The Conviction of Cora Burns

by Carolyn Kirby

  Signed: Mrs Flora Shirley, Cook

  The Larches, Spark Hill, Warks.

  Cora read the character twice over but still she could not take her eyes from it, nor hardly breathe; her heart was too full. No one had ever had such good to say about her. The odd thank you or gratefully raised eyebrow was as close as anyone at the workhouse or asylum had ever come to showing appreciation.

  Cora read again the pretty name on the foolscap: Mrs Flora Shirley. No one in Cora’s hearing had ever called her anything but ‘Cook’. She certainly wore no ring, and had made no mention of any life except her years at The Larches. So a husband seemed unlikely. Cora guessed, although she would never know for sure, that she and Cook shared a heartache in common.

  Cora returned to the kitchen intending to make clear her gratitude, but once there she could not find the right words. Cook stood at the table flicking through a small pile of envelopes.

  ‘The postman wouldn’t come in for his Christmas drink. He said he had no time. I suspect the sherry at Tyseley Farm may be more plentiful than ours.’ She held an envelope out to Cora. ‘Here’s one for you. Just in time.’

  ‘For me?’

  Cora flinched at the extraordinary sight of her name on a stamped and franked envelope. Miss C Burns, c/o The Larches, Spark Hill, Warks. was written in an elongated hand. Could it be Mr Bowyer’s? Perhaps he had thought of more unpleasant details to unburden upon her. So perhaps it was for the best that she was about to move on and leave almost no trace.

  Taking up her shawl and her bundle, Cora breathed a last lungful of the kitchen’s gravy-infused air. Then Cook offered her a hand to shake. The skin felt unexpectedly soft and the grip firm.

  ‘Goodbye then, Cora. Where will you go?’

  ‘There is a shop that once offered me a situation. I will try there first.’

  ‘If you have no luck, ask at Taylor’s registry. Tell them I sent you.’

  ‘Thank you, Cook.’

  Cora had no illusion that Alfred Thripp’s offer may well have had some other motive but his true feelings would show themselves soon enough. If there was any funny business, she could move again; Cook’s warm words on her character gave her the sudden freedom to look for a situation whenever she chose.

  ‘And write to me, please, to let me know how you fare.’

  ‘I will.’

  Cook’s cough seemed to cover a tremble in her voice. ‘The other thing I must say to you, although I’m sure you already know it better than most, is that once a child is grown, he will have very little need for a mother.’ She held Cora’s gaze for a long moment and then looked away. ‘You’d best get off now, if you are to catch the quarter past tram.’

  coin

  Dense white steam billowed as the whistle piped for any final passengers. The few that had already come aboard huddled on the tram’s bottom deck, but despite the dank air Cora climbed past them to the open benches above. She wedged herself behind the glass half-panes under the canvas roof where no one might see what she was about to read.

  Once the engine wagon had chugged the tram car to the top of the hill, Cora pulled the envelopes from her pocket. She put the worrying mailed correspondence on her lap and felt the thicker envelope from Thomas Jerwood. She had hoped there would be more weight to it. Three months, near enough, she’d worked in his house. So if he’d been generous there should be at least two whole sovereigns inside. Her heart sank at the shape of only one.

  The tram clattered along, picking up speed, its walls knocking against Cora’s knees. Cold gusts blew in from the bare meadows. She eased open the gummed flap and began to pull from the envelope a folded wad of apparently blank white paper. But as the sheets emerged, Cora saw that although one side of each was indeed plain, the others were covered in fancy black print. Her hand froze. There was no mistaking the first printed word she could decipher: ‘£Five’. A five pound note. Heart thumping, she checked through the sheaf, counting. Ten of them. Fifty pounds. She had never imagined ever in her life to see so much money in one place.

  Cora blinked up at the houses coming into view. The first gable end was painted entirely with an advertisement for Bird’s Custard Powder. Yellow and red letters swam through the mist. Custard without eggs! A Daily Luxury. Cora felt suddenly weightless, as if both she and the envelope full of five pound notes might at any moment fly up from the seat and float together on to a slippery rooftop. She put a hand on the edge of the bench and gripped it tight. Many unpleasant consequences could be imagined from this strange windfall. She could not shift the feeling, so long ingrained in her mind, that good fortune must sooner or later be twinned with bad.

  Cora pushed the notes back into the envelope and remembered the coin still inside. She reached in, expecting it to be a sovereign but as soon as her fingers touched the half-moon shape and familiar metal bumps, she knew that it was not money. She looked around to check that she was still alone on the top deck then, on her rocking palm, she laid together both halves of Thomas Jerwood’s annual medallion for 1864.

  The Roman date, with the missing V, was now complete, and there was no mistaking the bronze profile of the striking Grecian goddess on the coin. Youthful and beautiful, Annie Bright’s legs and bosom bloomed through the drapery of her scanty robe. One of her bare arms stretched out across the plain background that Cora knew so well; the other rested on a tripod-mounted camera as her hand adjusted the lens.

  But the words around the border, which Cora had always imagined would release a message once both halves were reunited, only became more unintelligible.

  IMAGINEM SALTEM EST INDICIUM INGENIUM.

  Their meaning no longer mattered, though, because Cora knew the message could have nothing to do with Salt. Her belly churned with revulsion for the tawdry fantasy portrayed in bronze. If it had belonged to her, she’d have chucked the whole medal over the side of the steam tram. Instead, she stuffed both halves inside the blank envelope with her money.

  The tram rattled on through a close pack of red streets and smoking rooftops. In the road ahead, parallel iron rails gashed the asphalt before disappearing into mist now thickened by coal smoke. Cora pulled her shawl tighter. It wasn’t far to the next stop and if she didn’t want her face speckled with smuts, she should move downstairs. But there was time to open the posted envelope and at least see who it was from.

  Gum crackled as it opened. Again, inside the envelope, there was paper that had the look of money. But it was the printed black type at the head of the bond that brought Cora a heave of relief.

  6th December 1885

  BIRMINGHAM ASYLUM,

  WINSON GREEN, WARKS.

  Dear Miss Burns,

  I must thank you, most sincerely, for taking the trouble to meet my patient today. Mary seemed most heartened by your visit, although she has not yet said anything. I herewith enclose a Postal Order for ten shillings to cover your expenses.

  I also have a message for you from Matron Abbott who has been assisting with my private research and, under strictest confidences, has become familiar with this case. Matron says that you may remember her from when she first came to the asylum as senior attendant on the female wards. She has not revealed to me the purpose of her message which is simply: ‘John Burns, Marston Green Cottage Homes, Marston Green, Warks.’ except to say that this person may be a relative of yours.

  Perhaps, at some point in the future, you may feel inclined to visit Mary here at the asylum. If so, please do not hesitate to write to me first.

  With kind regards,

  Dr D Farley

  The tram was squealing towards a huddle of black figures at the roadside tramstop and Cora realised dimly that in order to make sure of a place on the lower deck she should start to get up, to gather her things safely and to ease her way down the rickety staircase. But she could not move.

  Even though it was morning, lights still burned in some of
the terraced houses across the street. The creamy glow of parlours fringed by velvet and lace would not long ago have seemed as remote from Cora Burns as a gentleman’s country estate. But no longer. And a conviction now burned in her as fierce as a photographer’s lamp, that she would, quite soon, arrive at the place she had been heading to all along.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Sat 2nd

  My first entry of the New Year allows me to record how much I should be thankful for despite my recent professional disappointments. I foresee heartening progress for Mankind during the coming year. In England’s industrial towns, a workers’ breakthrough seems imminent and I (along with several new Comrades) intend to play a guiding part in the coming revolution by establishing a Birmingham Branch of the Socialist League.

  My research into the uses of hypnosis in the treatment of the insane has made a significant start, despite the difficulties, and in the course of this work, I have formed an invaluable bond with Matron Abbott. She has provided me with practical assistance, wise insight and a degree of moral guidance without which I fear my research would already have floundered.

  The fact of the matter is, however, that hypnosis has had no discernible benefit on the condition of Mary B. It is true that she can say a few simple words but these are only ‘yes, sir’ and ‘no, sir’, phrases which seem to have been ingrained into her by habits of servitude. Even the meeting with her long-lost daughter which I took such pains to arrange, seemed without advantage.

  Matron Abbott has, however, prevented me from being too downhearted about the lack of immediate success with my experiments. She emphasises the importance, in any healing process, of the passage of time. Mary’s vocal chords may gradually loosen. Miriam also encourages a further search through the asylum record cabinets in the hope of unearthing another clue about the root of Mary B’s condition.

  Sun 3rd

  After chapel, Matron and I spent this morning amongst the dusty casebooks and admission files in the administration office cupboard where, as I suspected, Miriam’s shrewdness and tenacity paid off. Whilst trawling through a box of loose papers marked ‘Correspondence’, she came upon a letter dated June 23rd 1865 from a Dr Marsh at Birmingham Gaol to my long-gone predecessor here at the asylum. The letter requested the admission of an unmanageable prisoner, one Mary B−. I shall transcribe the said letter which eloquently relates her circumstances.

  Sir,

  I write to you personally about a most extreme medical case with which I am now seeking your assistance. It concerns Prisoner F.2.11 and these are the sad facts:

  F.2.11 was admitted to the gaol on 22nd March for a sentence of six months’ duration on a charge of attempted suicide. She had been pulled by a boatman, several weeks previously, from the Birmingham and Fazeley canal. Once her pregnant state became obvious, the constable was called and he duly placed her in custody for her own safety. The prisoner offered up nothing about her circumstances. She refused to tell either the boatman who had saved her or the policeman any name or directions. The name she later gave in Court (Mary B–) may be regarded as dubious.

  I daresay that the judge who meted out the said sentence did so with the interests of the child uppermost in his mind. The prisoner appeared unstable upon admission, in particular becoming tearful when the requirement for silence on the wing was enforced. She co-operated in general, however, and duly gave birth on the gaol’s female wing to a healthy girl on 3rd April. Thereafter, her state deteriorated. Although she succeeded in feeding the child, her tears were copious and her pacing of the cell whilst rocking the poor infant, became almost ceaseless. When her final breakdown arrived, it was only due to the vigilance of one of our newest wardresses that the life of the child was preserved. The said wardress, hearing a commotion inside F.2.11, flung open the door to find the prisoner stripped to the waist and violently shaking the babe against her breasts. The prisoner was screaming at the top of her lungs that, as the child would not feed, it must be dead. Needless to say, the poor mite was making almost as much noise as her mother, but the prisoner was unable to recognise her babe’s thrashing movements nor hear her lusty cries. The prisoner began to beat savagely at her teats and was rescued by the brave wardress who, in the ensuing melee, received a severe injury to her eye.

  It was decided, for the good of both, that mother and child must be separated and the babe is now lodged under the care of the Birmingham Poor Law Union. The mother’s condition, as you may imagine, has deteriorated further since her daughter’s removal and she has been under almost perpetual restraint in her cell.

  Given that I see no likelihood of this prisoner’s improvement in her current habitat, I am requesting a Certificate of Committal for her immediate admission to the Borough Lunatic Asylum. Once I am in receipt of your assent, I shall have her brought to the front entrance under close escort.

  I remain, Yours etc

  Jeremy Marsh MD

  I can add little comment to this tragic tale except to say that in a more humane and equal society, one free from poverty and prejudice, I have no doubt that Mary B would have preserved her sanity.

  Thurs 7th

  I have received today, by the third post, a most curious postscript to the case of Mary B. This is a note from her daughter, thanking me for the postal order and passing New Year wishes to her mother. Also included in the envelope from Miss B–, although not referred to in her note, was an item which I take to be a gift for her mother. The item is a commemorative bronze medallion cut in half. When placed together, the two halves show a clear image of the young Mary B wearing Grecian dress and operating photographic apparatus. The date shown in Roman numerals is 1864 and the Latin inscription around the edge reads ‘IMAGINEM SALTEM EST INDICIUM INGENIUM.’ I have translated this (perhaps badly) to mean: ‘A likeness is an indication, at least, of true nature.’ Of course, ‘ingenium’ can mean ‘character’, or ‘genius’ as well as ‘nature’.

  I went immediately to show Miriam the medallion and to ask her what she made of it. Her eyes widened at Mary B’s elegant image. Miriam noticed, which I had not, that the way the medallion is cut makes ‘SALT’ into a separate word. Could this be a reference, she wondered, to Mary B’s home village? I suspect, however, that it was simply a coincidence. Mary B must have acted at one time as an artist’s model but for whom is perhaps best left, like the other delicate details of her history, swathed in the fog of the past.

  Miriam and I agreed that it would not be wise to show the medallion to Mary B, at any rate, not now. The patient seems to have recovered some of the equilibrium that deserted her before Christmas and she is back at work, although not in the kitchens. The sorting room of the laundry seems challenging enough for her at present. Miriam took the medallion and said she will see that it is safely placed in the inmates’ store cupboards. Should Mary B ever become fit to leave the asylum, she will be welcome to take the medallion with her.

  Fri 8th

  Matron Abbott kindly took a moment from her normal duties to visit, with me, another patient whom I have identified as a possible subject for hypnotic therapy. This lady is a private patient who has been incapacitated for many years (though kept mainly at home) by hysteria and monomania. The focus of her fear appears to be the short drop between the surface of her mattress and the floor. This overarching terror of a fall from the bed has kept her largely captive upon the said item of furniture for more than ten years. What occasioned her initial reluctance to rise, no one knows. I am, however, hopeful that hypnosis may be the key that will unlock this patient, whom I shall call Frances J, from her bed-ridden prison.

  I have decided not to advise Miriam, at least for now, about the connection between the story of Mary B and that of Frances J. There is a whiff of scandal about their connection which is somewhat improper. Instead, as we left the private ward and went into the main corridor, I told Miriam about my hopes for the Birmingham Branch of the Socialist League. Having read the
Manifesto, she is a little sceptical, especially with regard to Mr Morris’s disdain for ‘bourgeois property-marriage’. What exactly, she asked (with a mischievous smile on her lips), did he have in mind for the ‘kindly relations between the sexes’ that would replace marriage? She broke into a giggle at my blushing attempts to reply but nevertheless she agreed, most readily, to accompany me to the inaugural branch meeting on Saturday evening next.

  Thirty-three

  3rd April 1886

  birthday

  Cora had told Alfred that it was to be her twenty-first birthday that Sunday so that he would not think it odd when she asked for the loan of the cashmere walking-dress. He had agreed immediately and asked only, in the event of a sitter wishing to borrow it on Saturday evening, that she should come to the shop on Sunday morning to put it on.

  A few months before, this intimate invitation might have worried her but Cora had got the measure of Alfred now and knew that she could trust him. Perhaps he’d seen enough of his father’s sly way with women to remain entirely straightforward himself. If old Mr Thripp had still been living above the shop she might not have accepted the situation there. But Alfred assured her that his father had gone to live more or less permanently with a sister in Weston-Super-Mare having the intention, once the warm weather came, to buy a photographer’s van and a donkey.

  Alfred had seemed genuinely delighted when Cora returned to the shop on a late December afternoon and asked him if he still had need of a model. He had stroked his sandy beard and said that there was in fact another opportunity that she might consider. He had been thinking of taking on a maid-of-all-work but could not really justify more than a few hours of charring to service his cramped rooms above the shop. What he really needed was a photographer’s assistant, but again he couldn’t support a full-time position. If, however, he could find someone who would be capable to do both, a live-in position might be possible. Cora had thrust the foolscap character into his hands and said that she’d sleep in the studio if need be.Alfred had laughed at that, but the upstairs cubby hole which had housed Cora’s makeshift bed was not much better. She sat on it now, to take off her grey wool shop-dress and put on the cashmere stripes. The grey dress was ingrained with the faint chemical smell of the developing room which Cora liked to savour each time she took it off.