The Death of Lucy Kyte

by Nicola Upson

  The atmosphere in that room now could not have been more different from the scene that Lucy described, where all the horrors were kept at bay on the other side of the window, and Josephine wondered if the sadness had actually found its way into the cottage long before Hester’s time.

  16 July

  At last, the rain has stopp’d. Folk began arrivin’ for the fair, and I watch’d them comin’ over the fields, laughin’ and talkin’. Since they found Maria, we are full o’ strangers. I wish they w’d stay away.

  A man has been askin’ questions in the Cock and Phoebe Stowe says he is a newspaper man from London. She says there is to be a book about Maria’s murder, and this man Curtis has come to find out more about the village where Maria and William liv’d. Samuel pointed him out to me on the green so that I w’d know him if he came to the house. He has sandy red hair and looks kind, but I suppose it is his job to make himself popular among us. Samuel said we sh’d not speak to him, because gossip is not fair when William has not been tried yet, but I w’d like this man to know who Maria was if he is goin’ to write about her, and I do not feel like bein’ fair.

  17 July

  Pryke came first thing to tell the Missis that some showmen were makin’ an amusement of the murder. She sent him up to the green with a warnin’ to them not to play foul with her son’s name.

  It is the busiest fair we have ever had, but no one is here for the cherries, nor even the brandy. Me and Samuel walk’d among the stalls, and every way we turn’d, the ballad-mongers sang of William and Maria. By the Cock, there was a tent with a painted wooden sign outside, ‘The Late Murder of Maria Martin’. Samuel tried to stop me but I shook him off and paid my penny. It was crowded inside, but I push’d my way to the front and star’d at the wax models – a butcher’d woman lyin’ on a door, wi’ the coroner and jury lookin’ on. Maria, the day after she was found. It was a terrible sight and I c’d tell from the look on Samuel’s face that it was truthful. The crowd laugh’d and cheer’d, and I c’d stand it no longer. Without thinkin’ I took one of the burnin’ torches from the side of the stage and set it to the curtain. The flames took hold and a woman near me scream’d, then someone threw a pail of water. Samuel dragg’d me away before the showman c’d catch me. The crowd laugh’d, and the anger and shame are still with me. I miss Maria. She is the only one who w’d know how I feel.

  24 July

  Maria’s birthday. She w’d have been 27. There is a row in the village over a stone for her. Some have offer’d money so her grave might be mark’d after William is brought to justice, but the Revd Whitmore has said that it will never happen as long as he has power to stop it. He says that a stone will remind folk of how she died. Does he think we will forget even if her grave is only mark’d by grass? He lets them plunder the dead in his graveyard, but worries that a stone might upset the livin’.

  Went to meet Mr Curtis again today, and he ask’d me more about Maria. He writes while I am talkin’, strange marks that make no sense to me. He tells me it is somethin’ that newspaper men use to make a true record of what is told to them, and he show’d me what some of the marks mean so that I can use them in my diary. It is nice to talk about Maria in a normal way, to remember her as she was before all this happen’d, when she was just my friend.

  Engrossed in the story, Josephine had allowed the fire to burn low in the grate and she put more logs on, holding an old newspaper in front to coax the flames into life again. It had begun to rain outside, and the water down the chimney made the wood spit and crackle spitefully in the grate. She settled back down, determined to finish the diary before sleep got the better of her, but she had not got far before she was disturbed again. This time, the footsteps were inside, climbing the far stairs slowly, step by step, as if too weary to reach the top. Panic gripped her, but she listened intently as the noise drifted away, and decided that she must be mistaken; the steps were not muffled, as they would have been on the shabbily carpeted stairs she knew, but hollow, as if on bare wood. The sound must have come from somewhere else.

  She took a lamp through to the kitchen and hesitated, trying to work out what was different about the room. The stair curtain was pulled back, just as she had left it, but the door that had always stuck against the bump in the floor was now completely open and moved freely back and forth when she tested it. The stairs were in shadows, and she wished she had left a lamp burning in her bedroom so that she would not have to climb into the darkness. She paused again, listening, but there was nothing – no creaking of floorboards overhead to confirm her worst fears, no rattling windows to explain away what she had heard. Frightened now, she followed the beam of her lamp up to the first floor, but her bedroom was reassuringly familiar, the other rooms empty and undisturbed. There was no one else in the cottage, and she cursed Lucy Kyte for playing havoc with her imagination, and herself for allowing it to happen.

  The boxroom smelt of sickness. In spite of Marta’s cleaning, the heavy, cloying odour had returned, stronger even than before. She took the lamp over to the window and put it down on the window seat, drawn against her better judgement to the words scarred into the wood. The letters seemed deeper than ever, and there were more than she remembered. The room‚ too‚ seemed more oppressive tonight, but how much of what she felt here was Hester’s cumulative darkness, and how much Lucy’s? How much – if she stayed in the cottage and allowed it to happen – would be her own? The lamplight in the window threw a likeness back at her, but the face she saw was pale and drawn, transformed by a sadness she had never seen before, a reflection barely recognisable as her own.

  She turned away, took the blanket from her bed and went downstairs. The stub of her candle was guttering on the table, and some of the wax had run like tears onto the pages. The manuscript had been put down hurriedly and she found herself reading the section about the floods again before she realised that the pages were out of order. Still unsettled, she found it harder to concentrate now.

  29 July

  Mr Curtis came to say goodbye. He leaves on the Bury coach in the mornin’ ready for the trial. He has promis’d to bring me a copy of his book as soon as it is publish’d. I told him that the only promise I want from him is to do justice to Maria, and he smil’d. I will miss his smiles and his kindness and his voice. He has given me back the Maria I knew, and I am grateful to him for it.

  1 August

  The Missis told me that I am to go to the trial and give evidence – for William, not for Maria. I am to speak up for the family that pays me, and not for the friend who knew every secret of my heart. I w’d rather die than betray her like this, but I cannot see a way out of it.

  7 August

  My lodgings are in Sparhawk Street, and the Missis has had to pay a guinea for a single bed. The inns and public houses are full, and Bury men must be smilin’ for the good fortune the trial has brought them. There is not room for everyone. Folk are sleepin’ in doorways and on pavements, carin’ little for their comfort as long as they are here. There are puppet shows everywhere and men on street corners sellin’ drawings. William and Maria’s fame grows by the day, while the rest of us are strugglin’ to make sense of what has happen’d. Maria cannot be spoken of now without William, nor he without her. There was a time when that was all Maria wish’d for.

  Samuel came early to collect me. It was only a short walk to the court, but it took an hour to get there. The old churchyard at the front of the building was full of people. They fill’d the gaps between the graves, and I was glad to get inside. Just after eight, the gaol cart came and the crowd ran forward. There was a fight to make a path through and I saw people hurt in the crush. William jump’d down from the cart. He wore a fine new coat and blue trousers, white neckerchief and silk stockings, and I felt sick and frighten’d when I saw him.

  We were not let into the court, but kept in a side room until our turn came. I was glad to have Samuel with me. The Missis’s bailiff is call’d for the prosecution, and look’d as troubl’d with the
side he is on as I am. Mr Matthews was there. I heard him ask after Thomas Henry, but there was little talk among us. We waited, as frighten’d as if we were the ones on trial, and time went slowly. There was a fierce storm and the sound of rain on the umbrellas outside fill’d our little room.

  They call’d Maria’s stepmother first, and her fear as she was taken into the courtroom was plain. I pitied her, but her face told me there is to be no change of feelin’ between us. I am judged by what I am, not who, and I am servant to the Corder family. I am here to speak for William, and that is what will be recorded. No one will know how my heart screams against it. The day pass’d, and I was not call’d. Samuel walk’d me back to my lodgin’s and I must do the same tomorrow.

  8 August

  I was call’d at eleven and led into the court. I saw they had a model of the barn, which made me shudder. And then the people, cramm’d into the seats, all starin’ at me. I tried not to look at them or William, but the court was so quiet that I c’d hear heavy sighs comin’ from where he sat. Then I saw Mr Curtis, sittin’ with some other men. He smil’d at me, and I was glad to see him. William’s man ask’d me if I had seen pistols in his room. I said yes. I told them William had left his mother’s house two weeks before Old Michaelmas Day. Then he ask’d if William had ever behav’d badly towards me. I wanted him to ask about Maria, not me, so I c’d tell him how poorly she had been treated. But I had to tell the truth and say that William had always been kind to me. That was all. I was told to stand down.

  They let me stay in the court after that. William’s doctor was call’d next, then Samuel, but he had to wait because of the noise outside. I look’d up to a trapdoor in the ceilin’ which had been open’d to allow air into the room. It was full o’ faces, as folk were climbin’ on the roof for a glimpse of William.

  Mrs Martin was call’d back, and Maria’s clothes were put in front of her – the handkerchief that she had worn round her neck, the earrings taken from her body, a fragment of her bonnet ribbon and the bosom of her chemise. Filthy, rotten and dragg’d from the dirt, kept in boxes for men to pore over and shown to the court like a sideshow. Samuel took my hand. It was so hot and pails of water were brought into the court for the crowd, but the stench of death rose from those clothes and fill’d the air. Maria’s stepmother had to be help’d from the stand, and tears ran down Thomas Martin’s face as his daughter’s misery was laid out before him.

  I must set down what happen’d next for the sake of my sanity. One of the surgeons held up a skull as he talk’d about wounds to Maria’s face, and I knew that the skull which now turn’d its dreadful stare on us had once been my friend. The surgeon walk’d towards the jury, Maria’s skull in one hand, William’s sword in the other. I scream’d, and all eyes turn’d to me. That is the last I remember. Samuel told me later what the verdict was, and that William will hang on Monday, but I know what I have seen today will haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Josephine could not even begin to imagine the effect that such a scene must have had on Lucy, and on Maria’s family. It was straight out of the most lurid of melodramas, even if it was carried out in the name of science and justice, and she was shocked by the lack of dignity shown to Maria’s remains. She remembered what Henry Andrews had told her about the market for relics, and wondered if the skull had ever been reinterred, or if it sat in a darkened room somewhere, the most prized piece in somebody’s private collection.

  11 August

  I thought that sleep w’d not come when I went to my bed last night, but when I woke it was after seven. I c’d not help wonderin’ about him. Had he slept through his last night on this earth, or did he cling to his final hours? I hope he has suffer’d from knowin’ the moment of his own death. Maria was spar’d that, at least.

  Went to rouse the Missis, but her room was empty. Search’d the house, afraid of what her grief might have driven her to, but she was nowhere to be found. Then I saw her from the window, walkin’ slowly up the hill, her bible in her hand, her head held high. The village was quieter than usual – a lot o’ folk had gone to Bury – but the few that were about star’d without shame. Some dar’d to speak to her, but she look’d straight ahead as if she had not heard. She walk’d past me, too, as she came back in. The world only had room for her and her wretched son. She has not spoken to him since his sentence.

  I c’d not do my work, and sat at my window. Just before 12, the sun came out. The church clock began to strike the hour, follow’d by the clock in the hall and the clock in the parlour, and I imagin’d the roar of the crowds buildin’ outside the gaol. I thought I c’d actually hear them, but the cries were of a mother lettin’ her son go from the world, in more pain now than ever she was when she brought him into it.

  I went to her. There is only one grief, it seems, and the sorrow that stood between us has brought us together in the end. I have no idea how long we clung to each other, but when I left her the sun was much lower in the sky.

  Josephine put the pages down gently, and cried – not for the Corders, but for Marta. It was the first time that her own life had truly broken through into her thoughts all night, and the collision of the two worlds felt strange and unsettling. They had hardly known each other when Marta’s son went to the gallows, and yet she longed to have been with her, to have taken on some of her pain as Lucy had done for Mrs Corder. Even now, she had no idea what Marta had done during the final moments of her son’s life, how she had coped with being alive in the hours and days that followed, how she ever faced another morning with that grief always at her shoulder. No matter how much they loved each other, or how strong Josephine’s instinct was for understanding and solace, she could not do for Marta what a servant had done for her mistress. Their distance hurt her, and it was a long time before she went back to her reading. When she picked up the final pages, the blackness outside had turned to grey, signalling the end of a long night.

  12 August

  The newspaper says it took him eight minutes to die. He confess’d on Sunday night. His wife kept faith with him until the end. It is a love he did not deserve. Mr Curtis’s paper printed William’s last letter to her, written on a page from a book of sermons that she gave him. They say she is ill in Bury. Perhaps William’s second child will be as unlucky as his first.

  They took his body on a cart to the Shire Hall and show’d it to the people, naked except for his trousers, shoes and stockings, the skin cut from his chest, eyes and mouth half-open, his neck showin’ the marks of a shameful death. I wish I had known. I w’d have walked to Bury to see his body por’d over as Maria’s has been. Thousands queued for a last sight of him, they say, but readin’ about it is not the same as seein’ it for myself. I have such violence inside me. It sh’d be enough that justice has been done, but it is not.

  13 August

  Nan Martin caught me by the pond today and accus’d me of betrayin’ her sister at the trial. I open’d my mouth to argue but the words stuck in my throat because I know in my heart that she is right. I treated Samuel badly because of it. He pick’d a fight with Nan’s man, tellin’ him that no one is more loyal to Maria than I am, and I was cross because I do not want him to defend me. He was only tryin’ to help and I told him I was sorry, but we are a village at war at the moment. William is dead and the crowds have mov’d on. Left to ourselves, we turn on each other.

  It was not Nan’s insults that upset me. It was lookin’ at her and knowin’ that she is replacin’ Maria – in the Martin house, and in the village. Thousands of folk think they have seen Maria’s picture these last few months, but they have not. The portraits that were sold in Bury, the ones in the newspapers, were drawn from Nan’s likeness, not Maria’s. No one drew Maria when she was alive. Now she is dead, even her face is a lie.

  For some reason, Josephine found this as sad as any of the more shocking entries that Lucy had written; it seemed to sum up so eloquently the way that the real Maria had been forgotten even by those who knew her – replaced for posterit
y by someone who had never really lived, her image changed by history as easily as the spelling of her name had been. She turned to the picture in Curtis’s book. Maria shared the page with Corder and Thomas Henry, a twisted parody of the perfect family group. Josephine looked at the small, doll-like face, the bright eyes and pretty rose-bud lips, the perfect curls framed by a bonnet that had never been hers, and she felt cheated. She longed for the diary to tell her what Maria had truly looked like, but of course Lucy needed no written descriptions to bring her friend’s face to mind, and the pages – which had been so revealing otherwise – remained stubbornly silent.

  26 August

  Mrs Martin stopp’d me outside the forge and ask’d me if I w’d like to go to the cottage and see Thomas Henry. She needs any friend she can get. For every person who believes in her dreams, there are half a dozen who whisper behind her back that she knows more about Maria’s death than she says. I do not know the truth of it, but I am willin’ to forget our differences for the sake of that little boy.

  The cottage has suffer’d like the rest of us. I w’d never say that Mrs Martin does not keep a tidy house, but the rooms smell of sadness. Thomas Henry’s face lit up when he saw me. It made me want to cry, but he has seen enough tears this last year, so I took him out into the sunshine. It did us both good. When we went back, his grandmother said I sh’d see him more often and take him to play with Molly, and I was pleas’d. Nothin’ would make me happier than to see them friends.