Here transcribed are Matron Abbott’s notes:
10.40am
Dr F says: ‘You told me before of your happy childhood in Staffordshire and of your situation as a servant in a pleasant house near Birmingham. What then happened that led you to gaol?’
Mary B: looks surly and shakes her head.
Dr F: ‘But something must have caused you to fall into crime.’
Mary B: ‘I fell only into the canal.’
Dr F: ‘What do you mean, Mary?’
Mary B: (opens her eyes and looks at the doctor as if the trance has broken) ‘Do not call me that.’
Dr F: ‘Is Mary not your name?’
Mary B: a shake of the head and the eyes close.
Dr F: ‘What is it then?’
Mary B: a vigorous shaking of the head. Grips the arms of the chair.
Dr F: ‘And Burns? Is that your not your name neither?’
Mary B: continues to shake her head. Lips pressed. Eyes closed. Feet tapping rapidly against thin air.
Dr F: ‘And how far gone were you in the family way when you arrived at the gaol?’
Mary B: the eyes open but do not seem to see. Then she speaks: ‘My babe…’
Dr F: ‘Tell me about your child…’
Mary B: (very distressed and thrashing in the chair, begins to weep) ‘Sir, oh sir, I beg you, I beg you! Please, please, do not take my babe, do not take my Cora from me…’
Dr F rises urgently from his stool and passes (without touching) both upturned hands across Mary B’s face.
Dr F: ‘Your eyelids are again heavy, very heavy, they are closing and you are falling again into a deep refreshing sleep. Once you have slept your fill, and heard the clap of my hands, you will awaken and be untroubled by painful memories. Your appetite will be good and you will feel confident to speak. You will find the strength to bring about change in your own life and in the world.’
Mary B relaxes into a deep trance.
At this point, as I recall, Miriam and I both looked at each other, somewhat in shock. We whispered low together with a plan to restrain the patient should she become unmanageable upon waking but once I had (with some trepidation) clapped my hands, Mary B opened her eyes without fuss. She seemed subdued, indeed exhausted. Miriam returned the patient to the infirmary and I await with eagerness our next discussion.
Sun pm
Although the weather was pleasant this afternoon, I received a note from Matron to say that she would be unable to accompany me on a meadow walk owing to some other pressing duties. She would not be free until after 4pm and by then the light would be gone. I replied by inviting her instead to take tea in my rooms. I must confess to my anxiety that Mrs Abbott had already decided against continuing to aid my research following the distress it seemed to have provoked in Mary B this morning. However, a few anxious minutes after 4pm Miriam Abbott appeared at my sitting room door.
I welcomed her in and once I had poured the tea, expressed my dismay that hypnosis did not seem to be having a therapeutic effect upon Mary B. Miriam concurred and asked what I had made of Mary B’s utterances today. I replied that it is not uncommon for criminals to give a false name upon arrest, and her outburst regarding the removal of her child had a horrible ring of truth. I had, indeed, felt a shudder as Mary B seemed to beg me not to take away her baby.
Miriam agreed. Then her face quite blanched. ‘Did you hear her say the name of her child – Cora?’ I went to reply but Miriam’s hand had already flown over her mouth. She bolted upright out of the armchair. ‘What is it?’ I asked, but she was already pacing the room, a hand at her forehead, repeating ‘Oh my! Cora B−! She was here, all along. And no one knew!’
Eventually, I got her to sit down and explain the source of her consternation. It seems that Cora B− is the name of a young woman who was for some years employed here at the asylum as a laundry maid. Matron knew her only vaguely but became entangled in an unfortunate incident which precipitated this young woman’s departure. Miriam would not say much about this incident, whether from delicacy or distress I could not tell. All she would confide was that, following the unexpected birth of a child to Cora B− (a little boy), the young woman was arrested upon a charge of attempted murder. Miriam must have noticed me recoil at the word and she looked away, as if about to weep. I was too sensible of her feelings to press her about whether the victim of this crime was the child or someone else. Miriam volunteered that Cora had received a lengthy sentence in that dreadful place which I visited only last week.
I tried to comfort Miriam by suggesting that ‘B−’ is not an uncommon name (although ‘Cora’ is more so). The girl she remembered might have had no relationship to Mary B. But Miriam shook her head. She knew that the young laundress had come from the workhouse and, now that Miriam came to think on it, her resemblance to our Mary B was strong. ‘Sometimes in life,’ Miriam said with great authority, ‘the truth of a thing hits you with bodily force. It is not a feeling that occurs very often but when it does you know you may rely upon it.’
Mon 21st
This afternoon’s visit to the record office at the gaol proved far more productive. The warder welcomed me, unsurprised by my second visit and guided me to the most recent (and far more efficiently kept) admissions and discharge details of female convicts. I found those for Cora B− without much difficulty. They showed a sentence of nineteen months following a guilty verdict for attempted murder (again omitting any details of a victim). She was discharged to a situation in a gentleman’s residence: The Larches, Spark Hill, Warks. Less than three months ago.
As I walked back to the asylum along the dirty canal and the bleak winter fields, I mused upon the effect that finding her daughter might have on Mary B. Would knowledge of her daughter’s survival rally her spirits, or would the sensibility of the years they had missed add to her sadness? I should like to imagine that a happy reunion between mother and daughter might bring about a cathartic cure for Mary B. Yet the few details gathered about the daughter, indicate a life no less troubled than the mother’s. Cora’s very serious criminal record, along with Mary B’s known outbursts of violence make me wonder if the mother’s and the daughter’s crimes were similar. Indeed, despite my theoretical reservations, I cannot deny the indication of a hereditary origin of crime (and perhaps also of lunacy) in this case.
Upon my return to the asylum, it was my turn to be stunned by an uncanny coincidence concerning Cora B−. At the main desk, I consulted the day book and noted that a private patient, cared for at home, has experienced a relapse so violent that urgent medical assistance has been requested. The day book informs me that a visit to the house is required with the likelihood of an admission to the private female ward. An attendant should accompany the duty medical officer in the closed carriage and take a straitcoat. It was with a trembling hand that I wrote my own name in the column as the attending doctor, for the house to be visited in order to remove the lunatic occupant was none other than: The Larches, Spark Hill.
Twenty-Five
December 1885
the shortest day
A tiny bonnet’s gathered muslin frills covered most of the doll’s badly painted head. Black pin-dot eyes stared up from a red circle of face as Cora knotted a bow under the paste chin. The doll no longer seemed quite so home-made. The long white christening robe and frilled bonnet made it into a proper Christmas gift. If Cora could get to town, there’d be no trouble selling it.
She took her clean apron and laid it out on the floor. Cook sipped from a teacup as she watched Cora wrap the doll.
‘It’s finished then?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve made a grand job.’
‘Thank you. How much do you think it’d fetch?’
‘Ten bob, I’d say. At least. There’s a lot of hours and care gone into that needlework. And here…’
Cook went to the
drawer of the dresser. On the countertop, she flattened out a crumpled ball of tin foil and tore off a strip, folding it into a tiny circlet. Then she bent to the floor and pinched the foil on to the doll’s wrist.
‘There. A christening bracelet.’
Cora gave a quick smile. ‘Well, it looks the part. Although I’ve never seen one before.’
‘Have you not? All babies are given something silver for their christening, even if it’s just a sixpence.’
‘Are they? I don’t suppose I was. I don’t even know that I had a christening.’
‘Oh, you would have done. The Union house Guardians baptise all babies in their care. I know this for a fact.’
Cook glanced down at the doll and then at Cora and, as their eyes met, Cora understood that Cook was trusting her with a secret which was from long ago but the memory of it was still raw. Cora had no wish to say that, if she’d ever had a christening, it would not have been in the workhouse but the prison chapel.
She covered the doll’s head with the apron. ‘It’s my last chance to get this sold before Christmas. Am I still all right to go out this afternoon?’
‘Yes. Why wouldn’t you be?’
Cora lowered her voice. ‘Am I not needed to clear the mess, upstairs?’
‘It’s already done. Master asked Susan to help him with it last night. She didn’t get to bed till three. He said she could have the whole day off today to make up.’
‘Oh. But do you not want someone else to stay with you in the house?’
‘Mrs Dix is here. And judging by the amount of warm milk I’ve sent up herself’ll be asleep till Christmas.’
Cora’s stomach tightened as she put the wrapped doll by her shawl. The air was cold but the sky clear. So, there was no reason to doubt that Mr Bowyer would be there by the statue, reading the Birmingham Gazette. And it was entirely possible that he would be able to tell her, with a nod of his head, whether she’d been a normal child or a monster.
Cook picked up the flattened tin foil from the dresser and began to fold it into a neat square.
‘Where did you get that dolly?’
‘I found it near the Bull Ring. In a gutter.’
‘A gutter? That was lucky.’
Cora didn’t need to see Cook’s face to know that she didn’t believe it for a second.
Cook slurped at her cold tea. ‘Watch it doesn’t get dropped again. The pavements are filthy. Anyways, once you’ve washed and put away the breakfast things, you can get off. Make sure you’re back before dark. And today’s the shortest day.’
Cora had wrapped a flannel towel between her shimmy and her stays but the outside air bit right through the layers. She pulled her shawl up round her neck and was tempted to wrap it over her head like a costermonger but stopped herself. Mr Bowyer might know that she wasn’t respectable but she’d do her best to look it.
The button-boots crunched so loud on frost-wrapped gravel they muffled lighter footsteps that came up behind Cora on the drive. Violet wore only her thin dress and indoor shoes. Twin spots of pink flushed her pale cheeks.
‘I’ve been watching from my room hoping you’d be going out.’
‘You should go back in Miss Violet. You’ll catch your death.’
‘I’m allowed to the gate.’
‘In those shoes?’
Violet’s face slipped into surliness but she walked on, arms swinging. ‘I wanted to speak to you before you went.’
‘Why?’
‘To make sure that you’ll be going to Council House Square.’
Cora took a quick breath. ‘It depends.’
‘On what?’
Cora nodded at the apron bundle in her hand. ‘On how long it takes to sell this.’
‘What is it?’
‘Something I made. A dolly.’
‘Oh! May I see?’
‘It’s all wrapped up.’
‘Oh.’
The girl’s eyes glittered with dismay and Cora sighed.
‘All right then.’
But as she pulled at the string, she realised how proud she was to show Violet her handiwork. Violet, shivering, put her hands to the bundle and the painted face stared back blankly.
Violet’s mouth fell open. ‘Oh, Cora. Did you make it all yourself?’
‘Only the clothes. From scraps and old cloths.’
‘But they’re beautiful! And look, she has a little christening bracelet. I’ve always wanted one of those.’
‘Do you not have one?’
‘No, I have nothing from when I was a baby.’ Violet stroked the doll’s paste cheek with a forefinger then her face puckered. ‘But I think maybe, I used to have a babby just like this one.’
Cora blinked at the unlikely word babby in Violet’s mouth. Perhaps she had.
‘I must get on now. Let me wrap it up again.’
‘Yes, Cora, sorry.’
Violet began to hop from one foot to the other, her jaws wobbling with the cold as Cora shrouded the doll in white cotton. They were almost at the gate.
‘You will go, won’t you, Cora? To see your teacher? I couldn’t bear it if you gave up on Alice. She may be waiting for you, hoping every morning that this will be the day that you find her.’
Cora tried to reply but found herself unable to speak. All she could do, as she took hold of Violet’s cold hands to rub a little warmth into them before she left, was to give a quick nod of her head.
monster
Cora stood in the shadow of the Town Hall arcade. From there, she could see across the roadway to the square without being noticed. Two marble statues on plinths gleamed in front of the sooty stonework of the Council House. Cora knew that Joseph Priestley was the nearest. The statue had an unusual hairdo and such a kindly look on his stone face that she always peered up at it if she passed by. Today though, she looked only at the faces of men loitering below his feet.
A small throng in bowler hats and Sunday suits jostled to lean their shoulders against the smooth white slab of Priestley’s plinth. The statue must be a habitual meeting place. Several men wore over-sized blooms in their buttonholes as if they wished to be recognised by a stranger. One extravagantly bearded man was reading a newspaper as he stood. But Cora could tell, even from across the street, that he was too old to be Mr Bowyer.
She took a quick step forward out of the archway’s shadow and glanced up at the clock tower. Quarter to two. Ten minutes she’d been here already. Maybe she was too late. The early part of the afternoon could mean all sorts of times. But she could not stand still much longer. The cold was starting to numb her and an attendant in some sort of uniform by the Town Hall entrance was giving her suspicious looks. Perhaps she should take a circling walk of the square, staying outside of the iron bollards that protected the statues and fancy lamp posts from the traffic. But she could not quite bear to put herself into the light. She needed to observe Mr Bowyer unseen before deciding what to do. His face, even from a distance, would tell her what sort of man he was.
Would he remember Cora Burns? The advertisement in the Birmingham Gazette had, after all, mentioned only Alice Salt. If he did remember Cora, it would be as a cheeky brat too clever for her own good, or a schoolyard bully always itching for a fight, or more likely, as a killer of a little red-haired lad not much more than a baby. Cora clamped her eyes shut. No. That had been Alice. Cora might have looked on, and maybe tried to copy but she could never have taken the lead. And Mr Bowyer might be able to tell her, once and for all, that this had indeed been so.
Cora’s eyes opened on to a rearranged pattern of figures around the statue. The bearded man with the newspaper had gone; one of the chrysanthemum button-hole men was linking arms with a woman in a bustle so protruding and severe that it gave her the look of a pantomime horse. Just behind them, Cora noticed a newcomer in a dark jacket with a knitted muffler tied
tightly under his chin. Something about the slope of his shoulders made her eyes stay on him as he came nearer to Priestley’s plinth. A neat brown moustache partly obscured his face but when he undid a button on his jacket and pulled out the Birmingham Gazette, Cora had to put a hand on the wall to steady herself.
He did not look at all like the domineering figure that Cora remembered. There was no sternness in his face and his build was slight rather than tall. She watched him unfold the Gazette and pretend to read but his eyes darted in all directions. Cora took a step backwards into the shadows. If he did recognise her, what was the worst he might do? Strike her? Spit? Nothing she wasn’t used to. This was the only chance she might ever have to find out what she had done and what had happened to Alice. And even if he told her the worst, she didn’t have to believe him. Clutching the apron-swaddled doll in front of her like a shield, Cora set off across the road.
She got as far as the first iron bollard when his eyes locked on hers and she saw that he had recognised her. His whole demeanour seemed to slacken; colour blanched from his face. A tight pain twinged under Cora’s lungs.
‘Mr Bowyer.’
The newspaper collapsed to his side. ‘Yes.’
‘I got your letter.’
‘You did?’
‘Yes.’
His eyes were the same watery blue. One of them twitched. ‘But… but it was meant for Miss Poole.’
‘She’s a young friend who placed the advertisement on my behalf.’
‘Oh.’
The open newspaper flapped at Mr Bowyer’s leg. For a peculiar moment Cora expected him to bark a command for the quantity of threepenny loaves that might be bought for a florin. Yet the man in front of her seemed like a limp shadow of the terrifying schoolmaster who had loved to rap the blackboard with his cane. She took a breath shallow enough not to hurt her ribs.
‘Do you remember me?’
‘Oh yes. I remember you.’ His face flushed suddenly. He put two gloved fingers to his brow and rubbed them hard across the faded freckles. ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand. Why would you place the advertisement?’
The Conviction of Cora Burns Page 22
