Victorian Maiden

by Gary Dolman

  “But we don’t know her family history, do we, Sister Lovell?” Liddle interjected. “She never speaks of it; she never has.”

  “But don’t forget that I knew her family, Mr Liddle, and I knew it well. Before I found the situation at the workhouse at Starbeck, I was employed for a while as Lizzie’s governess. Her mama, Beatrice Wilson, was the dearest, kindest lady you could possibly imagine. After she died, I was kept on by Lizzie’s uncle, Alfred Roberts, who had become her guardian, if you could call him that; he was no true guardian of hers.”

  “But how could that be, Sister Lovell?” Atticus asked, puzzled. “Alfred Roberts was well known as a benefactor and friend to orphans and homeless children. Surely he didn’t neglect his own flesh and blood?”

  The nurse glanced down, pressing her thin lips tightly together so that they almost seemed to disappear as she aligned the edge of the tea tray precisely with that of the table.

  “No, Mr Fox, he didn’t neglect her; he didn’t neglect her at all. It was quite the opposite actually. Let me just say that I am very glad indeed that Alfred Roberts is now a feeble, frail old man.”

  “That is a very harsh opinion to have of an old gentleman and a philanthropist,” Atticus exclaimed.

  “He might well be old,” the nurse replied coldly, “But he was no gentleman and never, ever a philanthropist.”

  “Do you know his grandson, Dr Michael Roberts?” Lucie asked, quickly moving the conversation on.

  Sister Lovell hesitated for a moment.

  “I resigned from the Roberts’ employ many years before Dr Michael was born. His father John Roberts was only a boy of twelve when I left.”

  “And you were Miss Elizabeth’s governess you say?”

  “For most of my time there, yes I was. Lizzie was three years – just three years, mark you – older than John when she fled to the workhouse. I left very soon after her.”

  “Was she old enough to understand the principle that governs the workhouses, Sister Lovell?” Atticus asked. “I believe they call it the, ‘Principle of Less Eligibility.’ Conditions inside the workhouse should be much less comfortable than those outside, so that only the truly desperate would seek relief there.”

  “Elizabeth Wilson was truly desperate, Mr Fox.”

  Several seconds ticked by as they waited for someone to ask the inevitable question, and inevitably it was Atticus who asked it.

  “What could possibly have made her so desperate that she would leave somewhere like Sessrum House to seek relief in a poor-law workhouse?”

  Sister Lovell looked down and minutely shifted the tea tray once more.

  “Lizzie despised the… punishments that Mr Roberts liked to mete out to the children in his so-called care.”

  “I see. Well Dr Michael is the head of the house now and he would very much like for her to go back and to live there once again. He views the fact that she fled Sessrum House for a workhouse as nothing less than a stain on his family’s honour – an injustice in his words – that he very much wishes to repair. That’s why he commissioned us to find her. He believes that Miss Elizabeth deserves to live out the rest of her days in comfort and in grace.”

  Sister Lovell threw a suddenly anxious look to the Master.

  “I suppose it might be for the best, Mr Liddle, but she is so innocent, so very delicate.”

  “That is all the more reason for her to leave the rigours of the workhouse then. Come now, Mary, surely you haven’t grown so attached to Elizabeth that you don’t wish her to live out her remaining days in style? I realise that with her mind as it is, she won’t fully appreciate the change in her circumstances, but surely living at Dr Roberts’ mansion would still be infinitely preferable to her spending the rest of her life in a workhouse infirmary? It would almost be like paradise on Earth for her there. Anyway, I have made up my mind. She’s an imbecile; she cannot work any longer and with this arrangement she’ll no longer be a burden on the parochial finances. Heaven knows, they’re stretched enough as it is. No, Mary, Lizzie shall leave for Harrogate today.”

  The nurse seemed to vacillate still.

  “She would be living with Mr Alfred’s grandson?” she demanded.

  “And he will take good care of her? Will you promise me that?”

  “I’m certain Dr Michael will take care of her wonderfully, Sister Lovell,” Lucie purred, her voice reassurance itself. “Alfred Roberts still lives at Sessrum to be sure, but in an annexe, quite separate to the main house.”

  The old nurse shivered.

  “Mr Liddle, may I accompany Lizzie to her new home? I feel I ought to help her to settle in there and get her used to her new surroundings.”

  Liddle looked enquiringly at the Foxes.

  “I have no objection whatsoever Mr Liddle, and neither would Dr Roberts I’m sure,” Atticus confirmed. “In fact, he himself suggested that it would be a first-rate idea if someone were to come up with her to do exactly that.”

  The Master grunted his assent. “Then the matter is settled and the parochial union can be grateful they’ve one less pauper to pay for in their infirmary.”

  Chapter 3

  “Are you sure we aren’t to bring any more clothes from the workhouse for her, Mrs Fox?” Mary Lovell asked yet again as they walked down the steep, cobbled hill towards the Knaresborough Railway Station.

  “She lost control of her, shall we say… bodily functions, months ago, and she generally needs to be changed several times a day. Strictly speaking, a pauper is supposed to leave the workhouse in the same clothes they came to it in. You have those in your parcel there. They were fine in their day, but that was nearly fifty years ago and the moths have been busy at them since.”

  “Mr Liddle will be in good humour,” she added bitterly.

  “He’ll have his pick of the girls to fetch him his warming-pan while I’m not there. I’m sure that he could be persuaded to let us fetch another shift or two for her.”

  They formed an incongruous group: the tall, redheaded gentleman in a top hat and frockcoat carrying a thick, pewter-topped walking cane, and the frail, cowering pauper woman in her threadbare dress and poke bonnet, supported on one side by an elderly nurse and on the other by a pretty young woman carrying a brown paper parcel neatly bound with string.

  “That really won’t be necessary, Sister Lovell. Dr Roberts has engaged a seamstress to make her up a whole new wardrobe of clothes,” Lucie replied patiently, “With fashionable, bright colours and lace.”

  Mary Lovell beamed as she leaned in close to her charge.

  “Do you hear what Mrs Fox says, Lizzie? She says you are to have a set of new clothes, all for yourself, and all fancy with pretty colours and lace. You will look beautiful again.”

  Elizabeth kept her eyes fixed warily on the back of Atticus’ frockcoat.

  “No, Rachel, no, Rachel, you are,” she exclaimed, suddenly and harshly.

  Several people turned to stare at them.

  “I’m Mary, Lizzie, not Rachel. Rachel died years ago. She was only ever old when you knew her and she was never beautiful. I’m Mary, Lizzie. Do you remember me? I’m the one who’s making sure no one hurts you, that no one hurts you ever again.”

  “Where’s my mama?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Your mama is dead too. She’s with Jesus and his angels and your papa. You’ll be with them again one day soon, I promise.”

  “You mentioned in Mr Liddle’s office that Elizabeth has senile dementia, Sister Lovell,” Lucie said. “She’s just called for her mother, even though her mother died nearly half a century ago. The dementia must be quite advanced?”

  The nurse patted Elizabeth’s wringing hands. She was singing something that sounded like ‘one-and-eight-and-eight-and-one’ again and again under her breath.

  “Yes, I’m rather afraid that it is. As Mr Liddle said, Lizzie had always been a very hard and precise worker who rarely, if ever, made any mistakes. Then around two or three years ago, we noticed she was starting to make lots of sil
ly errors; putting her dress on back-to-front in the morning for example, or missing ingredients from her baking, or getting dressed for church on the wrong day. She began to forget things that had happened only that week, or even just that day, yet she could remember vividly events that happened years and years before. As time went on and her condition deteriorated, she started to believe that she was living further and further back in the past; that she was at Starbeck Workhouse again for example, or even as she often seems to now, that she is back with Alfred Roberts. That might be why her anxiety attacks have grown so much worse recently. But you know the worst part, Mrs Fox, the very worst part of it all is that it’s almost impossible to talk to her properly these days. I can’t reach her, I can’t reassure her. She can only understand odd words of what I say. I’m afraid that very often it seems as if I’m speaking to a very little girl and not an old woman at all.”

  They made their way slowly onto the station platform and into the shade of the verandah, to where the first class carriages would stop. The curious glances and bald stares they had begun to notice on the short walk from the Union Workhouse intensified and hardened into glares of outrage and indignation. As they stopped and Lucie took Atticus’ arm, an elderly gentleman in a silk top hat and cape coat stepped forward and confronted Mary Lovell.

  “What are you doing bringing your old crone to this end of the platform, woman?” he demanded. “Trying to beg with her, I’ll be bound. Well, you’ll get nothing from us. You can take her and you can throw her back into the poorhouse where she belongs; we’ve already more than paid for her idleness and her bread and water with our taxes.”

  He grabbed Elizabeth’s chin in his leather-gloved hand and jerked it up, glowering into her face.

  “And who the devil do you think you’re staring at, you damned, impudent old witch?”

  Elizabeth’s gaze drifted into the man’s glare. She started violently and began to whimper softly. And then his hand was gone, as a puce-faced Atticus smashed the man’s arm away with the heavy end of his cane.

  “These ladies – both of these ladies – are with us,” he roared. “They both have first class railway tickets and they are both entitled to stand anywhere on this platform they choose. So you – you can mind your own damned business, sir.”

  Mary Lovell spoke over the top of the bonnet on Elizabeth’s cowed, shivering head; the cold menace in her voice cutting through the atmosphere more venomously than anything Atticus had said.

  “This lady has suffered horrors in her life such as you can only imagine. All of them, mark you, all of them suffered at the hands of supposedly respectable gentlemen like you; with your first class railway tickets and your silk top hats and your fancy clothes. You and your friends can all go to Hell.”

  The gentleman stared at her, aghast, his mouth framing words he could not seem to utter. Then, his spirit broke, and he turned and rejoined his companions, massaging his arm and muttering indignations under his breath.

  Like a summer evening after a storm, the atmosphere on the platform lightened, and Miss Lovell, breathing heavily, began once more to sooth Elizabeth.

  The station master’s shrill whistle turned their heads towards the gaping, black mouth of the railway tunnel at the far end of the platform. Suddenly their train was there, disgorged and puffing slowly along the length of the platform where, in a cloud of steam and clattering of couplings, it hissed to a halt.

  Chapter 4

  The shrill whistle shrieked along the length of the train and dissolved into the warmth of the afternoon; dissolved everywhere, that is, except inside her head. There it compounded with the silent screams of her anguish and grew louder and louder and louder.

  She concentrated with the whole of her being on the rhythmic clicking of the carriage wheels as they glided over the joints in the tracks. She closed her thoughts to everything except her urgings of the train to go faster, for the clicks to be louder, more staccato, to overwhelm her, to crowd out whatever it was they were taking turns to do to her body. She could feel the echoes of their hands; the rough scratch of their whiskers; the stench of tobacco on their breath.

  ‘Please, Lord Jesus, please make the train get to where it is going; please make it stop so that they will stop, and I can begin, again, to hide away the memories.’

  But she had a knife now, in her sleeve. She couldn’t remember how or from where she had got it but it was there. ‘Oh, thank you, Jesus; thank you, Mama.’ She would be safe now. She wouldn’t have to bear those unbearable thoughts again and again and again. With a practiced hand, she laid the stiletto point of the blade against the softness of her skin and pressed. Delicious pain swelled through her consciousness, filling it and blocking out everything else. She deserved the pain, she knew. She was a wicked, wicked girl, but oh, how it eased the torture of her mind; how it chased away those thoughts and those awful, awful memories.

  “Miss Elizabeth seems much calmer now,” Lucie observed as the fields and hedges outside the carriage window suddenly gave way to the long lines of houses that were the outskirts of Harrogate.

  “For a time, especially as we were crossing over the viaduct, I thought she might have needed another dose of your chloral hydrate.”

  A smile loosened the taut lines of the nurse’s face.

  “She must have remembered how much she loved the railway when she was younger. Lizzie hasn’t been on a train since she was a young girl, but she was always spellbound by them. She always used to watch out for them from the workhouse windows and on Sundays after church, she would sit on the embankment by the railway line and watch the trains going past for hours.”

  She looked across at her charge and the warmth of the smile deepened and spread.

  “Alfred Roberts used to have a shooting lodge at a place called Budle in the north of Northumberland, very near to the coast. It was an old, fortified tower and she used to be taken up on occasion on the train. The railway only went as far as Newcastle in those days but they always had the devil’s own job to get her out of the carriage and into a coach.”

  The smile died abruptly.

  “At Budle, she would spend all day standing on the roof, gazing out over the bay and across the North Sea. She said it was a horrible, horrible place and that she couldn’t wait to get back onto the train.”

  “Dr Roberts insisted that she came by train,” Atticus said, steering the conversation back to the present.

  “He said that under no circumstances was she to be fetched by cab, or even by omnibus.”

  He shrugged.

  “But he wouldn’t say why.”

  The nurse nodded and patted the coarse cloth hanging from Elizabeth’s skeletal arm.

  “It’s the sound of the hooves, Mr Fox. She hates the sound of the horses’ hooves and she hates being shut up in a horse carriage. They all did.”

  “Where’s my mama?” Elizabeth exclaimed suddenly.

  She was answered only by the shrill whistle of the locomotive, shrieking down the length of the train as it coasted the long, curving approach to the Harrogate Central Railway Station.

  The faces of the waiting travellers slid slowly past the window, regularly punctuated by the cast-iron legs of the station canopy and the enormous floral platform displays. Finally the train slowed and bumped once more to a halt.

  Atticus stood and pushed open the maroon carriage door into the faint shroud of steam that hung over the platform like the mists of Eden.

  “You’re in Harrogate, Lizzie.” Sister Lovell spoke as she might do to a tiny girl. “Do you remember Harrogate, Lizzie, where you used to live with your mama? Harrogate, where all the fine ladies and gentlemen live and where all the ailing are cured?”

  Chapter 5

  Sessrum House, Dr Michael Roberts’ large, imposing town house, commanded magnificent views over its part of the Harrogate Stray; two hundred acres of grassed parkland that served both to open out the very heart of the elegant spa town, and to connect the many mineral springs and wells that dr
ew the ‘Ailing’ from every part of the Empire. They came to take the curious mix of hydrotherapy and light exercise known as ‘The Cure.’

  The noise and bustle of the town seemed to scare Elizabeth. She drew stares; compassionate, curious and mocking from the crowds that filled the streets, as she shuffled along, softly singing the words to her nursery rhyme. She was singing the same line over and over and over again.

  “Rock a bye baby, on the treetop. Rock a bye baby, on the treetop. Rock a bye baby, on the treetop.”

  “When the wind blows, the cradle will rock,” Atticus snapped irritably, and then instantly regretted it. But he need not have worried; Elizabeth never broke her rote, not once, save for when they tried to pass the narrow, rubbish-strewn entrance to a ginnel. There, she seemed cowed into blessed silence and stood still, staring in dread into the deep shadows, until Mary took her hands and gently drew her past it.

  By the time the little group had threaded its way laboriously from the railway station to the broad, stone steps that underscored the grand portico entrance to Sessrum House, the late summer sun had already begun to cast its broad shadow over the Stray.

  “Do you remember this house, Lizzie?” Sister Lovell asked softly, tentatively. Without waiting for an answer, she added: “I don’t reckon for a minute you could forget it, could you?” She turned the old woman gently around to face her, and peered into her poke bonnet. “You won’t be punished any more, Lizzie, I promise. A kind man lives here now.”

  “Lord Jesus,” said Elizabeth, quite distinctly.

  “Not the Lord Jesus, Lizzie; just a man, but a kind man who will help you to feel better before you go to see the real Jesus and your poor, dead mama and papa, and…”

  She patted Elizabeth’s fingers.

  “Your mama is dead but she’s watching over you; the Lord Jesus is watching over you, and I’ll watch over you too.”