled him under the chin but after a while he pushed her thumb away and tottered off in his oversized boots.

  Cora watched Alice wipe her wet hand on her pinny.

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘To get him used to me putting something in his mouth.’

  ‘Why
?’

  Alice rolled her eyes. ‘We’ll have to shut him up somehow, won’t we? So you can do you-know-what to him.’

  Cora’s stomach did a somersault. She took hold of Alice’s arm and marched her away from the small children.

  ‘Listen, we’re not doing anything until we’ve made a plan. And had a practice.’

  Alice screwed up her face. ‘How can we practice for… that?’

  Cora felt like she was standing on tippy-toes on top of a high wall. ‘We’ll have to test ourselves first to find out if we’re brave enough to go through with it.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By doing something that’s bound to get us put in the bleak.’

  Alice blinked slowly. ‘Get caught on purpose?’

  Cora nodded. ‘But I’m the one who’ll think up how.’

  She considered several possible routes into the bleak. They might tear up Lottie Bolger’s bedsheet, but that would be too easy and might look like an accident. They could, when they were allowed to stay behind in class to clean the board, empty Mr Bowyer’s lacquered ink-stand over his desk. Cora had examined the shiny inkwell each time she was at the blackboard and knew it would be easy to overturn. But the punishment would be severe and it was not easy to see how both Cora and Alice would get equal blame.

  On a day when the sun was shining especially bright through the high classroom window, Cora scrutinised the ink-stand from her place by the board. Perhaps they could lift it together, one of their hands on each side of the small pot… then her eyes widened as she saw near the inkwell’s base, a maker’s stamp: Salt & Co BIRMm. She could not wait to tell Alice.

  ‘Is it one of your Da’s?’

  But Alice seemed unimpressed and just shrugged. ‘There’s lots of japanners and tin-platers in Birmingham.’

  ‘Called Salt?’

  When Alice shrugged again, Cora gave a sharp pull on one of the long tufts of hair sprouting from her scalp. Cora knew she was lying and did not sit next to her at dinner that day. And although by bedtime they were talking once more, the ink-stand was never again mentioned.

  In the end, Cora decided on the new hymnals. When piles of the small black books had appeared in chapel, the Chaplain had given the children a very stern talk. The godly paper was frail and must be treated gently, especially when turning a page. Fingers must be as clean as the angels’.